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2006-09-30T10:26:00.000-07:00

US to review Internet control in 2008

The US Commerce Department said on Friday it would retain its oversight of the company that manages Internet domain names, renewing an agreement that was scheduled to expire this weekend. The government signed a new three-year agreement with the ICANN, which controls addresses such as ".com" and country domain names. The new agreement aims to eventually turn over control of ICANN to the private sector, and calls for a review in 2008 of ICANN's progress toward becoming more accountable, the government said.

"We are committed to working with ICANN to ensure that they have the established transparency and accountability mechanisms necessary to be a stable, lasting and independent institution."

The current agreement between the U.S. government and ICANN was scheduled to expire on September 30. The Commerce Department said it consulted with more than 700 companies, trade groups, foreign governments and individuals before deciding to renew the agreement. Some critics say the U.S. government has too much control over ICANN, which has evolved into a crucial engine for global commerce, communications and culture. The US government has pledged to cede control of the net to private sector hands at an unspecified future time. - US takes big step to end Internet oversight - ICANN independence closer - NDTV.com - Political Gateway - New York Times - Los Angeles Times

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2006-08-05T17:29:00.000-07:00

How to Launch A Business in Your 20s

If you've got the job jitters or are feeling burned out, it may be time to put out feelers before starting an all-out employment search, says CareerJournal.com.

"It's better to lay the groundwork for a job search before you get burned out. It's often easier to find a new job while you are still employed."

There are many safe harbors where you can informally network, without alerting your employer that you're job hunting. CareerJournal.com offers these ways to get started: Look before you leap. You way want to explore employment opportunities within your own company before deciding to look for jobs elsewhere. Make yourself visible -- discreetly.

"The Internet has made it easier to raise your career profile through social-networking like ecademy, Linkedin.com, openBC, Ryze, Soflow or Zoominfo.com . You can connect with colleagues at companies you're interested in and raise your visibility without quitting your job."

Work your industry associations. Participating in a business organization with which your company is affiliated won't raise the eyebrows of your colleagues or boss. Attending monthly meetings and mingling can boost a job search and allow you to network with potential employers. Network like a headhunter. Target 10 or 15 companies you want to work for. Then use Web search engines to identify some of their former employees and their current contact information. Phone them, and ask them about the company, the potential boss and the department you're interested in. Rebuild your network. When you know you're going to need your network in the next few months, start putting it in place now. You need to figure out who is going to be an important contact for you. Do some self-assessment. Think about what you really want to do. Take into account your strengths, weaknesses, likes and dislikes. Ask yourself what you want more and less of so you can pursue a more satisfying career. - Social networking sites a hacker's paradise? - Spoke frees up its database - Submit Express - Red Herring - Akron Beacon Journal - Digital-Lifestyles.Info

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2006-07-31T13:44:00.000-07:00

Google launches open source hosting centre

Google has started to add open source project hosting to Google Code. The new site might go up against the most popular open source project hosting sites like SourceForge or Tigris. Google’s new hosting service will be without ads. Google will use the open source version control system Subversion, to which several Google developers contribute. The Subversion repository will store projects’ code and other data in Google’s BigTable database, which is also the data store behind Google Reader. BigTable can run on thousands of inexpensive computers for load balancing and reliability. Google’s new source code hosting service is not yet ready for production use. According to a post by Greg Stein on Sunday night

We just pushed out a fix for the Subversion performance. Please let us know if you see any continued problems.

However, when integrated with Google Groups, GMail, Google Talk and other services, the offer could become very popular with developers. To entrer into Google Code a free projcet code source it should be one of theses licences:

Apache
Artistic
GNU General Public License
Lesser General Public
Mozilla License
BSD
MIT

Uo to now approximately 2,000 projects have been created on Google Code including 239 Java projects, 149 in Python, 71 in Ruby, and 19 mentioning Eclipse. - Google to host open-source projects - Google Sets Up Open Source Service - Builder AU - LinuxWorld.au - WebProNews - itWorldCanada.com

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2006-06-26T13:53:00.000-07:00

The Miracle of Warren Buffett and Bill Gates

Warren Buffett today signed over much of his $44 billion fortune to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, uniting the world's two richest people in a bid to fight disease, reduce poverty and improve education. The roughly $30.7 billion donation doubles the Gates Foundation's size to $60 billion, five times larger than any other U.S. charitable group and larger than the gross domestic product of Kuwait. Bill Gates, the world's richest man, co-founded and remains chairman of Microsoft Corp.. Warren Buffett built his fortune running Berkshire Hathaway Inc., an insurance and investment company.

"I am not an enthusiast for dynastic wealth, particularly when the alternative is 6 billion people having much poorer hands in life than we have."

Gates said he plans in July 2008 to step down from his day-to-day Microsoft role to focus on his foundation, one of the goals of which is to improve access to technology in U.S. public libraries. Buffett pledged 10 million Berkshire Class B shares to the Gates Foundation. He also pledged 2.05 million Class B shares to foundations in the name of his late wife, Susan, who died in 2004, and for his three children, Susie, Howard and Peter. The total donations of about $37.1 billion amount to roughly 85% of Buffett's net worth, and constitute the largest single act of U.S. charitable giving ever. Buffett made the donations fewer than four months after he said Berkshire's board had identified a successor for him. Gifts to the Gates Foundation will be made in stages, and are conditioned on money being distributed the year it is donated. The foundation gave away $1.36 billion in 2005, so Buffett's first gift of $1.5 billion, in July, may double its spending.

"This is his life's work. Now that the money is going to be as much Warren's as the money my job helped generate, it's almost scary."

Time magazine last year named the Gateses and Irish singer Bono of the band U2 its "Persons of the Year" for 2005, citing their charitable and philanthropic pursuits.

"I've watched Bill and Melinda Gates for a number of years. It was clear that an outstanding mind with the right goals was focusing intensely with passion and heart on improving the lot of mankind."

Both Buffett and Gates emphasized the importance of keeping philanthropy separate from Berkshire's operations. Buffett's donations of Berkshire shares means the ultimate value of his gifts will be tied to the company's share price.

"I would be surprised, disappointed, if we can't manage Berkshire well enough so the increase on value, on average, (isn't) more than 5% a year."

Berkshire owns large stakes in such blue-chip companies as American Express and Coca-Cola and owns some 50 businesses, including Dairy Queen ice cream, Fruit of the Loom underwear and Geico auto insurance. Berkshire shares have lagged the Standard & Poor 500 index over the last two years, but have far outgained the benchmark since Buffett took over Berkshire, then a struggling textile maker, in 1965. - Warren Buffett's Unprecedented Generosity - Buffett accelerates philanthropy with Gates gift - Washington Post - Forbes - Financial Times - MSNBC

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2006-06-04T11:44:00.000-07:00

Pakistan bans Da Vinci Code film

Under the Motion Pictures Ordinance of 1979, the government of Pakistan has banned the Ron Howard’s contentious movie The Da Vinci Code for including material that is offensive to both Christians and Muslims.

The Da Vinci Code is a mystery and detective novel by the American author Dan Brown and published in 2003 by Doubleday Fiction. It became a worldwide bestseller with more than 60.5 million copies in print as of May 2006 and has been translated into 44 languages. It might be the sixth biggest selling book of all time. Combining the detective, thriller and conspiracy fiction genres, the book is part two of a trilogy that started with Brown's 2000 novel Angels and Demons, which introduced the character Robert Langdon. In November 2004, Random House published a "Special Illustrated Edition", with 160 illustrations interspersed with the text.

In a recent statement, according to India News, any viewing of The Da Vinci Code or distribution of the film will be met with stern action:

"In a statement issued by the country’s Central Board of Film Censors, the government warned of strict action against screening of the movie and those involved in its sale and purchase."

Although The Da Vinci Code continues to be a financial windfall for Sony Pictures, having grossed $475 million worldwide to date, Fox News elaborates on the reasons for the action taken by the government of Pakistan and the film being banned,

"Although the film has not been screened in any theater in mostly-Muslim Pakistan, authorities decided to ban it out of respect for the feelings of the country's minority Christians."

Christians in Pakistan staged two protests earlier in the week, calling for a worldwide ban of The Da Vinci Code, which came amid other protests against the film in India. The the screening of the film in Pakistan, or possession of it on video cassettes or discs, was prohibited and unlawful, said Jalil Abbas

"The film is sacrilegious to all religions, that's why we did this."

Police had been ordered to conduct raids and confiscate pirated copies of the film available in markets of the Muslim-dominated country, he said. Christians make up about 3% of Pakistan's overwhelmingly Muslim 160 million people, while in India Christians hold only 2% of the total population. Also late last week, two more Indian States banned The Da Vinci Code, doubling the number of states to take strict action against the film, authorities in southern Andhra Pradesh state and Meghalaya in the Christian-dominated northeast blocked the film late on Thursday. Two other states, Punjab and Tamil Nadu, had earlier banned the film. Despite the protests and the film being banned, it appears not all have agreed with the recent backlash, most notably members of the Indian film industry. According to The Hindu News

"... the Film and Television Producers Guild of India has asked the Governments there to reconsider their decision. The Guild has written to the Governments of all the states, specifying how the film was cleared by the censor board and asking that they help to clear its release..."

In addition to the uproar in Pakistan and India, and the film being banned, The Da Vinci Code appears to be making waves in Egypt as well, as the San Francisco Chronicle reports,

"Police seized 2,000 pirated DVDs of 'The Da Vinci Code' on Saturday, and the Egyptian Coptic Christian church demanded the film be banned in Egypt."

To date, no decision has been made by the Egyptian government on whether to ban the film in that region. Since its publishing began in 2003, The Da Vinci Code has sold more than 40 million copies worldwide, netting author Dan Brown $442 million. The Da Vinci Code has been released in paperback in the United States and has sold 500,000 copies. The Da Vinci Code movie stars Tom Hanks, Ian McKellen, Alfred Molina, Audrey Tautou and Jean Reno. The movie is directed by Ron Howard .'The Da Vinci Code' heresy - India extends Da Vinci Code ban - Times of India - People's Daily Online - The Conservative Voice

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2006-05-17T07:27:00.000-07:00

Yahoo personalizes new homepage

Yahoo Inc. launched a redesign of its popular Internet home page at www.yahoo.com, displaying a more prominent section for Web searches and reconfiguring its display menu. Like Google and Microsoft, Yahoo is introducing clickable tools to let users customize what they see. Alongside the search box will be an assistant that tells people if new messages are in their Yahoo e-mail inbox, a section for popular searches and an expanded news section. In making the changes, Yahoo is the last of the big three search firms to re-focus its main web presence on what users want to do. There will be a variety of new and enhanced features, including:

Yahoo! Pulse: People can instantly discover what's hot on the Web in this unique new section of the home page - including the most popular and interesting Yahoo! searches, as well as the latest trends, music, videos, photos, people and opinions. Yahoo! Pulse highlights what the estimated half a billion monthly users of Yahoo! branded services are looking for, reading, viewing, listening to, rating or sharing online.
Expanded Content: Thought-provoking feature stories, fresh entertainment, sports and finance content, as well as more of the latest national, world and video news are all hand-picked and updated by Yahoo!'s home page editors.
Enhanced Search Box: The newly designed and positioned Yahoo! Search box offers consumers a more prominent gateway to the Web, news, multimedia content, local information, shopping and Yahoo!'s directory to help them find exactly what they want quickly. Additionally, home page visitors can leverage the collective knowledge and experience of real people by accessing Yahoo! Answers just beneath the Yahoo! Search box.
Simple Navigation: Buttons near the top of the page link to Yahoo!'s other popular starting points, My Yahoo! and Yahoo! Mail. Other frequently used Yahoo! products and services are easy to find in a simple column of links, and new content tabs deliver more of the day's important news right on the home page.
More Control: Colors are easily tailored to fit a person's preferences with only a click of the mouse. Complementing My Yahoo!, the most popular personalized start page, the new yahoo.com gives consumers a home page that is immediately more useful and relevant for them.

The new Yahoo! home page is available as a beta, or test, version for the next month to assess how users repond to the alterations in the United States at www.yahoo.com/preview, with local preview versions in the UK and Ireland, France, Germany, Italy and Spain. More enhancements to the page will be added over the coming months, and it will be made generally available in all global markets later this summer. The new look pages aim to move away from the old-fashioned static site where people were simply presented with a page listing everything a web portal did. Users will now be able to customise what they see, remove the bits they never look at and add those others parts of the Yahoo empire that they regularly use. They will also be able to change the layout and the colour of the page. The driving force behind these acquisitions has been the desire to get hold of ready-made communities to sell to. - Internet war between China and US - Should Microsoft Give In To Investor Panic? - eWeek - Telecom Asia Daily / Wireless Asia - All Headline News - kgw.com (subscription)

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2006-05-11T23:19:00.000-07:00

Search engines will remain Google's future

Google has unveiled a new wave of software and desktop gadgetry in its ongoing quest to dominate users' experience of the internet. The world's most popular search engine, which faces mounting competition from rivals Microsoft and Yahoo, showcased innovations while pledging to focus renewed energies on its core business of online search technology. At a meeting with reporters from around the globe, Google introduced several new search enhancements, including a way to subscribe to health research from experts and tools that let people save portions of websites in a pop-up box that can be shared via e-mails. Google's share of online searches rose to 42.7% in March from 36.4% a year ago. Yahoo's and MSN's shares fell, says research firm ComScore Media Metrix. Page says 98% of what will exist in 10 years "has yet to be done, and we won't get there by looking at what other companies are doing." The new tools are:

Google Co-op. Users can sign up at www.google.com/coop/directory to subscribe to free health information from several organizations, including the federal Centers for Disease Control, the Mayo Clinic and Kaiser Permanente. Their tips on the best health data will show up in search results. Google Co-op also offers city guide information for more than 300 cities, including London and New York. Co-op is designed to let organizations label Web pages relevant to their areas of expertise.
"We're going to take the Tom Sawyer view and see how our users paint the fence"
Google Desktop 4An extension of Google's tool to search for items on your computer now comes with more than 100 "Gadgets" — little widgets that do things such as list friends' birthdays, show videos and play music.
Google Trends. Lets users examine searches for market trends. For example, a search for "surfers" will show that most searches come from Hawaii and Australia and link to news stories about surfing. "For the first time ever, Google is making it possible to sift through billions of search queries from around the world to see what people are thinking about," said Mayer. Trends is targeted primarily toward marketers.
Google Notebook lets people save a portion of a website to a box that can be shared with others. Google showed an example of shopping for shoes, saving a certain pair and writing a note about it, then sending it to friends. The tool works in conjunction with Desktop 4.

Executives denied the new products, especially an upgraded Google Desktop with a multi-media player, were a challenge to the dominance of Microsoft's Windows operating system. Eric Schmidt said he saw "no limit" to the company's growth, adding that Google would devote 70% of its resources to search technologies during the next 50 years. Elliot Schrage said Google's goal is more transparency and to be more open about what Google is doing and what not.
Google Strengthens Focus on Search with Four New Tools - Google goes after Microsoft - PC Magazine - Forbes - USA Today - iTWire

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2006-05-01T00:04:00.000-07:00

Yahoo! Turns To Tech
Yahoo! took another step aimed at turning itself into a one-stop information hub Monday by launching a new site focused on consumer technology and gadgets. Yahoo Inc. unveiled a shopping site for gadgets laced with plain-English advice by experts and user-contributed reviews, entering a market long dominated by tech-focused media firm CNet Networks Inc.. Yahoo! Tech marks the latest move by the world's biggest Internet media company to reinvigorate or expand into areas such as travel, finance, automobiles, and now technology. Yahoo! Tech is set to offer hundreds of thousands of products with user product ratings and reviews through its Yahoo Shopping site, as well as question-and-answer guides and community features that exist within the wider Yahoo realm. The site aims to set itself apart from gadget enthusiast sites by focusing on how to make technology easier to understand, the executive-in-charge said.

"What we are trying to do is to make it simple to choose and use the technology that is easiest to use. We built Yahoo! Tech for people who might not have the time nor inclination to learn about bits and bytes."

The advice site draws upon familiar Yahoo tools. It is designed to serve as the anchor across the Internet media giant's network of sites for technology advertising, a lucrative category that is among the most popular online markets for advertisers. Already, big ad spenders Hewlett Packard, Verizon Wireless and Panasonic have signed up. Yahoo! Tech is focusing on the U.S. market and there are no plans to expand into other countries, Houston said. Yahoo also plans to embed original video programming it is producing throughout the site. - Yahoo Introduces a Site on Consumer Technology - Yahoo seeks more advertising with new tech section - CNET News.com - - Earthtimes.org - All Headline News

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2006-04-30T05:27:00.000-07:00

Koirala set to be sworn in as Nepal's Prime Minister

Girija Prasad Koirala was sworn is as Nepal's new prime minister today by King Gyanendra, following weeks of violent pro-democracy protests. The king, humbled by the protests and facing possible moves to end the monarchy, administered the oath of office to his 84-year-old arch foe at the Narayanhity royal palace in the capital, Kathmandu. A frail Koirala, who is suffering from bronchitis, waved at reporters outside the iron gate of the palace after becoming Nepal's 15th prime minister in 16 years. Koirala, the head of the Nepali Congress party, did not take a separate oath to establish himself as a member of the Raj Parishad, a privy council that advises the king. The prime minister automatically becomes a member of the council under Nepal's constitution but political parties have called for it to be abolished. It was the first time a prime minister had declined an oath to the council since multi-party democracy was established in 1990 and marked the latest of several recent moves by political parties to distance themselves from the monarch. Koirala, who has been prime minister four times before, was accompanied by his doctor to the ceremony. Last week, the king appointed Koirala as prime minister on the recommendation of the seven political parties that launched weeks of street protests in which at least 15 people were killed and thousands wounded. The king also reinstated parliament disbanded in 2002. At least 117 cases of journalists being attacked and wounded, including some by gunfire, by security forces while covering pro-democracy demonstrations were also recorded. Critics said the unpopular king may be down now but not yet out.

"Given his personality, as long as he is around, even if he is a symbolic monarch, he will be up to some mischief."

Dixit said the king had money and controlled the army which would tempt him to meddle in the unsettled politics.

"Therefore, one of the first things parliament should do is to clip the king's wings."

Koirala, in a notice to parliament which convened for the first time in four years, proposed elections for a special assembly to draw up a new constitution that would decide the future of monarchy. Political parties are under popular pressure to abolish the monarchy and turn Nepal into a republic. This is also a key demand of Maoist rebels to end a decade-old insurgency in which more than 13,000 people have been killed. Officials said Koirala's plan would be discussed at the second sitting of parliament which is due to meet on Sunday. The parliament is expected to give directives to the new government to match the Maoists who announced a unilateral three-month ceasefire last week and to start talks with them. - Koirala sworn in as Nepal's new premier - New Nepal prime minister sworn in - Economic Times - Pittsburgh Post Gazette - CNN-IBN - TMCnet

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2006-04-06T01:05:00.000-07:00

Firefox Jumps 10% Bar
Firefox has broken the 10% market share barrier, Net Applications published this week in its share report, by jumping a quarter percentage point from February to March.

"The open-source browser now owns 10.05% of the global usage market"

February's Firefox share was 9.75%. Microsoft's Internet Explorer slipped by nearly the same amount that Firefox rose, falling from 85.03% in February to 84.7% in March. A year ago, IE held down 88% of the browser market. Apple's Safari browser also climbed slightly from 3.13% during February to 3.19% in March. Many analysts have called the 10-percent mark an important milestone for the Mozilla Corp. browser, although reaching it took longer than anticipated; Mozilla itself had sent 2005 as the goal. NetApplications' other findings include a continued weak showing by the Norwegian browser, Opera, which controls only 0.53% of the market; and the very small take-up of IE 7 Beta 2 Preview, which is being used by only 0.26% of surfers. - Report: Firefox Past 10 Percent Share - Safari Gains, FireFox Tops 10% in March - Ars Technica - Macworld - MacNN - NetworkWorld.com

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2006-03-19T14:58:00.000-08:00

Do 25 startups build the Next Net?

A new Web revolution might be picking up steam and the next Google or Microsoft could emerge from the companies that are in the vanguard. Things are crackling in Silicon Valley now. There's the frenzied startup action, the rising rivers of VC cash.

SOCIAL MEDIA

Digg - Last.fm - Newsvine - Tagworld - YouTube - Incumbent to watch: Yahoo

MASHUP AND FILTERS

Bloglines - Eurekster - Simply Hired - Technorati - Trulia - Wink - Incumbent to watch: Google

THE NEW PHONE

Fonality - SIPphone - Iotum - Vivox - Incumbent to watch: Skype

THE WEBTOP

JotSpot - 30Boxes - 37Signals - Writely - Zimbra - Incumbent to watch: Microsoft

UNDER THE HOOD

Brightcove - Jigsaw - SimpleFeed - Salesforce - Six Apart - Incumbent to watch: Amazon

There's so much happening that the buzzword recently employed to try to encapsulate the era, "Web 2.0", seems inadequate, defined and redefined by entrepreneurs, marketers, and web experts. Driven by ubiquitous broadband, cheap hardware, and open-source software, the Web is mutating into a radically different thing than it has been. It's leading to the creation of entirely new kinds of companies, new business models, and countless new opportunities. We are in the early stages of what might be better thought of as the Next Net. The Next Net will encompass all digital devices, from PC to cell phone to television. Its defining characteristics include the ability to interact instantaneously with any of the more than one billion Web users across the globe, not by only instant messaging, but by evolving instant-voice-messaging and instant-video-messaging applications that will make today's e-mail and IM seem crude. The Next Net is deeply collaborative: People from across the planet can work together on the same task, and products or tools can be rapidly tweaked and improved by the collective wisdom of the whole online world. The new era is creating a realm of endless mix and match: Anyone with a browser can access vast stores of information, mash it up, and serve it in new ways, to a few people or a few hundred million. The Next Net will create endless possibilities for entrepreneurs and established players alike to take advantage of the Web's new power. They are building on the success of early standard-bearers, Flickr, MySpace, Wikipedia, but also moving beyond those pioneers in creative and fascinating ways. There were identified 25 companies, in five Next Net categories, whose approaches help illuminate where the Web is headed and where the opportunities lie. Most are startups, a lot of them with less than 10 full-time employees. Few are currently making money, and it's a given that many will fail. But it's equally likely that somewhere within this group lurks the next Google or Microsoft or Yahoo -- or at least something that those giants will soon pay a pretty penny to have. - Marketers Are All Talking About Social Networking - Business 2.0 Names Fonality Top 25 Startup - GigaOm - Business Wire - Sydney Morning Herald - The Age

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2006-03-07T15:06:00.000-08:00

Social networking startup LinkedIn turns a profit

LinkedIn announced that due to the rapid adoption of its premium services, the company expects to reach profitability this month. LinkedIn's premium accounts were introduced seven months ago and are priced between $60 and $2,000 per year. LinkedIn's emphasis for the next six to nine months will be to broaden the utility of its offerings that are free to all members. The most active members are those who frequently need to contact professionals as part of their job: recruiters, analysts, researchers, investment professionals, entrepreneurs and management consultants. Hiring managers and job seekers search on LinkedIn when they need to identify top recruits or inside connections to employers. Relationships matter to professionals across all industries and functions, and LinkedIn's product initiatives for 2006 aim to make LinkedIn a useful business web site for millions of professionals world-wide. LinkedIn launched new features to help members connect with past employees and classmates. Success in business is not only based on what or who you know, but who your contacts know. LinkedIn is developing matching technology to identify contacts for members among the people their connections know. This matching takes into account the individual career history of members, as well as future career progression based on the aggregate data of LinkedIn profiles created by over five million professionals. In 2006, people search is expected to become another major vertical in the Internet search category. LinkedIn members see shared professional connections and can get in touch with the people they find via introductions from people they already know. LinkedIn is committed to making people search smart and easy. Members can create search agents that notify them of new members who match their criteria. Job seekers routinely look up the profiles of employees who will be interviewing them. When it comes to career success, degrees of separation can be more important than academic degrees.

"Our investors are interested in driving the growth of the company. Our next goal is reaching the 10 million user mark. You just focus on your business, and how the company is funded is a secondary concern."

LinkedIn is employs 50 employees and will grow its staff based on increased revenue from premium accounts, job listings and advertising. It took LinkedIn three years to gain five million members. LinkedIn is the world's largest and most effective business network. On LinkedIn, more than five million professionals find jobs, people and service providers through their existing network of business relationships. LinkedIn's membership is diverse: 1.8 million members are in Europe and over half a million in Asia. Personal LinkedIn accounts are free, but LinkedIn earns revenue through a number of premium services. Hiring managers posting jobs on LinkedIn Jobs receive candidates recommended by fellow employees or other trusted contacts. More than 300,000 service providers listed in the LinkedIn Services B2B directory have an opportunity to be at the top of the search results when contacts of their former clients search for recommended service providers. More than 1,200 membership organizations use LinkedIn for Groups to strengthen connections between members and develop greater loyalty to the organization. LinkedIn Business and Pro Accounts enable recruiters and researchers to find people beyond their networks and get in touch with job candidates and experts more quickly and efficiently.
Show and tell onlin - Social Networking - The Next Great Marketing Medium? - Albuquerque Tribune - Small Business Computing - ClickZ News Blog - - InternetNews.com

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2006-02-24T02:52:00.000-08:00

Google starts webpage creation tool
Google has introduced a new do-it-yourself website builder facility. The initiative, known as Google Page Creator, attempts to simplify the creation of web pages with minimal knowledge of HTML and allow non-techies to get a web presence as quickly as possible. As a simplistic way for less-technical people to put up a web page, the free service will compete with products from Microsoft, Apple Computer, Adobe and News Corp.'s MySpace. Individual pages will be hosted at "username.googlepages.com" and each user will be able to store up to 100 megabytes of information, including images. Pages created with Page Creator will be crawled by Google within a few hours, making the content immediately searchable. This is an advantage over other web-site hosts, which can take days to be included in Google's search results. Google has often noted its desire to make all the world's information searchable! Page Creator fits with that goal, especially if it is integrated with content uploaded to the web with the company's other properties like Blogger, Base and Picasa. If combined with Gmail and Google Talk, the service could take on a social-networking flavor, which analysts note Google lacks when compared with Web portal competitors like Yahoo! or openBC. In order to compete with a social site like MySpace, however, Page Creator's customization options will have to increase. In the current beta version, only four basic templates and 41 designs are available, though Google is actively soliciting feedback from beta testers on its site. - Google Sets Sites on User-Generated Web Pages - Build a website with Google - Techtree.com - Newsday - TechNewsWorld - InformationWeek

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2006-02-18T13:53:00.000-08:00

Web surfers just want to have fun
Nearly one-third of American Internet users surveyed said they go online just for fun rather than to check e-mail, read news or use a search engine, a sharp increase from a year ago, the Pew Internet & American Life Project said. Among the dozens of activities that are tracked on an average day by the Pew Internet Project, the act of surfing for fun trails only the more purposeful activities of doing their email and using search engines, and lies in a virtual dead heat with reading the news. Two-thirds of all internet users have tried surfing the Web, and in a survey conducted in December 2005, nearly half of those, some 40 million people, said they were surfing for fun on a typical day during the month. This number is up from 25 million people who were browsing for no particular reason in November 2004, the most recent time when this question was asked by the Pew Internet Project.

"This tells us the internet is another place where people increasingly go to while away their time or just to hang out. That has potentially big consequences for the way people spend their time".

A survey of 1,931 Internet users conducted by Pew in late November and December 2005 found 30% of respondents said they went online "for no particular reason" on the previous day.

34% of online men were surfing for fun on an average day in December, compared with 26% of women.
37% of internet users between ages 18 – 29 were browsing for fun on an average day; 31% of those ages 30 – 49; 24% of those over age 50.
39% of home broadband users were browsing for fun on a typical day, compared with 23% of dial up users.

That was up from 21% in a November 2004 survey. Pew credited the increase on growing availability of broadband access and expanding Web content. When it comes to other online pursuits, Pew said that sending or receiving e-mail ranked highest with 52% of Internet users saying they did this on a typical day. Using a search engine ranked second with 38%, while reading news online was third with 31%. Pew said the margin of error on the survey was plus or minus 2% points. - Web surfers just want to have fun - Study: Internet Users Go Online for Fun - Ars Technica - Playfuls.com - NBC5.com - All Headline News

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2006-01-22T11:44:00.000-08:00

Google refuses to let US examine search requests
Google users will face US government monitoring if the American authorities win a court case aimed at getting the website to hand over copies of every search conducted. ACLU said an attempt by the Bush administration to force Google to turn over a broad range of materials from its databases set a dangerous precedent that should worry all Americans.

"This is the camel's nose under the tent for using search engines and all kinds of data aggregators as surveillance tools"

The Cato Institute who also runs Privacilla.org. The Bush administration is under fire from a number of rights groups over security measures it has taken since the September 11, 2001 attacks on America. The Justice Department stated that Google had refused to comply with a subpoena issued last year for one million random Web addresses from Google's databases as well as records of all searches entered on Google during any one-week period. The government said it needed the information to prepare its case to revive the 1998 COPA, which the Supreme Court blocked from taking effect two years ago. The law prohibited Internet companies from knowingly making available obscene or pornographic material to minors. The Supreme Court said there were potential constitutional problems with the law and sent the case back to a lower court for consideration. The Justice Department said on Friday that America Online, Yahoo and Microsoft had all complied with similar requests. Alberto Gonzales rejected concerns that the subpoena might violate individual privacy rights.

"We're not asking for the identity of Americans. We simply want to have some subject matter information with respect to these communications. This is important for the Department of Justice and we will pursue this matter,"

A Google spokesperson said the company objected to the breadth of the government's request but did not consider it to be a privacy issue since the search terms would not include personally identifiable details. Edward Markey said he would introduce a bill to strengthen consumers' Internet privacy by prohibiting the storage of personally identifiable information Internet searches beyond a reasonable time.

"Internet search engines provide an extraordinary service, but the preservation of that service does not rely on a bottomless, timeless database that can do great damage despite good intentions"

Chris Jay Hoofnagle of the EPIC worried that the government could follow up its initial request with a demand for more information. Ari Schwartz of the CDT said he was glad Google was fighting the case but the company needed to make privacy a more fundamental part of its products.

"Such a move absolutely should breed some paranoia. They didn't ask for data this time, but next time, they might."

On the other side, the Cincinnati-based National Coalition for Protection of Children and Families, a Christian fundamentalist group, said search companies should be willing to help the government defend children from pornography. - Uproar Grows Over US Demand for Google Search Records - Search engines vs. the DOJ: The aftermath - Minneapolis Star Tribune (subscription) - eWeek - TMCnet - InformationWeek

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2006-01-18T07:50:00.000-08:00

Number of Chinese netizens grows to 111 million!
The number of Chinese netizens rose to 111 million at the end of 2005, an increase of 17 million from a year ago, according CNNIC that published its 17th China Internet Development Report on Tuesday. 91.69 million Internet users live in urban districts. Through the end of 2005 China had 49.5 million online capable PCs, up 19% from 2004. Internet expenditure in China surpassed 100 billion yuan for 2005. It was the first time spending data has been released. CNNIC mentioned that China's Internet users spent an average of 15.9 hours per week on the Internet or 20.5% more than the previous year. It also said Internet users in eastern China, the country's most affluent region, accounted for 57.8% of the total, representing a sustantial digital divide between the east and the rest of the country. CNNIC is a government-backed non-profit organization providing Internet-related services including domain name registry, IP address application as well as Internet surveys. - China Internet users at 111 mln at end-2005 - CNNIC - In China, 111 million Net users counted - People's Daily Online - DigiTimes - Moldova.org - Computer Partner

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2006-01-03T13:31:00.000-08:00

Blogs Buzzing With Google PC Report
A Los Angeles Times story says the search engine giant has been chatting with Wal-Mart and others to sell a computer that would run a Google-developed operating system, not Microsoft's Windows The PC would run an operating system created by Google, not Microsoft's Windows, which is one reason it would be so cheap - perhaps as little as a couple of hundred dollars. Bear Stearns analysts speculated in a research report last month that consumers would soon see something called "Google Cubes" - a small hardware box that could allow users to move songs, videos and other digital files between their computers and TV sets. Larry Page will give a keynote address Friday at the Consumer Electronics Show. Analysts suspect that Page will use the opportunity either to show off a Google computing device or announce a partnership with a big retailer to sell such a machine. - CES Suspense: Does Google Have Low-Cost Web Device Up Sleeve? - Google PC on the horizon? - Search Engine Watch - Register - Inquirer - RealTechNews

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2005-12-29T14:54:00.000-08:00

Study: Men and Women Use Internet Differently
Men and women have different motivations for surfing on the Internet. According to a recent report from Pew Internet and American Life, women view the Internet as a place to extend, support, and nurture relationships and communities. Men tend to see it as an office, a library, or a playground, screw the community, this is about function not family. The report found that women are more enthusiastic communicators, using email in a more robust way. Not only sending and receiving more email than men, women are more likely to write to family and friends about a variety of topics, sharing news, joys and worries, planning events, and forwarding jokes and stories. While both sexes equally appreciate the efficiency and convenience of email, women are more likely than men to value the medium for its positive effects on improving relationships, expanding networks, and encouraging teamwork at the office. The report found that women are more likely to use the Internet for emailing, getting maps and directions, looking for health and medical information, seeking support for health and personal problems, and getting religious information. Men tend to be more intense Internet users than women, being more likely to go online daily and more likely to go online several times a day. Men also tend to go online in greater numbers than women but for a much broader variety of reasons. Men are more likely to use the Internet to check the weather, get news, find do-it-yourself information, acquire sports scores and information, look for political information, do job-related research, download software, listen to music, rate a product/person/service through an online reputation system, download music, use a webcam, and take a class. Women catching up with online activities - Web Study Reflects Gender Gap - Techtree.com - BBC News - Seattle Times - World Peace Herald

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2005-12-18T03:39:00.000-08:00

Why Was Google So Desperate for AOL?

Web search leader Google is in exclusive talks to buy a 5% stake in Time Warner's AOL Internet unit for $1 billion. A deal would shut out Microsoft, which was seeking its own arrangement. News of the deal, first reported by the Wall Street Journal, propelled Google shares to a record high. Under the terms of the proposed deal, which could close within days, Google would continue to provide AOL with its paid search advertising technology for five years. The deal would allow AOL to sell display and banner advertising to other Web sites using Google's ad serving technology. AOL accounts for from 2% to 4% of Google's revenue on net basis. Microsoft had been negotiating to get AOL to use its search technology instead, which would have almost immediately given the software giant a huge presence in its fledgling paid search business.

"AOL would have been a huge opportunity and a natural fit to jump start that business for Microsoft. If Google has boxed Microsoft out, it begs the question: How is Microsoft going to flourish online?"

Google, and to a lesser extent Yahoo!, have enjoyed dramatic growth in their search advertising businesses over the past year. The companies generate revenue each time a Web user clicks on text advertisements that run alongside Internet search results. A deal with AOL would set the stage for Google to expand into display advertising, taking dead aim at Yahoo, which is entrenched in both paid search and display advertising. Together the different types of advertising make up a market of roughly $12 billion annually. Early talks with Microsoft centered on putting its online network MSN and AOL together, but that was too complex and talks shifted to a joint venture that would include search advertising and display or branded advertising. Less than two weeks ago, Time Warner Chief Executive Dick Parsons said the joint venture was the way Time Warner wanted to go and terms of the deal changed little between then and its final offer. The source said, "What did change a lot was the pressure being applied to Time Warner in the course of that time frame," referring to corporate raider turned shareholder activist Carl Icahn, who is leading a group of shareholders advocating a breakup of Time Warner. Icahn's group, which has a 3.1% stake in Time Warner, says the company is worth more in pieces than as a conglomerate.

"It is my belief that, if the proper partner were allowed to have control of AOL, shareholder value would be much more greatly enhanced than through a half-hearted joint venture that might only serve the purpose of entrenching management"

AOL is seen is a critical swing factor on search technology traffic among Internet media rivals Google, Microsoft and Yahoo, just as it once was on online advertising, a category it practically invented in the early 1990s. AOL made surfing the Internet and chatting online a household phenomenon. Time Warner has acknowledged in the past that one of the key missing components of its Internet strategy was a paid search component. Google in $1bn link with AOL - AOL EXECS WIN ONE - Best Syndication - Seattle Post Intelligencer - SYS-CON Media - MSNBC

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2005-12-12T08:57:00.000-08:00

There's no Wikipedia entry for 'moral responsibility'

On Monday, in one of his now-weekly appearances on cable news defending the latest Wikipedia scandal, the project's figurehead Jimmy 'Jimbo' Wales expressed his desire to find the anonymous internet user who had libeled John Seigenthaler. It started as a joke and ended up as a shot heard round the Internet, with the joker losing his job and Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia, suffering a blow to its credibility. A man in Nashville has admitted that, in trying to shock a colleague with a joke, he put false information into a Wikipedia entry about John Seigenthaler Sr., a former editor of The Tennessean in Nashville. Brian Chase, who until Friday was an operations manager at a small delivery company, told Mr. Seigenthaler on Friday that he had written the material suggesting that Mr. Seigenthaler had been involved in the assassinations of John and Robert Kennedy. Wikipedia, a nonprofit venture that is the world's biggest encyclopedia, is written and edited by thousands of volunteers. Mr. Seigenthaler discovered the false entry only recently and wrote about it in an op-ed article in USA Today, saying he was especially annoyed that he could not track down the perpetrator because of Internet privacy laws. His plight touched off a debate about the reliability of information on Wikipedia - and by extension the entire Internet - and the difficulty in holding Web sites and their users accountable, even when someone is defamed. In a confessional letter to Mr. Seigenthaler, Mr. Chase said he thought Wikipedia was a "gag" Web site and that he had written the assassination tale to shock a co-worker, who knew of the Seigenthaler family and its illustrious history in Nashville. "It had the intended effect," Mr. Chase said of his prank in an interview. But Mr. Chase said that once he became aware last week through news accounts of the damage he had done to Mr. Seigenthaler, he was remorseful and also a little scared of what might happen to him. Mr. Chase also found that he was slowly being cornered in cyberspace, thanks to the sleuthing efforts of Daniel Brandt, 57, of San Antonio, who makes his living as a book indexer. Mr. Brandt has been a frequent critic of Wikipedia and started an anti-Wikipedia Web site (www.wikipedia-watch.org) in September after reading what he said was a false entry about himself. Using information in Mr. Seigenthaler's article and some online tools, Mr. Brandt traced the computer used to make the Wikipedia entry to the delivery company in Nashville. Mr. Brandt called the company and told employees there about the Wikipedia problem. Mr. Brandt also sent an e-mail message to the company, asking for information about its courier services. A response bore the same Internet Protocol address that was left by the creator of the Wikipedia entry, offering further evidence of a connection. A call by a New York Times reporter to the delivery company on Thursday made employees nervous. On Friday, Mr. Chase hand-delivered a letter to Mr. Seigenthaler's office, confessing what he had done, and later they talked at length. Mr. Chase told him that the Seigenthaler name had come up at work and that he had popped it into a search engine and was led to Wikipedia, where, he said, he was surprised that anyone could make an entry.

"I am truly sorry to have offended you, sir. Whatever fame comes to me from this will be ill-gotten indeed."

Mr. Seigenthaler said Mr. Brandt was a genius for tracking down Mr. Chase. He said he would not take Mr. Chase to court. Mr. Chase resigned from his job because he did not want to cause problems for his company. Mr. Siegenthaler urged Mr. Chase's boss to rehire him, but Mr. Chase said that this had not happened. Mr. Chase said that as Mr. Brandt and the news media were closing in and he realized how much he had hurt Mr. Seigenthaler, he decided that stepping forward was the right thing to do. Mr. Seigenthaler said that as a longtime advocate of free speech found it awkward to be tracking down someone who had exercised that right.

"I still believe in free expression. What I want is accountability."

Jimmy Walessaid that the site would make more information about users available to make it easier to lodge complaints. But he portrayed the error as something that fell through the cracks, not a sign of a systemic problem. Wikipedia "joker" apologizes for phoney online bio - Caught red handed - p2pnet.net - United Press International - BetaNews - Kashar News

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2005-12-09T00:16:00.000-08:00

US still holds key to climate forum success
Delegates appear close to agreement on one of the last two major issues to be decided at the United Nations conference on climate change. Tony Blair has been warned not to allow the US to dictate the future of the Kyoto Protocol on climate change by refusing to participate in discussions. The Prime Minister was accused by aid and environment groups of sending out confusing and ambiguous messages on the subject. The UK coalition - the first of its kind - aims to highlight the problems human development and ecosystems are facing as ministers discuss the issue in Montreal. It is calling for official recognition that the threat from climate change is so large that it threatens all the internationally-agreed targets for poverty reduction - the Millennium Development Goals. It is also lobbying that any deal to develop the Kyoto Protocol beyond 2012 should force countries to adopt greenhouse gas reduction targets which are adequate to stop dangerous climate change. Sufficient resources must be provided to enable developing countries to adapt to the degree warming already built into the earth's climate system, it urges. The groups are calling on Tony Blair to resist pressure to block progress in order to appease the current US administration. The coalition's report "Africa: Up in Smoke?" makes it clear that Mr Blair's efforts to alleviate poverty in Africa will ultimately fail unless urgent action is taken to halt dangerous climate change. Rich countries have failed to join the dots between climate change and development, particularly in Africa, it said. And unless addressed, this could condemn generations in the world's poorest nations. Africa is on the front line of global warming, with 70 per cent of the workforce relying on mostly rain-fed agriculture for their livelihoods. Climate change is already disrupting these vital rains, bringing more droughts and floods. The report, with a foreword by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, details the impact that climate change is already having on Africa and the threat it poses to human development. John Magrath of Oxfam said: "The Kyoto Protocol must and will go forward. It is the only game in town." Similarly, Catherine Pearce, of Friends of the Earth, said: "Politicians gathered here in Montreal need to take on board that the public want action. Coalitions like ours are now emerging in other countries. Andrew Simms, of the New Economics Foundation, said: "The Government's chief scientific adviser Sir David King, former UN weapons inspector Hans Blix, and Sir John Houghton have all said that global warming is a bigger threat to society than terrorism. That means it needs a stronger international response." Trail goes cold in search for climate deal - US Execs Clamping Down on Environment - Winnipeg Sun - Sify - New York Times - Xinhua

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2005-11-20T12:26:00.000-08:00

Tunisia Internet Summit Marred By Criticism

Building a global information society that is fair, equitable, and accessible to everyone is challenge that is going to take years to achieve. It was not going to happen in three days of discussions at this week's UN World Summit on the Information Society in Tunis. If half of the world's population is online by 2015, who knows that the web will look like, what kinds if speeds we will have, and whether keyboards, monitors and grey boxes will exist outside of museums. But the equalising force of networks which holds an unfathomable wealth of information, knowledge should be as free and ubiquitous as the air we share. There are divides within the digital divide that jostle for priority in many countries. The challenge is designing and making available technologies, which can help everyone in the worlds take advantage of this cerebral network. As Yoshio Utsumi put it in his closing remarks at WSIS, the internet is like a "living, breathing creature", still finding its feet. It is toddling towards puberty, but there is still a long way highway ahead of it. And to many, it is not yet a "super" highway. Technology is changing at such a tremendous speed, that the scenery of the internet may look completely different in five years' time. For millions of digitally dispossessed global citizens who know what opportunities the net can offer, there is a lot of frustration. This is evident among young people who are envious of what fortunate digital citizens in the West enjoy. Efforts by non-governmental groups, the private sector, governments and charities are ensuring that projects to provide the infrastructure, both wired and wireless, the hardware and the knowledge are in place, and sustainable. The UN net summit was marked by a lack of attention by the global mainstream media. Much of the summit, the single biggest thing to happen to Tunisia in recent history, was dominated by whether the US should keep technical control of the net and freedom of speech on the net. The issue was resolved partially in a compromise solution to set up an international forum to look at issues such as cyber security. China is setting up its own Chinese net addresses, which are not provided by the US-based Icann group, creating, a regionalised internet over which Chinese authorities have more control.

"The net is not just one internet controlled by one centre, regionalisation has already started and I suspect that in a few years, the scenery of the internet will be a quite different one"

"Many fear giving over this type of control at a government level compromises the net's legacy of liberal, loose, grass roots lifeblood that feeds on debate, diversity, opinion and opposition. e-learning, e-government, e-commerce and e-medicine are commonplace to many in the West, but they are still of paramount importance to developing nations who need political pressure. Civic responsibility needs to have priorities. Developing nations need a helping hand to join the richer nations online. But it remains to be seen if any of the talk at the UN summit materialises into political action to narrow the technology gap. Lack of freedom of speech in Tunisia disappoints US Khaleej Times
Tunisia: Legitimacy of UN Summit called into question by Tunisian ... Amnesty International
The peaks of an information summit NZZ Online
Swissinfo - Yahoo! News - TIME - Ninemsn

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2005-11-17T08:07:00.000-08:00

Google offers free analytical tools

A move by Google towards offering some kind of web analytics tool has been on the cards since March of this year when the search engine announced the purchase of Urchin software. Web analytical tools have become a vital component in the search engine optimisers' armoury. Whilst the analysis of server log files has been a no-brainer for any serious web site for over a decade web analytical tools are able to delve much deeper and provide information that allows an optimiser to study where the traffic from search engine comes from, what is does when it arrives on landing pages and, most importantly what it does when it gets there.

"These services help provide answers to questions like: Which keywords attract the most visitors?"

Which email campaigns create more customers and how to design web page content that holds people's attention are some of the questions webmasters have to find answers to. The Google Analytics tool has been integrated with the company's AdWords contextual advertising programme with a new set of tools. The search engine says Google Analytics can automatically tag keyword destination URLs. It also imports cost data for ROI reports either as raw data or in chart format. Google Analytics can be used to track the results of any online marketing campaign, including banner ads, referral links, email newsletters, and organic and paid search. Web analytics tools allow a web master to spot whether their ads are being spammed by competitors or whether web sites are boosting the click through rate on the ads they serve to get money from the Google AdSense programme. Although Google Analytics is intended for the company's AdWords customers, the service is provided free for anyone with a web site. The service has been launched with support for 16 languages, along with three built-in summary reports for the executive, marketer and webmaster. Bumpy start for Google analytics giveaway - Announcing Google Analytics Support - Google Analytics: Rising Tide, or Tsunami? - SEO Blog - Computer Business Review

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2005-11-03T04:39:00.000-08:00

Seventh Night of Riots in France

Violence continued for a seventh night in towns on the edge of Paris with youths taking over a police station, vandalizing a shopping center and setting fire to businesses, buses and cars. Youths clashed with police in at least nine towns and communities, most of them concentrated in Paris' northern suburban areas. In La Courneuve two shots were fired at police but no one was injured. Most of the rioters have used rocks, sticks and Molotov cocktails in their attacks. Jacques Chirac met with his cabinet Wednesday to map out a strategy for combating the continuing violence, but officials failed to announce any decisions.

"Zones without law cannot exist in the republic."

The president declared that law would be enforced firmly but also acknowledged frustrations and urged dialogue. Chirac has not personally addressed the French public about the unrest that erupted last Thursday night when two teenagers were electrocuted in a power substation while dodging a police checkpoint in the impoverished town of Clichy-sous-Bois. An escalation of violence appeared to shock France's leadership. Youths set fire to 228 vehicles in 13 towns and communities and attacked a fire station in Aulnay-sous-Bois, a vacant social center in a southeastern community in the departement of Seine-et-Marne, set fire to cars in Yvelines. Riot police fired rubber-coated bullets, stun grenades and tear gas canisters in an effort to disperse the attackers. Television footage showed one group of riot policemen pointing their guns through the window of an apartment building's door as women and children cowered and ducked out of sight. The violence was contagious in communities of immigrants and second-generation French citizens where unemployment is more than twice the national average, crime is rampant, social services are minimal and residents are packed into the shabby high-rise apartments of subsidized housing. Because of the violence, Dominique de Villepin postponed a planned visit on Wednesday to Canada and Nicolas Sarkozy canceled a four-day trip to Pakistan and Afghanistan. Chirac's cabinet members announced no concrete plans for countering the spiraling violence. De Villepin and Sarkozy have blamed each other for inaction in a series of nasty public barbs. Both men are competing within Chirac's political party to run for the French presidency in 2007. The Socialist Party criticized Chirac and de Villepin for their silence over the violence and criticized Sarkozy for his hard-line approach toward the poor communities. The violent outbursts have been particularly sensitive for Sarkozy, the son of a Hungarian immigrant, who has advocated more rights for immigrants and has proposed changes in French law that would allow government buildings to be used as mosques. But he also has ordered major crackdowns on crime in poor communities where residents say police often harass them needlessly. The street fighting threatened to take on religious overtones Sunday when a police tear gas canister was thrown inside a mosque where about 700 worshipers were taking part in prayers. Local Islamic leaders said they have attempted to persuade local youths to refrain from violence. French officials said 34 people were detained in Tuesday night's street fighting. 7th night of violence in Paris - Paris riots lay bare deeper problems - Guardian Unlimited - CNN - BBC News - Globe and Mail

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2005-10-31T03:06:00.000-08:00

IBM signs up for Google desktop search
IBM has released a free plugin that makes its enterprise search technology accessible through the corporate edition of Google Desktop Search. IBM and Google Inc. are collaborating to make it easier for office workers not only to search for local documents and personal e-mail but to delve deep into corporate databases. IBM is linking up its OmniFind corporate search system with Google's free desktop search for business to make it easier for users to locate information throughout an organisation that is often locked up in many separate systems.

"Getting these two products together makes sense for both of us. If you want to have a good corporate search product, you have to have desktop search."

Google wins IBM's endorsement among corporate technical managers for its desktop search product and IBM gives corporate information workers an already popular entry point into back-office databases through Google's search. Searchable data ranges from e-mail to computer files to blog postings to corporate repositories of data, images, audio or video. Much of this is not available using public Web search tools. It is hard to reach inside a company except by trawling through many different programs.

"There is a lot of information that passively sits inside an enterprise. Our intention is to provide more of an active service that gives a single view of all that information."

No money is changing hands in this loose partnership by the world's biggest computer company and the leader in Web search. But coming just weeks after a software and research pact by Google and Sun Microsystems Inc., the new deal with IBM enlists another potential ally as Google increasingly faces off with rival Microsoft Corp. on PC desktops. Prial downplayed any grand strategy in IBM's dealings with Google, but said it was part of a broader push IBM calls information as a service, which the computer company plans to make more explicit over the coming months. Users of IBM's WebSphere integration software would have access to information stored inside rival business databases and content management systems, not just those from IBM. IBM customers can use the Google-IBM search combination by buying IBM products and services and building their own in-house system or rely on IBM to create a pre-packaged system, tailored to the company's industry. Mountain View, California-based Google eschews big, formal alliances with corporate technology suppliers like IBM. That's been the traditional route less-established software suppliers have used to win corporate acceptance of their products. Google's strategy is rather to use its popularity with consumers at home to slip into offices by relying on the actions of millions of employees to each download its tools. IBM partners with Google on information service - IBM, Google Team on Search - Computer Partner - TechWhack - Earthtimes.org - CMPnetAsia

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2005-10-27T00:42:00.000-07:00

Google Tests Reputed eBay Killer

Search giant Google, Inc. tipped its hand this week to Google Base, it's much-rumored auction service that many people believe is meant to compete against auction sites like eBay or Craigslist. Google Inc. is testing a new service to let Web users publish information online. Analysts and blog commentators have been abuzz this week over purported Web page screenshots showing a new service called "Google Base." Another related service could offer online payments and would put Google head-to-head with eBay Inc.'s PayPal payments service. "Google Base" as depicted in screenshots on Google-watching sites encourages users to post details of their small business enterprises, articles on current events, automobile listings and even scientific research.

"We are testing new ways for content owners to easily send their content to Google. We're continually exploring new opportunities to expand our offerings, but we don't have anything to announce at this time."

Analysts said that if Google combines the publishing system with its Froogle shopping service and other offerings it could compete with local classified advertising on sites such as eBay, Craig's List or online shopping at Amazon.com. The site, "Search Engine Roundtable", links to a posting attributed to Google in which the company is said to be introducing a tool at a closed meeting it calls 'Google Zeitgeist'05 Partner Forum' being held on Google's Mountain View campus. Big Waves from "Google Base" - Google to open online market? - Sydney Morning Herald (subscription) - San Jose Mercury News - ZDNet - InformationWeek

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2005-10-26T05:15:00.000-07:00

IRS has refund checks for more than 5,700 New Yorkers
The IRS announced yesterday that it cannot deliver income-tax refund checks to 373 taxpayers who filed their 2004 tax returns from the lower Hudson Valley because it does not have their current addresses. The IRS could not deliver 84,290 refund checks to taxpayers in 2005, mainly because of incorrect or out-of-date addresses. The unclaimed refunds average $871 each, though some taxpayers have more than one check waiting for them. If you think you might be one of the missing owners, click on "Where's My Refund" on the front page of the IRS Web site. You'll need to enter your Social Security number, filing status and the refund amount on your 2004 tax return. Visit the site. The number of unclaimed refunds is down this year as 87,485 refunds remained uncollected at this time last year. More taxpayers asking for direct deposit of their refunds into their bank accounts, instead of having their checks mailed, is helping push down the number of unclaimed refunds. As of Friday, the IRS deposited directly into taxpayers' bank accounts more than half of all refunds for the year, with more than 52 million refunds direct deposited -- a 7% increase from last year -- for a total of about $134 billion. Still, an incorrect "address" can happen with direct deposit as well as snail mail, so taxpayers should be careful when filling out their bank account information. NYers sought for IRS refund - IRS owes money to 2,400 area residents - Daily Breeze - Miami Herald - MarketWatch - Asheville Citizen-Times

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2005-10-21T04:26:00.000-07:00

Firefox Exceeds 100 Million Downloads

The Mozilla Foundation's Firefox browser has reached 100 million downloads only five months after hitting the 50 million mark and just a few weeks prior to the one-year anniversary of its formal release. While the browser has seen download rates spike over the past year, the adoption of the browser mainly has been a steady growth path. Between 200,000 and 300,000 downloads occur now per day. Mozilla has openly thanked its thousands of contributors worldwide for efforts that have caused adoption to go far beyond expectations.

"Their work developing and fine-tuning the Firefox browser ensures the best Web experience available. Volunteer extension developers further enrich Firefox's capabilities by enabling users to customize and enhance their browser and truly take back the Web."

Getting to the 100 million mark might be cause for celebration at Mozilla, but the organization has not been without its challenges. Most notably, the browser has had several security flaws reported, and its marketing site, SpreadFirefox.com, was recently brought down by hackers. A Symantec report noted that Mozilla browsers had more reported vulnerabilities than Microsoft's Internet Explorer in the first half of 2005, but the report also noted that the Microsoft flaws were considered more serious. While pundits continually have said that the adoption rates for Firefox will slow, the ranks of Firefox users have grown, indicating that it is nibbling away at Internet Explorer's formidable market share. Gartner analyst Ray Valdes said it is possible that use of the Firfox browser will see a significant drop once Microsoft's next OS is released and subsequent changes are made to the Internet Explorer browser.

"Much will depend on how Microsoft ties Internet Explorer to its big releases next year. They may not have planned to emphasize Internet Explorer, but I think Firefox's adoption rate is something they're noticing."

Actually, many enterprise I.T. departments are looking at Firefox as a viable alternative to Internet Explorer. This interest could product the kind of corporate endorsement necessary for the browser to keep growing, noted Valdes. Firefox Marks 100M Downloads - 100m surfers hunt down Firefox - CIO Today - ComputerWorld - eWeek - Pocket-lint.co.uk

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2005-10-12T12:33:00.000-07:00

Apple Introduces Video, TV Playing IPod

Apple Computer Inc. unveiled a version of its market-leading iPod that plays videos and increased the iMac computer's ability to act as a home entertainment hub by adding a remote control. The video iPod, a long-rumored product that could further spark sales of the popular brand, has a 2.5-inch screen and comes with 30 or 60 gigabytes of memory. It will sell for $299 and $399, respectively. The company also plans to offer music videos for $1.99 each at its iTunes online music store, along with short films from Pixar Animation Studios Inc.. It said some ABC television shows would be available on iTunes a day after broadcast for $1.99. The company unveiled the new products at a news event in California's Silicon Valley. Apple has already sold more than 28 million iPods since their introduction in October 2001 and now has about 75% of the market for digital music players. The company has refreshed the iPod line-up many times since their introduction. Apple on September 7 unveiled the iPod nano, a pencil-thin device that uses memory chips instead of hard disk drives to store songs. The new iMac computer, which the company said would stand as an entertainment hub for DVDs, music and photos, will also directly complete with Microsoft Corp.'s Media Center. The new products come after Apple reported a fiscal fourth-quarter profit that quadrupled from a year ago as revenue rose 56% and unit sales of iPods more than tripled. Apple profit surges, but shares drop on revenue miss - Apple's Jobs Unveils IPod Video Player at 'One More Thing' Show - San Jose Mercury News - MSN Money - New York Times - Forbes

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2005-10-11T11:47:00.000-07:00

Two Game Theorists Win the Nobel Prize for Economics

Thomas C. Schelling and an Robert J. Aumann won the 2005 Nobel prize for economics for their work on game theory, which can explain and resolve trade and business conflicts, and even play a role in avoiding war. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences gave the 10 million crown prize to Thomas C. Schelling and Robert J. Aumann for a work that has found uses in "security and disarmament policies, price formation on markets, as well as economic and political negotiations." Aumanny was born in Germany but is an Israeli and U.S. citizen who teaches at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Schelling teaches at the University of Maryland. "Game theory" is the science of strategy and attempts to determine what actions different "players", such as trading partners, employers, unions or even organized crime groups, should take to secure the best outcome for themselves. Game theory work has won the Nobel before. John Nash, whose life was portrayed in the movie A Beautiful Mind, won the economics prize with two others in 1994.

"I think game theory creates ideas that are important in solving and approaching conflict in general"

Schelling told Reuters by telephone from his home in Maryland that he was glad to have his work recognized.

"I'm a student of cooperation and conflict, I'm not really a game theorist...I would not try very hard to make the case that what I do is economics,"

Schelling, whose career began with work on the U.S. Marshall Plan to help rebuild Europe after World War Two, has applied game theory to global security and the Cold War arms race. He has tried to explain how a taboo around nuclear weapons after the bombing of Hiroshima in 1945 itself became a factor in deterring their use after World War Two, even as both sides of the Cold War amassed big nuclear arsenals. Nobel rewards "game theory" - They know how to win Nobels - MarketWatch - Washington Post - Los Angeles Times - noticias.info

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2005-10-05T00:43:00.000-07:00

Google and Sun Announce a Joint Agreement
Google and Sun Microsystems announced a broad but vague agreement to develop and distribute each other's technology in a bid to expand their markets and challenge Microsoft's dominance of computer desktops. In a case of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend," Sun Microsystems and Google teamed up to take a swipe at Microsoft's desktop dominance. The deal could be a boon for Sun, which has tried with minimal success to use its open source desktop suite, StarOffice, to put a dent in Microsoft's Office monopoly. With Google's backing and a new market approach, the latest deal is a positive for Sun, but the extent of any long term benefit is unclear.

"There should be a lot of money flowing both ways if we do this right"

He wouldn't be more specific than that, and neither would his former protégé at Sun and current counterpart at Google, Eric Schmidt. Schmidt said Google expects to drive more ad revenue from an increase in the use of its search toolbar. McNealy pointed out that Google is a Sun customer and will continue buying Sun's products. More importantly for Sun, the deal calls for Google to distribute Sun's desktop software package, known as the Java Runtime Environment, and an open source desktop productivity suite, called OpenOffice.org, which Sun founded in 1999 as an offshoot of StarOffice. Sun will include Google's toolbar search as an option in its JRE. All of the products involved in the announcement represent a threat to Microsoft's Office products. Google and Sun have separately and repeatedly said that Microsoft's time is past, while the Internet will be used as the dominant conduit for software and technology applications. That transition shifts the center of gravity away from the proprietary desktop PC and onto the open Internet. It is a vision Sun has been espousing for years, and it's one that the company paid dearly for as the dot-com implosion reverberated. Sun has made a comeback of sorts this year, making a couple of large acquisitions and vocally touting its resurgent positioning. Microsoft, has run into difficulties, as Google has taken its status away as the premier standard bearer in the tech industry. Google still bills itself as a lowly search engine, even as it assembles an impressive array of new technologies to rival Microsoft, including e-mail and desktop search. Sun has typically been known as an enterprise-computing company, focusing its development and products on expensive, powerful servers and its own operating system for data-intensive number crunching. Still, just as Microsoft's Office program is used in the workplace, it can also be used in the home. The same is true of Sun's StarOffice software, which consists of word processing, spreadsheet, graphic design, presentation, mail reader, calendar and other features. New alliance sees opportunities vs. Microsoft - Google and Sun join forces - InformationWeek - MSN Money - ZDNet - Boston Herald

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2005-10-03T03:18:00.000-07:00

Turkey's EU Entry Talks in Limbo

Austria stuck to its position Monday, resisting Turkey's bid to become the first predominantly Muslim nation to join the European Union and forcing EU foreign ministers into a second day of crisis talks. A Turkish official today said Turkey had rejected proposed changes to its framework agreement to opening accession talks with the European Union.

"The EU has proposed some changes to the framework document. Our minister has rejected them all."

Accession talks are scheduled to open later today, but Austria has insisted Turkey be offered a partnership, not full membership.

"The responsibility is with the EU ... If there is no result, there will be no departure from here."

Officials have said that Turkey’s delegation to open EU accession talks, which is to be led by Abdullah Gul, will not depart from Turkey until the minister has seen and approved the EU accession framework that lays out the plans for negotiations. Straw fights to save Turkey EU deal - EU deadlock over starting Turkey talks deepens - International Herald Tribune - Bloomberg - Forbes - MSN Money

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2005-09-30T01:57:00.000-07:00

NASA and Google to build research centre

NASA and Google are to build a million-square-foot research centre at NASA's Research Park at Moffett Field, Silicon Valley. Google and the National Aeronautical and Space Administration said they plan to cooperate on research projects such as large-scale data management, nanotechnology, massively distributed computing and the entrepreneurial space industry. G. Scott Hubbard said in a statement that the public-private partnership holds "an enormous range of potential benefits to the space program." The deal calls for Google to develop up to 1 million square feet of real estate within the NASA Research Park at Moffett Field, a former Naval air base that is surrounded by thousands of high-tech companies in the heart of Silicon Valley. The building plan is roughly double the size of its current headquarters in the adjoining town of Mountain View, California, where Google moved into the old offices of Silicon Graphics just two years ago. Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed. Seven-year-old Google has been hiring employees at a rapid pace to meet explosive demand for its advertising-supported search and other Internet businesses. Google currently has 4,100 employees worldwide. Hubbard said examples of the sorts of projects envisioned under the partnership include new types of remote sensors, improved analysis of engineering problems and "materials from collaborations on bio-info-nano convergence." The NASA Ames director said other research would focus on "Earth, life and space science discoveries from supercomputing and data mining, and bringing entrepreneurs into the space program." The facility conducted research for the Apollo moon missions. Local boosters said they are hoping to turn Moffett Field into a new hub of research and development activity for Silicon Valley, with the NASA-Google partnership as a magnet. Google and NASA join forces - Google and Nasa in space venture - Forbes - CNET News.com - San Francisco Chronicle - Red Herring

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2005-09-22T08:28:00.000-07:00

Millions Flee From 'Potentially Catastrophic' Rita

Traffic came to a standstill and gas shortages were reported Thursday as hundreds of thousands of people in the Houston metropolitan area rushed to get out of the path of hurricane Rita, a monster storm with winds of 274 km/h. More than 1.3 million residents in Texas and Louisiana were under orders to evacuate to avoid a deadly repeat of the recent hurricane Katrina. The Category 5 storm weakened slightly Thursday morning, and forecasters said it could be down to a Category 3 - meaning winds as high as 209 km/h - by the time it comes ashore late Friday or early Saturday. But it could still be a dangerous storm - one aimed straight at a section of coastline with the country's biggest concentration of oil refineries.

"Don't follow the example of Katrina and wait. No one will come and get you during the storm."

Highways leading inland out of Houston were gridlocked. Gas stations were reported to be running out of gas. Shoppers emptied grocery store shelves. I-45 is the primary evacuation route north from Houston and Galveston. Police officers along the highways carried gasoline to help people get out of town. Forecasters said Rita could be the strongest hurricane on record to hit Texas. Only three Category 5 hurricanes, the highest on the scale, are known to have hit the U.S. mainland - most recently, Andrew, which smashed South Florida in 1992. Hundreds of buses were dispatched Wednesday to evacuate the poor and move out hospital and nursing home patients. At 8 a.m. EDT Thursday, Rita was centred about 790 kilometres east-southeast of Galveston and was moving west-northwest near 15 km/h. Wind speed was 274 km/h, down slightly from 282 km/h earlier in the day. Forecasters predicted it would come ashore along the central Texas coast between Galveston and Corpus Christi. Rainfall from the storm could reach 38 centimetres in spots. Hurricane-force winds extended up to 115 kilometres from the centre of the storm, and could prove devastating to the fractured levees protecting New Orleans. In the Galveston-Houston-Corpus Christi area, about 1.3 million people were under orders to get out, in addition to 20,000 or more along with the Louisiana coast. Galveston, a coastal city of 58,000 on an island 2 1/2 metres above sea level, was nearly wiped off the map in 1900 when an unnamed hurricane killed between 6,000 and 12,000. It remains the United States' worst natural disaster. City manager Steve LeBlanc said the storm surge could reach 15 metres. Galveston is protected by a seawall that is only five metres tall. Galveston's mayor said buses used to take people and their pets off the island were running in short supply Wednesday and warned that stragglers could be left to fend for themselves. Crude oil prices rose again on fears that Rita would destroy key oil installations in Texas and the gulf. Hundreds of workers were evacuated from offshore oil rigs. Texas, the heart of U.S. crude production, accounts for 25% of the country's total oil output. Rita is the 17th named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, making this the fourth-busiest season since record-keeping started in 1851. The record is 21 tropical storms in 1933. The hurricane season is not over until November 30. Gulf Hurricane of Top Strength Menaces Texas - Hurricane Rita Blasts Across Gulf Headed for Texas - Seattle Post Intelligencer - TIME - Bloomberg - Houston Chronicle

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2005-09-14T08:01:00.000-07:00

Google launches blog search

Google has launched a blog search feature, as it seeks to go head-to-head with archrival Yahoo with blo.gs in the booming blog market. Google has unveiled a website that lets people search web journals or blogs. The database behind the search site will index all weblogs not just the ones published on the Google-owned blog writing site Blogger. The index starts with blog postings from June 2005 but Google said it was working on ways to add older posts. Via the site searchers can look up particular journals, authors or track down specific posts. According to blog search and indexing site Technorati there are more than 17 million webblogs which cover any and every subject. Most take the form of regularly updated journals that tackle a subject close to their authors' heart. Weblogs or blogs have taken off as tools that make it easy to put them together have appeared. Google will index all blogs that publish so-called feeds that automatically tell readers when they are updated. It will also gather data about blogs that tell other indexing sites about the entries they have made. As well as searching via the dedicated blog search page, Blogger users will be able to look up other blogs via a special box on the web-journal writing site. Writing on his company blog Dave Sifry welcomed Google to the blogosphere and said the move was a "validation" of the blog writing phenomenon. He said that he expected Google to start indexing all the text of weblogs soon not just the partial text found in feeds. Google is not the first company to create a blog searching site. As well as Technorati other search sites such as Memeorandum also catalog web entries. Roundup Of Google Blog Search Commentary - Google launches blog search tool - Geekzone - InfoWorld - Softpedia - websearch.about.com

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2005-09-10T09:12:00.000-07:00

Bush dismisses emergency response chief

President Bush was in perhaps the deepest political trouble of his White House tenure: He had been excoriated for his response to a deadly tragedy; he was facing unified Democrats; and he was watching gas prices reach record highs as his poll numbers sank to record lows. Yesterday, he hauled Michael Brown, the federal official who became the public face of the government's response to the tragedy, back to Washington. Bush stopped short of sacking Brown, as his critics have asked, despite recent reports that Brown had embellished his resume. Brownie will keep his job and is still charged with preparing the nation to respond to catastrophes. But removing Brown from the front lines was part of a broader effort by the White House, which is desperately seeking to stop a political slide that may be threatening to much of the president's second-term agenda. Surveys suggest that Bush's presidency has suffered. An Associated Press-Ipsos poll released yesterday indicated that only 39% of Americans approved of Bush's handling of his job, while 65% say the country is on the wrong track. Katrina and gas prices fueled that opinion. In the days after the hurricane, Brown quickly became a focal point for critics of a stumbling federal response that even the president said was unacceptable. As New Orleans spiraled into anarchy, Brown said in several TV interviews that he had been "surprised" to learn that tens of thousands had been stranded in the convention center in stifling, unsanitary conditions without food and water. Democrats have blasted Brown as an unqualified patronage hire; before joining the administration, he worked on Bush's campaign, and his last job was as a top official with the International Arabian Horse Association. Yesterday, Time magazine reported that Brown had exaggerated his credentials. Despite the criticism, Bush stood behind Brown at first, using his nickname and singling him out for praise Sept. 2 at a briefing in Biloxi, Miss.

"Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job"

But as the news reports of despair, death, and chaos in New Orleans continued, the performances of Brown and FEMA drew widespread fire: Democrats demanded that Bush fire Brown, world leaders questioned the president's leadership, and even some Republicans called for investigations into the federal government's preparedness and response. Yesterday, Democrats praised Brown's removal from the scene but said Bush stopped short.

"It is not enough to remove Mr. Brown from the disaster scene. Mr. Brown simply doesn't have the ability or the experience to oversee a coordinated federal response of this magnitude."

Michael Chertoff sidestepped questions yesterday over whether his key deputy had been forced out. As FEMA director, he must be ready to respond to potential threats posed by storms and terrorists, and the mission of Katrina relief is too big a job to allow distractions. Brown has been FEMA director since 2003, after two years as the agency's deputy director and general counsel. Time Magazine reported yesterday that Brown had contended to have been "an assistant city manager with emergency services oversight" from 1975 to 1978. He was an assistant to the city manager with no oversight duties. Though Brown is the main target, comments Bush made himself have contributed to the damage. On Thursday, Bush announced that he was cutting red tape to ensure that disaster victims could receive $2,000 debit cards, even as storm victims standing in line to get the cards at the Astrodome in Houston were shown complaining about delays. Bush drew withering criticism when he said in a TV interview that the breach of levees was a surprise, despite years of federal reports, scientific analyses, and newspaper articles predicting that it would happen in a storm of Katrina's strength. Democrats continued yesterday to call for an independent panel to investigate the government's preparedness for the disaster. In addition, they called for a new agency to coordinate federal, state, and local reconstruction efforts. Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, recommended a "Gulf Coast Regional Redevelopment Authority" modeled on the New Deal-era Tennessee Valley Authority. Kennedy said he is working on legislation for such an entity. FEMA director says media made him a scapegoat - 'Atta-boy' out of there as new questions arise - New York Times - CBC News - MarketWatch.

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2005-09-02T09:53:00.000-07:00

Angry New Orleans Mayor Says Feds Don't Have A Clue

The once-glorious city of New Orleans is in ruins and its people in chaos from Hurricane Katrina. For those who sought refuge in the New Orleans convention center, it became just another part of the nightmare. Thousands of people have congregated in the New Orleans convention centre - a spacious, largely dry building, where they have been told buses will arrive to take them out of the city. Whole families lie on the floor with what few possessions they rescued from the flooding - toddlers, the elderly and people with disabilities. All say no-one is helping them. Most are short of food and water and there is little sign of any organisation, let alone supplies to help those waiting to leave. A lot of people here are criticising the authorities for not putting enough effort into the evacuation of the city. The emergency services are split between the search and rescue operation, holding back more floodwater, and fighting gangs of looters. It seems they have little time left for the survivors, who are becoming increasingly desperate. People had to loot Wal-Mart and take what they could on the first day. It is very much the poorest people that are left here - those who didn't have the ability to get out with a car fast enough. Some boarded up their homes, and came to stay in the hotels in the city. Those are perhaps the richer of the poor. The rest are the bedraggled lot who've made their way from wherever they were when the storm struck. Many of them waded through the water after being rescued from the roofs of houses, only to be told they've got to leave. They are waiting desperately for buses to take them wherever it might be - anywhere where there are supplies of food, water, electricity. These are old and disabled people. It is amazing the number of people who are in a desperate situation and it is very difficult for the authorities to get everybody out fast - which is what they need to do. Hurricane's trail of anarchy - Crisis worsens in New Orleans - Guardian Unlimited - CTV.ca - Dallas Morning News - Houston Chronicle.

2005-08-25T13:08:00.000-07:00

Google Launches Open, Instant Communications Service
Google has launched its instant message and web-based phone calling system, joining a crowded field of established rivals in a nearly decade-old computer communications craze. The world leader in Internet search confirmed sketchy reports yesterday that it plans to add instant messaging together with web-based phone calling to the growing menu of technology options it offers beyond simply trawling the web. Google Talk is seeking to elbow its way in among four instant messaging web communities that number more than 10 million users a piece, ranging from market leader AOL, with AIM and ICQ brands, to Yahoo, Microsoft and two-year-old European web chat phenomenon, Skype. A trial version can be already downloaded.

"If successful, it will drive Gmail adoption".

Users need to have a Google Gmail account. The computer-to-computer web calling software requires speakers and a microphone, or a computer-ready headset. The service fits within the Google Sidebar, another service the company introduced this week which is designed to help it branch out beyond pure search to help users manage email, instant messages, news headlines and music. The basic, uncluttered design of Google Talk conceals subtle differences with some jazzier features of rivals. Seeking to turn its outsider status into a strength, Google said its Talk service would allow users to communicate with other open systems such as Trillian, Apple Computer’s iChat and a system under test at EarthLink. Google's Latest Is All Talk - Google's Big Bet: Beyond Instant Messaging - InformationWeek - Times Online - Guardian Unlimited - San Jose Mercury News.

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2005-08-12T12:15:00.000-07:00

The Yahoo! Dynasty expands into China
Yahoo!, said it would pay $1bn in cash for a stake in Alibaba.com, boosting its presence in China's booming internet industry. The company plans to merge its China subsidiaries into Alibaba as part of the deal.

"We look at this as an opportunity to get much bigger much faster, working with a great management team."

Yahoo! now owns a 40% stake in Alibaba and will become its largest strategic investor. The alliance creates China's biggest internet company, with activities including search engines, online bill payment services and consumer e-commerce. Alibaba also operates an online auction business, and laid down a challenge yesterday to the dominance of eBay. Yahoo! should gain a 43% share of the Chinese online auction market from the deal, bringing it close to eBay's 50% share. Yahoo!'s acquisition marks the growing interest in the technology sector towards China, which has about 100 million internet users - second only to the US. China is expected to become the world's largest internet market within the next five years, and valuations of Chinese online businesses have been soaring in recent months. The $1bn paid by Yahoo! is the largest stake invested by a foreign company in a Chinese internet business. The deal will transform Yahoo!'s business in China. It bought the Chinese search engine, 3721, in 2003 for $120m, but has so far failed to make significant inroads in the local market. Alibaba has 14 million users and reported sales of $46m last year. Jack Ma will remain as chief executive and will run the combined operations. The company's major shareholder is Japan's Softbank, which sold shares to Yahoo!. The market for online auctions is still in its relative infancy in China, with only 12 million Chinese using websites to transact goods. This figure is expected to swell to 35 million over the next two years, and Alibaba, whose online auction Taobao.com anticipates a sales' growth at an annual rate of 80% in the next three years. It also has B2B auction sites that help small enterprises buy and sell goods and export products to international markets. Advertisers and companies pay up to $10,000 a year for membership of the scheme. Alibaba was founded in 1999 an has 2,300 employees based in Hangzhou, south of Shanghai. Softbank Shares Surge on Sale of China Online Venture - Heady daze for dotcom rise in East - Telegraph.co.uk - Business World - Independent - China Daily

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2005-07-25T13:13:00.000-07:00

Revaluation buys time
China knows that last week's 2.1% yuan revaluation will not be enough to rebalance its economy and that pressure will grow for a further rise. The renminbi yuan closed a bit firmer in Shanghai at 8.1097 per dollar. The Chinese currency had ended on Friday at 8.1111, a touch below the rate of 8.11 to which it was revalued a day earlier after more than eight years of being fixed near 8.28.

"In the short term, pressure for yuan appreciation will increase further. The change to the currency regime and the small appreciation of the yuan cannot solve China's economic imbalances and the problems of the economy."

Yu was quoted by the China Securities Journal as saying a gradual, controlled appreciation of the yuan in tight ranges could win time for the Chinese economy to adjust. China ditched its peg against the dollar when it revalued and adopted a managed float whereby the yuan's value will be steered in reference to an undisclosed basket of currencies. Zhou Xiaochuan at the weekend called the shift as an "initial adjustment." Comments by Yu suggested that the authorities will put the emphasis on 'managed' rather than 'float'.

"It's not a fixed exchange rate system and it's not completely based on market forces either. Under the new managed floating exchange rate system, the monetary authorities have no clear and committed orbit for the exchange rate."

Sun said the new regime gave the authorities latitude to intervene to hold the rate close to the desired path. Yu said the managed float would allow China to contain speculative forces and reduce excessive fluctuations. Non-deliverable forwards, offshore financial instruments used to bet on the direction of the yuan, showed that traders expected the currency to rise to 7.71 per dollar in a year's time. China has capital controls and other policy tools at its disposal allowing the authorities to limit the impact of any "attack" on the economy stemming from currency appreciation and market expectations of a further strengthening. The revaluation could help redress the imbalance in China's foreign trade and improve its terms of trade. China had a trade surplus of $39.7 billion in the first six months of the year. The revaluation would boost domestic demand and give China more leeway to craft its own monetary policy.
China's yuan holds steady; traders wary CNN
Revaluation an 'initial adjustment' says central bank chief Financial Times
Xinhua - Forbes - Taipei Times - Sydney Morning Herald (subscription) - all 302 related »

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2005-07-15T11:08:00.000-07:00

China hopes to launch second manned space mission
China's second manned space mission - called Shenzhou VI - will launch in early October, a state newspaper has reported. This time, authorities will send two astronauts into space and they will orbit the Earth for five or six days.

"The manned spacecraft Shenzhou VI will preferably be launched in early October."

Sun Weigang is director of the Space Department of the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp. China's first manned space flight two years ago made it the third country that is able to launch a humans into space on its own, together with Russia and the United States. Former fighter pilot, Yang Liwei, orbited the Earth for over 21 hours in the Shenzhou V capsule before landing in northern China. China's space programme still operates largely in secret. Yang's name was announced only shortly before his flight and the identities of 14 candidates for the next mission, all former air force fighter pilots, have not been released. China hopes to set up a space station within five years and wants to land an unmanned probe on the moon by 2010. Officials say they will also launch two scientific and experimental satellites by the end of the year, and a further two satellites in 2006 and 2007.
Date set for China space shot BBC News
China hopes to launch second manned space mission Ireland Online
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2005-07-11T13:23:00.000-07:00

University warns applicants about hacker

The USC Trojans web site might have been hit by a mere hacker. The security breach is causing great grief among university officials even to the point where they are trying to give notice to over 270,000 individuals who might have used the database over the past eight years. The University of Southern California has announced that a hacker found a security flaw in the online application database that although thousands of student files could have been compromised, the hacker apparently viewed information on fewer than 10 students. Still as a privacy precaution, USC will send letters to all of the potentially affected individuals. According to USC, the hacker didn’t see all the data of the small number of names in the database. The hacker might have had access to student names, addresses and Social Security numbers but not credit card or other financial information. The information leak was discovered when a prospective applicant tried to use the USC website in June and found a flaw. The applicant is believed to have made up to 40 attempts to view student files, but officials estimate he saw only a few. Like a real Trojan, the suspected hacker contacted SecurityFocus to report the flaw, and the publication informed USC. The University’s attempt to notify 270,000 people who used USC´s online for admissions in some way over the last eight years is a substantial undertaking. It underscores the risks of collecting personal information online and the efforts taken by institutions to notify and remediate the security breach. In this case, USC are offering a phone number so those who feel they have been impacted can obtain more information. USC is not the only major institution who has been reportedly breached this year. Some major banking and corporate entities have found themselves vulnerable. The efforts being made by USC to remediate is a sign that institutions consider the threat of a break-in as a real public relations nightmare and personal privacy risks. How the security hole that keeps growing will impact the rise of ecommerce and e-information remains to be seen as the Internet Commerce is working through Version 2.0 after the last Dot Com crash where security incidents undermined confidence in the emerging industry. Hacker Accesses USC Files - USC: Applicants' files may have been read - San Jose Mercury News - CIO Today - socalTech.com - OCRegister (subscription)

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2005-07-08T14:24:00.000-07:00

G8 boosts aid to Africa by $50 billion
The leaders from G8 promised on Friday in Gleneagles to increase aid to developing countries by around $50 billion per year by 2010.

"We speak today in the shadow of terrorism but it will not obscure what we came here to achieve. There is no hope in terrorism or any future in it worth living and it is hope that is the alternative to this hatred."

Blair, who skipped much of Thursday’s session to handle the aftermath of the bombs in London which killed more than 50 people, did not give a timetable for reaching the aid target. Campaigners said they understood the deal was to double overall aid to some $100 billion by 2010, with about half of that to Africa. They had pressed for the boost immediately, saying a delay would cost millions of lives.

"We offer today this contrast with the politics of terror. It isn’t all everyone wanted but it is progress, real and achievable progress. It isn’t the end of poverty in Africa, but it is the hope that it can be ended."

The G8 leaders also agreed a package of aid worth up to $3 billion to help the Palestinian Authority and foster peace in the Middle East, he said. They agreed to start a dialogue on November 1 with the major emerging economies on how to slow down and later reverse the rise in greenhouse gases which cause global warming. Environmental groups have criticized their accord as too vague to pose a serious challenge to climate change. The leaders pledged to end farm export aid but set no deadline. They also called for renewed efforts to conclude a new phase of world trade liberalization by the end of next year. Blair had been determined his twin priorities of action on global warming and African poverty would not be wrecked by the London bombings, which British officials say bore the hallmarks of the al Qaeda Islamic militant group. But he brought forward his closing news conference by one hour on Friday to allow him to head back to London in the early afternoon and take charge of the crisis. Blair has declared the widespread privation and suffering in Africa "a scar on the conscience of the world" and his G8 agenda has attracted high-profile backing from rock stars who staged huge "Live 8" concerts around the world ahead of the summit.
Blair lauds G8 doubling of aid to Africa CNN
Defiant G8 agrees major aid boost for Africa Reuters
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2005-07-04T10:34:00.000-07:00

Smashing success for Deep Impact probe
NASA's Deep Impact spacecraft completed after 172 days and 268 million miles of deep space stalking, Deep Impact successfully reached out and touched comet Tempel 1! It's a flawless journey to oblivion early today, slamming into an onrushing comet to vaporize itself in an Independence Day blaze of glory. Scientists and engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory cheered as spectacular images taken by a second "fly-by" spacecraft positioned nearby confirmed that the "impactor" had scored a perfect bull's-eye, smacking into comet Tempel 1 at its lower edge at 1:52 a.m. EDT, spewing dust and ice in a column of debris that lit up the heavens.

"Oh, my God, look at that! There's considerably more than I thought. It looks enormous."

The fly-by spacecraft used two cameras and an infrared spectrometer to record the event and its aftermath for 13 minutes, then turned away in "shield mode" as the comet passed by only 310 miles away, traveling at a relative speed of 23,000 miles per hour. The impactor carried a camera that sent back crystal-clear pictures of ridge-like features, apparent craters and sinkholes and other pockmarks that grew to dominate its field of vision as the spacecraft closed in on the comet at 6.4 miles per second. The last image was sent only three seconds before the crash.

"It was just phenomenal, we didn't have to exercise one contingency plan. We're minus one spacecraft, the impactor has been totally vaporized."

The fly-by spacecraft emerged 40 minutes after impact none the worse for its close encounter with the comet. Besides the spacecraft images, a network of about 60 Earth- and space-based telescopes, along with thousands of amateur astronomers, were standing by to participate in the first-ever globally coordinated effort to watch an object dig a crater in a comet. By assessing the shape and size of the crater and chemically analyzing the debris that belched from it, scientists hope to gain new insights into the composition of the solar system at the time of its formation 4.5 billion years ago. Comets periodically migrate in from deep space, their outer layers burning away as they approach the sun. To get to the ancient material within, Deep Impact needed to punch through the boiling crust. Deep Impact, with the impactor attached to the fly-by spacecraft, was launched January 12 for an Independence Day rendezvous with Tempel 1, about 83 million miles away and hurtling through space at 66,000 mph. Early Sunday morning, the spacecraft was 547,000 from the comet, traveling in the same direction, but at 43,000 mph. If everything went as planned, the Manhattan Island-sized comet would overtake the 820-pound impactor like an express train. At 2:07 a.m. EDT Sunday, the fly-by spacecraft released the impactor, then did a 14-minute "divert burn" to take it out of harm's way and put it into position to watch its erstwhile companion be obliterated 24 hours later.
NASA's Deep Impact Mission Projectile Strikes Comet Bloomberg
Impact on Comet 9P/Tempel 1: Update, first European images PhysOrg.com
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2005-06-28T01:24:00.000-07:00

At $300, Google's wealth amounts to $83.4 billion
Google's shares rose above $300 after less than a year as a publicly listed company, generating the most used Internet search engine's status as the world's largest media company by market value. Google was founded in September 1998 and it first sold shares to the public in August last year at $85.- per share. Above $300 Google's shares more than tripled since the IPO. The Mountain View company surpassed Time Warner, owner of the 83-year-old Time magazine and the Warner Bros. movie studios, as the industry's most valuable company on June 6. Google has a market value of $83.4 billion. Time Warner is valued at $79.4 billion. The stock's gains have been propelled by a surge in profit and optimism that the company's efforts to expand beyond search- based advertising may fuel growth. Google said last week it was developing a payment service. First-quarter net income surged almost sixfold to $369.2 million, as new features lured more users and sales of online advertising outside the U.S. expanded. Analysts on average expect profit this year, excluding some costs, to climb to $5.22 a share from $2.51 in 2004, according to Thomson Financial. Revenue may climb 12% to $3.56 billion. Google's stock performance this year mirrors the moves in Yahoo and Amazon during their first year after going public. Yahoo more than doubled, while Amazon nearly tripled and eBay soared more than 20-fold. Wall Street firms still recommend investors purchase the shares. Among 32 analysts, 25 rate Google a "buy", seven call it a "hold" and none say "sell". Smith Barney's Mark Mahaney has the highest 12-month price estimate for the stock at $360. Google's largest holders are also optimistic. All 10 of the asset managers with the biggest stakes added to their holdings, according filings from at least March. Fidelity Investments who is Google's biggest holder, boosted its stake by 46% to 17.5 million shares in April and May. Google's shares are less expensive relative to earnings forecasts than Yahoo and about inline with Amazon. They fetch 57 times this year's average profit estimate, compared with Yahoo's 62 times and Amazon's 55 times. The stock has a lower price-earnings-to-growth, or PEG, ratio at 1.8. This measure, comparing the price-earnings ratio to the projected growth rate for the company, is 2 for Yahoo and 2.4 for Amazon. Google's market value exceeds the $72 billion spent on television and cable advertising last year. The company is now the world's 41st largest by value, bigger than Deutsche Telekom, Europe's biggest phone company and Amgen, the largest biotechnology company, even though it falls short of the top 500 by sales or net income.
At $300 a Share, Google Looks Pricey and Still Irresistible New York Times
Google's share climb continues, tops $300 Washington Post
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2005-06-22T04:51:00.000-07:00

Give up Western Chess – play Chinese Chess instead!

David H. Li is not too fond of chess – at least not the strange variety we play. The retired professor from Washington DC calls it Queen-Qi or the "Queen’s Game". A much faster and more exciting version predates Western chess. Before the industrial age in China, Go was perceived as the game of the aristocratic class while xiangqi (象棋) was perceived as the game of the masses.

So the rules of modern XiangQi seem to be more ancient than the rules of modern Western Chess, since Western Chess is the result of the great reform of the Arab Chess "Shatranj" round about 500 years ago, whereas the latest change of rules in XiangQi already date back to 840 A.D., as we have just heard from you. And not just that, Professor Li. You go even further. Whilst the majority of historians keep telling us that chess was invented in India sometimes during 400 and 500 A.D., you are convinced of a different origin of chess – roughly 2200 year ago. In your "Syllabus"-series on XiangQi you claim that XiangQi was invented in 203 B.C. by the commander-in-chief of the Kingdom of Han, the general Hán Xin. Do you have any proof for that?

According to Professor Li, the date of the invention of XiangQi is 203 B.C.; so proto-chess, meaning: an early version of chess, originated in China. Xiangqi is a Chinese game in a family of strategic board games of which Western chess and Japanese shogi are also members. The Chinese name is literally translatable as either "elephant chess" or "symbolic chess" but is commonly called Chinese chess in the West. The ancestry of Xiangqi is disputed with some historians contending that it originated from Liubo and others stating that it is a relative of the 6th century Indian game of chaturanga. It is one of the most popular board games of the chaturanga family in the world, especially in Asia. Distinctive features of xiangqi include the unique movement of the pao piece, a rule prohibiting the generals from facing each other directly, and the river and palace board features, which restrict the movement of some pieces.

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2005-06-19T04:11:00.000-07:00

Anti-Myanmar protesters mark Aung San Suu Kyi's birthday
Opponents of Myanmar's military junta marked the 60th birthday of detained democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi on Sunday with solemn protests across Asia, including a 500-strong gathering in the capital of the former Burma. In Washington, President Bush added his voice to the worldwide chorus of those demanding Yangon's generals release the Nobel Laureate from house arrest, and honor the results of 1990 elections they lost by a landslide. Given the isolation and intransigence of those in charge of the former British colony, which has been under military rule for more than four decades, making noises and gestures from afar is just about all the junta's opponents can do.

"I send my best wishes to Aung San Suu Kyi for her 60th birthday. Her strength, courage, and personal sacrifice in standing up for the oppressed people of Burma have inspired those who stand for freedom."

Kofi Annan was among those appealing for the release of Aung San Suu Kyi, who has spent nine of the last 16 years behind bars or under house arrest. Her latest stretch of detention began in May 2003. In Yangon, where roadblocks around Aung San Suu Kyi's lakeside home keep away everybody except for her doctor, around 500 people met at the dilapidated headquarters of her NLD party. In Bangkok 60 people held a silent vigil at a university campus. There were similar scenes in Indonesia in honor of "The Lady." U.S. rock band REM will dedicate a song to Aung San Suu Kyi at a concert in Dublin.
Years accrue in house arrest for Burma’s Nobel laureate Arkansas Democrat-Gazette (subscription)
Rice: Happy 60th to Suu Kyi CNN International
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2005-06-15T05:26:00.000-07:00

Intel's Venture Fund Invests US$200 Million in China

Intel has revealed that its new US$200 million China technology venture fund is likely to focus on digital home technology, wireless communication and integrated circuit design. The fund, earmarked for investment in technology companies, was announced by Paul Otellini in Beijing as the firm celebrated its 20th anniversary in China.

"With the establishment of the Intel Capital China Technology Fund, Intel plans to stimulate local technological innovation and the continued growth of China's IT industry. We will invest in Chinese companies to accelerate technology adoption locally and to foster development of innovative technologies with potential for global distribution."

The fund will invest in technology companies that develop hardware, software and services. Intel Capital, which has investment managers based in Hong Kong, Shanghai and Beijing, made its first strategic investment China in 1998 and since then has invested about 50 Chinese companies across nine cities in mainland China and Hong Kong. Eleven of these companies have since gone public or have been acquired, including AsiaInfo Holdings Inc., Chinacast Communications Holding Ltd., Sohu.com, Techfaith Holdings Ltd., and UTStarcom Inc..
Intel marks 20 years in China with new fund San Francisco Chronicle
Intel launches venture capital fund for startup companies in China New Ratings
Intel Boosts Investment in China CIO Today
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2005-06-12T05:05:00.000-07:00

Jackson Suicide Rumor Leads to Computer Virus
Michael Jackson didn't try to kill himself, but malicious hackers want you to think otherwise. An e-mail saying the pop singer tried to commit suicide was sent by hackers who want to destroy your computers.

Subject: Re: Suicidal aattempt
Message text:
Last night, while in his Neverland Ranch, Michael Jackson has made a suicidal attempt.
They suggest this attempt follows the last claim was made against the king of pop. 46 years old Michael has left pre-suicid note which describes and interpretes some of his sins.
Read more...

This message hopes to catch people's attention because of the huge interest in the on-going child abuse trial. The fake message contains a web link that supposedly links to Mr Jackson's suicide note, as anyone clicking on the link will have their PC invaded by a virus that gives others access to that machine. The message was first discovered early on 10 June and already anti-virus companies have seen many copies of the e-mail circulating online. Like many recent Windows viruses the malicious message does not use a technical trick or loophole to infect machines. Instead it relies on tricking users into infecting themselves. The badly-spelled message - its subject line is "Suicidal attempt" - claims that the suicide attempt was in reaction to the stress of the trial. A verdict is due in the case soon. Those who click on the link in the fake e-mail to see the supposed suicide note will get a message suggesting that the site hosting it is busy.

"That may not surprise people who think it might contain genuine breaking news about Michael Jackson. The sick minds behind viruses and other malware often exploit celebrity names and news stories in an attempt to infect as many people as possible."

Ms Theriault from Sophos said the busy message is a diversionary tactic because, unseen, a virus is being downloaded on to a user's machine. The virus downloaded is a variant of the Borobt-Gen trojan which gives the virus' creator a backdoor into infected machines. She urged users to be wary of clicking on links or opening attachments in unsolicited e-mail messages.
Jacko's Suicide Trojan Hoax InformationWeek
Hackers create Jackson rumor CNET News.com
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2005-06-10T00:00:00.000-07:00

Millionaires grew in number in 2004

The ranks of US millionaires swelled by almost 10% last year to 2.5 million as the stock market rallied, according to a report published Thursday by Capgemini and Merrill Lynch. An additional 600,000 millionaires were created around the world in 2004, with North America and Asia leading the wealth stakes. The World Wealth Report 2005 showed that the world's high net worth wealth grew strongly in 2004 for a second straight year, increasing 8.2% to $30.8 trillion. The number of HNWIs, individuals with a net worth of at least 1 million dollars, grew by 7.3% to 8.3 million, a net increase of 600,000 worldwide. North America led with a nearly 10% growth rate to 2.7 million HNWIs, surpassing the 2.6 million in Europe. Asia-Pacific's growth rate of over 8.2%, or 2.3 million HNWIs, was twice that of Europe, mainly because of high growth in GDP of 9.5% in China and 6.8% in India.

"Looking regionally, Singapore, Hong Kong, Australia and India saw the highest rates of HNWI population growth, while wealthy people in South Africa and the Middle East benefited from the rise in commodity and oil prices".

Only Great Britain and Spain bucked the trend of sluggish growth in Europe. Great Britain saw its number of millionaires grow by 8.9% and Spain 8.7%. The Report also made a trend forecast for the next five years. Global high net worth wealth was projected to reach $42.2 trillion by 2009, progressing at a CAGR of 6.5% over the five years. But the report warned that it would become more difficult to join the millionaires club in coming years as economic conditions become more difficult.
Country has 52,800 millionaires: report Khaleej Times
Asia starts to catch up on millionaires' row Guardian Unlimited
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2005-06-06T13:16:00.000-07:00

Mapping the human brain
IBM and Switzerland-based Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne have announced a joint initiative to create a model of the circuitry in the human neocortex, which is believed to be the center for higher cognitive functions. Scientists from IBM and the Swiss EPFL will work together over the next two years to create a detailed model of the circuitry in the neocortex, the largest and most complex part of the human brain. The scientists hope that by expanding the project, nicknamed the Blue Brain Project, to model other areas of the brain, they will eventually build an accurate, computer-based model of the entire brain. Using the digital model created with IBM's Blue Gene supercomputer, scientists will run computer-based simulations of the brain at the molecular level, shedding light on internal processes such as thought, perception and memory. The scientists hope to understand more about how and why certain microcircuits in the brain malfunction, thought to be the cause of psychiatric disorders such as autism, schizophrenia and depression.

"Modeling the brain at the cellular level is a massive undertaking because of the hundreds of thousands of parameters that need to be taken into account."

Under the initiative, IBM will install a Blue Gene supercomputer at EPFL, with a peak processing speed of at least 22.8 trillion floating-point operations per second, making it one of the most powerful supercomputers in the world. Markram is the founder of EPFL's Brain and Mind Institute, where more than 10 years of research and wet-lab experiments have produced the world's most comprehensive set of empirical data on the micro-architecture of the neocortex. Researchers from IBM will use their experience in simulating complex biological systems to help turn this data into a working 3-dimensional model re-creating the high-speed electro-chemical interactions of the brain's interior.
IBM's brains plan to build a brain CNN International
IBM, EPFL join forces to study cognitive intelligence Xinhua
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2005-06-03T14:53:00.000-07:00

Cox's praise of Internet may hint at future SEC stance
The man nominated to head the SEC thinks the world of the Internet. President Bush tapped Chris Cox, a lawyer, to chair the SEC. Cox will replace William Donaldson, a Wall Street veteran , who announced his resignation Wednesday. Donaldson's regulatory zeal in the wake of the corporate accounting scandals earlier this decade won praise from Democrats but angered the business community. Cox's nomination brought praise from fellow House members of both parties.

"I think he's a very fine appointment. Chris Cox is respected throughout the House. He's knowledgeable, he's serious, he has a cool head that prevails over and over and over again. I think the president has nominated someone who will serve very well at the SEC."

Bush called Cox "a champion of the free enterprise system" during a White House ceremony. Cox won election to the House in 1988, after a stint as a White House counsel during the Reagan administration. He rose to the GOP leadership after Republicans won the majority in 1994, and made a fleeting one-day run at the speakership during a leadership upheaval that led to the ascension of Speaker Dennis Hastert. Cox has steadfastly pursued elimination of the corporate dividend tax and capital gains tax, which were reduced under Bush, and ending the estate tax. Cox will be the SEC's third chairman under Bush, after Donaldson and the controversial Harvey Pitt, who stepped down after a series of embarrassing political missteps.
SEC plans June 29 vote on 'quiet period' Reuters
New vision for SEC International Herald Tribune
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2005-05-30T04:01:00.000-07:00

Shouldn't EU elite earn people’s trust?
France and Europe changed from the clear "No" of the French population to the constitution for the European Union after the vote which many politicians said could be the end to the charter.

The size of the French No vote has delivered a shock to the European Union and its political class. But it would be wrong to assume it marks the imminent end of Europe's constitutional treaty.

Defeated in one of the biggest referendum turnouts, Jacques Chirac hinted he could replace Jean-Pierre Raffarin, who told Chirac to expect unspecified political developments. In a turnout of 69.7%, many voters used the vote to punish Chirac and his government over France's economy and high unemployment. Chirac promised to change but refused to step down. The EU charter requires the backing of all member states to become valid. EU leaders insisted the treaty was alive but acknowledged the French result hit its chances elsewhere in the 25-nation bloc. Analysts picked over the reasons for the resounding defeat of the "Yes" camp on Monday, with wide agreement that a key factor was anger at unemployment, now at a 5-year high of 10.2%, and at Chirac's unpopular economic reforms. Some said the "No" camp had captured public concern about France's declining role in an EU of 25 countries to argue the constitution would mean a loss of sovereignty and a shift of more powers to Brussels.
Opinion: French Vote Not the End of Europe Deutsche Welle
EU elite must earn people’s trust Financial Times
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2005-05-28T03:53:00.000-07:00

Gartner Raises global PC Sales Forecast
Worldwide sales of personal computers are expected to grow 10.2% in 2005, helped by strong demand for mobile or laptop PCs. Gartner lifted its outlook from an earlier forecast of 9.9% growth. The outlook calls however for a deceleration in PC sales after growth estimated at 15% in 2004. Worldwide mobile PC shipments are expected to grow 26.5% in 2005, while desk-top PC shipments are forecast to increase 4.6%, citing that mobile PCs currently make up just under 30% of all PC shipments.

"Mobile PCs are continuing to attract more new users as mobile prices fall and wireless becomes more pervasive. Growing numbers of users are replacing their old desktops with more portable mobiles, and this is one of several factors helping to boost mobile PC growth."

Gartner analysts said they see few new technology drivers that could help stimulate PC sales in 2005.

"Dual-core processors will attract some attention, but they will mostly pique the interest of 'techies' and early adopters. Many applications that take full advantage of dual-core capabilities are still being developed and won't be available until next year at the earliest."

Replacement activity has helped drive double-digit PC growth over the last two years, but replacement activity will begin to wane this year.
Global PC sales may rise 10.2%: Gartner Sify
Mobile PC Demand Pushes Up Gartner PC Sales Forecast InformationWeek
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2005-05-24T09:32:00.000-07:00

The OECD cuts its global growth forecast
U.S. interest rates will rise further to keep inflation pressures in check but the growth outlook for other major world economies is precarious and the euro zone needs a rapid rate cut. In its semi-annual Economic Outlook, the OECD cut its growth forecasts for Japan and the euro zone, predicting that Italy in 2005 would see its first year of negative growth in more than a decade. The Paris-based think tank warned central banks to tread lightly on monetary policy, then even after a long period of cheaper credit to designed to support economic growth, higher interest rates were not appropriate for all countries. It said Japan should stick to ultra-easy monetary policy in the face of persistent mild deflation pressures and that UK interest rates had risen far enough given that growth was slowing. The OECD had particularly strong words for the ECB.

"With domestic demand sluggish, resilience feeble and possible upward pressures on the euro looming ahead, the balance of risks on growth and inflation is clearly tilted to the downside, calling for an early easing of monetary policy."

Analysts doubt that the ECB will have to cut rates. Klaus Liebscher criticized the OECD's remarks. The OECD is concerned about the outlook for the dollar and the volatility of oil prices. The likelihood of a sudden sharp drop in the value of the dollar was increasing but this was not the most probable scenario. The United States urgently needs to correct its current account deficit and protect other world economies from an abrupt dollar decline. The OECD expects the ECB to lift interest rates to 2.25% by late 2006. Its U.S. growth forecasts, of 3.6% for 2005 and 3.3% for 2006, are based on the assumption that the Federal Funds target rate will increase "incrementally" to 4.75% around mid-2006 from 3.0% now. The OECD assumes Japan's rates will remain at zero until the end of 2006 and forecasts that Japan's economy will only grow at 1.5% in 2005. The OECD slashed its growth forecast for the euro zone to 1.2% for 2005 on the assumption of a 50 basis point cut in mid-2005. The report was especially gloomy about Italy, forecasting that the economy would shrink 0.6% this year. British interest rates, which have already been raised by 1.25 percentage points from their July 2003 low, are expected to stay unchanged at 4.75%. While increases in oil prices led to a slowdown in growth in 2004, the OECD said it was assuming the price of a barrel of Brent crude oil would fall from $51 in the second quarter of 2005 to $48 at the end of 2006.
OECD cuts 2005 forecast CBC - Newfoundland & Labrador
OECD Cuts Forecasts WebProNews
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2005-05-20T05:56:00.000-07:00

Google's First Step To Portal Services
Google unveils a new service that lets users combine some of the company's internet offerings into a single package, a move that takes it closer to the portal model used by rivals such as Yahoo! and Microsoft's MSN. Google's pages will allow users to organize their favourite sites and information sources into a single space. Yahoo and Microsoft already have their own versions offering news, weather, stocks, e-mail and blogs at one glance. Google also wants to keep people using its search engine. The search industry is becoming more competitive. Google quotes that it is not turning itself into a portal.

"It's not a portal, it's a personalisation tool."

Google will not place targeted adverts on personalised home pages. In a project called Fusion, Google plans to offer a broad range of content for its personalised service including BBC News, The New York Times, technology website Slashdot and its own Quote of the Day and Word of the Day slots. The Mountain View, California-based icon forecasts a complete RSS soon. Google has already offered a jumble of unrelated services, such as Gmail for e-mail and Picasa for photo sharing. Its competitors have lumped their equivalent services onto single personalised pages. According to Comscore Networks, a measurer of web traffic, 25% of unique visitors to Yahoo also visit My Yahoo, so the potential impact on revenues is clear.

Google - 36.4%
Yahoo! - 30.6%
MSN - 16.5%
Time Warner - 8.9%
Ask Jeeves - 5.5%
Source: Comscore

The world's number one internet search engine has always prided itself on its sparseness as a search launch pad, something which has hardly changed since its launch in September 1998. This classic model will not change. Users will be able to toggle between their personalised home page and the traditional one. Google Adds Personalized Home Page Service GeekCoffee
Google Opens Portal to Confront Yahoo, MSN Marketing Vox News
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2005-05-17T03:33:00.000-07:00

Digging graves as soldiers move through the streets
Cemetery workers hastily buried 37 bodies in a mass grave in the eastern city of Andijan on Tuesday as residents mourned what witnesses said were hundreds killed last week by security forces in the worst unrest in Uzbekistan since it won independence. The outside world still has much to learn about the bloody events since Friday in the Uzbek city of Andijon and the region around it. But what is known suggests that President Islam Karimov responded to a large rebellion involving both armed militants and thousands of ordinary citizens with a military assault in which scores, some reports say many hundreds, of people were indiscriminately gunned down. If so, the assault would be in keeping with Mr. Karimov's long-standing practice of responding to a real, if limited, Islamic extremist threat by brutally suppressing all opposition and rejecting any steps toward economic or political liberalization.

It should raise the question of why the United States continues to support such criminal and self-defeating policies by partnering with the very military that carried out the attack. The first step by the administration and other Western governments must be to demand, as the Bush administration and Britain did yesterday, that Mr. Karimov not only allow access to the blockaded city but that he also accept an international investigation to determine what happened.

What is known so far suggests that the violence was preceded by the government's prosecution of 23 private businessmen, on charges of supporting an Islamic extremist group. For weeks there were peaceful demonstrations. On Thursday, armed militants broke into the prison, freeing the defendants as well as up to 2,000 other prisoners. They took over the government administration building. The next day a crowd numbering in the thousands gathered outside. most were there to protest political and economic conditions. Islam Karimov traveled to the city early Friday and oversaw fitful negotiations with the militants in the government building. When these failed, he ordered army units into the square, where they opened fire on the crowd from armored cars. Troops opened fire on another large crowd where some militants may have taken refuge. A respected local doctor said 500 bodies were laid out there Sunday. Other civilians were reportedly fired on and killed while trying to cross the nearby border into Kyrgyzstan. Islam Karimov depicted all of the protesters as Islamic militants, adding that "attempts to develop democracy" would only play into the hands of such extremists. Yesterday, Condoleezza Rice pointed out that the problem in Uzbekistan is the opposite: It is the lack of "pressure valves that come from a more open political system." Islam Karimov ignores such prodding from the State Department, and understandably so, since he has the Pentagon's unconditional support for a "strategic partnership" by which the United States operates at an air base outside Tashkent.
Uzbek toll mount as unrest spreads CNN International
EDITORIAL: Clash in Uzbekistan Asahi Shimbun
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2005-05-12T09:49:00.000-07:00

Beijing and Taiwan seek middle ground
On a nine-day tour of the mainland, James Soong sees an opportunity to play a pivotal role in Taiwan's most important bilateral relationship. Beijing refuses to deal with Chen Shui-bian but is reaching out to opposition parties in a bid to marginalise the independence-minded leader. Soong has done everything he can to stake out the opposite ground.

"Taiwan independence is a road with a dead end!"

The leader of the PFP has not specified whether he will run for president in 2008. He lost to Chen in 2000, and again in 2004 as running mate of KMT's leader Lien Chan. Is Soong eyeing this Saturday's National Assembly election as a short-term political goal? With popular debate focused on China, the poll is shaping up to be a vote on the different parties' mainland policies. Lien Chan visited the mainland last month, the first KMT leader to do so since Mao Zedong's Communists drove Chiang Kai-shek from power in 1949 and into exile on Taiwan. Soong could not hope to match the dramatic or historic impact of Lien's visit, which managed to end nearly 60 years of enmity with Beijing. Nonetheless, Soong is being feted by Chinese officials and is scheduled to meet Hu Jintao on Thursday. It remains to be seen how Soong's tactics of stressing his Chinese roots and his desire for unification will play with voters at home. Soong faces rising pressure from moderates who want him to reconcile with Beijing and boost trade.
Taiwan Opposition Leader Meets Top Chinese Official Voice of America
China's Hu renews talks offer to Taiwan's Chen Reuters India
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2005-05-07T14:31:00.000-07:00

Yahoo! video search is fully operational
Yahoo said its video search service that helps Web surfers find such things as news clips, music videos and movie trailers from such sources as CBSNews.com, MTV.com and IFILM.com is now widely available to the public. Yahoo Video Search rolled out as a test in December.

The new general release enables Web users to find and view all types of video, from news footage and movie trailers to clips from television shows and independently produced videos.

The move came just days after rival Web search provider Google announced new partners for its test video search service, which allows Web users to scour closed captioning content and see still shots of video clips. Google also has put out a call for people to submit their own video to the service. Yahoo, Google, Microsoft, Ask Jeeves and handfuls of upstarts like Blinkx are racing to provide all of the information consumers seek on the Web while cashing in on lucrative search advertising. Actually available content on Yahoo Video Search includes news clips from CBS News and Reuters, music videos from Country Music Television, MTV.com and VH1.com and movie clips and trailers from IFILM.com. It also carries video clips from Scripps Network's Home & Garden Television and The Food Network as well as from Discovery Communications' Discovery Channel, Animal Planet and Travel Channel. Yahoo's other partners include TVEyes, Internet Broadcasting Systems, The One Network, and Stupid Videos. Google Video's new partners include the Discovery Channel, Animal Planet, the Discovery Health Channel, CNN, and others.
Yahoo Stokes Search Engine Rivalry By Propelling Video Search Information Week
Yahoo says its video search now widely available Reuters
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2005-05-05T22:24:00.000-07:00

Louder: They think It's All About Them!
Just look at their Washington agenda:

Forget about ethics and keep Tom DeLay in power
Forget about principle and put extreme judge on the bench
Forget about national security and send John Bolton to the UN
Forget about America's promise and undermine Social Security

It's decision time. Republican leaders are doing everything in their power to find the votes to pass the nuclear option - and clear the way for Bush nominations of extreme judges that don't need a single Democratic vote. We've been working hard to stop them. But, now we've got to pull out all the stops. Your immediate financial help is essential as we launch an intensive effort with a powerful newspaper ad in next Tuesday's USA Today. Your donation can help deliver our message to 2.2 million people.
http://contribute.johnkerry.com/
For weeks now, we've been raising our voices. It's time to make them louder. George W. Bush, Tom DeLay and Bill Frist seem determined to prove how much they care about their own political power . . . and how little they care about using power to fight for what really matters to America's families. In a matter of days, as Senator Frist gets ready to pull the trigger on the "nuclear option," we will see how far they are willing to go in sacrificing principle to satisfy the desires of the most extreme and out of touch interest groups in their party. As this critical vote approaches, the outcome is unclear. But, this much is clear, we can't win unless committed supporters of democratic principles like you take action. Don't stand on the sidelines. Rush an immediate donation to mobilize public opposition to the Republicans' power play.
http://contribute.johnkerry.com/
With support from people like you, the johnkerry.com community is waging an all-out effort to give voice to our values and stop Republican leaders from running roughshod over the things we value most.

We've collected over a quarter of a million signatures opposing the "nuclear option."
We've collected over 600,000 more signatures demanding that Congress act to help the 11 million children living in America without health insurance.
We've distributed a video to millions of people on the Washington Republicans' dangerous tactics.
And, right now, we're reaching out by email, mail and phone to millions more.

Your participation - and your active financial support - for these initiatives are absolutely essential. Please take a moment to help right now.
http://contribute.johnkerry.com/
John Kerry has been traveling the country this week rallying support for our Kids First initiative to help children living without health care. The American people know what really matters. People won't stand for Republican leaders ignoring America's families any longer. Let's get that message across. Thank you for standing up for principle at a moment of great urgency.

2005-05-04T11:22:00.000-07:00

Sober-N Worm Again Scoring in over 40 Countries
It's the oldest trick in the virus writer's handbook. Promise free stuff and they will click. Around the world soccer fans are falling for an e-mail promise of free tickets to the 2006 World Cup finals in Berlin. The computer worm, known as Sober-N has been spreading dramatically. Sober-N is spreading in both English and German, with the German version disguised as a successful confirmation of a ticket order to the 2006 World Cup, among the biggest sporting events in the world. Computer users are asked to click on an attachment for more information. The English version is not soccer related, instead it implies that there is some problem with the user's e-mail that needs to be addressed, by clicking the attachment. But in either language, that click will trigger the worm to harvest all the e-mail addresses on that computer, and send the same message to everyone on it. Sober-N is unlike other computer worms and viruses that carry malicious payloads, capable of stealing passwords or deleting files. MessageLabs, a company that provides managed e-mail security for businesses, reports finding more than 1.1 million copies of the virus destined for its customers. MessageLabs spokeswoman Shelley Driscoll says the virus was filtered before it reached their 11,000 clients worldwide. The mantra that anti virus companies have been chanting for years is applicable to this threat. Computer users should never open e-mail attachments from unknown parties; they should update anti-virus, anti-spam and anti-spyware software on a regular basis, or invest in a program that automatically updates and installs those security programs when new threats are identified. This is not the first time that virus writers have exploited the planet's love of soccer. In 2002 a virus called Chick-F posed as an onscreen scores ticker during the World Cup in South Korea and Japan. And in 1998, a virus called WM97/ZMK-J asked computer users to pick the winners of upcoming matches. A wrong answer triggered a payload that wiped data off the user's hard drive. Who is behind Sober-N? There are two types of virus writers; organized criminals who use "malware" to steal information for financial gain and the publicity seekers, who want their 15 minutes of fame. The creator of Sober-N fits the bragging profile.
Sober worm now 4 percent of all email ZDNet UK
New Sober worm causes havoc with promises of World Cup tickets PC Pro
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2005-04-30T07:40:00.000-07:00

NewsFactor Network

Firefox Tops 50 Million Downloads
The Dutch Web analytics firm OneStat.com reports that Firefox has captured 8.69% of the global browser market share. The most popular browsers on the web are:

N°	Browser	February 28 2005	April 28 2005	Variation
1.	Microsoft IE	87.27%	86.63%	-0.73%
2.	Mozilla Firefox	8.45%	8.69%	+2.84%
3.	Apple Safari	1.21%	1.26%	+4.13%
4.	Netscape	1.11%	1.08%	-2.70%
5.	Opera	1.09%	1.03%	-5.50%

Niels Brinkman thinks, the rapidly growth of the global usage share of Mozilla's Firefox seems seems down and it looks like that browser users of Internet Explorer for Apple's Mac are switching to Safari because the global usage share is still growing.
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