Call it a 'Sub-Subnotebook.' New 'PC' is Small as a Cell Phone!

IMOVIO launched today a smaller alternative to a subnotebook -- much smaller. The new iKIT is about the size of a PDA from ten years ago, but has a QWERTY keyboard and connects to the Internet at 3G speeds via your cell phone or Wi-Fi.

The $175 Linux-based system has a Webcam built in, as well as a range of applications, including Web browsing, e-mail and IM.

It can connect to the Internet using a standard Wi-Fi connection, or it can use your cell phone's mobile broadband connection via Bluetooth.

The company is currently pitching it to mobile network operators and retail stores.

It's being compared to the ill-fated Palm Foleo. But the comparison doesn't work because the Foleo was Palm-phone only, didn't fit in a pocket and cost well over three times the price of the iKIT.

Would YOU carry a second device (in addition to your cell phone) like this?

(This article originally appeared on Computer world as a blog. For more content from Mike Elgan visit his blog The World Is My Office)

Apple sells 2.6M Macs, ponders uncertain future

As CEO Steve Jobs acknowledged that the gloomy economic picture may affect sales at Apple Inc. in the future, the company announced yesterday that it had sold more than 2.6 million Macs in its fourth fiscal quarter, setting a single-quarter record for the second straight period.

"Some remarkable things are happening at Apple, but everything is now set against this global economic slowdown," said Jobs, who rarely joins other executives on the quarterly earnings calls with Wall Street analysts.

Apple sold 936,000 desktops and 1.68 million notebooks in the quarter, which ended Sept. 30, increases of 15% and 24%, respectively, over the same quarter last year.

Overall Mac sales were up 21% year-to-year, while total revenues from Mac computer sales, which totaled $3.62 billion for the quarter, were 17% over the same period last year, and accounted for 46% of Apple's total revenues of $7.9 billion for the quarter.

"Even with the softness in the market, they had a spectacular quarter," said Ezra Gottheil, an analyst at Technology Business Research Inc. However, the numbers, while impressive, were not up to recent performances. "Mac unit sales were up 21% year-to-year, a number most companies would be proud of, but it was the smallest growth Apple has posted since [the second fiscal quarter] of 2006, when the company transitioned to the Intel platform," he noted.

The slip in revenue growth for the Mac -- at $3.62 billion it was 17% above the same quarter last year -- was due, Gottheil said, to two things: The annual back-to-school promotion, which offered rebates of up to $299 to buyers who purchased an iPod with a new Mac, and second, consumer caution. "Even Mac consumers were more cautious in the quarter," Gottheil said.

Peering into the future, Jobs and other company executives said they're not sure how the economic climate will affect sales of its Macs going forward. "We're not economists," said Jobs at one point during the call. "Your next-door neighbor can likely predict what is going to happen as accurately as we can."

A slowdown in sales during the last weeks of September and the first weeks of October, in fact, may be a clue, said Tim Cook, Apple's chief operating officer, although he also attributed the fall-off to customers postponing purchases in anticipation of revamped machines.

"There were rampant rumors and lots of press reports about a potential portable transition, and we saw some slowing toward particularly the final weeks of September and the initial weeks of October," said Cook. He maintained that once the new laptops hit stores, sales rebounded.

Intel shows off new laptop platform at fall IDF

Intel Corp. this week gave a quick preview of its next-generation laptop platform, which could shake up the chip maker's mobile offerings.

The company gave analysts and users a glimpse of the new processor, code-named "Calpella," at its fall Intel Developer Forum (IDF) in Taiwan this week. Mooly Eden, corporate vice president and general manager of Intel's Mobile Platforms group, said during his keynote address at the forum that the chip set focuses largely on energy efficiency and longer battery life.

Nathan Brookwood, an analyst at research firm Insight 64, said that if he was a hardware vendor, he'd be eagerly awaiting the 2009 arrival of Calpella. "It's a very different platform than anything they've done to date," he said. "When Calpella shows up, everything inside that laptop will be brand-new."

The analyst explained that until now, Intel's laptop platforms have consisted of a CPU and a Northbridge chip, which holds the memory controller and the graphics chip. However, in Calpella, the memory controller has been moved onto the CPU itself. The graphics remain separate but will be packaged with the CPU, giving it better access to the memory controller and the CPU, he said.

"These are all good things," said Brookwood. "If I was a vendor, I'd be excited over this, but a little nervous because everything inside the platform is changing at the same time. With so many balls in the air, it's easy to drop one."

However, he added that since Intel is previewing Calpella a year before it ships, most of his concerns are lessened.

The new system will be based on Intel's upcoming 45-nanometer Nehalem architecture. The first Nehalem chips, which will be quad-core server chips, are expected to ship this fall. The rest of the Nehalem family -- desktop chips, dual-core, more quad-core and eight-core chips -- are slated to be released over the course of next year. Brookwood noted that the Nehalem chips for the laptop are scheduled to ship in the second half of 2009.

Intel execs showed off the first eight-core Nehalem chip at its IDF in August. A week before the forum, the chip maker announced that it was naming the new family of chips "Intel Core." The first Core chips to hit the market will get the added label of "i7," making the full name "Intel Core i7."

The Nehalem technology has a new modular architecture, which officials say will make it easier to scale from two to eight cores. The Core chips are also being designed to have two-way, simultaneous multithreading, use Intel's QuickPath interconnect, and have a three-level cache hierarchy.

Jobs: The iPhone is Apple's netbook

Apple Inc. has no imminent plans to compete in the growing market for "netbooks," the small, inexpensive laptops that accounted for 5% of all U.S. notebook sales last quarter, CEO Steve Jobs said yesterday.

But the company already participates in the category, Jobs argued, citing Apple's iPhone and iPod Touch as devices that have much of the same functionality as the ultralight, low-cost notebooks.

"We choose to be in certain segments of the market, and we choose not to be in certain segments of the market," Jobs said during a Tuesday conference call with Wall Street analysts that highlighted its fiscal fourth-quarter earnings. Jobs was responding to a question about whether and when Apple would enter the netbook market.

Repeating his categorization of the category last week as "nascent," Jobs downplayed the current market for the ultrasmall laptops. "There's, as best as we can tell, not a lot of them getting sold," he said.

Later in the question-and-answer session, Jobs said that although Apple would continue to add features to its notebooks as it dropped prices, he was unwilling to play in the netbook category as it's currently defined. "We don't know how to make a $500 computer that's not a piece of junk, and our DNA will not let us ship that," Jobs said. "But we can continue to deliver greater and greater value to those customers that we choose to serve, and there's a lot of them. And we've seen great success by focusing on certain segments of the market and not trying to be everything to everybody."

At the same time, it was clear that Jobs considers Apple's iPhone and iPod Touch as courting netbook dollars. "One of our entrants into that category, if you will, is the iPhone for browsing the Internet and doing e-mail and all the other things that a netbook lets you do," he said. "Being connected via the cellular net wherever you are, an iPhone is a pretty good solution for that, and it fits in your pocket."

Ezra Gottheil, an analyst at Technology Business Research Inc., agreed with Jobs. "For Apple, the iPhone and iPod Touch are a way to provide Web-access devices to the rest of the world," he said, referring to the popularity of netbooks outside the U.S. "And it prevents them from cannibalizing their MacBook lines."

Jobs, however, left the door open to a change in strategy if Apple does decide it needs to join the game. "We'll wait and see how that nascent category evolves," he said. "And we've got some pretty interesting ideas if it does evolve."

Dell preloading Universal music songs on its PCs

Dell Inc. this week announced that it's teaming up with Universal Music Group to pre-load some of its new PCs with 50- or 100-song bundles. According to the Dell Web site, the pre-loaded music bundles add $25 for 50 songs and $45 for 100 songs to the price of the machine.

The bundles range from mixes of blues music to classical and classic rock.

The company noted that the pre-loaded music is not available on the Dell XPS One desktop or on the Inspiron Mini 9 laptop. The bundles aren't supported on systems running Linux or 64-bit versions Microsoft Windows XP and Vista.

All pre-loaded music titles come in DRM-free MP3 format so they can be played on any music player. Dell announced that it plans to expand the music selection and also will refresh their current offerings.

Earlier this month, industry analyst firm Gartner Inc. reported that in the third quarter of this year, Dell was in second place in terms of the worldwide PC shipment market, up 11.6% from a year earlier. In the U.S. market alone, though, Dell maintained its position in the top spot, coming in over second-place Hewlett-Packard.

Dell has been working to reshape its sales efforts this year.

Late this past January, the company announced it was closing its 140 retail kiosks around the U.S. as it turned its attention to major retail outlets. Instead of using kiosks, Dell began focusing its efforts on selling its products through major retailers such as Best Buy Co., Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Staples Inc. and Guitar Center Inc.

Windows 7: Microsoft's secret weapon against Google

With the first public alpha release of Windows 7 due today at the Microsoft PDC2008 conference, the outline of the new operating system is taking shape. What you won't see when that alpha comes out is the way that Microsoft will try to use Windows 7 as a Trojan horse in its war against Google.

Google's domination of the search market continues unabated, but Microsoft hasn't given up on it. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer recently said that his company is willing to lose "5% to 10% of total operating income for several years" to fund its ongoing attempt to make inroads into the search market. Much more than search is at stake. Google wants to replace Microsoft's desktop-based applications, such as Office, with its cloud-based applications, such as Google Docs.

So where does Windows 7 come in? What new features can Microsoft possibly introduce that will help it overtake Google in search and retain its domination of productivity software such as Office?

Microsoft's secret weapon in Windows 7 is not what features the operating system has, but instead what features it doesn't have. Microsoft is stripping Windows 7 of some of Windows' best built-in applications, and it's making them available only as downloads on its Windows Live site.

When Windows 7 comes out, it won't include Windows Mail, Windows Photo Gallery and Windows Movie Maker, which are some of Vista's most useful applications. Windows Movie Maker is a surprisingly sophisticated piece of software for creating videos and DVDs, and it's worthy of being sold as stand-alone software. Windows Photo Gallery is a well-done, elegant way to manage digital photos. And Windows Mail is the successor to Outlook Express, with a very big installed base. Expect users to howl in protest when they find those applications gone, particularly Windows Mail.

To get them, users will have to visit the Microsoft Windows Live site, where the software can be downloaded for free. And, of course, there will be plenty of other Windows Live software they can download, as well as other Windows Live services they can use. It's a variation on the classic "loss leader" in retail, where you lure folks in with freebies and then pounce with a hard sell.

Microsoft claims that it is stripping the applications out of Windows 7 because it makes for a "cleaner" operating system. But there are plenty of useless applications it could strip out of Windows to no ill effect. The backup program in Vista, for example, is close to useless. And as for People Near Me or Windows Meeting Space -- do you use either of those programs? Do you know anyone who does? Those could easily go to make for a cleaner operating system. And while Microsoft is at it, it could get rid of User Account Control. I don't know anyone who would cry real tears if that one bit the dust.

Sony Renews Its Rockin' Rolly Music Player

Sony is updating its innovative Rolly digital audio player with new software options and a fresh coat of paint.

The Rolly is an egg-shaped device with speakers on either end that can twist and turn in time to music on two large rings that circle its body. Those rings are also used to control the device. One ring can be turned to change the volume and the other to change tracks. It can also stand still and play music or move to a preprogrammed set of instructions that are fed to it through a PC application.

When it was launched in September last year it received a generally positive response for its innovative shape and functions, and typically draws a crowd whenever its demonstrated. Sony hasn't released detailed sales figures but said Tuesday that they're "neither too big or too small, about what we expected."

The new SEP-50BT Rolly will be available from Nov. 21 in Japan in white, pink or black, the latter only available though the online Sony Style store. Overseas launch plans haven't been fixed. Like the previous model it will cost ¥40,000 (US$427).

New is the ability to control it over Bluetooth via cell phone. A cell-phone application can be used to turn up and down the volume, change tracks and stop and start the music player by sending the commands over Bluetooth.

The original Rolly included Bluetooth but such control wasn't enabled over the link. Sony said it is planning to release a software update in early December that will add Bluetooth control to the earlier model.

With eyes on Atom, AMD to detail netbook strategy next month

Advanced Micro Devices Inc. will lay out its product strategy for small, low-cost laptops, called netbooks, at an analyst meeting next month.

Netbook sales have soared in recent months, largely due to the release of Intel Corp.'s low-cost Atom processor. Although Taiwanese chip vendor Via Technologies Inc., which provides the C7 processor used in Hewlett-Packard Co.'s Mini-Note 2133 netbook, has a foothold in this market, Intel hasn't faced any competition from AMD in this space. But that appears set to change.

"We do have strategies together with our OEMs for pushing our solutions both down into smaller form factors and lower notebook price points," said Dirk Meyer, AMD's president and CEO, during a Thursday conference call with financial analysts.

Meyer said describing AMD's plans for the netbook segment required a "complicated answer" not suited to a phone conversation. Instead, the company will outline its thoughts at an analyst meeting in November, where the company will discuss its long-term product road maps for different market segments. That meeting is scheduled for Nov. 13.

Hints of what AMD may be thinking can be drawn from the blog of Pat Moorhead, AMD's vice president of advanced marketing, who has spent a considerable amount of time writing about netbooks and their limitations in recent months.

Last month, Moorhead documented his experience using MSI's Atom-powered Wind laptop during an August trip to Florida. His biggest complaints? Lackluster battery life and poor video performance.

Like Intel executives, who pitch netbooks as second computers rather than primary machines, Moorhead's verdict was that users should opt for a more powerful system if they want to use their computer for multimedia. "If you want to do anything other than surfing basic, light Web sites at home without the bells and whistles, go for the full-size notebook, not one of these cheap mini-notebooks," he wrote.

Intel limits the specifications, such as screen size, of computers based on its Atom chips to segment the laptop market and avoid eating into sales of PCs based on more profitable chips. But those limitations offer room for competitors like AMD to enter the market with competing products that have more powerful capabilities.

One possibility is to add faster graphic processors and increase the multimedia performance of these small laptops, which would be relatively easy for AMD to do with its range of ATI graphics chips and integrated chip sets.

Nvidia gets graphics win with Apple's new MacBooks

Striking a blow at chip rivals Advanced Micro Devices Inc. and Intel Corp., Nvidia Corp. unveiled its latest graphics chip this week, saying it has five times the performance of other graphics processing units (GPU) on the market.

And to back up its tough talk, Nvidia also announced that Apple was picking up the GeForce 9400M GPU for its new MacBook, MacBook Pro and MacBook Air laptops.

"The NVIDIA GeForce 9400M architecture delivers an ideal combination of visual computing horsepower and energy efficiency in a single, highly-integrated package that we're using to bring a whole new level of graphics performance to our MacBook users," David Moody, Apple's vice president of worldwide Mac product marketing, said in a statement.

And that's one heck of a door-opener for Nvidia, according to Dan Olds, an analyst at Gabriel Consulting Group Inc.

"I think they have an advantage right now," said Olds. "I don't see Apple using them if Nvidia didn't have compelling technical and economic merit. Apple knows what it's doing in notebook design, and they have to satisfy a demanding audience. They wouldn't use the Nvidia part if it didn't provide significant value."

The NVIDIA GeForce 9400M is a single chip that has been designed for notebooks and smaller computing devices. The company reported that it has 16 parallel-processing cores that deliver 54 gigaflops of processing power. Nvidia also claimed that the GPU delivers up to five times faster graphics performance than Intel's Centrino 2 chip.

Olds said this kind of leapfrog move in the graphics chip arena puts pressure on both Intel and AMD. "Assuming that Nvidia has truly raised the bar in notebook graphics, then Intel and AMD will need to take their game up a notch," he added. "This isn't news to them; they're both working on new chips that will address what Nvidia is providing, such as higher graphics performance and low power requirements. It's just that Nvidia seems to have gotten there sooner."

In August, AMD threw down its own gauntlet in front of Nvidia, unveiling a graphics card that runs two graphics chips. The ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 uses two units of a smaller chip rather than one big chip.

AMD spokesman Matt Skinner said at the time that AMD's new GPU provides 30% to 50% more performance and uses less energy than Nvidia's GTX280 graphics card.

The graphics chip market has been getting increasingly contentious.

Just weeks before AMD unveiled its dual-chip graphics card, rival Intel released a few details of its upcoming Larrabee graphics chip, which will power its first stand-alone graphics card. Larrabee marks a major strategic shift for Intel, which has traditionally relied on graphics technology from companies such as Nvidia and ATI.

The good news for AMD and Nvidia, though, is that Intel isn't planning to release Larrabee for another year to 18 months. That gives Intel's rivals time to beef up their own offerings and get out ahead in this looming graphics race.

Mozilla Debuts Mobile Browser Alpha

Mozilla late Thursday released the first public preview of its mobile browser, and took the unusual step of offering it in versions for desktop PCs and Macs to collect feedback.

Code named "Fennec" in a nod to the Fennec Fox, a small fox that lives in the Sahara and is notable for its huge ears, the browser is built from the same Gecko code base that drives the also-under-construction Firefox 3.1, which just hit Beta 1 on Tuesday.

Mozilla pitched the alpha as "an early developer release" suitable for "testing purposes only," the company's typical description for its pre-beta editions. However, according to Mark Finkle, Mozilla's platform evangelist, the company is looking for feedback from as many people as possible.

To that end, Fennec has been released not only for the one device it currently supports, Nokia's N810 Internet Tablet, but also in versions for desktop and laptop systems running Windows, Mac OS X and Linux.

"We are also releasing desktop versions of Fennec," said Finkle in a post to his blog late Thursday night. "That's right, you can install Fennec on your Windows, OS X or Linux desktop too! We want you to be able to experiment, provide feedback, write add-ons and generally get involved with the Mozilla Mobile project, even if you don't have a device."

The Nokia N810 is not a cell phone, but rather is a small device for browsing the Internet, similar in some ways to Apple Inc.'s iPod Touch. It runs the Maemo operating system, which is based on the Debian distribution of Linux.

A version of Fennec suitable for use under Microsoft Corp.'s Windows Mobile operating system is also in the works, but isn't ready for public testing.

Fennec includes touch-screen support, includes a password manager and pop-up blocker, offers a Firefox-style tab-browsing interface and provides the same address bar functionality as its big brother.

Still to come, said Mozilla in the alpha's release notes, will be an implementation of TraceMonkey, the company's turbo-charged JavaScript engine, and support for geolocation, a feature embedded in the Gecko 1.9.1 code base that has also surfaced in Firefox.

Mozilla is relatively late to the mobile browser market. Opera Software ASA, the Norwegian company noted for its Opera browser, leads the pack on mobile devices and phones, while Apple's Safari handles Internet duties on that company's iPhone.

Nor is Fennec the open-source developer's first stab at a mobile browser. An earlier run at the idea, dubbed Minimo, was officially abandoned last November, several months before work started on Fennec.

Fennec Alpha 1 can be downloaded from Mozilla's Web site.

Toshiba to Partially Acquire SanDisk Flash Venture Stake

Toshiba will partially buy-out SanDisk's stake in two flash memory production joint ventures the companies are running in Japan under a provisional deal that was announced Monday.

Flash memory chips produced at two factories in Yokkaichi, Japan, are currently evenly split between Toshiba and SanDisk, which each own a 50 percent stake in the joint ventures that run the plants.

The deal will see Toshiba become owner of 30 percent of the chips made at the factories with the remaining 70 percent still going to the joint venture companies, which will continue to split output between Toshiba and SanDisk. The result will be that Toshiba will have 65 percent of the chips made at the plant while SanDisk will take the remaining 35 percent.

Financial details for the proposed deal were not announced. Toshiba said it hopes to firm up the memorandum of understanding and sign a definitive deal in the first quarter of 2009.

The deal was reached after a proposal from SanDisk, which is currently the subject of an acquisition interest by Samsung Electronics. SanDisk has already declined a US$26-per-share offer from Samsung, which is the world's largest maker of flash memory, but the South Korean company doesn't appear to have given up yet.

In a statement SanDisk said the deal would "reduce our capital spending, strengthen our financial position and increase our business flexibility."

Opera Adds Widgets to Mobile Browser Beta

Opera has added support for widgets to the latest beta release of its Mobile 9.5 browser. The release marks the second Opera Mobile 9.5 beta for Windows Mobile and the first-ever beta for UIQ-based phones, it announced on Monday.

Opera Widgets are small, free programs that add extra functionality to the browser. For example, Opera's widgets can enable one-click access to Web content.

Several Opera Widgets are now pre-installed in the beta, including ones for Twitter, shopping lists and weather reports. Additionally, Opera offers more downloadable widgets on its web site.

Operator T-Mobile has already taken Opera Mobile with Widgets to heart, and they will become available by the end of the year to subscribers of its Internet mobile service, called web'n'walk.

Opera is also hoping to pique developers' interest in creating gadgets by launching a contest for them to create widgets that can be used on mobile phones as well as on Windows or Apple computers.

Entries will be judged on coding quality, the widget's usefulness across mobiles and desktops and if it keeps users engaged. The winner will get US$5,000.

Besides support for widgets, Opera said the new test version loads Web pages faster, Opera said.

Both the Mobile 9.5 beta with Opera Widgets (http://www.opera.com/products/mobile/) and the Widgets software development kit (http://www.opera.com/b2b/solutions/widgets/) can be downloaded from downloaded from Opera's Web page.

There is no date for a final version yet. The new browser beta doesn't come with an expiry date, according to Julie Sajnani, Opera spokeswoman.

Sony's LittleBigPlanet Recalled Over References to Qu'ran

It sounds almost inconceivable: Sony's highly visible, broadly-appealing, and probably most important video game release of 2008 has been globally recalled with less than four days to retail. LittleBigPlanet, UK-based indie developer Media Molecule's surprise water-cooler wonder about a black-button-eyed knitted and zippered creature named Sackboy who bounds and jounces through physically realistic environments was recalled by Sony after the publisher discovered one of the game's background music tracks employs two Arabic-language expressions found in the Qu'ran (Koran).

Last week Friday, October 17, Sony director of corporate communications and social media Patrick Seybold issued the following statement by way of Sony's Official PlayStation blog:

During the review process prior to the release of LittleBigPlanet , it has been brought to our attention that one of the background music tracks licensed from a record label for use in the game contains two expressions that can be found in the Qur’an. We have taken immediate action to rectify this and we sincerely apologize for any offense that this may have caused.

We will begin shipping LittleBigPlanet to retail in North America the week of October 27th. Sorry for the delay, and rest assured, we are doing everything we can to get LittleBigPlanet to you as soon as possible.

Update: Sony Computer Entertainment Europe adds that LittleBigPlanet "will start to appear in stores no later than the week commencing Monday 3rd November in the UK, Europe, Middle East, Australia and New Zealand, on a country by country basis." Note that the US ship date remains the week of October 27th as noted above.

The music in question plays in the now recalled versions of LittleBigPlanet during the first level of the third world, "Singing Safari." The game contains a fairly broad and eclectic range of songs, and it appears no one at either developer Media Molecule or Sony was aware of the specific Koranic references until the proverbial eleventh hour. Some are speculating that the catalyst may have been a concerned letter, but nothing's confirmed at this point.

Before we consider whether Sony's stadium-clearing punt amounts to either brilliant public relations or massive overreaction, let's have a look at the passages in question.

The song is titled "Tapha Niang," composed by world musician and Malian kora player Toumani Diabate. Have a listen to it here on Diabate's MySpace page, if you like.

Sounds innocuous enough, doesn't it? It's certainly hard to argue with the subdued and peaceful sounding strains of Diabate's plucking and the general mood and timbre of the music itself.

But if you listen carefully and happen to understand Arabic, you'll apparently hear two lines which also appear in the Koran (aka the sacred scripture of Islam and, at least for Muslims, the literal word of God).

So?

So. While the Koran doesn't explicitly forbid the marriage of transliterated Koranic text and music, some interpreters of the text apparently find such mingling "deeply offensive." Why is a bit of a mystery that's beyond the scope of a games blog, but suffice to say there's considerable debate over what the Koran does and doesn't say about music, as well as whether subsequent Islamic interpretations and teachings which do raise these sorts of interdictions are in fact canonical.

The two lines that appear in Diabate's song are from 3:185 ("Every soul shall taste of death") and probably 55:26 ("All that is on earth will perish"). See below for the translations provided by M.H. Shakir courtesy the University of Michigan's digital library collections and publications.

[3:185] Every soul shall taste of death, and you shall only be paid fully your reward on the resurrection day; then whoever is removed far away from the fire and is made to enter the garden he indeed has attained the object; and the life of this world is nothing but a provision of vanities.

[55:26] Everyone on it must pass away.

In a Friday post to its website, developer Media Molecule wrote:

As some of you may have noticed, LBP has been slightly delayed in some territories. At MM we were as shocked and dismayed by this as anyone - shellshocked and gutted. We can’t wait for you all to get playing and creating!

According to Edge this morning, Media Molecule immediately prepared a 0-day patch, ready to update the game and remove the potentially offensive tracks, but Sony decided that wasn't good enough, citing PS3 owners who might not have online access, and opted to recall the disks anyway. Nevertheless, some copies slipped through, and of course those of us in the press have had copies for a while now.

In the meantime, copies of the recalled version of the game are being offered for as much as $249 on Ebay.

My two cents: Speaking as someone who's not at all religious, I think Sony should have left the recalled version alone. Speaking as someone who's not religious but also highly respectful of others' beliefs, I still think this mostly just empowers and emboldens doctrinal censors who ultimately exist in the cultural margins. More important, what no one's really saying is that the other edge of Sony's attempt to pacify certain Muslim sects involves censoring the music in the game.

Speaking with my journalist's cap on: Censorship bad. Especially once the horse is out of the gate, which for all practical purposes it was here.

In the end, you'll have to play jury and judge for yourself, but it's worth noting that Diabate considers himself "a devout Muslim, with his own prayer room next to his office."

Alcatel-Lucent Announces Always-on Protection for Laptops

Alcatel-Lucent has introduced a new version of its OmniAccess 3500 Nonstop Laptop Guardian (NLG) that supports HSPA (High Speed Packet Access), it announced on Monday.

The OmniAccess 3500 NLG is a battery-powered PC card. It has its own processor, memory and operating system, which makes it possible for the IT staff to communicate with the card anytime they like, even if the laptop is turned off, according to Peter Tebbutt, marketing and business development director at Alcatel-Lucent.

For example, patches and other security updates can be forwarded to the card and installed as soon as the laptop is turned on. The card can also keep track of the software installed on the laptop and wipe it if necessary, according to Tebbutt.

The IT staff can communicate with the card using either the built-in HSPA modem, or using the laptop Wi-Fi or Ethernet connection.

Alcatel has also developed a joint package with McAfee, also announced on Monday, that integrates the OmniAccess 3500 NLG with McAfee's Endpoint encryption software. "The encryption keys are stored on the card, so if the two are separated the laptop is locked," said Tebbutt.

SingTel of Singapore, Magyar Telekom of Hungary, and broadband carrier IIJ (Internet Initiative Japan) have announced they plan to offer the HSPA version of OA3500 NLG as a service. Sprint already offers the CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) version of the products to its customers in the U.S.

Alcatel-Lucent has also signed a distribution deal with VCOMM in the U.K. The deal is the first in a push to broaden geographic availability.

Tebbutt expects the HSPA version of the OmniAccess 3500 NLG to cost about the same as the existing CDMA card, which is priced at US$250 for the card plus a $10 monthly fee.

With its bargain-basement price, the Aspire One looks like a steal--until you realize you need the six-cell battery.

Acer's first Aspire One mini-notebook was a Linux-based model that impressed us despite its modest components. Now the Windows XP Home version of Aspire One is here, packed with a larger hard drive and more RAM. Though it isn't superswift, the latest Aspire One is a fine machine at a fantastic price.

The sizes and prices of models in the mini-notebooks category continue to escalate, but the Aspire One comes in at just $349. That's $100 less than the next-lowest-priced XP-based model, the Lenovo IdeaPad S10. Acer's well-constructed, elegant entry measures 9.8 by 6.7 by 1.1 inches, roughly the same size as the IdeaPad S10. It's significantly lighter than the S10, though, at 2.3 pounds versus 3.6 pounds.

The XP-based Aspire One retains the physical profile, excellent keyboard, and small but crisp 8.9-inch screen found on the Linux-based model. Significant changes lie beneath the surface, however: A 120GB hard-disk drive replaces the Linux model's paltry 8GB flash drive. An SD Card slot for additional storage supplements the unit's 5-in-1 card reader. The system also bulks up to 1GB of RAM (the Linux model had 512MB). And yet the price is virtuallly unchanged.

Unfortunately, the Aspire One earned a mark of just 34 on our PC World Test Center's WorldBench 6 tests, putting it toward the back of the pack of Atom-based mini-notebooks (whose scores have hovered around 36). The Windows-based Aspire One did easily outpace HP's 2133, whose Via C-7M CPU led it to an anemic 26; but it fell well short of the Lenovo S10's surprising 41.

Even worse, the Aspire One's three-cell battery lasted for just 2 hours, 16 minutes. A six-cell battery costs an extra $100, which negates the Aspire One's price advantage.

I also have a design complaint: The mouse buttons flanking the touchpad are mounted vertically instead of horizontally--an unconventional approach that makes navigating documents unnecessarily difficult.

A less significant issue is the Aspire One's software bloat: Our test system came preinstalled with (among other items) Adobe Air, Acrobat, a 60-day trial of Microsoft Office, McAfee Security Center, and Intervideo's WinDVD (with the MPEG-2 codec for video playback).

I hope that Acer notices what Lenovo did with the IdeaPad S10. Though that machine went the minimalist route, it offered a thoughtful system recovery tool that lets you set restore points and backups to CD (after you attach an external optical drive). The Aspire One's threadbare recovery management software amounts to little more than a reset switch: no restore points, just the ability to institute a full system recovery or to reinstall some of the unnecessary software.

Despite these shortcomings, the Aspire One is a fine little machine. If you need more hard drive headroom or slightly speedier performance, Lenovo's IdeaPad S10 may be a better choice. But Acer's Aspire One is one of the best category bargains around. Just stay near a power outlet or invest in the extra six-cell battery.

Faster than its mini-notebook brethren, the Lenovo S10 offers enough perks to make it a top pick for serious mobility.

Lenovo keeps thinking small. Recently the company delivered slim ultraportables such as the ThinkPad X200 and IdeaPad U110. Now it's jumping into the mini-notebook scene with the impressive IdeaPad S10. Despite its "mini" status, the S10 manages to house some big-boy features.

• Would You Buy This?

• 7Yes
• 2No

Lenovo Ideapad S10 Test Scores

• Overall 82
• Performance 88
• Features 88
• Design 81

Full Test Report »

• Before You Buy

• How to Buy a Laptop
• Top All-Purpose Laptops
• Top Power Laptops
• Top Ultraportable Laptops

Got a Hot Tip?

Seen news about this product? Send us a link.

The S10's tiny, 9.8-by-7.3-by-0.9-inch frame is roughly the size of Acer's Aspire One. But while the Aspire One's screen measures only 8.9 inches, the S10 offers a relatively roomy 10.2-inch, 1024-by-600-resolution display. It's crisp and easily viewable at various angles, even though it isn't necessarily the brightest screen around.

This micro machine also houses the largest hard drive we've seen on a mini-notebook to date: Our model came with a 5400-rpm, 160GB platter-based hard disk. That's more than enough storage to accommodate Windows XP Home and the unit's minimal preinstalled software. The hard drive, though, is the most likely reason the S10 weighs a somewhat hefty 3.6 pounds--almost as much as a ThinkPad X200.

More impressive is how this model performs under pressure. The S10 has the same 1.6-GHz Intel Atom CPU and 1GB of RAM as most of the other mini-notebooks we've seen (such as the Acer Aspire One and Asus Eee 1000H 80G XP), yet it beats them all in performance. The IdeaPad S10 earned a score of 41 on the PC World Test Center's WorldBench 6 suite; it's hardly a speed demon, but it's fairly fast when you consider that the nearest competitor, with the same guts, received only a 37.

The S10 falls short in battery life, though. Its three-cell battery lasts only 2.5 hours before giving out. Although it does a little better than Acer's Aspire One, both lag behind other Atom-based mini-notebooks we've recently tested.

Even though this model's good-size keyboard doesn't match the luxurious tactile response of a ThinkPad, the S10's keys deliver one of the better experiences among the mini-notebooks we've seen. Put the S10 side by side with the MSI Wind and Eee 1000H, however, and you'll see that the S10's keys are a little scrunched by comparison. Regrettably, the mouse buttons are the clacky, tacky type; each button sinks too much and feels a little too loose.

The S10's speaker fares no better than those on most mini-notebooks: It delivers substandard sound that's barely audible since the maximum audio setting is fairly low. That's a slight disappointment since this model's sizable hard drive and satisfactory screen make it a good potential video and music player.

Lenovo wins some points for providing a bloat-free machine, and for supplying a handy recovery application, Cyberlink OneKey Recovery 6.0. That app allows you to create backups, as well as to set partitions and restore points--a more flexible backup option than simply restoring the PC to factory-fresh condition. Lenovo even goes so far as to place a OneKey panic button at the top of the keyboard. It's a nice touch, and it's a nod to ThinkPad loyalists, who might consider it a "lite" version of the ThinkVantage button.

If you're looking for a big, beefy hard drive and surprisingly sprightly performance from a mini-notebook, the IdeaPad S10 is a solid pick. If the S10's slightly cramped keyboard and loose mouse buttons are deal breakers for you, Asus's Eee 1000H would suit you much better. Though the Eee 1000H has a little more girth, it will definitely get you through your next business trip.

Google's Web 2.0 Services Invite Spam

According to a report released by Websense Security Labs, recently, spammers have used a combination of different Google Web 2.0 services to carry out a range of attacks.

Spammers are creating bogus accounts on YouTube and Blogspot to promote their services, abusing both services. The bogus accounts on YouTube advertise multiple videos of same theme with 'inappropriate' content, clearly abusing the terms and conditions of YouTube services.

The profiles of these bogus accounts on YouTube advertise the bogus Blogspot accounts, which act as doorway pages to spam domains. These bogus Blogger accounts make up a set of interlinked spam blogs or splogs, forming a splogospere aiming to promote the actual spam domain, clearly abusing the terms and conditions of Blogger services.

Security issues are bound to arise when users are given privileges such as content creation, direct HTML editing, or uploading files and content distribution. These capabilities are being abused by spammers and malware authors to carry out various attacks, which pose a direct threat to Web 2.0 functionality. While continuous efforts are made by various Web 2.0 service providers to combat the abuse of their services, the spammers, phishers and malware authors carry out various attacks over them, proving their adaptability, which can be clearly seen as an iterative cycle in the email, Web and Web 2.0 security arena

Microsoft Sues DHL After Train Dumps 21,600 Xboxes

Microsoft is suing U.S.-based cargo-delivery service DHL Express for allegedly losing 21,600 Xbox game consoles because of a train derailment in Texas, according to court documents.

In a complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington in Seattle, Microsoft said it is seeking more than US$2 million in damages from DHL for two containers of Xbox consoles that sustained "impact damage, wetting, pilfering and shortage" after a derailment near Duke, Texas.

The Xboxes were en route from a Microsoft office in McAllen, Texas, to Long Beach, California, for eventual delivery to Hong Kong at the time of the loss, which occurred on Oct. 13, 2007, according to court papers. Flextronics Industrial in Hong Kong was the intended recipient.

Microsoft claims that DHL has refused to compensate it for the loss, even though the delivery service "negligently breached its duties as a common carrier, handler, bailee, warehouseman, agent, or in other capabilities," according to the court papers.

DHL could not be reached for comment Friday.

Microsoft's Xbox game consoles also were the center of a recent controversy in Colorado, where a man was indicted on Sept. 23 for illegally reselling both Xbox 360 and Sony Playstation consoles, and returning inoperable consoles to retail and online outlets for money as if he had purchased them legally.

According to the U.S. State Attorney's Office in the District of Colorado, 27-year-old Yewchoo Ng of Boulder purchased the consoles at Target, Amazon.com, Buy.com, Best Buy, Circuit City, Sears and Wal-mart using several credit cards. He took the consoles out of the boxes, removed the serial numbers, put those numbers on older, inoperable consoles, and returned those consoles to the retail outlets, according to the state attorney's office.

The retail and online outlets lost $182,001 as a result of the scam, the office said. Ng also sold the new consoles online via e-Bay and other auction and shopping sites for his own personal profit.

Cisco Plans More Globalization Centers

Cisco will set up more globalization centers in the next two to three years, a company executive said on Tuesday.

The company set up a globalization center in Bangalore a year ago, in line with its strategy to decentralize global corporate functions to locations worldwide that can be sources of talent, innovation, and also key markets for the company.

The focus of the Bangalore globalization center is to develop technologies and business models appropriate to emerging markets. The center in Bangalore is called Cisco East, in contrast to Cisco's corporate headquarters at San Jose which is referred to as Cisco West.

Among the other countries under evaluation for setting up globalization centers are China and Mexico, Wim Elfrink, Cisco's chief globalization officer and executive vice president of Cisco Services, told reporters at a media briefing on the first anniversary of the Bangalore center.

Cisco first came to India to benefit from lower engineering costs in the country, which can be as low as one-third that in the U.S., said Leo Scrivner, vice president of human resources at Cisco.

The next wave of globalization is not about cost benefits alone but about speed and scale, local management, partnering, and developing products and services closer to the market, Elfrink said. Cisco works with top Indian outsourcers on product development and services delivery.

While Europe's population is shrinking and the average age of the U.S. population is increasing, India and parts of Asia have fast-growing and young populations, Elfrink said. India and some other countries in Asia offer more talent and also the fastest-growing markets, he added.

Cisco announced last year that 20 percent of its key corporate staff across all functions would be located in India by 2012. The company is also planning to increase the number of staff in India from 4,673 currently to 10,000 by then.

Ericsson Attaches Blades for Wind Power to Base Station

Ericsson has equipped its environmentally friendly radio base station site concept Tower Tube with built-in support for wind power, in a bid to help operators go green and expand mobile networks to where electricity isn't available, it announced on Thursday.

The Tower Tube design requires no feeders or cooling systems, which lowers power consumption by up to 40 percent compared to a traditional base station sites, according to Ericsson. It is also built using concrete instead of steel, which lowers emissions during the building process.

The wind-powered version, which is being developed by Ericsson in cooperation with Vertical Wind and Uppsala University in Sweden, comes with a four-blade turbine with five-meter blades, which are vertically attached to the tower.

"Normally we keep projects like this one under wraps. But that's difficult in this case, because if you go to Marsta in old Uppsala there is a tower there, and it can't be hidden," said Jeanette Fridberg, director of marketing for radio access networks at Ericsson.

It is still very much a research project. But the goal is to have a prototype ready during the next year for deployment elsewhere, in order to verify that it works how it's supposed to, according to Fridberg.

The advantage of integrating wind power into the base station tower is that it doesn't take up additional space; so you don't have to pay rent for more land, according to Fridberg.

Because the blades are attached vertically and turn around the tower, instead of around their own axis, the turbine is less noisy and has less visual impact than typical wind turbines, said Fridberg.

Compared to solar power, wind is less predictable, Ericsson said. Wind is more efficient, if you find a spot with enough speed and wind occurrence. But there is more data readily available when choosing solar sites, according to Ericsson.

To ensure continuous operation the plan is to include batteries that are charged when there is more wind than is needed power the base station, according to Fridberg.

The Tower Tube was introduced in September last year, and is moving forward step by step. "We have entered final discussions with several operators. When we released it last year it was a concept, to gauge interest. So right now we're also trying to figure out how to industrialize it in an effective manner," said Fridberg.

Netbooks Will Boost Adoption of Linux, Says Novell CTO

A surge in demand for netbooks is helping drive business for Linux, as the devices are designed to be low-cost with smaller storage, according to Novell's chief technology and strategy officer for Linux.

" People typically don't care what operating system is on the netbooks, because they don't buy them to run a suite of applications like Microsoft Office, but to be on the Web using a Web browser," Nat Friedman said in an interview with IDG News Service. Novell's SUSE Linux is already being pre-loaded with laptops from vendors including Hewlett-Packard and Lenovo. The company is now in negotiations with Lenovo and HP to start offering its Linux distribution on their netbooks as well, he added.

Netbooks are a new category of computing devices that are low-cost and designed for continuous Internet connectivity.

In June, Novell announced that Micro-Star International of Taiwan would pre-install SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 on its Wind netbook.

Most of the low-cost netbooks will run Linux, to avoid the higher cost of the Windows operating system, and also because most of them have about 2G bytes of flash storage, for which Linux is more suitable, Friedman said.

The benefit of pre-loaded SUSE Linux for the user is that Novell works with the computer vendor to ensure that all the Linux device drivers are there, and the user has a far better experience than if he were to try to install the operating system on a variety of hardware, Friedman said.

Making software installation easier is also a key element of Novell's software appliances strategy for servers. Installing the operating system and applications on a computer can be labor-intensive, and sometimes requires expertise, Friedman said. "This slows down the sales cycle, because if I want to sell some software, and the first step is for the user to install it and it is a difficult and long process, it makes it difficult for me to make my sale," he added.

Novell announced in April a SUSE Appliance Program to enable ISVs (independent software vendors) to create appliances combining their applications with the SUSE Linux Enterprise platform in an integrated package for end-customer deployment. Novell also announced the beta release of SUSE Linux Enterprise JeOS, a minimized version of the SUSE Linux Enterprise platform that ISVs can embed in appliances.

Competitor Red Hat has also announced a strategy around software appliances.

The operating system will become an embedded component, rather than something that the customer chooses, said Friedman. " When you buy a car you don't typically choose the engine, or what type of transmission it has," he added.

Using virtualization technology, the software bundle can work on a variety of platforms running a virtual machine, and also share hardware with other appliances, Friedman said.

The software appliances model will enable the ISV to for example create a virtual machine image which contains the application and the operating system pre-installed, and the user can take the file and run it in a one-step process on the virtual machine he has installed, Friedman said. Post-sales support issues will also get reduced, as most of them arise because the original installation was not proper, he added.

Novell has developed SUSE Studio, an online Web-based tool that enables ISVs to quickly build, configure and test software appliances, even if they don't have operating system expertise.

New Xbox 360 Dashboard Coming in November

Microsoft delivered something for both gamers and developers at its keynote address that kicked-off the Tokyo Game Show on Thursday.

The company is reworking the interface for its Xbox Live service, which is the largest social network of its kind with 14 million members. With the "New Xbox Experience" the Xbox 360's entire interface has been reworked and streamlined, specifically in regards to Xbox Live.

Perhaps taking a cue from PlayStation Home and the Nintendo's Miis, Xbox Live users will soon be able to create their own customizable avatar, which will be visible to friends and present throughout different areas of the interface. Everything from the dashboard, to gamer cards, to tracking friends, and themes has been reworked to make a more seamless and convenient interface.

Xbox Live's Marketplace has also been redone to match. Players will be able to view more detailed descriptions, screenshots, and information more easily for titles. This information will also be made available on the Web, so that users who are not at their Xbox 360 can still browse through the Xbox Live Marketplace for one stop shopping.

All these changes are scheduled to take place Nov. 19.

In the gaming space two of the most awaited titles, "Star Ocean: The Last Hope" and "The Last Remnant" were shown in trailer form but that didn't bother the audience because playable versions are on the show floor. They'll be out in the U.S. on March 3, 2009, and Nov. 20 respectively.

Other games that were showcased included:

Biohazard 5 (Resident Evil 5) will launch in Japan on March 12, 2009.

Ninety-Nine Nights 2 for the 360, but with no release date.

Tekken 6 on XBox 360 to be released Fall 2009, and to include new online modes and features.

Halo Wars, early 2009.

Halo 3: Recon, late 2009.

While the Xbox 360 has an up and coming line-up, the Xbox Live Arcade is not to be forgotten. A "new wave" of games to hit XBLA include a slew of remade classics, such as Space Invaders Extreme, Arkanoid Live, Metal Slug 7, King of Fighters '98 Ultimate Match, and R-Type: Dimensions.

Microsoft also had lead story writer Graeme Devine talk about and preview Halo Wars. Halo Wars takes the Halo franchise into the real-time strategy space and is set to take place 20 years before the events of Halo, when the Covenant are "at their most evil", according to Devine. Players will have control of the UNSC arsenal as they take on the Covenant and the Flood. Halo Wars is due out early 2009. Halo 3: Recon, which takes place before the events of Halo 3, is slated for a U.S. release in late 2009.

Not to neglect the business aspect of the game show, John Schappert, corporate vice president of both LIVE Software and Studios, talked about iconic Japanese game franchises and their influence on Western gaming, as well as a driving desire to bring more Japanese games onto the global market. According to Schappert, the Xbox 360 is the premiere platform to publish on. As compared to its first generation counterpart, sales of Japanese games on the Xbox 360 are 60 percent higher. Schappert said that XBox 360 consumers will soon have spent over $1 billion on Japan-developed games alone.

Mozilla Readies Firefox 3.1 Features

Mozilla Corp. will use a several-week delay it recently added to the Firefox 3.1 schedule to build a private browsing mode and beef up the browser's address bar, the company said today. Three weeks ago, the company said it would insert four to five more weeks into the timetable, part of a reaction to changes in the browser market, including the introduction by Google Inc. of its Chrome browser. Then, Mozilla said it would probably use the time to add a privacy mode and to punch up its TraceMonkey JavaScript engine performance.

A private browsing mode and fast JavaScript execution were touted by Google last month when it launched Chrome.

In meeting notes published on its Web site today, Mozilla said it planned to add the privacy feature in Beta 2 , which would likely be released in November according to Mozilla's current schedule.

Dubbed "porn mode" by some, privacy tools limit or entirely eliminate what the browser records as it travels the Internet. Typically, URLs are not recorded in the history, cookies are not saved and other evidence is purged from the computer at the end of the session. Microsoft Corp.'s Internet Explorer 8, Chrome, and Apple Inc.'s Safari all have private browsing built in.

Also set for debut in Firefox 3.1 Beta 2: changes to the already-available "Clear Private Data" tool that would let users select time and data ranges for retroactively erasing their browsing tracks, changes to the address bar to add privacy-related tagging and tab search, and a restoration of the plug-in installation process used in Firefox 2.0.

Already slated to appear in Beta 1, Mozilla said today, were support for the video HTML tag, tab bar tweaks, and the ability to drag a tab to the desktop to open a new browsing window.

Mozilla is also mulling over several other additions to Firefox 3.1, but has not committed to working them into the release. The most prominent would be an Opera-esque "Speed Dial" feature that would show user-selected or most-recent sites as thumbnails when the user opened a new tab. Google's Chrome sports a similar tool.

The developer who has taken charge of the proposed Firefox feature cited a pair of existing add-ons, Speed Dial and Fast Dial , as examples of what he was considering.

Mozilla made it clear, however, that those last-wave changes would not have priority. "We're also considering reviewed, solid, tested patches for some other small improvements but we will not hold Beta 2 for these," the meeting notes said.

Beta 1 is on track for release next week, while Beta 2 will be locked down Nov. 4 and released several weeks after that, Mozilla said. It has not committed to a ship date for Firefox 3.1, but has said it will shoot for a late-2008 or early-2009 release.

Samsung Innov8 Up Close

At the E for All Expo, Samsung showcased gaming on its new flagship smartphone--at least, it's a flagship phone in markets outside of the U.S. The hook for E for All, an entertainment show in Los Angeles over the weekend: the phone is the official one of the World Cyber Games, an event whose finals were being staged at the expo. But the other hook is, as a Symbian S60 3rd edition-based smartphone, the i8510 (as the Innov8 is also called) can play a host of Java-based mobile games--and many were on display at the show.

I enjoyed handling the device for reasons that go beyond gaming. In fact, the first thing I noticed was the phone's camera--a whopping 8 megapixels, with a flash. This blows way past the Nokia N96's 5-megapixel camera, and makes cell phone image capture more viable than ever before (I marvel at how many folks--myself included--will attempt to capture an event on a cell phone cam, knowing full well the image looks like crap if viewed as more than a postage stamp on a PC.) The camera includes autofocus, image stabilization, geotagging (through the handset's built-in GPS) and fancier features like blink, smile, and face detection. Is this a cell phone with a highly functional digicam, or a dedicated digicam with a cell phone built in? That's a question I'll personally ponder after taking the Innov8 for a spin in the real world--but with specs like this, the question certainly seems valid.

Unfortunately, the Innov8 carries an uber-premium price, as does the N96 (Innov8 sells for $700 to $800 at online shops specializing in unlocked imports). What frustrates me is that higher quality cell phone camera technology clearly exists--and has for quite some time--and yet in the U.S. market, anything above a paltry 3 megapixels is rare and added only to top-of-line models that are priced out of reach of the masses. I wonder sometimes, if mobile manufacturers do this in the U.S. for bigger-picture reasons, like concerns for cannibalizing the digicam point-and-shoot market or concerns about privacy and corporate espionage; but I tend to think it's just an outright misstep by mobile handset manufacturers and operators.

The Innov8 felt dreamy in-hand, with its easy-glide slider mechanism, thin and sleek black case, and sharp 2.8-inch QVGA LCD (capable of displaying 16 million colors). Menus were clearly organized and easy to navigate, though at times I found myself wishing the screen operated via touch. Other features include a built-in FM radio and a 3.5mm audio jack; 8GB or 16GB of memory plus a microSD Card slot; assisted GPS; accelerometer; dual-band UMTS/HSDPA and quad-band GSM connectivity; and Wi-Fi with DLNA support.

It may have felt dreamy, but keep dreaming: So far, no announced plans for this phone's release to the U.S. market.

Computer failure hobbles NASA's Hubble telescope

A computer failure onboard the orbiting Hubble Space Telescope has forced NASA to postpone this month's space shuttle Atlantis mission, which was set to do scheduled repairs on the observatory.

John Shannon, shuttle program manager at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, said the flight will likely be rescheduled for next February or April, giving NASA time to prepare a replacement computer for delivery.

NASA scientists announced last week that a data formatter and control unit had "totally failed" on Sept. 27. The Science Data Formatter is designed to take information from five onboard instruments, format it into packets, put a header on it and send it to Earth at speeds of up to 1Mbit/sec.

Michael Moore, a program executive for the Hubble Space Telescope, said that the problematic computer has been online since the telescope was put into orbit by the space shuttle Discovery in 1990. The computer was designed by IBM in the 1970s and built by the former Fairchild Camera and Instrument Corp. in the 1980s.

Moore said the computer is a relatively simple machine but is a key part of the observatory's communications system. He added that the malfunction is the first to require that a replacement machine be delivered to the telescope.

NASA scientists are now readying onboard redundant systems to take on the communications tasks. The replacement system will be the new redundant system.

Preston Burch, Hubble manager at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., said that the exact cause of the problem won't be determined until the disabled computer is returned to Earth. "It may be thermally related," he said, noting that the "unit does run at a relatively high temperature, and high temperatures tend to accelerate any kind of degradation process."

According to Moore, remotely switching over to the redundant systems should take about 10 hours. Technicians and scientists expect to do it late next week, he added.

Ed Weiler, associate administrator of NASA's Science Mission Directorate, noted that the switch-over and subsequent installation of new redundant systems should add another five to 10 years to the telescope's life.

Apple doesn't need Jobs, analyst says

Apple Inc. doesn't need Steve Jobs, an analyst argued today.

Early on Friday, Apple shares slid below $100 for the first time since May 2007 after a false report circulated that Apple's 53-year-old CEO had suffered a major heart attack. The report, posted on iReport.com, a "citizen journalist" Web site operated by CNN, was quickly denied by Apple, but not before the share price had slid nearly 11%.

The panic was unwarranted, said Ezra Gottheil, an analyst at Technology Business Research Inc.

"Apple doesn't need Jobs anymore," Gottheil said. "He's established three sound businesses -- Mac, iPod and the iPhone -- and the company knows how to execute his fanatical devotion to design and usability. There's a stable management team in place, and they know what they're doing."

Investors have been nervous about Jobs' health since last June, when he appeared gaunt at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference. Although company spokespeople said Jobs was under the weather from a "common bug," his appearance fueled speculation that he was again seriously ill, a reference to Jobs' 2004 announcement that he had had surgery to remove a cancerous tumor in his pancreas. Jobs in July told The New York Times that he is healthy.

Since then, other incidents, including the accidental posting of Jobs' obituary by Bloomberg LP's financial news service in August, have caused investors to question the company's future sans Jobs.

They shouldn't be so worried, said Gottheil. "Without Jobs, Apple would have to pay a lot more to get the world's attention," he said, referring to the CEO's knack for promoting his company's products. "But he's got a company and a brand and an organization and a strategy in place. There's no reason to think that those things can't be carried forward without him."

If Jobs stepped down, Tim Cook, currently chief operating officer, would run the company, Gottheil said. Cook ran Apple while Jobs out in 2004 after his cancer surgery. Jonathan Ive, Apple's senior vice president for industrial design, would pick up the reins on product design.

The July hiring of former Segway Inc. Chief Technology Officer Doug Field as Apple's new vice president of design, Gottheil speculated, is an attempt by Apple to free up Ive to take on a more strategic view of product design.

That's not to say that Apple wouldn't be different. It would play things more conservatively without Jobs, Gottheil speculated. "It may not be able to make the inspired guesses that created the iPod and the iPhone," he said. But those leaps aren't necessary for Apple to continue. "We believe that sort of risk-taking is no longer necessary, and the current management can build very effectively on what Jobs has created," Gottheil added.

Oracle tries to step up on high-end databases

Since 2005, Oracle Corp. has spent at least $32 billion on acquisitions — turning itself into the vendor of a top-to-bottom enterprise software stack that is arguably broader in scope than any rival suite.

In doing so, Oracle hasn't diluted its database focus. Sales of databases and middleware still account for more than half of its revenue. And according to consulting firm Gartner Inc., Oracle controlled 49% of the global database market last year, with more revenue than the next four vendors — IBM, Microsoft, Teradata and Sybase — combined.

But Oracle has shown some signs of vulnerability at the high end of the database market. For instance, many Web 2.0 companies are eschewing its databases and instead running open-source technologies such as MySQL on grids of PC servers. And corporate users with data warehouses sized in the hundreds of terabytes, or even in the petabyte range, are finding column-oriented databases and specially tuned data warehousing appliances to be more scalable than Oracle databases are.

So Oracle's annual OpenWorld conference in San Francisco two weeks ago was heavy on database news, as the company tried to show that it is agile enough — and its software is robust enough — to respond to the new challengers.

At the top of the list was Oracle's announcement of a pair of hardware products — its first ever — aimed at users looking to get ultrafast performance out of their ultralarge databases.

For the past six months, Oracle CEO Larry Ellison had teased users and analysts with hints that the vendor would introduce a "database accelerator" at OpenWorld. That turned out to be the Exadata Storage Server, which combines Oracle's parallel query software with ProLiant servers from development partner Hewlett-Packard Co.

What makes the Exadata system different from a typical storage server, according to Oracle, is the database intelligence built into the device. Ellison claimed that Exadata can speed up large queries by performing lower-level calculations on the information it stores and then sending the results to the main database, instead of flooding it with raw data.

The other new product, the industrial-sounding HP Oracle Database Machine, is a self-contained system designed to match up against integrated data warehousing appliances from vendors such as Teradata and Netezza Inc.

The Database Machine combines eight regular database servers running Oracle Database 11g with 14 Exadata systems that have a total storage capacity of 168TB and InfiniBand connections offering 14GB/sec. of aggregate data bandwidth.

That all costs a mere $2.33 million — for existing customers that have enterprise or unlimited Oracle database licenses. New customers would have to pony up for licenses for the eight database servers; based on the configuration recommended in an Oracle white paper, that would cost an additional $3.22 million, analysts said.

Even so, Christo Kutrovsky, a database administrator at The Pythian Group Inc., an Ottawa-based company that manages databases for corporate clients, said he thinks the Database Machine could be worth the steep cost if the alternative is having the IT department try to assemble a similar system itself.

"Ninety percent of the problems I've seen are due to improperly configured systems," Kutrovsky wrote in Pythian's corporate blog. Installing the Database Machine eliminates that issue by making configuration errors "impossible," he said.

According to Oracle, customers that tested production workloads on a half-size Database Machine said queries ran 10 to 72 times faster than they did on other systems. Those early users include the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, supermarket chain Giant Eagle and LGR Telecommunications, which develops data warehousing systems for telecommunications carriers.

In a blog post, Forrester Research Inc. analyst James Kobielus described the introduction of the Database Machine and Exadata as "a bold move into petabyte scale-out territory — an emerging, very-high-end niche in which one veteran vendor, Teradata, has been preeminent."

Kobielus also noted that Oracle's storage layer is transparent to applications, meaning they don't need to be rewritten in order for users to see performance gains on the new systems.

IBM launches Bluehouse, a Facebook for business

IBM will today open the online door to a service that merges some of the best features of social networking with business-collaboration tools.

A software-as-a-service (SaaS) product, Bluehouse is free during its public beta release. Once the testing ends sometime in the next few months, subscription pricing, which has not yet been detailed, will kick in.

Bluehouse combines a familiar pallet of collaboration tools, including instant messaging, Web conferencing, document sharing, profiles, directory and tools to build business networking communities -- all delivered via a cloud platform.

Facebook is used by some firms for business collaboration today. Like Facebook, Bluehouse will allow people to quickly create a collaborative space, but unlike Facebook, it has management features to ensure that privacy and other controls that businesses want, said Sean Poulley, vice president of IBM's online collaboration services.

Bluehouse is part of broader cloud-services initiative at IBM that includes helping independent software developers turn their applications into SaaS services, which the company can use to help businesses develop internal clouds for their own service delivery.

On a very broad level, IBM has been developing SaaS and cloud-based services, and it has been collaborating with Google Inc. In July, Hewlett-Parkard, Intel and Yahoo announced their own collaboration effort.

Poulley said current economic woes may encourage adoption of SaaS with its subscription model. "The fact is that cash is starting to get somewhat constrained in the marketplace," he said.

Adam Burrell, a senior technologist at a financial services firm that he ask not be named, has evaluated Bluehouse. He is already using SaaS tools, in particular Google Apps, and Burrell said he believes that Bluehost will simplify collaboration with third parties.

"We could rapidly put the team together without having to involve our IT staff," said Burrell of his experience with Bluehouse, adding that users can search profiles, invite people into projects, and have meeting and file-sharing spaces. "It's very much like Facebook," he said.

Laptop Stolen From McCain Campaign in Missouri

Republican campaigners in Missouri are beefing up security after a laptop containing "strategic information" was stolen from a campaign field office of presidential contender John McCain.

The theft occurred at a campaign office in Independence, Missouri, sometime between 10 p.m. Tuesday and 6 a.m. Wednesday, according to Tina Hervey, a spokeswoman with the Missouri Republican Party. When staffers showed up for work Wednesday, they found that someone had thrown a brick through the glass windows fronting the office, rifled through a bag and stolen a Dell laptop belonging to a regional campaigner.

The laptop contained "strategic information for the [Republican party] on how we are going to reach out to people in the Kansas City area," Hervey said.

The office, known as the Kansas City Victory Office, supports the campaign efforts of McCain and local Republican candidates.

Staffers worry that the theft may have been politically motivated. They say the laptop contained information that would be valuable to a political opponent and that it appeared to have been singled out. Twenty-two Asustek Computer Eee PCs, which are used by phone-bank volunteers and do not contain sensitive information, were left behind by the thieves, Hervey said.

Local police are investigating but have not identified a suspect, she said.

Nomura Acquires Lehman Indian Back Office

Nomura Holdings, a Japanese financial services group, announced Monday that it has entered into an agreement with ailing Lehman Brothers Holdings to acquire Lehman's back office and IT operations in Mumbai, India for an undisclosed amount.

Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy protection last month.

Nomura will acquire three companies -- Lehman Brothers Services India Private Limited, Lehman Brothers Financial Services (India) Private Limited, and Lehman Brothers Structured Finance Services Private Limited -- which are all specialized service companies in Powai, Mumbai.

Nomura announced last month it would acquire Lehman Brothers' franchise in the Asia-Pacific region and its European and Middle Eastern equities and investment banking operations.

The crisis in the U.S. financial services sector may impact offshoring of back office operations and IT services to India in the short term, according to India's National Association of Software and Service Companies. Struggling financial services companies are expected to close down or sell their operations in India, and reduce outsourcing to Indian companies in the short and medium term, according to analysts.

Lehman's operations in Powai were set up in 2005 to provide operational support, particularly in the area of IT, across the Lehman network. The acquisition will add to Nomura's global network approximately 3,000 employees, including 1,200 IT professionals, Nomura said in a statement on Monday. It will significantly enhance Nomura's IT functions and other support operations including financial control, operations, risk management, as well as analytical support for various business verticals including investment banking, capital markets, research and prime services, Nomura added.

Dream Capture Adds H.264 Support

The Dream Apps has released Dream Capture 2.2, an update to their video recording software for Mac OS X. A free update for registered users, Dream Capture costs US$9.95.

Dream Capture is aimed at iSight users, though it works with other cameras. It enables you to record and upload video to video sharing Web sites, import into iMovie or GarageBand and more.

New to the 2.2 release is auto-focusing technology derived from Apple's Shake software. H.264 video encoding has been added, along with metadata support for iTunes 8 import. DreamSync, The Dream Apps' audio compression technology, is also a new addition, and an audio-only recording mode has also been added.

System requirements call for Mac OS X 10.4 or later.

Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones Comes to Mac

TransGaming has announced the release of Ubisoft's Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones for Mac, available through TransGaming's GameTree Online download service. It costs US$29.95.

Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones continues the long-running fantasy action game franchise with an all-new title featuring third-person action and combat with special moves and abilities.

In this installment, the Prince returns to Babylon from the Island of Time with Kaileena, his beloved. The prince is captured and Kaileena sacrifices herself to unleash the Sands of Time in order to save him. Cast out as a fugitive, the Prince soon discovers that he has a dark side to continue with; one that gradually possesses him.

The prince can manipulate time by slowing it down and rewinding it, enabling him to take on more powerful enemies; he can also engage in chariot combat; you music solve story-driven puzzles in order to push the game forward.

Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones requires Mac OS X 10.4.11 or later, an Intel Core Duo processor, 1024MB RAM, ATI X1600, Nvidia 7300 GT or X3100 Intel-integrated graphics chip or better and 1.6GB of hard disk space.

Because the title is available for download from GameTree Online, you don't have to visit a store to buy it--you'll be able to play it right away after you download it.

Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones is rated M for Mature by the ESRB.

Color Expert App for Designers Released for IPhone

Code Line on Monday announced the release of Color Expert, an iPhone and iPod touch application. It's available for download and purchase from the App Store for US$9.99.

Color Expert helps artists and designers identify, translate, capture and show color using their iPhone or iPod touch. You can use an interactive color wheel to identify a target color and then find several palettes backed by color theory.

Multiple color schemes are supported including Monochromatic, Analogous, Complementary, Split Complementary and Triadic. You can search through Pantone solid coated, Pantone solid uncoated, Pantone Goe coated, Pantone Goe uncoated, Web safe colors and HTML colors, and e-mail palettes to others.

Color Expert requires an iPhone or iPod touch running iPhone 2.0 software or later.

For more Macintosh computing news, visit Macworld. Story copyright © 2007 Mac Publishing LLC. All rights reserved.

IPhone Grabs Top Smartphone Spot

Apple boosted its share of the U.S. consumer smart phone market by 55% after cutting the price of its iPhone and rolling out a 3G model this summer, a research firm said Monday.

According to data from NPD Group Inc., the iPhone's share of the market grew from 11% before the July launch of the iPhone 3G to 17% as of the end of August. Apple's device is currently the best-selling consumer smart handset in the U.S. and was often in short supply during the first few weeks after its release.

"The last three months, we have it ranked number one," said Ross Rubin, an analyst with NPD. The research firm bases its findings on online surveys it conducts with more than 150,000 American consumers each month.

Rubin credited the second-generation iPhone's lower price and access to the faster 3G network for the increase in share, with the latter particularly important to the iPhone's gains. "The iPhone 3G was more efficient in pulling buyers from other carriers than the first-generation," Rubin said, citing statistics gleaned from NPD's surveys.

In the three months surrounding the iPhone 3G's launch, 23% of American consumers switched mobile carriers; during the same June-August time period, 30% of iPhone buyers switched from another carrier to join AT&T Inc., Apple's exclusive network partner in the U.S.

The bulk of new iPhone owners who switched -- 47% -- left Verizon Wireless, while another 24% dumped T-Mobile and 19% switched from Sprint.

"Carriers withstood the pull of the first-generation iPhone, but Apple's taking advantage of AT&T's 3G network," Rubin said. Verizon has been especially susceptible to defections because, unlike rivals such as Sprint, it has not had a handset competitive with the iPhone. "It's proven more vulnerable to the iPhone because of that, and also because of its size," he said.

Apple and AT&T, however, will face increasing competition, predicted Rubin, who called out the new G1 from T-Mobile -- the first smart phone powered by Google Inc.'s Android operating system -- as a prime example. "Now we're seeing other manufacturers launching full-fledged smart phones," said Rubin, who also cited the still-unofficial BlackBerry Storm from Research In Motion Inc. as another potential iPhone rival.

Apple has scheduled a conference call with Wall Street analysts and reporters for Oct. 21, when it will announce its fiscal fourth-quarter earnings, and reveal iPhone sales figures for July through September.