Browsers Battles: Google backs case against Microsoft's Explorer

Browser makers Opera, Mozilla and Google are adding weight to an EU attack on Microsoft's dominance.

Nautilus News Science & Technology
February 24, 2009
By: Marco Ayllon

Google is joining forces with European regulators in an attack on Microsoft's dominance of the web browser market, injecting more bad blood between two of computing's richest and most powerful companies.

The latest assault on Microsoft's Internet Explorer comes as Google is trying to expand the usage of its own web browser, a six-month-old product called Chrome.
A complaint by another Internet Explorer rival, Opera, prompted the European Commission to open an investigation into whether Microsoft's bundling of its web browser with the Windows operating system had stifled competition and innovation. In their preliminary findings, the European regulators concluded that Microsoft had indeed given its web browser an unfair advantage that has been in violation of European law since 1996.

Microsoft has until late March to respond, which could force the Redmond, Washington-based software maker to detach Internet Explorer from Windows.
By becoming a third party in the European proceedings, Google hopes to build a case as to why Microsoft should be required to level the playing field for Chrome and other competing browsers.

"Creating a remedy that helps solve one problem without creating other unintended consequences isn't easy - but the more voices there are in the conversation the greater the chances of success," Sundar Pichai, a Google vice president, wrote in a blog post.

The makers of Firefox, which has risen in popularity in recent years and is the second-most-used browser behind Internet Explorer, already have offered to help the European Commission crack down on Microsoft.

A Microsoft spokesman declined comment on Tuesday, referring instead to a statement that the company issued last month after the European Commission's preliminary findings.

"We are committed to conducting our business in full compliance with European law," Microsoft said at that time.

In a quarterly report to shareholders last month, Microsoft said European regulators might force the company to set up a version of Windows that would bundle several browsers with the operating system, to make it easier for users to pick something other than Internet Explorer.

While Microsoft's has been at odds with other browser makers, its rivalry with Google is the most prickly.

Google has milked its leadership of the lucrative internet search market to undermine Microsoft's influence on how people interact with their computers. Microsoft has unsuccessfully tried to thwart Google's growth by pouring billions of dollars into its own search engine.

The battle between the two foes has occasionally spilled into the regulatory arena. Last year, Microsoft spearheaded a campaign that raised serious antitrust concerns about Google's plans to sell some ads on behalf of Yahoo, which is a distant second in the internet search market.

Google scrapped the Yahoo alliance in November, averting a lawsuit that US Justice Department planned to file to block the partnership.

Report: Free Windows 7 upgrades to run until January 2010

Nautilus Science & Technology News
February 12, 2009
By: Marco A. Ayllon

Latest clue that Windows 7 will ship by Christmas, says analyst

To encourage consumers to keep buying Windows Vista PCs this year despite Windows 7's looming release, Microsoft Corp. will give away free Windows 7 upgrades to people buying PCs with Vista until as late as Jan. 31 of next year, according to a report.

The report, from the Malaysian blog TechARP.com, which has called similar details correctly in the past, is another clue that Microsoft plans to release Windows 7 before year's end, said Matt Rosoff, an analyst at the independent research firm Directions on Microsoft.

Citing purported confidential memos from Microsoft, TechARP.com had earlier reported that the Windows 7 Upgrade Program will begin July 1 of this year.

That would mean that any Vista PCs purchased between then and Jan. 31, 2010, would be eligible for free upgrades to Windows 7.

TechARP reported today that those Windows 7 upgrade DVDs should be delivered by PC makers to customers by April 30 of next year. These dates are "open to change," TechARP reported.

The veracity of the report "seems reasonable to me," said Rosoff. "If they're soliciting OEM feedback now, that points to a possible release in time for holiday 2009."

Microsoft declined to comment on the TechARP report.

"Microsoft often explores options with our partners to determine product offerings," a spokeswoman said in an e-mail. "We are not announcing anything new at this time."

TechARP correctly named the release-to-manufacturing (RTM) dates for several Windows editions last year.

In Microsoft's prior Vista Express upgrade program, Windows XP PCs bought between October 26, 2006, and March 15, 2007, were eligible for free Vista upgrades.

Microsoft launched Vista to consumers officially on Jan. 30, 2007, or 45 days before the program's eligibility ended.

The program was plagued with delays, with consumers waiting weeks or months to get their Vista upgrade DVDs mailed to them.

TechARP has other purported details from the upgrade program, including screenshots and upgrade paths.

"The program sounds very similar to what they did before Vista," Rosoff said. "I think the terms are slightly different, but that's because there were fewer [versions] in XP, so the edition upgrade paths were similar."

Google's Grid Meter Looks to Save Homeowners Some Green

This is an example screenshot of Google's power meter software in action. The service, once it receives more partner support should eventually help reduce the stress on the grid and save users power bills by monitoring their usage and comparing it with grid demand for live information feeds. (Source: Google.org)

Nautilus Science & Technology News
February 12, 2009
By: Marco A. Ayllon

Google distinguishes itself from the pack by offering its green grid meter service for free.

DailyTech previously covered IBM's efforts to release a "green meter" which monitored the amount of electricity that small businesses use and equating it to green house gas emissions. Now Google has joined IBM and others by releasing its own entry into the burgeoning grid meter market.

The new service from Google is called PowerMeter and it's free to both home and commercial users. While this sounds great, there's one significant catch -- PowerMeter relies on others to provide the information it needs. Google is hoping that makers of home electronics and appliances will add hardware which will feed the service information wirelessly. It also needs utilities to provide it with grid metrics.

Kirsten Olsen Cahill, a program manager at Google.org, the company’s corporate philanthropy arm which developed the service, states, "We can’t build this product all by ourselves. We depend on a whole ecosystem of utilities, device makers and policies that would allow consumers to have detailed access to their home energy use and make smarter energy decisions."

The new service, if it gains a hardware foothold, will offer homeowners their first chance to participate in a smarter grid. Google is among the firms leading such efforts which seek to use existing resources more efficiently.

The service and others in the future may interface with the chips inside devices such as washing machines, dryers, and dishwashers to give users an ever-changing visual display of how much money it will cost to use the device at that particular time of the day. Electricity charges are tied to demand, something most consumers never pay much attention to when it comes to power usage. By using devices at times when demand is lower, users could potentially save a great deal of money, depending on their utility's policies.

Describes Rick Sergel, chief executive of the North American Electric Reliability Corporation, an industry group that sets operating standards for the grid in an interview with the New York Times, "They’ve been putting a chip in your dishwasher for a long time that would allow you to run it any time you want. (These services) provide an opportunity to create dancing partners that will help the system balance itself."

The new meter could also be very useful for plug-in electric vehicles. With GM and others preparing to unleash a fleet of electric plug-ins on the streets, advanced grid meters could allow for billing, at local recharging stations and could also help users and utilities work together to figure out the optimal time for daily recharges. If the user leaves the car plugged in, the smart meter would help the power companies figure out the lowest demand time of the day and recharge the car then. This would save the user money, while helping the utility by reducing the stress on its networks.

The new stimulus package which has almost passed through Congress should help further finance efforts such as Google's. It includes $4.4B USD for "smart" power technologies, with money earmarked specifically for 4 million meters. James Hoecker, a former chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which has some jurisdiction over transmission lines says the efforts will not only improve the grid, but will also create jobs. He states, "You can hire a lot of people to install smart meters."

ConnectU’s ‘Secret’ $65 Million Settlement With Facebook

Nautilus Science & Technology News
February 12, 2009
By: Marco A. Ayllon

One of the sideshows in the quest to peg a valuation on the rapidly growing social network Facebook has been its continuing legal battle with the founders of a rival Harvard site, ConnectU.

I’ve chronicled the continuing skirmish, most recently here and here. The case was settled last year, but then the ConnectU founders, who include the Olympian brothers Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, contested that settlement, claiming that part of it was in Facebook stock, whose value had been misrepresented to them. They also sued one of the law firms that brokered the deal on their behalf, Quinn Emanuel Urquhart Oliver & Hedges, claiming the firm had failed to do proper due diligence on Facebook’s internal stock price.

Curiously, the value of Facebook’s contested legal settlement with ConnectU was guarded almost religiously by all parties -– until now. The Recorder, a legal newspaper in San Francisco, reported Tuesday that Quinn Emanuel had published the amount -– $65 million -– in some of the firm’s own promotional literature.

“WON $65 million settlement against Facebook” appears in the firm’s most recent newsletter, along with dozens of other settlements reached by Quinn during 2008, according to The Recorder.

The Recorder also said that John Quinn, the firm’s chairman, asked the paper not to print the amount and declined to comment further.

It’s unclear why the firm would trumpet a “settlement” that represents less a triumph than a continuing legal morass, a disputed valuation and a furious client. The $65 million number is somewhat misleading anyway, since part of that amount is based on Facebook stock that was once valued at $15 billion, by the famous Microsoft investment, but has since fallen drastically.

What is certain is that this latest twist is not likely to help Quinn Emanuel assuage the anger of its former clients, whose dispute with the firm is currently in arbitration.

Free Educational AP and AR Seminar Coming to Dallas

Nautilus Science and Technology News
By: Marco Ayllon
Dallas October 7,2008

AnyDoc Software, an award-winning developer of document and data capture solutions, along with Kodak, will be sponsoring a free educational live seminar entitled "Eliminate Your Processing Pains and Lower Costs: Automated Invoice, Remittance and Check Processing" to be held Thursday, October 23, 2008, from 11 a.m. until 2 p.m. at the Hilton Anatole in Dallas, TX.
Discussions will focus on how to automate the capture of AP invoices, AR remittances and check data for entry into financial and ERP systems. Other items to be explored include automatic balancing of invoice line items, auto- verification, database lookup capabilities, automatic check deposits, and Check 21 compliance. Attendees will also learn why top companies are selecting AnyDoc(R)INVOICE(TM) and AnyDoc(R)REMIT(TM) -- solutions that fit any company's business rules.
The "lunch and learn" will also feature details on how the typical manual accounting processes impact bottom line revenues and how automation can save time and money. Registration is free, and the agenda includes a complimentary lunch. There will also be an interactive session to address any attendee questions.
And, Kodak will host a raffle for an i1220 scanner -- a retail value of $1,199. The award-winning Kodak i1220 duplex scanner delivers on workgroup scanning needs with unprecedented image quality and 30 ppm performance. All end user attendees are eligible to win.
Suggested attendees include: AP and AR Managers, Disbursement Managers, Controllers, CFOs and COOs, or anyone interested in improving his or her accounting processes.
Based on industry-leading technologies, AnyDoc Software's complete line of solutions for accounting enables users to process more invoices, remittances, or checks per hour, eliminate the need for overtime, take advantage of early payment discounts, accelerate cash flow, and deposit checks without leaving their desks.
The Hilton Anatole is located on I-35E just north of the downtown Dallas Business District. To register for this event, visit www.anydocsoftware.com/accounting or call 1-800-775-3222 to speak with Client Services.
(Kodak is a trademark of Eastman Kodak Company.)
About AnyDoc Software
AnyDoc Software develops innovative document, data capture and classification solutions that have been the industry standard since 1991. Thousands of companies worldwide rely on AnyDoc solutions to eliminate millions of hours of manual data entry while improving their productivity and data accuracy. Any paper form or document including invoices, remittances, and checks can be automatically processed with full data extraction without the need for manual keying. Clients include: Sony Pictures Entertainment, Circuit City, BlueCross BlueShield, the U.S. Census, LeasePlan, Coop, and more. For additional information, please visit www.AnyDocSoftware.com
FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT:
Judy Mann, marketing communications manager, AnyDoc Software Inc.
(813) 222-0414, jmann@anydocsoftware.com
SOURCE AnyDoc Software
http://www.anydocsoftware.com

Market, Partners Positive On 'Fabless' AMD

Nautilus Science & Technology News
By: Marco Ayllon
Dallas October 7, 2008

Advanced Micro Devices (NYSE:AMD) finally pulled the trigger on a company-changing move that the technology industry had been expecting for months, announcing Tuesday that it will spin off its manufacturing operations in a multi-billion dollar joint venture with a newly formed high-tech investment company created by the government of Abu Dhabi.
Analysts and AMD partners reacted positively to news of the deal that will split Sunnyvale, Calif.-based AMD into two entities, a designer and marketer of AMD and ATI-branded computer products, and a new venture dubbed the Foundry Company, which will own and operate AMD's current semiconductor manufacturing assets.

Advanced Technology Investment Co. (ATIC), a government instrument formed in the United Arab Emirates capital of Abu Dhabi, will own 55.6 percent of the Foundry Co., with AMD retaining 44.4 percent ownership, according to a statement by the chip maker. Voting rights in the joint venture will be split 50-50, AMD said.

ATIC is to pay AMD $700 million for its stake and the new Foundry Co. would assume $1.2 billion of AMD's debt. Another Abu Dhabi party, UAE-owned Mubadala Development Co., will acquire 58 million, newly issued AMD shares for $314 million plus warrants to buy another 30 million, increasing Mubadala's stake in AMD from 8.1 percent to 19.3 percent.

Industry analysts on Tuesday praised the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based chip maker for simultaneously shedding a massive debt burden from its shaky books and positioning both its design side and the new foundry business for solid runs at future competitiveness.

"It takes [AMD] off the death watch list, and makes them a real player," said Enderle Group principal Rob Enderle. The San Jose, Calif.-based industry analyst also predicted that the move would "initially level the playing field substantially" between AMD and its much larger rival, microprocessor market share leader Intel of Santa Clara, Calif.

"What this does is make the AMD side a lot more agile. It allows them to focus on the future. The fab investments are necessarily done on a five-year strategic basis even as you also have to perform on a quarterly basis," Enderle said.

"This changes AMD from a company that was going out of business in the next couple of years to one that's in it for the long term."

Investors, too, were bullish at the outset of the deal's announcement, with large volumes of NYSE-traded AMD stock being shifted Tuesday on an opening of $5.27 per share. That price hit a high of $5.56 in the very early going before settling in to close at $4.59, an 8.51 percent gain for AMD on a day which saw competitors like Intel drop 5.38 percent and Santa Clara, Calif.-based Nvidia fall 7.77 percent.

Bullishness on AMD could be attributed to the chip maker's seemingly magical escape from the weight of seven straight quarters in the red, made even bleaker by the wider economic downturn, said Roger Kay of Endpoint Technology Associates

"It's a great move for AMD. I'm kind of thinking of it as a kind of Harry Houdini move. You couldn't imagine them getting out of where they were," said the Wayland, Mass.-based analyst.

American, Japanese Win Nobel Physics Prize

Nautilus Science & Technology News
By:Marco Ayllon
Dallas October 7,2008
The discovery of spontaneous broken symmetry in subatomic physics could be developed even further by research done at the Large Hadron Collider.

An American and two Japanese scientists will share the Nobel Prize in Physics for 2008.
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded one-half of the prize to Yoichiro Nambu, of the Enrico Fermi Institute at the University of Chicago, for discovering spontaneous broken symmetry in subatomic physics.

The other half goes jointly to Makoto Kobayashi, with High Energy Accelerator Research Organization (KEK), in Tsukuba, Japan, and Toshihide Maskawa, with the Yukawa Institute for Theoretical Physics (YITP) at Kyoto University, for discovering the origin of the broken symmetry that predicts the existence of at least three families of quarks in nature.

Nambu formulated a mathematical description of spontaneous broken symmetry in elementary particle physics in 1960. Spontaneous broken symmetry explains how nature's order hides beneath a surface that appears jumbled. Nambu's theories permeate the Standard Model of elementary particle physics. The Model blankets the smallest building blocks of all matter and three of nature's four forces to cover them under one theory.

Kobayashi and Maskawa describe different spontaneous broken symmetries, which scientists believe existed when the universe began. They came as a surprise when they first appeared in particle experiments in 1964. In 1972, Kobayashi and Maskawa explained broken symmetry within the framework of the Standard Model but they extended the Model to include three families of quarks.

Recent physics experiments have demonstrated their hypothesis surrounding the new quarks. In 2001, two particle detectors, BaBar at Stanford and Belle at Tsukuba, Japan, independently detected broken symmetries with results that Kobayashi and Maskawa predicted 29 years earlier.

Scientists are still trying to understand how broken symmetry allowed the universe to survive the Big Bang an estimated 14 billion years ago. They believe that if equal amounts of matter and antimatter appeared, they would have annihilated each other. Scientists believe that a deviation of one extra particle of matter for every 10 billion antimatter particles could have allowed the cosmos to survive. Just how that happened is unclear. Researchers at the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva hope to shed light on the process.