Industry Standard Breaking News

Mozilla fixes Firefox crash bug

IDG News Service — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 12:12:30 -0800

Just a week after it last updated Firefox, Mozilla has rushed out a new version of its browser to fix a crash bug that programmers inadvertently introduced.

Firefox 3.5.5, which Mozilla posted for download late Thursday, fixes a small number of what the company called "stability issues" in the release notes that accompanied the update. Unlike almost all interim updates that Mozilla issues about once every six weeks, version 3.5.5 did not patch any security vulnerabilities.

The main bug quashed Thursday was one that was causing a high number of crashes in the Windows version of Firefox 3.5.4, the update that Mozilla launched Oct. 27 to patch 16 flaws.

"We're seeing lots of crashes in the GIF decoder," noted Mozilla developer Joe Drew in the message that kicked off the discussion on Bugzilla, the company's bug and change tracking system. Only the Windows edition of Firefox 3.5.4 was crashing, others reported on Bugzilla. The GIF decoder is the component that parses .gif image files embedded in Web pages.

"This bug was actually caused by bug 514776 which removed the check for null mImageFrame," said another Firefox programmer, Jeff Mulzelaar, on Bugzilla. "I don't know why that check was removed." Information about the bug Mulzelaar mentioned is password-protected and not available to the general public.

Firefox 3.5.5 also fixes a stability bug in the Mac version, and another crash problem in the Windows and Mac editions.

Mozilla's older browser, Firefox 3.0, was not affected by the bugs. The most up-to-date version of that edition is Firefox 3.0.15, which was also released Oct. 27.

Firefox accounts for an estimated 24% of all browsers worldwide, according to data from U.S. Web metrics company Net Applications.

Firefox 3.5.5 can be downloaded for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux from the Mozilla site; current Firefox users can call up the browser's update tool or wait for automatic update notifications to appear.

Week in review: Tracking down a Modern Warfare pirate, Max Levchin on Slide’s big bet

Venture Beat — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 12:09:46 -0800

Here’s our rundown of the week’s business and tech news. First, the most popular stories VentureBeat published in the last seven days:

How investigators tracked down a Modern Warfare 2 cyber pirate — “While the bust led to the arrest of just one hacker among many, it sheds light on the shadowy underground of the business of illegal piracy. It also offers a peek at how investigators try to head off a major piracy disaster before it happens.”

4 ways to automatically get automatically rejected by an angel investor — “I’ve started three companies, and now I’m an angel investor. So I’ve been on both sides of the table.”

World of Warcraft ordered to shut down in China again — “The Chinese version of popular game World of Warcraft is a cash machine for its maker, Activision Blizzard. But the massively multiplayer online game’s fate is up in the air again.”

Video of Arrington-Shukla fight highlights controversy of special offers — “TechCrunch editor Michael Arrington and Offerpal Media chief executive Anu Shukla got into a brouhaha over special offers, which are used to monetize social apps on social networks, at the close of the Virtual Goods Summit on Oct. 30.” Shortly after the fight, Offerpal named George Garrick as its new CEO, but the company says the timing was coincidental.

McAfee says piracy has tripled in the wake of Pirate Bay prosecution — “The number of new piracy sites on the web has tripled in the third quarter, despite prosecution of the owners of the controversial Pirate Bay file-sharing web site.”

And here are five more stories we thought were important, thought-provoking, or fun:

Max Levchin on Slide’s big virtual goods bet, scams, and mating — “I sat down with CEO Max Levchin to ask about how his vision for the company has evolved and how he’s changed as an entrepreneur since launching the company four years ago.”

Skype is finally free: eBay settles with Skype co-founders, clearing the way for buyout — “Now the Internet phone company will be sold to a consortium of investors that includes Skype’s co-founders.”

Boxer pushes Climate Bill forward, whether GOP likes it or not — “Fresh off last week’s health care reform win, president Barack Obama and his allies in Congress have turned their attention to climate change — particularly the Kerry-Boxer bill that would establish a carbon trading system and set renewable energy targets in the U.S.”

Greylock Partners recruits LinkedIn’s Reid Hoffman, raises $575M fund — “Reid Hoffman, the founder and chairman of popular professional networking site LinkedIn, is joining venture firm Greylock Partners as an investing partner.”

TeleNav IPO: If Google starts a free service, we’re doomed. Whoops — “TeleNav, which provides voice-guided navigation services on mobile phones, filed for an IPO today. The company’s offering, though, goes head-to-head with Google’s recently announced Google Maps Navigation offering.”

Entrepreneur Corner Roundup: Surefire ways to get rejected by an angel investor and clearing up lean startup myths

Venture Beat — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 08:00:38 -0800

Here’s the latest from VentureBeat’s Entrepreneur Corner:

Shoestring marketing for startups – Young companies typically don’t have the budget for a substantial marketing campaign, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. As you search for your niche and your company evolves, serial entrepreneur Scott Olson offers advice on the best ways to get a big marketing bang for your buck.

Lean startups aren’t cheap startups – Too many entrepreneurs assume the lean startup methodology is a way to save money. It can be, but that’s not the idea behind the philosophy. Serial entrepreneur Steve Blank clears up some of the confusion, clearing up some commonly held misconceptions.

4 ways to get automatically rejected by an angel investor – Angel investor Jason Cohen has been on both sides of the table – both seeking money as a business owner and handing it out as an investor. It’s a unique insight and he runs down four of the most common mistakes entrepreneurs make when they’re trying to raise funds.

Hey VCs, it’s not your company! – It’s great when your VC has a lot of pride in your company and shows a lot of interest in what you do. But, as angel investor Brad Feld points out, they sometimes need to be reminded that they’re not the ones running the business.

The 5 biggest mistakes that entrepreneurs make – The formula to entrepreneurial success changes constantly, but the formula to failure in a constant. Serial entrepreneur Jerry Kaplan runs down some of the dumbest moves start-up owners make.

Chip design firm Stream Processors shuts down after plowing through $26M

Venture Beat — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 07:30:20 -0800

Stream Processors, a chip design firm focused on video processing, is shutting its doors after burning through at least $26 million in venture capital, and is engaged in an asset sale, VentureBeat has learned.

The closure is a blow to one of the bigger efforts to push parallel processing, which uses many different processing cores, or brains, on a single chip. However, rivals such as Nvidia, Advanced Micro Devices and Intel have all adopted some of the parallel processing techniques that Stream Processors had pioneered.

Jack Horng, an officer for the company, said that Stream Processors (see VB profile of the company) will be formally shut in a month or so. The former chief executive, Chip Stearns, is forming a new company to acquire all of the assets from Stream Processors, so it’s possible its technology will live on. The new company is expected to continue to supply its current generation Storm-1 processors but it isn’t clear what will happen with the Storm-2 second-generation chips.

The San Jose, Calif.-based company was founded in 2004 by Bill Dally, dean of the computer science department at Stanford University. The company made a bid to get its chips inside the Xbox 360, but Microsoft chose an IBM PowerPC chip and an ATI graphics processor instead, partly because it was a more familiar programming model. Software developers really didn’t know how to develop code for Stream Processors’ chips. Dally left Stanford in January to become chief scientist at graphics chip maker Nvidia. The company churned out its first chip samples in 2006 and began shipping its Storm-1 series chips in 2007.

Attempts to reach Stearns were unsuccessful. The company focused on making video surveillance and high-end consumer electronics chips. Rivals include chip makers such as Stretch and Texas Instruments. Stream Processors had funding from Austin Ventures, Norwest Venture Partners, and Woodside Fund.

The recession has not been kind to chip startups. Few chip makers are getting funding these days, since it can take tens of millions of dollars to fund a new chip company.

Windows 7 sells 234% more copies than Vista

Venture Beat — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 17:58:39 -0800

It looks like all the positive buzz round Microsoft’s new Windows 7 operating system paid off in sales. Windows 7 sold 234 percent more copies during its first few days on the market than Vista did during the same period of its release, according to research by the NPD Group.

NPD’s data covers the week of Oct. 18 to 24. Windows 7 only launched on the 22nd, but these numbers also include pre-sales from the days before. While the reviews weren’t universally positive, Windows 7 was seen as a huge improvement on Vista, the operating system so hated that it became a punchline of almost every Microsoft joke. The day before the launch, Microsoft’s Brian Hall said Windows 7 and the company’s new search engine Bing, as well as a concerted a advertising effort, are doing a lot to repair the public’s perception of Microsoft.

Not all of the sales numbers were quite as impressive, though. It looks like more people were buying the cheaper versions of the boxed software, rather than a new PC with Windows 7 (PC sales didn’t increase as much as they did for Vista) or the more expensive Ultimate edition. Microsoft’s revenue from Windows 7 sales beat Vista’s, but only by 84 percent.

Stimulus for tech and telecom $3B, but jobs still guesswork

IDG News Service — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 17:45:30 -0800

WASHINGTON - The U.S. government has spent about $700 million on IT and telecommunications products and services under its economic stimulus program, part of a total of $3 billion that's in the spending pipeline, according to a private analysis of this data. But how many jobs have been created is not as clear.

Congress approved $787 billion in February to promote job growth and the White House recently claimed that some 600,000 jobs have been created by the stimulus spending so far. But the government data, made available through Recovery.gov , provides no details about the types of jobs and salaries and uses formulas to estimate the job impact.

Oniva Inc., which tracks government contract spending and has set up a separate site, Recovery.org , to look at stimulus spending specifically and has tallied the amount of technology spending. It calculates spending, and planned spending, based on actual contracts, or parts of contracts, that have allocated funding for IT and telecommunications communications and services.

The companies receiving stimulus funds report the number of direct jobs created, but don't estimate the indirect help. For instance, the U.S. Social Security Administration is upgrading some IT equipment with money from the stimulus, but according to reports on three projects underway in Maryland, which represent just a fraction of the agency's tech spending, only 17 jobs were created or saved on about $11 million in spending.

IBM was awarded in September a Social Security Administration contract, worth about $8.5 million, to upgrade systems around the country. IBM put the number of jobs created or saved at 16.8 is based on a combination of formulas developed by IBM and the White House, according to the company's filing. Oracle Corp. reported from the same agency a contract of $1.25 million that didn't cite any jobs created. Similarly, Hewlett-Packard Co., didn't report any jobs also for a $1.25 million computer equipment contract .

Oniva estimates that the direct stimulus spending has created just under 8,000 tech and telecom jobs, but this is a calculation based on a White House formula that says for approximately every $92,000 in recovery dollars spent, one job is created or saved, said Michael Balsam, the chief solutions officer of Onvi.

The government's formula attempts to look at indirect job creation that stem from direct awards, but Balsam has questions about way the government is reporting its data. The U.S. job creation claims is not based on actual contract awards, said Balsam. "Only 25% of that [stimulus] money has actually left Washington," he said.

That may help explain why newspapers such as the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel are reporting that that U.S. claims that 10,000 jobs were saved or created in Wisconsin "rife with errors, double counting and inflated numbers based more on satisfying federal formulas than creating real jobs."

The newspaper came to this conclusion after looking at some of the local job creation reports. Other newspapers are turning up similar findings after examining local project spending.

Update fixes iPhone sync problem with Windows 7 for some

IDG News Service — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 16:57:52 -0800

Gigabyte Technology issued a BIOS update on Friday that fixes a problem for some Windows 7 users who have been unable to sync their iPhones.

Earlier this week, Intel, Microsoft and Apple said they were investigating the issue, which people are complaining about on an Apple forum. The problem seems to be mainly affecting Windows 7 64-bit users with Intel P55 chipsets, and it prevents them from synching their iPhones with their computers.

On Friday, a few people posted on the forum that they’d downloaded the new BIOS from Gigabyte, a motherboard maker, and it solved the problem. In the description of the update, Gigabyte calls it a Beta BIOS and says that it fixes the iPhone sync issue, among other enhancements.

The BIOS update will help people who have the Gigabyte motherboard in their systems, but it won't help other people who have the problem, such as those with an Asus motherboard.

Earlier this week, Microsoft also said it was looking into the problem and recommended that people visit its help page for updates. It does not appear to have posted any information there and did not immediately reply to a request for comment about the Gigabyte update.

Though an Apple employee asked people on the forum to send details of the issue, it does not appear to have posted further information about the fix yet.

Intel said it could not comment on the Gigabyte BIOS update.

Cisco undervalues Tandberg, investment firms say

IDG News Service — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 16:51:00 -0800

Two investment consulting companies laid out objections to Cisco's US$3 billion offer for Norwegian videoconferencing vendor Tandberg on Friday, saying in an open letter to Cisco and a press interview that the bid undervalues Tandberg.

Cisco and Tandberg announced the deal on Oct. 1, but it still needs to be approved by Tandberg's shareholders. The agreement requires owners of 90 percent of the company's shares to sign off on the acquisition by Nov. 9. According to recent media reports, holders of 24 percent of Tandberg stock don't plan to accept the deal. Cisco suggested on Monday that it might drop its offer rather than raise it.

Acquiring Tandberg, one of the major suppliers of videoconferencing equipment, would expand Cisco's already strong position in technology for virtual meetings. Cisco has high-definition, immersive videoconferencing systems in its Telepresence line as well as desktop collaboration offerings in its WebEx line. Chairman and CEO John Chambers has said video is the key application that will shape communications and drive network infrastructure growth in the coming years.

Panta Capital Managing Director Peter Germonpre said in an interview that Cisco would have to offer at least 170 Norwegian Kroner per share, about 11 percent above the current bid of 153.5 Kroner, according to a Wall Street Journal report. Germonpre reportedly said Panta and investment consultants Scott & Associates own less than 1 percent of Tandberg but have heard other shareholders take the same view.

In an open letter on behalf of Tandberg shareholders, addressed to Chambers and Chief Strategy Officer Ned Hooper, Panta and Scott said Cisco isn't offering enough of a premium.

Among other things, the consultants said Tandberg's third-quarter financial results beat the consensus estimates of analysts for revenue and profit. In addition, they said estimates of the company's 2009 results have fallen by only about 9 percent, outperforming estimates for the technology sector and for Tandberg rival Polycom, which fell between about 30 percent and 45 percent. They said Cisco is valuing Tandberg on a par with Polycom while the Norwegian company is actually outperforming its competitor.

When the deal was announced, Cisco said its offer represented a 38.3 percent premium over Tandberg's share price on July 15, which Cisco said was just before the company's stock started to rise because of takeover speculation. Panta and Scott rejected that argument, saying Tandberg had been seen as a takeover target before then.

Cisco reiterated its position on the Tandberg offer in a prepared statement.

"We believe we are paying a fair price for a quality asset, and our offer comes recommended by the Tandberg Board of Directors," Cisco said. "Further, Cisco's general approach to M&A activities is that no acquisition should be pursued or completed if it runs counter to the broader principles of prudence and financial fairness."

Announcing DiscoveryBeat: an event on how to get your apps noticed in an age of noise

Venture Beat — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 16:39:18 -0800

VentureBeat is throwing a new mini-conference and networking event, DiscoveryBeat.

DiscoveryBeat addresses one of the biggest conundrums for Silicon Valley’s most dynamic startups and developers: How to get your social game or mobile application noticed in an age of noise?

It will be held in the afternoon of Dec. 8 at the Automattic Lounge on Pier 38 in San Francisco, a hip location with an ocean view.

We’ll discuss the “secret recipe” for getting discovered in an age when getting discovered can mean huge viral growth and the difference between profound success or prompt failure. We think there are five main ingredients to the secret recipe for viral growth: 1) Social networking and marketing, 2) advertising, 3) web design, 4) partnering and 5) measurement.

We’re inviting the masters of viral growth so that we can learn from them. Speakers include Sebastien DeHalleux, president of Playfish (above), one of the hottest makers of social games. We also have Roy Sehgal (below, middle picture), general manager at Zynga and executive producer of Cafe World, the fastest-growing social game in history. And we also have Julian Farrior (bottom picture), founder and CEO of Backflip Studios, a Boulder, Colo.-based iPhone game studio that has launched No. 1-ranked hits (Paper Toss, Rag Doll Blast) thanks to a clever combination of creativity and marketing. We’ll announce more speakers — including those from non-game companies — in the coming days.

The recent controversy surrounding the advertising offer industry (OfferPal, etc) shows there are ethical issues around tactics. There’s clearly a trade-off between getting noticed and making money. Social game platforms such as Facebook and MySpace, and the iPhone, Android, and other app stores are great places for app developers to get growth, but these platforms also need to maintain the trust of their users. While there are no gatekeepers, each of these platforms have their own rules or etiquette guidelines, and moving quickly to respond to changes in these rules can make or break businesses. There’s tremendous opportunity to gain momentum if you focus on the platforms best for you, but the terrain keeps changing.

Like any of VentureBeat’s events, this will be an opportunity to network. Entrepreneurs will be able to forge the relationships with advertisers, social networking companies and game developers. These partnerships are needed to succeed to survive in this competitive industry.

The event will be followed by a networking reception with key participants from the ecosystem, from investors to CEOs, developers and platform makers.

The agenda is subject to change. Here are the moderated panels we have planned:

Discovery 1.0: Starting from scratch
If you’re a two-person garage development shop, and starting from scratch, how do you create an app that can go viral? With 75,000 apps in the Apple AppStore, discovery is a huge problem. Facebook is just as tough. You’re at a disadvantage because large networks have an advantage due to their built-in knowledge of how the game works and also because of their ability to more effectively promote. How do you exploit your newness and focus, using the key ingredients of success? How can smaller developers team up with bigger brands that have name recognition? When should they go it alone? How do they build a company that bigger investors will notice?

Discovery 2.0: Moving to the next level
The social app companies — those successful application companies that came of age on Facebook and the iPhone — have created their own ecosystems with successful titles that feed on each other. Now what do they do? How many different types of monetization schemes do they need? What can they learn from the bigger companies? Should they recruit executives from the old-world companies, to help with partnering or organizational discipline? What sort of analytics process should they have in place? Can anyone catch up with them?

Discovery 3.0: Bringing in the big guys
Established video game companies and entertainment giants are eyeing the social networking and mobile platforms as a source of future growth. For success, the big guys need to apply the secret ingredients in different proportions. How much should they invest in these areas, and how should they do it? Which kinds of partners should they recruit? Which business models are the best? Who has made the transition already? What mix of social networking, marketing, analytical measurement, advertising and web design ingredients should they apply?

For sponsorships contact Andie Rhyins, andie@venturebeat.com. To sign up to attend, follow this link. Sign up by Nov. 20 and you can get 25 percent off the price. Early bird pricing is $114, and after Nov. 20 it will be $149.

ClickFuel provides internet tools to small businesses

Venture Beat — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 16:34:04 -0800

As a web generation, when we’re looking for a dentist, plumber, or other small business, our first instinct is to go online when we need these services. Sure, there’s Yellow Pages that can find a name, number and address, but as consumers we are used to more and these small businesses usually lack a formal online presence. However, there are several companies that have emerged with the tools to help.

ClickFuel, a Boston startup that designs, manages and tracks marketing campaigns, has recently launched a set of Internet marketing tools designed to help small businesses to promote business through attracting new customers. Some of the services include: web site design, pay-per-click advertising, search engine optimization, email marketing and social media. An appealing service as many times these businesses lack the resources and knowledge to get online.

Fuel Station, a web-based ClickFuel application, is the main muscle helping to track results including leads generated, clicks and consumer calls made to a phone number listed online. Through a strategic partnership with Intuit, Fuel Station was recently added to Intuit’s App Center which appears in QuickBooks 2010 — a longtime go-to financial tool for small businesses. The Intuit App Center provides QuickBook users with tools to help solve any business problems that might arise. Help from ClickFuel isn’t cheap, though it’s hard to put a price on generating business. The typical monthly fee runs between $1,500 and $2,500 and usually entails Web site building and managing online marketing campaigns.

If you’re a small business owner and the thought of shelling out a large amount of dough every month frightens you, there are other options. MerchantCircle, a growing Silicon Valley company, is offering a local business social network where business owners can promote their business by uploading pictures, writing blogs, publicizing events, creating coupons and newsletters, and connecting with other merchants, all for free.

MSN changes the butterfly

Venture Beat — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 16:33:49 -0800

MSN’s new home page, which you can see at preview.msn.com, is the first one that doesn’t look like it was designed by Microsoft. The new page has the same cheery look and feel as the Bing search box that perches at its top, waiting to grab your next search away from Google.

The MSN butterfly logo has been redesigned to match the new look. It’s pretty, but I doubt many users will notice the change. It still pushes the NBC peacock button in my brain, and I’m sure I’m far from alone.

The big surprise is the new design of the “verticals” as they’re known to advertisers — News, Money, Sports, Entertainment, Lifestyle — plus a catch-all “More.” Microsoft corporate vice president Erik Jorgensen told me the biggest change is that they threw away 25 category links that had piled atop the page. They’re gone. Not redesigned. Gone.

The verticals are much more visible now. But more important, the page finally gets to breathe. I’m sure there was some serious office politics required to get many managers to give up their spot atop the home page.

Microsoft is “more evolutionary than revolutionary,” Guidewire Group analyst Jeremiah Owyang said in a phone call.” To be revolutionary, they should show you custom content based on your profile.” The Huffington Post already does.

Apple Store announces Reserve And Pick Up program

IDG News Service — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 16:20:38 -0800

For you pre-Thanksgiving shoppers, the Apple retail store on Friday announced a way to get a jump on your holiday list. The Reserve And Pick Up option will let you choose hardware products online and swing by your local store to collect them between December 15 and 24. Currently, the line-up of offerings includes iPods, iPhones, MacBooks, Mac Minis, iMacs, and Mac Pros. To make a reservation, you sign in with your Apple ID and select a store location. Payment is due only at the time of pick-up.

Other retailers have had store pick-up options for some time. Apple's program is clearly aimed at adding value to its stores' vaunted customer experience. Shoppers who make their reservations online can avoid the disappointment of finding something out-of-stock at the retail store. And in theory, the purchasing and pick-up process should be more efficient than waiting in long holiday lines. In many cases, items can be wrapped in the "signature gift box," too.

It's worth noting that Apple already offers free shipping on many hardware products purchased online, and includes gift wrapping options as well. So I wonder how many customers will prefer to reserve something online, and actually drive to the store to for pick up instead of simply ordering and waiting at home for their goodies to arrive. Apple may be counting on the fact that some shoppers will like the convenience of pick-up, and might buy a few additional accessories when they come to the store. That might be just the boost the stores need. In the most recent quarter--which was otherwise quite strong--average revenue per retail store was down a little more than 6.5 percent compared to last year.

If you do choose to reserve and pick up a shiny, gift-wrapped MacBook or iPod for your nearest and dearest this year, you can look forward to major kudos. But don't forget: the Apple store can't do everything. You've still got to, you know, add a card or something.

Smart Meter maker Landis+Gyr lands $100M for epic rollout

Venture Beat — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 14:48:23 -0800

Last week’s announcement of $3.4 billion in stimulus funds for utilities was big news for smart meter makers. Almost every recipient of the money said they would be using it to add millions of advanced meters to their coverage areas. Now major meter maker Landis+Gyr has proved that the government grants will stimulate private investing in the sector, raising a new $100 million from its current backers.

The Swiss company says it will use the funds for a fast and dramatic deployment of smart meters, and not just in the U.S. — it will look at rolling out its hardware in Asia, Australia and Europe as well. Smart metering in the European Union is actually far ahead of U.S. initiatives, due in part to an aggressive mandate that 80 percent of homes must be equipped with smart meters by 2020 and 100 percent by 2022.

Landis+Gyr might actually be facing its toughest competition in the U.S., where Itron is giving it a serious run for its money. The latter emphasizes that it offers the same networking infrastructure as Silver Spring Networks, while also providing the metering hardware and now home energy management interfaces since its September partnership with OpenPeak. Echelon has also captured a slice of the market, tapped by large Duke Energy to provide meters.

Landis+Gyr is looking to add these services and more as it produces more meters than it ever has before. It will be interesting to see if it innovates its own solutions or turns to an acquisition strategy to diversify its technologies.

VentureBeat is hosting GreenBeat, the seminal executive conference on the Smart Grid, on Nov. 18-19, featuring keynotes from Nobel Prize winner Al Gore, Google CEO Eric Schmidt and Kleiner Perkins’ John Doerr. Register for your ticket today at GreenBeat2009.com.

Comic-Con founder Shel Dorf dies, age 76

IDG News Service — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 14:44:31 -0800

Comic book fan Shel Dorf founded the Comic-Con convention in 1970, and at the first event just 300 people showed up. This year, at the Comic-Con International event in San Diego more than 125,000 comic book, sci-fi, and video game aficionados showed up to rub shoulders with their heroes and get a sneak look at upcoming movies, TV shows and games.

Though Dorf is said to have lamented the "Hollywood" takeover of his event, no one can deny its ascension to become one of the most important pop culture events of each year. In the past, significant brands have been launched or rebooted at the event, including Iron Man, Lost, Battlestar Galactica, and most recently ABC's hit remake of the V miniseries, which premiered this week. Video game publishers have been making use of the event much more aggressively in recent years, with the 2009 event seeing big pushes for high profile titles like Left 4 Dead 2 and Mass Effect 2.

The Comic-Con organization have posted a tribute that you can read here.

Broadband chip maker MaxLinear files for IPO

Venture Beat — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 14:26:58 -0800

Broadband communications chip maker MaxLinear has filed to go public in another indicator that the good times are back for tech stocks and exits.

Carlsbad, Calif.-based MaxLinear makes analog or mixed-signal radio chips that can be manufactured in standard chip factories. The chips enable devices to display broadband video. The chips are used in a wide array of electronic gear: cable and terrestrial set-top boxes, digital TVs, cell phones, PCs, netbooks and car entertainment systems. The company has more than 35 customers, including Panasonic, Murata, Alps Electric and Sony.

MaxLinear was founded in 2003. Since shipping its first products in 2006, the company has shipped more than 65 million radio chips. For the nine months ended Sept. 30, revenues were $36.1 million, up from $23.6 million a year earlier. Net income was $2.4 million for the period, compared to a loss of $1.1 million a year earlier.

The market for radio frequency, digital signal processors and analog chips used in set-top boxes, mobile phones, autos and TVs was $7.6 billion, according to market researcher iSuppli.

Morgan Stanley and Deutsche Bank Securities are handling the offering. Co-managers include UBS Securities, Thomas Weisel Partners and Needham & Co. It’s good to see a chip company filing to go public. It often takes so much investment these days that chip makers have a hard time finding venture capital funding.

WITSA: ICT infrastructure in developing countries imperative

IDG News Service — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 14:02:58 -0800

Information and communications technology (ICT) infrastructure acts like a powerful magnet for business opportunities and other economic benefits.

For this reason, the World Information Technology and Services Alliance (WITSA) advised ICT leaders of developing countries and emerging economies that such infrastructure be made a top priority.

WITSA chairman Dato' Dan E. Khoo said people must exert their influence on their respective governments about the benefits of building out the ICT infrastructure through pro-competitive market policies and sound investments.

"Putting in place a comprehensive ICT infrastructure must be ranked highly among national development priorities in the developing and emerging worlds," said Khoo in his speech at the opening ceremony of the Global Public Policy Summit (GPPS 2009) in Bermuda.

GPPS is a WITSA event that brings together executives and policy makers for the purpose of assessing policies that determine the global ICT development and adoption.

Enabler of industries

Khoo emphasised that long-term solutions for economic growth relies on ICT development and adoption, which could drive an economy towards transformative growth, enhance industry efficiency and output, and offer society greater access to opportunities for improving the quality of life.

He said: "As an industry, ICT has the potential to build lucrative businesses and create new jobs. It is essential to the development of a knowledge economy that offers value-added products and services to the world."

Noting that ICT acts as "an enabler of other industries", Khoo reminded the audience of the capability of ICT to raise productivity and efficiency in all economic sectors. "Industries that leverage ICT tend to achieve much higher growth rates than those that don't," he stressed.

The WITSA chairman explained that ICT as a development stimulus "transforms our lives for the better through such ways as extending accessibility to education, revolutionising community networking, enhancing healthcare services, improving public safety, extending opportunity distribution, promoting culture and leisure and other components of the quality of life."

ICT can help users seize the short-term opportunities arising from arbitrage and medium-term ones through aggregation and the reduction of imbalances, Khoo also said.

Formed in 1978, the World Information Technology and Services Alliance (WITSA) is a consortium of ICT industry association members from nearly 70 economies around the world. Its members represent more than 90 per cent of the global ICT market.

China helps drive global growth of mobile subscribers

IDG News Service — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 14:00:29 -0800

Infonetics Research has released its new Fixed and Mobile Subscribers market forecast report. The communications industry market research firm predicts the number of worldwide mobile subscribers to reach 5.9 billion by 2013. It also expects the number of PON FTTH subscribers worldwide to increase at a compound annual growth rate of 32 per cent from 2008 to 2013.

Asia Pacific: world's largest mobile subscriber region

Stéphane Téral, principal analyst for mobile and FMC infrastructure at Infonetics Research noted the importance of communication services and said even the global recession did not prevent people from using them.

The global economic crisis did not stop people from communicating but it definitely accelerated the pace of wireline-to-mobile substitution. China had half a billion mobile subscribers in 2008, and Téral said that together with India, it makes Asia Pacific the world's largest mobile subscriber region, now and into the future.

"The EMEA [Europe, Middle East and Africa] region is next, with strong growth driven by Africa. Mobile subscriptions will continue to grow strongly over at least the next five years, driven mainly by basic voice service needs in these regions, particularly in BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India, and China)," added Téral.

Access lines losing popularity in China

Fixed and mobile subscribers' market highlights from this Infonetics Research's report indicate the apparent decline of the access line market. The figures show that there were about four times more mobile subscribers than access line subscribers worldwide in 2008 (3.9 billion versus one billion).

The number of mobile subscribers grew 17.4 per cent in 2008 over 2007. Access line subscribers declined 5.5 per cent in contrast. Access lines are no longer popular in North America and China. According to Infonetics Research, their disappearance is due to many reasons including the move to fixed-to-mobile substitutions and the switch from copper to fibre lines. The global recession also caused the change as many users keep only their mobile or smart phone to cut costs.

LogMeIn Ignition for iPhone offers weekend sale

IDG News Service — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 13:48:26 -0800

LogMeIn Ignition for iPhone and iPod touch, which normally retails at £17.99 (US$30), for this weekend only will be available at a 30 per discount worldwide via the Apple App Store.

The popular productivity application give users a chance to access home or office computers via iPhone and iPod touch.

Remote access technology allows access and back up to your computer from anywhere with an Internet connection.

With the iPhone version of the software, users create a LogMeIn account and add the computers they want to access remotely to that account. They then install LogMeIn Ignition for iPhone and iPod touch on their Apple device and log in to access their entire computer.

LogMeIn Ignition will be available discounted from Saturday 7th November, the promotion highlighted via Twitter and Facebook.

LogMeIn Ignition requires the iPhone 2.0 Software Update. LogMeIn software is compatible with Mac and PC.

The iPhone version can be downloaded here (iTunes link).

Data center start-up offers energy saving software

IDG News Service — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 13:42:05 -0800

A data center start-up is exiting stealth mode with technology that reduces power and cooling costs by analyzing the energy consumption of IT equipment and applications.

What does a real green data center look like?

Officials at Viridity Software -- the name means "greenness" -- argue that today's power monitoring products focus only on the physical infrastructure, giving insight into how power is delivered to the data center but not insight into why it is being consumed.

Viridity's software maps the connections between applications and specific IT equipment, while also analyzing the relative importance to the business of each application. Then it provides step-by-step recommendations to eliminate power and cooling inefficiencies, simulates the potential impact of new technology deployments and enables chargeback.

"They take an application-based view," says David Hill, an analyst with the Mesabi Group. "It's much more sophisticated and much more elegant [than current power monitoring products]. It's the way it should be done."

Analysis tools that look solely at the power usage of servers and other infrastructure aren't necessarily helpful in controlling energy use, because they don't analyze the amount of power the business needs to operate effectively, Hill says.

"If you just look at infrastructure you can't always understand what's happening, and know what energy each application is using," he says.

Viridity was founded in 2007 and has financing of more than $7 million from Battery Ventures and North Bridge Venture Partners. The company was founded by CTO Michael Rowan, who founded continuous data protection vendor Revivio, which was acquired by Symantec three years ago; and vice president of engineering Chris Rocca, also a veteran of Revivio.Viridity is still searching for a CEO. For now, board chairman Dave Lemont is serving as interim CEO.

Viridity has eight customers so far and will make its software generally available at the end of March. The product is a software download combined with a hosted database, and prices can run anywhere from a few thousand dollars to hundreds of thousands, depending on the size of deployment.

Before founding Viridity, Rowan says he was consulting for large companies struggling to provide power to IT equipment. One company bought millions of dollars worth of disk drives and attempted to install them when "someone said 'you can't plug them in because there's not enough power.'" That made Rowan realize how little information companies have about how power use relates to business processes.

"The first thing that was striking was all that equipment was bought, paid for, shipped and installed before someone said there was no power," he says.

Viridity's software will prevent such mishaps, the company believes."Viridity will provide customers with the ability to model power consumption through the IT layer, by tying applications to the specific IT equipment that supports them," a company press release states. "Not only will the connections be mapped, but the relative business criticality of each application will be analyzed as well. The breadth and depth of this correlation is critical, as this is where virtually all of the data center's power demand is derived from."Follow Jon Brodkin on Twitter: www.twitter.com/jbrodkin

FAA streamlines experimental space flight access

IDG News Service — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 13:41:44 -0800

The Federal Aviation Administration today said it would streamline the environmental review part of permit applications for the launch and/or reentry of reusable suborbital rockets to help bolster a fledgling commercial space market.

At the heart of the ruling is a document used to outline and determine the potential environmental consequences of issuing experimental permits known as the Processing of Experimental Permit Applications (PEIS).

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The idea as the FAA explains it: Because the PEIS presents information and analysis common to reusable, suborbital rockets, the FAA could choose to tier environmental documents from the PEIS to focus on environmental impacts specific to an applicant’s proposed experimental operations. The PEIS would eliminate repetitive discussions of recurring issues and focus on issues that are ready for decision…specific to a particular launch. Individual launch operators would be required to coordinate with site operators to gain access to a site. In addition, the launch operators would be required to apply to the FAA for an experimental permit, which would require an individual safety and environmental review.

From the FAA ruling:

“The PEIS considers activities associated with the launch and reentry of reusable suborbital rockets, including pre-flight activities, flight profile (takeoff, flight, and landing), and post-flight activities.

The general suborbital rocket designs addressed in the PEIS include vehicles resembling conventional aircraft--30 to 140 feet long with unfueled weight of up to 9,921 pounds; vehicles resembling conventional rockets--6 to 33 feet long with unfueled weight of up to 5,500 pounds; and vehicles that hover—up to 20 feet in length or diameter with unfueled weight of up to 4,400 pounds. The FAA also assumes the total rocket fuel capacity of a reusable suborbital rocket not to exceed 11,00lbs.

The PEIS examines the potential environmental impacts of issuing an experimental permit for the operation of reusable suborbital rockets anywhere in the U.S. and abroad, and the potential site-specific impacts of permitted launches from seven FAA-licensed commercial launch sites: California Spaceport, California; Mojave Air and Space Port, California; Kodiak Launch Complex, Alaska; Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport, Virginia; and Space Florida.”

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The FAA said it prepared the PEIS with cooperation from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the US Air Force and said that its ruling does not propose site- specific environmental mitigation measures. “Rather, launch operators would be expected to implement site-specific mitigation measures that are consistent with those currently employed by the eight launch facilities addressed in the PEIS. Additional site-specific mitigation measures could be developed and presented in the site-specific documents that would tier from the PEIS.”

Reusable launch vehicles or rockets are one of the key technologies for the future of commercial space flight. The Review of United States Human Space Flight Plan Committee report said that commercial services to deliver crew to low-Earth orbit are within reach. “While this presents some risk, it could provide an earlier capability at lower initial and life-cycle costs than government could achieve. A new competition with adequate incentives to perform this service should be open to all US aerospace companies.”

NASA recently said it would partner with the US Air Force Research Laboratory to develop a technology roadmap for use of reusable commercial spaceships. The study of reusable launch vehicle or RLVs will focus on identifying technologies and assessing their potential use to accelerate the development of commercial reusable launch vehicles that have improved reliability, availability, launch turn-time, robustness and significantly lower costs than current launch systems, NASA stated. The study results will provide roadmaps with recommended government technology tasks and milestones for different vehicle categories.

NASA also recently said it would offer $50 million in stimulus money to further develop private commercial spacecraft. NASA said its Commercial Crew and Cargo Program looks to develop and demonstrate safe, reliable, and cost-effective capabilities to transport cargo and eventually crew to low-Earth orbit and the International Space Station.

The aerospace consultancy Futron recently said that as much as $1.5 billion may be up for grabs for commercial space operation in the next ten years.

Four reasons to buy (and one reason to avoid) the Droid

IDG News Service — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 13:41:32 -0800

The general consensus on the Motorola Droid is that while it's a very strong device, it still doesn't match the iPhone.

Oh sure, the Droid has a nifty open source operating system and processing power on par with the iPhone 3GS, but it doesn't have the remarkable ease of use that has made the iPhone the most popular smartphone in the consumer market. All that said, however, users have found a lot to like in the Droid and have declared it a solid alternative for smartphone fans who don't want to subscribe to AT&T. In no particular order, here are four reasons to buy -- as well as one to avoid -- the Motorola Droid.

Reason to Buy #1: It's the strongest device yet on the Verizon network

When the BlackBerry Storm came out last year, it was seen as a premiere device capable of knocking the iPhone off its perch. However, poor user experience with the phone's clickable touchscreen interface has led to a backlash and left Verizon without a showcase device. The Droid should fix that, as it is the strongest overall smartphone to debut on the Verizon network.

While it won't kill the iPhone anytime soon, the Droid will provide Verizon users with a good mobile browsing experience to go along with what is widely considered the best voice service and largest 3G data coverage in the United States.

Reason to buy #2: Google Android's tremendous potential

Google has long said that the goal of its Android platform has been to spur innovation within the mobile development community and also to give users the ability to switch to new carriers without switching their mobile devices. While the initial Android offerings such as the HTC Hero and the Samsung Moment have garnered a fair amount of press, the Droid will be the first device that will give us a hint of Android's potential, as developers will be much more likely to develop applications for the platform if they know they can have potential access to Verizon's 85 million-plus wireless subscribers.

While Android phones still have a long way to go to match the enormous variety of applications offered on the Apple App Store, having a top-notch phone such as the Droid will go a long way.

Reason to buy #3: It can multitask

One of the iPhone's few flaws is its inability to run two applications simultaneously. Thus, if you're listening to a song on Pandora and you want to check e-mail, you have to turn off the music application before you can read your messages. The Droid has smartly taken a page out of the Palm Pre's playbook and has made running simultaneous applications one of its core features. This also means that if Android ever develops sufficient security features a la the BlackBerry, it could be a great enterprise device to use for both work and play.

Reason to buy #4: It can run over Wi-Fi

One of the bigger user complaints about the BlackBerry Storm has been that it won't connect to the Internet through local Wi-Fi networks. The Droid corrects this flaw by letting users hook onto the Web through either Verizon's EV-DO Rev. A 3G network or through any nearby Wi-Fi hotspot. And because the device uses the same processor as the iPhone 3GS, users can expect a faster and smoother browsing experience with the Droid than they had received with the Storm.

Reason to Avoid: The shallow keyboard

Creating a strong keyboard for a smartphone has repeatedly proven tricky for device manufacturers. If you make the keyboard too large, it leaves little room for a large touchscreen. If you embed the keyboard into the touchscreen, you lose the comfortable feel of pressing down on physical keys. The Droid tried to find some middle ground in its design by creating a thin slide-out keyboard that would not compete with the display screen for space on the device.

However, Motorola's attempt at balance has resulted in a keyboard that users have complained is too shallow to really get a feel for. The result is that users who have large fingers will find it more difficult to type on the Droid than on devices with more raised keyboards, such as the BlackBerry Tour. No device is perfect and the Droid's keyboard so far has emerged as its most glaring flaw. But look on the bright side: it will give Motorola something to work on when it eventually comes out with the Droid 2.

Weak supplier management placing £200bn projects 'at risk'

IDG News Service — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 13:39:11 -0800

Government projects worth a total of £200 billion (US$331 billion) are being put at risk by Whitehall's lack of commercial expertise, according to a damning report.

The value for money on 43 government projects, many of which are either IT focused or have a large technological component, is being put in a dangerous position because of "significant weaknesses" in the ability and background of government employees when it comes to dealing with suppliers.

This is the verdict of a new report by the National Audit Office, which blamed the government for failing to assess skills shortages systematically. The NAO said it was "critical" that government hired permanent staff who had the commercial skills and experience to interact with suppliers, rather than relying on contractors to assist with tackling the problem.

The biggest skills gaps were in contract management, commissioning and managing advisers, risk identification and management, and business acumen.

Fourteen out of 16 departmental commercial directors told the NAO that the Office of Government Commerce had done little to address skills gaps within their department. But the NAO said "ultimate responsibility" for commercial skills "remains with departments".

While the OGC had introduced a number of initiatives aimed at improving commercial skills, it was not working closely enough with departments, the NAO said. It needed to work with departments to establish standard approaches for dealing with the commercial sector.

While the report did not single out individual projects, the 43 schemes referred to include the £12.7 billion NHS National Programme for IT, including summary care records, the data 'spine', and electronic prescriptions.

The ContactPoint database of children and the Building Schools for the Future scheme are also among the projects, alongside the Ministry of Defence's £7 billion Defence Information Infrastructure programme and HM Revenue & Customs' Pay As You Earn tax system.

On the list too are the Ministry of Justice's C-Nomis National Offender Management System and its Libra court case management software, as well as the biometric passport and identity cards programmes, and the police Impact programme.

Being on the list does not necessarily indicate a project is definitely at risk, but does mean that its progress is closely monitored by the government.

A review by the Office of Government Commerce, which works on government procurement, found that 44 percent of senior responsible owners on major projects did not have any substantial commercial experience.

Edward Leigh, chairman of the Committee of Public Accounts, which holds parliamentary hearings based on NAO reports, said that "time and again our committee has seen evidence of the public sector losing out when it deals with the private sector".

"Given the current tough economic situation and the increasing involvement of the private sector in delivering public services, government must get the right people with commercial know-how in the right places quickly," he added.

A spokesperson at the OGC said: "We welcome the NAO's report, which confirms the findings of our Procurement Capability Review programme, and the value of assurance processes we have in place such as the Major Projects Review Group and Major Project Portfolio reporting."

The OGC will work closely with government departments "to plug shortfalls identified in capability and skills", he said.

Fake security tools still big threat, worms on rise

IDG News Service — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 13:27:36 -0800

The No. 1 offender to Canadian's PCs in the first half of 2009 was Win32/ZangoSearchAssistant, adware that victims probably don't even know hit them, according to a recent security report from Microsoft Corp.

ZangoSearchAssistant tricks unsuspecting users into downloading it in the guise of improving search results and producing related links based on user-specific keywords, explained Mohammad Akif, security and privacy lead with Microsoft Canada Co.

"You might think what a stroke of luck, I was just searching for Michael Jackson earlier, and now this offer is popping up," said Akif. But in reality, the related links are companies in ZangoSearchAssistant's network.

Most of the Top 25 security threats listed in the seventh version of the Microsoft Security Intelligence Report (SIRv7) are consumer threats, but those of importance to the enterprise include ASX/Wimad and Win32/Renos, said Akif.

Both Trojans, Wimad and Renos have had a presence in the enterprise for some time, as have others, said Akif. "That is the biggest category from an enterprise perspective," he said.

Wimad, for instance, positions itself as a Windows media file, tricking users into downloading it.

SIRv7 also reported that worm infections rose by nearly 100 per cent compared to the preceding six months, thanks to Conficker and Taterf.

While spikes in infection rates are normal when new attacks are launched, they are usually just a "small bump," said Akif. "This is a little bit unusual," he said.

Akif added that the fact that these two worms spread as quickly and effectively as they did is a testament to the strength of these types of threats.

Conficker can spread through an enterprise that didn't have appropriate security rules in place, said Akif. Taterf, spreading primarily through the online gaming community, could still infect enterprises if the child of an employee had an infected PC from playing online games, and transferred infected files to the parent's PC, who then transferred them to work, said Akif.

SIRv7 also indicates that rogue, or fake, security software remains a major threat, although infections did drop by 20 per cent in the past six months.

"All over the world, it has become the No. 1 threat," said Akif.

There were 16.8 million infections in 2008 compared to 13.4 million in the last six months. But rogue security software is morphing, becoming more sophisticated in how it attacks, said Akif. It's more difficult to identify now because they do things like latch on to free software.

While rogue security software is typically not a huge pain for large enterprises with security policies in place, Akif said resource-constrained small to medium businesses are an easy target.

According to Toronto-based security consultant, Brian O'Higgins, rogue security software is particularly crafty because it preys on a combination of fear and training.

"People have been trained to be concerned about security,and when a pop-up comes on that claims your machine is at risk, they are willing to install the software," said O'Higgins.

Moreover, advertisements for scareware find their way to reputable sites after the malware distributors have successfully worked around search engine optimizations, said O'Higgins.

But while some scareware actually does remove malware, said O'Higgins, they are created to be difficult to remove because they can't be uninstalled unless the user pays a removal fee.

xGestures updated for Snow Leopard

IDG News Service — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 13:22:00 -0800

Brian Kendall has released an updated version of xGestures for Snow Leopard, which allows you to drive your Mac with "mouse gestures"--a particular combination of mouse movements that triggers a menu item, keystroke, or AppleScript. For example, I'm constantly hitting the wrong function key on my MacBook when I try to view all Spaces; with xGestures, I can hold the control key and flick up and down on my trackpad, and xGestures will zip me into the all Spaces view. Users of recent MacBooks with multi-touch trackpads may also want to check out Macworld's recent review of Jitouch, which does similar things with multi-touch gestures.

xGestures installs as a preference pane and, unlike Jitouch, you have to define all of your gestures from scratch. Getting started with xGestures was a bit frustrating; you have make sure that "Enable xGestures" is checked under Options and then click the "Start xGestures" button on the same pane.

xGestures requires a mouse button or keyboard press to start listening. I used the Control-Shift keys along with "hold down key while gesturing" since this combination doesn't conflict with any of my other utilities. The Command or Option keys, though, could easily trigger a gesture when I don't wish to. You can also set xGestures to change the mouse pointer and draw a line on the screen when it's active, both of which I recommend for testing out the software.

Once you're set up, you can define either global gestures or specific gestures for each application. For my testing, I made my Spaces actions global, but I set up different gestures for Web-browsing which were specific to Safari. xGestures provides a drop-down menu of actions which a gesture can trigger; the most useful of these are probably "Perform Keystroke" and "Choose Menu Item." (Note: to assign a keystroke, you may need to turn it off first. Assigning F8 to my Spaces gesture didn't work so long as Spaces was intercepting it.) Be sure to click on "Apply Settings" whenever you set up a new gesture--skipping this led to some frustrating moments during my testing.

xGestures requires Mac OS X 10.3 or higher, and costs $5 after a 15-day free demonstration period. I'm on the fence about it, but if I find myself using gestures frequently in two weeks, the price makes this a no-brainer purchase.

LinkedIn gets a cleaner layout

Venture Beat — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 12:54:40 -0800

Professional networking site LinkedIn says it’s experimenting with a new layout. The redesign has only been rolled out for some users, so I’m not seeing it in my own account yet, but the company’s blog post suggests it’s making subtle improvement.

Right now, the site’s navigation is split between a box on the left hand side of the page (with collapsible menus for things like your groups and contacts), and a navigation bar at the top of the page. Now all of the navigation occurs at the top of the page. When you click on any of the navigation options, you get a list of all the different pages you can jump to or actions you can take.

Judging from the screenshots that LinkedIn has shared, the changes won’t be as immediately noticeable as, say, some of Facebook’s more dramatic redesigns. But they should make it easier to find your way around the site and let you see more content on your screen before having to scroll. Now, I rarely do anything more on the site other than confirm connections, so the clumsy navigation hasn’t felt like a big pain for me. But maybe I’ll start exploring LinkedIn’s full functionality now that I can find my way around.

ReadWriteWeb spotted another aspect of the design that may be a plus for LinkedIn: Ads show up more prominently.

Oh, and if you have any comments on the redesign, the company says it’s still tinkering, so you can leave feedback at the blog post that I linked to above.