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_______________________________________________________ INTERNET THINK TANK FLASH NEWS August 6, 2008 _______________________________________________________ About Us Internet Think Tank is an Internet technology and research firm specializing in enterprise web applications and web services. Internet Think Tank develops and promotes technology that enhances how people use the Internet in new and exciting ways. To learn more about Internet Think Tank, visit our web site at http://www.inttk.com _______________________________________________________ Business *Sun Microsystems Profit Falls 73% as Customers Cut Spending Profit at Sun Microsystems, the computer server maker, declined 73 percent in the most recent quarter as slumping sales to big American companies and reorganization charges weighed on the server and software maker. The company, based in Santa Clara, Calif., also revealed plans Friday to expand its stock buyback program by $1 billion, a sign that Sun believes its shares, which have fallen by 50 percent over the last nine months, are undervalued and poised to rebound. Sun blamed weakness in the American economy, which has caused some of its biggest customers to cut spending, and the sale of fewer higher-end servers, which carry better profit margins. Sun faces intense competition in that market from I.B.M. and Hewlett-Packard. (Source: http://www.nytimes.com ) *Stockholders Vote to Keep Yahoo Executives on Board Despite some stockholders' sour comments at Yahoo's 2008 annual stockholder meeting, the majority of stockholders voted to re-elect each member of the executive board. Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang received 85-percent yes votes to stay on board. And despite some calls for chairman Roy Bostock's resignation because of Yahoo's failure to negotiate a deal with Microsoft, he received about 80-percent approval. Stockholders also approved a proposal to hire PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP as Yahoo's public accounting firm. They failed a proposal to increase executive salaries along with two proposals related to forming a human rights committee and the establishment of policies on internet censorship. Immediately after the meeting, the board appointed Carl Icahn as a replacement for resigned board member Robert Kotick. (Source: http://blog.wired.com ) Yahoo! Announces Results of 2008 Annual Stockholder Meeting http://yhoo.client.shareholder.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=325936 *An Unexpected Profit for Motorola Motorola announced better-than-expected earnings for the second quarter on Thursday, but the company is still plagued by declining revenue and losses in its cellphone unit, which it expects to spin off next year. The maker of mobile phone and other telecommunications equipment based in Schaumburg, Ill., reported a profit of $4 million, in contrast to a loss of $28 million in the period a year earlier. Revenue of $8.08 billion for the quarter was 7.4 percent below the $8.73 billion reported in the period last year. In the mobile devices division, sales fell 22 percent, to $3.3 billion. The division reported an operating loss of $346 million, compared with a loss of $332 million a year ago. Despite that, Gregory Brown, Motorola's chief executive, said the company saw improvements in the division, particularly related to increased sales of the Moto W755 mobile music phone sold by Verizon Wireless. One reason was because Motorola sought to cut costs to improve margins. (Source: http://www.nytimes.com ) *Nortel's Loss Triples, Shares Plunge Nortel Networks Corp. on Friday reported a loss of $113 million for the second quarter along with news that a major customer was cutting back on spending, sending its stock plummeting over 15 per cent on the Toronto Stock Exchange. With word that U.S. carrier Sprint Nextel may be the Nortel customer which chief executive Mike Zafirovski said in a conference call had "shut the door" on near term capital spending, analysts are growing concerned that the company is entering a troubling period. The company's loss of about 23 cents a share was triple that in the year-earlier period, when the company reported a loss of $37 million, or seven cents a share. Analysts were expecting a loss of three cents a share. Nortel attributed the decline to a $67-million charge for ongoing restructuring plans and $21-million loss from mark-to-market losses on interest rate swaps, the company said in a statement. (Source: http://www.canada.com ) _______________________________________________________ Early Adaptor Blog In the blog: John McCain's "Hollywood Obama" commmercial, Google's Street View expands to Japan and Australia, the Zen Krystal, a nifty new MP3 player and the rise of corporate investing in green tech. http://earlyadaptor.tumblr.com/ _______________________________________________________ Portals *Newspaper Web Sites Gaining More Readers The Newspaper Association of America (NAA) published numbers today that reveal more people are increasingly going online to get their news. The NAA says Newspaper Web sites brought in close to 66.4 million unique visitors on average (40.2% of all Internet users) in the second quarter of 2008. This is a 12.2 percent increase over the same period a year ago. Newspaper Web site visitors generated an average of over three billion page views per month throughout the quarter, compared with nearly 2.7 million during the same time last year. "The Internet has become the news destination of choice for many sophisticated consumers and newspaper companies continue to meet their evolving demands," said NAA President and CEO John F. Sturm. "The latest audience figures provide further evidence that newspapers' digital properties deliver highly-accurate and hyper-local content that consumers can't find anywhere else." (Source: http://www.webpronews.com ) *Teen Social Network myYearbook Gets $13 Million myYearbook, a social network for teenagers that launched in 2005, has raised $13 million in a Series B funding round led by Norwest Venture Partners, US Venture Partners, and First Round Capital. The new round brings the company's total funding to $18.6 million. myYearbook says it sees 10 million unique visitors monthly, and also makes the claim that it is the third largest social network in the US. (Not quite. It is only a fraction of the size of MySpace or Facebook, and Bebo and imeem also attract more monthly unique visitors. According to comScore, myYearbook had 4.5 million unique visitors in June, versus 5.2 million for Bebo and 6.4 million for imeem). myYearbook continues to produce impressive stats if you look at Hitwise, with 384% in year-over-year growth. (Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com ) *Bogus Sick Note Site Causes Stir In Australia A Web site that sells fake sick notes could pose a risk to people's health and encourage fraud according to Australian Medical Association President Dr. Rosanna Capolingua. The notes are available from octorsnotestore.com and cost about $38 each. They contain a local Australian doctors name and practice. "The AMA is deeply concerned if people are able to buy authentic-looking fake sick notes over the Internet," Dr Capolingua said. On the Web site it says,""Explain your time off work or school with our genuine doctors' medical certificates. Available blank or filled in. Available with or without genuine doctors stamp." It also offers delivery to the UK within 48 hours. The Web site also offers notes for Europeans and for people who have a gym membership that want to cancel their contract due to illness or pregnancy. The site also has links for fake medical notes in the U.S. and Canada. (Source: http://www.webpronews.com ) _______________________________________________________ Internet *Lawmakers Demand Info on Web Tracking Practices A congressional committee wants the nation's largest telecommunications and Internet companies to explain whether they target online advertising based on consumers' search queries and Web surfing habits. In an expanding inquiry into the state of consumer privacy on the Internet, House Energy and Commerce Committee leaders sent letters Friday to more than 30 companies, demanding to know whether they track where their users go online and use that information to deliver personalized advertising. Among the companies receiving the letters were Google Inc., Yahoo Inc., Microsoft Corp., AT&T Inc., Comcast Corp., Qwest Communications International Inc., Verizon Communications Inc., Time Warner Inc.'s AOL unit and Time Warner Cable Inc. The companies were given a week to respond. The letters build on an earlier probe by the committee into "deep packet inspection" technologies, which can track where people go and what they do on the Internet. (Source: http://news.yahoo.com ) *Waseda University Opens Second Life Campus Waseda University opened a campus in Second Life, an Internet-based virtual world operated by a U.S. company. The private Tokyo university will use the virtual campus to promote joint studies with Princeton University of the U.S., which has already opened a campus in Second Life. Waseda's landmark structures, including the Okuma Auditorium and statue of Shigenobu Okuma (1838-1922), the university's founder, are featured on the virtual campus, which anyone can visit. Waseda and Princeton students visiting the virtual campus can discuss issues related to communications and remote education, Waseda officials said. (Source: http://search.japantimes.co.jp ) *Bill Would Deny Kids Access To Social Networks In Libraries U.S. lawmakers are considering a bill that would prohibit children from accessing social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace in public libraries in order to protect them from sexual predators. Rep. Mark Steven Kirk, R-Illinois, who sponsored the bill, says the measure would prevent sexual predators from communicating with minors who are using a library computer. Children would be allowed to access social networking sites with parental permission. The American Library Association is critical of Kirk's bill and views it as the federal government overstepping its bounds to interfere with library users privacy and free speech. "If people in a community do not feel confident that their privacy will be protected, they cannot use the library as it was intended, for intellectual pursuit," Emily Sheketoff, who heads the association's Washington office told Gannet. "It will intimidate them." (Source: http://www.webpronews.com ) ________________________________________________________ Weekly Quote "The Chinese government and the Chinese people have been working in real earnest to honor the commitments made to the international community." --President Hu Jintao of China. The President said China would stand by pledges made when it was awarded the Olympics as Games officials deflected fire over Internet censorship on Friday by lifting restrictions. China and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) are under fire from critics who say neither has lived up to pledges the country made to improve its rights record and lift Internet censorship for the Olympics. (Source: http://www.reuters.com ) ________________________________________________________ Wireless *Report: Apple Increasing iPhone 3G Production Demand for Apple's iPhone 3G remains strong, which could be forcing Apple to ramp production beyond its original estimates. TechCrunch is reporting that Apple has asked Foxconn, formally known as Hon Hai, to increase production of the iPhone 3G to 800,000 units a week. That pace translates to about 40 million units a year, far greater than what most analysts had been expecting the company to sell in the iPhone 3G era. A short-term bump in production capacity may not imply that Foxconn will keep up that pace; TechCrunch's report alludes to "some concerns about quality control" on the part of either Apple or Foxconn related to the increase. After six weeks with no iPhone sales, there was clearly pent-up demand going into the July 11 launch of the iPhone 3G that may not be sustainable over the rest of the year without causing problems. But more countries are expected to join the official ranks of iPhone users in the next several months, and the holiday shopping season is usually the catalyst for all sorts of gadgets. (Source: http://news.cnet.com ) *Publishing a Newspaper, via Cellphone The thud of the morning newspaper landing on the front porch may one day be replaced with the beep of download onto a cellphone. Verve Wireless believes it can save the dying local newspaper in the United States by making it mobile. It offers publishers the technology to create Web sites for cellphones. The company, based in Encinitas, California, already provides mobile versions of 4,000 newspapers from 140 publishers, including Freedom Communications, McClatchy and The New York Times's Regional Media Group. The Associated Press, its biggest customer, is betting that Verve has the solution to the nagging problem of dwindling print readership. It led a $3 million round of financing in Verve, a rare investment for the news organization. People are increasingly using their phones to surf the Web. Of the 95 million mobile Internet subscribers in the United States, 40 million actively use their phones to go online, twice the number of two years ago, according to Nielsen Mobile. After portal sites and e-mail services, newspaper content - weather, news, politics, city guides, sports and entertainment - is most popular among mobile users. (Source: http://www.iht.com ) ________________________________________________________ Technology *Low-Cost Sub-Notebooks to Hit 18M in 2009 Unit shipments of low-cost small-form factor notebooks, or Netbooks, will grow substantially over the next year, according to new research. Market Intelligence Center (MIC) said in a release on its Web site 18.3 million low-cost mini-notebooks will be shipped globally next year, a 128-percent jump over the 8.02 million forecast for 2008. Chris Wei, MIC's senior industry analyst, noted in the release, the Asus Eee PC dominated the low-cost sub-notebook market during the first six months of the year. Acer, which launched the Acer Aspire One in June, also displayed "an aggressive attitude" in wanting to develop the market. "In the second half of 2008, price competition is expected to emerge in the market and product specifications could be improved by vendors in order to better compete in the market," said Wei. The Netbook market will be further stimulated, said Taiwan-based MIC, as the top three global notebook PC vendors--Hewlett-Packard, Dell and Acer--roll out products in the next few months. The research institute expects these vendors to focus on near 9-inch models. (Source: http://www.zdnetasia.com ) *Sun Throws JavaFX hat into Web App Ring Sun Microsystems has released a preview version of JavaFX, programming technology the company hopes will be the foundation of rich Internet applications. JavaFX, like its Java progenitor, includes both software to execute programs and a programming language used to write those programs--JavaFX Script for the new technology. Java has a strong brand in programming circles, but the technology caught on chiefly for use on servers and mobile phones. Sun is trying to go full circle with JavaFX, billing the software as a way to run software on desktop PCs. The software includes support for 2D and 3D graphics, audio and video, and animation. But JavaFX has an uphill battle. Adobe Systems' Flash is widely used, Microsoft's relatively new Silverlight is headed toward its second, more versatile version, and ordinary HTML Web pages augmented with JavaScript has proven useful for many rich Internet applications that do not require a lot of pizazz. (Source: http://www.zdnetasia.com ) *Portugal to Buy 500,000 Classmate PCs for Students Portugal plans to buy 500,000 Classmate PC computers during the upcoming school year as part of a program to expand computer and Internet usage among schoolchildren. The deal is the biggest yet announced for the low-cost laptops. The distribution of Classmate PCs to Portuguese elementary school children, called the Magellan Initiative after the famous Portuguese explorer, was announced Wednesday during a meeting between Intel Chairman Craig Barrett and Portuguese Prime Minister José Sócrates. Classmate PC was developed by Intel as a low-cost computer, primarily for school children in developing countries although the machines are also available in developed countries. The Portuguese deal is the first large-scale project Intel has signed for the rugged little laptops. Current deployments of the machines are on a smaller scale, primarily as pilot projects to test how the computers can be integrated into lessons. (Source: http://www.pcworld.com ) ________________________________________________________ You Tube *YouTube Channel Takes Olympics Global Citizens of Ethiopia and Thailand are among the international Web users who will be able to view online content from the Beijing Olympics via YouTube, according to an announcement made by the International Olympic Committee Monday. While NBC holds the Olympics digital video-on-demand rights in the United States, rights have not been sold on an exclusive basis in more than 70 countries. In those countries, people can access the specialized YouTube Olympics channel youtube.com/beijing2008, starting on August 6. The IOC said the Olympic Broadcasting Services will produce the YouTube channel content and will include highlights, news clips, and daily videos of the international games. YouTube, and parent company Google, will also help pull videos that violate the IOC copyrights on Olympics content, The Wall Street Journal reported. YouTube said it would not disclose exact terms of the deal, but that the IOC is "is using our industry-leading VideoID technology to manage and protect its content on the site". A YouTube spokesperson also said the site will only sell advertising on the channel to any of the IOC's 12 exclusive sponsors. (Source: http://www.zdnetasia.com ) *CrimeTube: NYPD Assembling Its Own Video Site Give the NYPD some credit. Stung by a YouTube video of one of New York's Finest body-checking a bicyclist in Times Square, NYPD chief Ray Kelly isn't hiding from Web video. He's embracing it. Or at least he says he is. Kelly says his department is building the capability on its own Web site for video uploads of evidence of crimes -- including those committed by cops. "It's a fact of life," Kelly told Reuters. "Everybody has a camera in their telephones. When people can record an event taking place that helps us during an investigation, it's helpful." Kelly says the function will be added to the NYPD's Web site "soon." NYPD has used cell phone snapshots as evidence, such as in the case of a subway flasher last year, but now more phones are able to shoot video. But the big question here is what happens to the video after it gets uploaded. (Source: http://www.alleyinsider.com ) ________________________________________________________ Security *Most Drive-by Malware Comes from China, Google Says A analysis by Google of Web sites that have malware found most of the malicious drive-by activity is due to computers in China, an engineer for the search giant said at the Usenix security conference on Wednesday. About 67 percent of all the sites that secretly drop malicious software onto visitors' computers are located in China, as are 64 percent of the compromised servers, said senior staff engineer Niels Provos during a presentation here at the event. "Web based malware is a significant problem and...there is no real good proactive defense against this," Provos said. Between January and October 2007, Google's malware analysis of 66 million unique URLs found 3.5 million had malware, he said. There was a 90 percent detection rate and the false positive rate was 0.1 percent, according to Provos. The analysis is part of Google's efforts to steer Web surfers clear of sites with malicious software that can install malware on their computers and turn them into zombies on a botnet, which is a growing problem on the Internet. (Source: http://news.cnet.com ) *Apple DNS Security Patch Flawed, Leaves Users At Risk Apple finally rolled out a software update to fix the much-heralded Domain Name System (DNS) security flaw, but it seems the celebration may have been premature. The Cupertino, Calif.-based vendor rolled out Security Update 2008-005, a fix that Apple said plugs several security holes, including its implementation of the BIND (Berkeley Internet Name Domain) server, which left users of its Mac OS X operating system susceptible to the DNS flaw disclosed earlier this month. However, several security researchers Friday said Apple's DNS patch doesn't actually fix the problem and that Mac users are still at risk. "Did Apple forget to patch something? By the look of things, the DNS client on the OSX 10.4.11 distribution still has not been patched," said security researcher Andrew Storms, director of security operations at Ncircle Network Security, in a blog post. Apple's update was supposed to introduce port randomization to help block cache poisoning attacks, a threat exposed by the DNS flaw. But even after installing the patch, Storms said his system still was not randomizing the source port. "The bottom line is that despite this update, it appears that the client libraries still aren't patched," Storms said. (Source: http://www.crn.com ) ________________________________________________________ Legal *11 Charged in Theft of 40 Million Card Numbers The U.S. Justice Department said on Tuesday that it had charged 11 people in the theft of tens of millions of credit and debit card numbers of customers shopping at major retailers, including TJX Companies, in one of the largest reported identity-theft incidents on record. The United States Attorney in Boston said those charged were involved in the theft of more than 40 million credit and debit card numbers. TJX, of Framingham, Mass., which owns the Marshall's and TJ Maxx chains, was the hardest hit by the ring, acknowledging in March 2007 that information from 45.7 million credit cards was stolen from its computers. The charges focus on three people from the United States, three from the Ukraine, two from China, one from Estonia and one from Belarus. The authorities said that the scheme was spearheaded by a Miami man named Albert Gonzalez, who hacked into the computer systems of retailers including TJX, BJ's Wholesale Club, OfficeMax, Boston Market, Barnes & Noble, Sports Authority, Forever 21 and DSW Inc. The numbers were then stored on computer servers in the United States and Eastern Europe. They then sold the information to people in the United States and Europe, who used it to withdraw tens of thousands of dollars at a time from automated teller machines, the authorities said. (Source: http://www.nytimes.com ) *Alarm Over US Border Electronics Seizures The US Department of Homeland Security has admitted that federal agents may seize a traveller's electronic devices for an unspecified period of time without having any suspicions, as part of its border search policies. Officials may also pass copies of contents of a traveller's laptop to other agencies for language translation, data decryption or other reasons, according to the policies, dated July 16. "The policies are truly alarming," said Democratic senator Russell Feingold, who is probing the US Government's border search practices. Homeland Security officials said the policies - which apply to anyone entering the country, including US citizens - are reasonable and necessary to prevent terrorism. Officials said such procedures have long been in place but were disclosed last month because of public interest. (Source: http://www.theage.com.au ) *Oracle Expands Theft Allegations Against Rival SAP Escalating its rancor with rival SAP AG, business software maker Oracle Corp. accused SAP of knowingly buying and then embracing an illegal operation set up to steal Oracle's products and customers. The allegations emerged in the latest documents filed in a fraud case that Oracle brought against SAP last year in San Francisco federal court. Oracle fired its volley the day before Germany-based SAP is scheduled to report its second-quarter earnings. The 16-month-old lawsuit focuses on TomorrowNow, a software maintenance specialist that SAP bought in 2005 to counter Oracle's $11.1 billion acquisition of PeopleSoft. TomorrowNow offered to support PeopleSoft products at lower prices than Oracle did, an advantage that SAP hoped to use to lure customers away from its biggest rival in business applications software. Those products automate a wide range of administrative tasks. But Oracle alleges that TomorrowNow relied on a ''corrupt'' strategy that included breaking into Oracle's computers to obtain confidential information. (Source: http://www.nytimes.com ) *British Computer Hacker Loses Appeal over US Extradition A British man accused of hacking into the computer systems of the US military and NASA on Wednesday lost his appeal against extradition to face trial. Gary McKinnon, 42, tried to prevent his transfer to the United States to be tried over what has been described as the "biggest military hack of all time" by taking his case to Britain's highest court, the House of Lords. But five judges unanimously rejected the appeal, paving the way for the unemployed UFO enthusiast to be extradited to the US, where he could be jailed for up to 70 years if convicted of sabotaging vital US defence systems. McKinnon, from north London, was not in court to hear the ruling, but a statement read by his lawyers afterwards denied that he was either "a terrorist (or) a terrorist sympathiser". "His case could have been properly dealt with by our own prosecuting authorities," they said. "Instead, we believe that the British government declined to prosecute him to enable the US government to make an example of him. American officials involved in this case have stated that they want to see him 'fry'. (Source: http://afp.google.com ) ________________________________________________________ Gadget of the Week *Fabrik Claims New Drive Is Green, Really Green Storage company Fabrik said that it had begun shipping what it calls the world's most eco-friendly hard drive, which uses bamboo as a design element and low-impact packaging. Fabrik also updated its SimpleTech external drive line. On the inside, the new Fabrik [re]drive is fairly standard: 500 Gbytes for an estimated price of $159.99. The company chose an energy-saving drive from Western Digital, although future versions may contain drives from other manufacturers. There is no on-off switch; instead, the drive turns itself on and off, depending on usage. An Energy Star-qualified power adapter is also included. The exterior, however, is more distinctive. A thin sheet of bamboo serves both as an accent as well as a cover, and the rugged striations of the aluminum chassis actually add more surface area, increasing the drive's ability to passively cool itself. Matt McRae, vice president of marketing at Fabrik, said that even the extra bits of aluminum that are carved off during the manufacturing process are recycled into future products. (Source: http://www.pcmag.com ) Review: SimpleTech [re]Drive http://www.crunchgear.com/2008/07/28/review-simpletech-redrive/ _______________________________________________________ Tech Terms insourcing Insourcing is the opposite of outsourcing; that is insourcing (or contracting in) is often defined as the delegation of operations or jobs from production within a business to an internal (but 'stand-alone') entity that specializes in that operation. Insourcing is a business decision that is often made to maintain control of critical production or competencies. _________________________________________________________ On the Web The "small world theory," embodied in the old saw that there are just "six degrees of separation" between any two strangers on Earth, has been largely corroborated by a massive study of electronic communication. "Instant-Messagers Really Are About Six Degrees from Kevin Bacon" http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/01/AR2008080103718.html The proliferation of new applications and the realization that they make cellphones more popular has convinced carriers that they need to give consumers more freedom. "Applications Spur Carriers to Relax Grip on Cellphones" http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/04/technology/04open.html?_r=1&ref=technology&oref=slogin It's 2018: Who Owns the Cloud? In 10 years-given that clouds will be evaluated based on transactions, user experience, and presence-Amazon, eBay, Apple, and Microsoft will likely be top contenders http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/aug2008/tc2008081_152574.htm?campaign_id=rss_tech _________________________________________________________ Wired Index August 5, 2008 $17.92 Last Week +0.45 Year to Date -17.34% Guinness Atkinson Global Innovators Fund (IWIRX) tracks the share prices of 40 public companies, selected by the editors of Wired magazine to represent the forces driving the new economy. For more information about the fund including past performance, see the link below: http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=iwirx ___________________________________________________________ Internet Think Tank Internet Think Tank is an Internet technology and research firm specializing in enterprise web applications and web services. Internet Think Tank develops and promotes technology that enhances how people use the Internet in new and exciting ways. To learn more about Internet Think Tank, visit our web site at http://www.inttk.com ____________________________________________________________ -- Mircea Balaceanu [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------- **[RomaniaUSA] "Romani. Pur si Simplu" ------------------------------------------------------------- http://www.romania-usa.ro Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/romaniausa/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/romaniausa/join (Yahoo! 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