(Credit:
Stephen Shankland/CNET News/Google)

I did find the new version of the software somewhat more responsive, though data transfer speeds still impose a fair amount of waiting.

I downloaded, installed, and ran (once I figured out the new icon) the software fine on a BlackBerry. Launching it shows a start-up screen with the Street View person icon with brief instructions.

Street View endows Google Maps with a driver’s-eye view of the world, and now people actually on the street will be able to use it, too.

The company announced a new version of its Google Maps for Mobile software that includes support for Street View, as well as walking directions and reviews of businesses. Google said the new version is faster too.

The move isn’t a surprise. Google demonstrated Street View on a phone using the company’s Android operating system in May, hooked into the phone’s hardware so the view would change according to which way the user oriented the phone. The Android phones are due to be announced Sept. 23.

Update 1:56 p.m. PDT: The Google Mobile blog now has some details and an explanatory video.

Google demonstrated Street View on an Android mobile phone in May. Now it’s available for BlackBerry phones and several others. (Click on the image above for an Android slide show.)

The Street View option is enabled when you click on an area; after a pause the software tells you whether Street View is available, and clicking the option overlays a pretty small Street View window atop the map. Using the scroll wheel pans the view left or right, again with some waiting on the network.

By Twitterholic’s last count, Obama stands at 56,661 followers, compared with Rose’s 56,442. Obama also has the second highest number of friends on Twitter–59,338–according to Twitterholic, which calculates individual statistics for each Twitter user a couple of times a day. The candidate’s Twitter page offers up such rousing tidbits of news as “Holding a town hall on economic security in St. Petersburg, FL.”

Sen. Barack Obama has already proven himself to be the most popular presidential candidate on the Internet, what with his more than 1.3 million Facebook supporters and lofty aims of 2 million online donors. Now the presumptive Democratic nominee is not only outshining other politicians on the Internet, but also the very stars of social networking–Obama has just overtaken Kevin Rose’s spot as the most followed person on Twitter, according to Twitterholic.

In what now appears to be a near daily experience, the European Union is investigating Microsoft for antitrust violations related to its attempts to get its Open Office XML file format standard accepted as an international “standard.” As the argument goes, Microsoft apparently fought hard to get OOXML ratified as a standard.

I think there’s little doubt that Microsoft used anticompetitive measures to get OOXML approved (only to fail in the end). But the same is almost certainly true of the other side (IBM et al.). Microsoft has accused IBM of playing dirty. It is probably right.

I don’t think anyone comes out of this inquiry looking clean. Hopefully, the EU will take some time to look at the suggested “standard” itself, since OOXML itself is the ugliest thing of all in the whole fracas.

European Union antitrust officials have asked Microsoft for information about its activities in the standards-setting process — an early step in an investigation — and are stepping up scrutiny of the issue, according to people familiar with the matter. The file format in question is computer code that describes how a document such as a letter or spreadsheet is digitally stored.

Ya think?

The keen interest in the Office file format comes amid two fresh EU antitrust probes, announced last month. One is examining Microsoft’s Web browser; the other is looking broadly at how well Microsoft’s products, including Office, work with those of competitors.

In its continuing effort to adjust to the realities of virtualization, Microsoft plans on Tuesday to announce new licensing and support policies to address how software can be used across multiple virtual and physical machines.

The software maker confirmed the planned move to CNET News, but declined to go into details ahead of the Tuesday announcement. However, Network World
speculated that the company may ease up on a licensing requirement that ties software in a virtual machine to running on a particular server.

Although it has had challenges of its own keeping pace with changes in the way server software is run, Microsoft has led the way in some new frontiers of licensing, such as how to deal with multicore processors.

(What’s a little odd is that the conference organizers said they couldn’t find any broadband provider representatives to participate in the panel discussion–even though Jeff Brueggeman, AT&T’s vice president for regulatory planning and policy, was listed as attending the event, and executives from Comcast and Verizon were sitting, silently, in the audience.)

In a statement sent to CNET News on Monday, an AT&T spokesman said: “There is nothing inherently wrong with P2P applications, which are legal technologies that are used and welcomed on our network. We have consistently said that AT&T will not become an enforcement agent on the Internet, nor will we inhibit the ability of our customers to access any
legal content they want.”

Michael O’Leary, a senior vice president at the Motion Picture Association of America, said the relationship between content companies and broadband providers had become less adversarial than before and both sides had left the “us against them era” behind. (This was probably a reference to the political trench warfare that led Verizon to reject the RIAA’s request to identify a subscriber and the fuss over one proposal in Congress to implant anticopying technology into consumer devices.)

MovieLabs did conduct tests last year of about a dozen “digital fingerprinting” technologies from companies such as Gracenote, Vobile, and Audible Magic. Certain products worked well in some environments, like on user-generated Web sites and on university networks, MovieLabs’ chief executive told us in January. But that’s not the same as saying it’ll work well for tens of millions of AT&T, Comcast, and Verizon subscribers.

CNET News reporter Marguerite Reardon contributed to this report

Also at the conference on Monday, IFPI’s Perlmutter rattled off a list of countries that have taken at least some steps toward antipiracy filtering, through laws enacted by the legislature or other means: France, South Korea, New Zealand, Belgium, and Australia. In addition, Canada’s copyright lobby has pushed for legally-mandated filtering.

ASPEN, Colo.–Recording industry and motion picture lobbyists are renewing their push to convince broadband providers to monitor customers and detect copyright infringements, claiming the concept is working abroad and should be adopted in the United States.

Shira Perlmutter of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, an RIAA affiliate, talks up the benefits for broadband providers of policing users’ online activities. The MPAA’s Michael O’Leary is third from left.

“Despite our best efforts, we can’t do this alone. We need the help of ISPs. They have the technical ability to manage the flow over their pipes…The good news is that we’re beginning to see some of these solutions emerge, in particular in Europe and Asia.” –Shira Perlmutter, International Federation of the Phonographic Industry

“Despite our best efforts, we can’t do this alone,” said Shira Perlmutter, a vice president for global legal policy at the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry. “We need the help of ISPs. They have the technical ability to manage the flow over their pipes…The good news is that we’re beginning to see some of these solutions emerge, in particular in Europe and Asia.” (IFPI is the Recording Industry Association of America’s international affiliate.)

Looking ahead a few years from now, the content industry may not be satisfied with voluntary agreements. Let’s say that AT&T and some of its larger rivals start to filter pirated material and demonstrate (at least to a first approximation) that it’s possible, but one ISP does not. Look for the RIAA and MPAA and their political allies to ask Congress for a law that would transform theretofore “voluntary” agreements into mandatory ones.

O’Leary welcomed what he described as today’s “multifaceted approach that involves working effectively with the ISPs and universities.”

The idea isn’t exactly new: the Motion Picture Association of America said nearly a year ago that ISPs should police piracy, and one of its member companies asked federal regulators to make this a requirement. AT&T said in January that it’s testing technology that would let it become a copyright network cop, and the MPAA subsequently suggested that piracy-prone users should have their accounts terminated because they’re “hogging the bandwidth.”

Even if the content industry can sign deals with broadband providers, there are still a slew of unanswered questions–including ones about customers’ privacy and how filtering will work in practice. Will piratical transfers be automatically interrupted? Or just slowed? Will piracy-prone users merely find–this is what the IFPI suggests–their accounts suspended? How to detect whether content is licensed, or protected by fair use rights, which vary based on the situation? What if the transfer is encrypted?

In the U.S., she said, referring to broadband providers, “increasingly they will be partnering with us–they will be doing deals with us.”

A representative of the recording industry said on Monday that her companies would prefer to enter into voluntary “partnerships” with Internet service providers, but pointedly noted that some governments are mandating such surveillance “if you don’t work something out.”

During a discussion at the Progress and Freedom Foundation’s technology policy conference here, Perlmutter said one filtering solution would involve identifying particular files that are (or are not) permitted to be sent to particular destinations. That would be a “very tailored approach,” she said.

(Credit:
Declan McCullagh/News.com)

Sharp's 23-millimeter thick Aquos XS1 comes to the U.K. this fall.

Unsurprisingly, Panasonic is saying that the sets are not as heavy as normal plasma TVs. Plus, the prototypes are being made with WirelessHD inside, which means fewer pesky wires. Keep in mind, this is not a real TV. It’s just a prototype for the gadget hounds at IFA to drool over.

Now Sony’s trying thin LCDs on for size, as my colleagues at Crave UK found out.

Sharp also has its Aquos LCD TV on a workout regiment. The XS1 is a mere 23 millimeters thick, and comes in 52-inch or 65-inch panel sizes.

Panasonic showed off the 50-inch version at CES in January, but brought out 58-inch and 65-inch versions of the startlingly thin TVs at IFA at the Berlin trade show Thursday.

But, it’ll likely happen eventually. Plasma is actually one of the last of the HDTV technologies to go super skinny. Sony set the standard with its ridiculously slim OLED TV, and Hitachi showed up at CES with a 1.5-inch thick LCD.

We had inklings that thin was in for the HDTV business this year after CES, but the sets being shown off at IFA in Berlin this week confirm it.

(Credit:
Engadget)

In addition, we chat about Intel’s plans to produce six-core chips in the fourth quarter, and Apple’s massive security update to its operating system.

]]> http://www.uk-shec.org/2010/08/24/podcast-yahoos-growth-plan-facebook-chat-intel/feed/ http://www.uk-shec.org/2010/08/24/microsoft-gets-yadata-still-working-on-yahoo/ http://www.uk-shec.org/2010/08/24/microsoft-gets-yadata-still-working-on-yahoo/#comments Mon, 23 Aug 2010 20:45:56 +0000 admin http://www.uk-shec.org/?p=330 The acquisition, announced Wednesday, comes as Microsoft pursues its vastly larger acquisition target, Yahoo.

Full coverage
Microsoft’s big bid for Yahoo Click here for the latest on the software giant’s attempt to buy the Net pioneer.

“The purchase of YaData brings the Israeli R&D center into the field of online advertising, which is undoubtedly one of Microsoft’s most strategic fields,” said Moshe Lichtman, president
of the Microsoft Israel R&D Center. “This is a great example of how Israeli technology has considerable value that is contributing to our most important areas of development.”

“YaData fully believes in the potential of behavioral targeting to enhance the value of online
advertising for publishers, advertisers and users,” said Amir Peleg, chief executive officer of of the Israeli company, said in a statement. “Microsoft has the resources to unlock the potential in YaData’s technology.”

Microsoft has acquired Israeli ad-targeting start-up YaData.

Microsoft said the YaData team will be folded into the software giant’s existing research and development center in Herzliya, Israel, and will operate as part of its ad unit. YaData focuses on so-called behavioral targeting, which serves up advertising based on what users are doing at their computer.

The price tag is somewhere between $20 million and $30 million, Israeli business daily Globes reported.

The company on Tuesday is expected to announce LiveCycle Enterprise Suite Update 1, which adds new content management features along with tools to more quickly build financial services and government applications.

The PDF Generator 3D ES component is targeted at the manufacturing industry and allows companies to share two- and three-dimensional models in PDF format. The component works with more than 40 CAD applications, according to Adobe.

The Content Services component, developed in conjunction with Alfresco Software, lets companies build a process or application linked to existing enterprise content. For instance, companies can use the tool to create a system for connecting manufacturers to parts suppliers, or for linking hospitals to insurers.

LiveCycle is one of the primary products in Adobe’s enterprise business. The product is designed for applications that involve document exchanges inside and outside of organizations, such as government Web sites that require people to fill out and process claims. It uses Adobe’s PDF and Flex software to create paperless, Web-based applications.

LiveCycle ES Update 1 will be available next month, Adobe said.

The new release also includes two new components: LiveCycle Content Services ES, and LiveCycle PDF Generator 3D ES.

No clunky power brick here.

(Credit:
CNET)

(Credit:
Phil Ryan/CNET Networks)

From the left: the power cord, a USB port, one Gigabit WAN port, and three Gigabit LAN ports.

The screen above pops up when you insert the Time Capsule’s CD, and from there you click on the Time Capsule icon to install the update to your
Mac’s AirPort Utility. The AirPort Utility serves as the primary software interface for the Time Capsule. Most of the software setup is easy, but a few screens might puzzle you if you’re not that network savvy.

After spending some time with Apple’s Time Capsule this afternoon, we have some impressions for you. We’ll dig deeper before our full review on Monday, but here are some initial thoughts.

Apple’s Time Capsule began shipping yesterday, and after a run to The Westchester mall in White Plains, N.Y., this afternoon, we now have one in hand. Stay tuned for our full review, which we plan to bring you on Monday. In it, we’ll discuss throughput of the 802.11n router, transfer speeds of the 500GB drive (call us cheap–we bought the lower-end $299 model), and how it jibes with Leopard’s Time Machine feature for wireless backups. Anything else you want, let us know. In the meantime, read Rich Brown’s breakdown of Time Capsule here.

(Credit:
CNET)

Even though initial set up at home was relatively easy, we hit a few snags. We were able to use the Time Capsule successfully as a router for our home network, and we got online on both the MacBook Pro as well as a Windows XP desktop in the other room. We hoped the Time Capsule’s hard drive would just pop up in Windows, but it didn’t. And after we reconfigured the drive properties and restarted the Time Capsule, per its software instructions, it hung. Every time you make a settings change it seems to want to reboot itself, which takes a while. Worse, whenever it failed a restart, the Time Capsule and our Macbook seemed to lose each other, and we had to go through the whole setup process from scratch.

One feature Time Capsule offers is the ability to add more storage via its USB port. We connected a simple USB flash drive (the “NO NAME” volume in the shot below), and it popped up almost instantly on the Time Capsule’s devices screen. The only stipulation is that you have to enter the Time Capsule’s password, which you establish during setup, before it will allow you to access the new drive.

Assuming you make your way through the setup process (the default option on each screen was usually the right one, at least at home), you’ll know it’s successful when Time Machine, Apple’s automated backup software, finds the Time Capsule’s drive. “J Boogie” in the screen below would be our music-loving Associate Testing Analyst Julie Rivera, who’s testing the MacBook Pro laptop we’re using.

(Credit:
CNET)

(Credit:
Phil Ryan/CNET Networks)

Adding external storage to the Time Capsule is easy.

(Credit:
Rich Brown/CNET Networks)

Original post (by Matthew Elliott):

The first software screen you see when you insert the Time Capsule disc

Not every Time Capsule setup screen will make sense to the average user.

Update:

We’re going to spend more time with the Time Capsule tomorrow and we’ll have our full review up by Monday. In the meantime, Flickr user nakedmac posted a gallery of the Time Capsule’s internals (seems you can swap in a new hard drive). And Schmittroth, to answer your question in the comments about the power cable, nope, no brick. Just a thin white cord as you can see from the shot below.

We have Time Machine turned off here because when it’s on it gives you a 2-minute countdown before it performs a backup. We wanted to investigate the software some more before losing it to the hours-long backup process, but we’ll turn it on tonight to see how that goes.

We paired the Time Capsule with a MacBook Pro with a home cable modem providing the Internet connection. In order to keep it simple, we relied on hard-wired Ethernet all the way, linking the cable modem to the Time Capsule, and the Time Capsule to our laptop. Setup is easy. All you need to do is plug all of the appropriate cables in for your network and then plug in the Time Capsule’s power cord. There’s no power switch, so it comes right on.

Time Capsule: Time for your close-up.

When Time Machine finds your Time Capsule, you know you set it up correctly.