Archive for: June 5, 2009

Microsoft’s new search service, Bing, has hit the Internet with a bang. The search engine made available on May 28 has surpassed Yahoo search in its first week, according to StatCounter Global Status, an Internet research firm that tracks page loads. Its Internet traffic has made Bing number two on the list of top search engines in the U.S. and worldwide. In the U.S., Bing passed Yahoo on Thursday for second place with 16.28 percent of the market, while Yahoo dropped to third with 10.22 percent. Microsoft brought Bing to the search-engine table to solve several problems it found with search, including a report that said 30 percent of searches are abandoned without a satisfactory result. Sustaining Number Two Bing uses features such as Best Match to find the best answer for a search, Deep Links to give searchers information on what a Web site offers, and Quick Preview, an additional window that expands over a search caption to give users more information about the site’s relevancy. The search engine also incorporates Instant Answers, a feature designed to provide information within the body of the search-results page. Google still dominates the U.S. search market with 71.47 percent, according to StatCounter. Globally, Bing has taken a smaller lead over Yahoo at 5.62 percent, while Yahoo has 5.13 percent and Google 87.62 percent. “It is big news and is a big change,” said Aodhan Cullen, chief executive of StatCounter, from his office in Ireland. “Bing just came on a few days ago and has taken the number-two slot both in the U.S. and worldwide.” While Bing began its leap from day one with 2.07 percent, then climbed to 3.65 percent, it did drop off on its third day to 3.46 percent. As of Thursday, however, Bing regained its footing and had 5.56 ...

By Shane McGlaun Every now and again, someone I know will ask me what Blu-ray player they should buy to go along with their new TV. I always tell them to get the PS3 because I think it’s one of the best Blu-ray players out there. I had a guy tell me he didn’t want video games in his house the other day and preferred a stand-alone Blu-ray player to the PS3. For people who feel the same way Pioneer has launched a trio of new Blu-ray players including the Elite BDP-23FD, the BDP-120, and the BDP-320 models. The 23FD is aimed at the professional integrator looking for a player with full control capability for integrating into high-end home theaters. It includes a special KURO Link Picture Mode and a precision quartz lock system that helps prevent playback jitters. The 23FD sells for $599. The BDP-320 offers 48-bit deep color support, three video noise reduction circuits and 13 different picture adjustment capabilities and sells for $399. The BDP-120 is the entry-level machine and carries a MSRP of $299. All three machines also have a USB port for playing digital files. [ Pioneer Electronics ]

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Pioneer Electronics Unveils Three Blu-ray Players

By Shane McGlaun I have a couple gaming PCs in my house and none of them can be called green. In fact, my personal gaming PC can double as a heater in the winter and after a few hours use in the summer it makes my office unbearably hot. Maingear has announced a gaming PC for the eco conscious gamer called the Pulse. According to Maingear, the Pulse is the world’s greenest gaming PC and is the first upgradable NVIDIA Ion PC ever. The machine uses NVIDIA Ion graphics for power savings and can be upgraded with a GeForce 9800 ECO video card. The 9800 ECO is similar to the 9800 GT but draws 40% less power than the normal 9800 GT. The computer starts at $799 and can be fitted with Intel Core 2 Duo processors or Intel Core 2 Quad parts. The machine can also be stuffed with up to 8GB of RAM and optional Blu-ray. [ Maingear ]

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Greenest Gaming PC Ever Unveiled by Maingear

Yahoo Inc. has sued the NFL Players Association, claiming it shouldn’t have to pay royalties to use players’ statistics, photos and other data in its popular online fantasy football game because the information is already publicly available. Santa Clara, Calif.-based Yahoo filed its lawsuit Monday in federal court in Minneapolis. According to the complaint, a licensing arm of the players union has threatened to sue Yahoo if it doesn’t pay for the information. The last of Yahoo’s licensing agreements with NFL Players Inc. expired March 1. But Yahoo claims it doesn’t need authorization, due to a court decision in April in a similar dispute between NFL Players Inc. and CBS Interactive Inc. Fantasy sports league participants create teams comprised of real players. As the season progresses, participants’ track their players’ statistics to judge how well their team is performing. According to the judge’s decision in the CBS Interactive case, an estimated 13 million to 15 million people participate in fantasy football games that gross more than $1 billion a year. Yahoo’s lawsuit wants the court to declare that its game does not violate any rights of publicity owned or controlled by NFL Players Inc., and that any such rights would be trumped by the First Amendment and federal copyright law anyway. It also seeks to bar NFL Players Inc. from interfering with Yahoo’s fantasy sports businesses, from threatening litigation, or making any statements that Yahoo or its customers are infringing the rights of NFL Players Inc. NFL Players Association spokesman Carl Francis said the union had no comment at this time. It’s appealing the decision in the CBS Interactive case. The Major League Baseball Players Association and Major League Baseball Advanced Media lost a similar case in 2007 when the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that fantasy baseball ...

Yahoo Inc. Chief Executive Carol Bartz has a message for investors hoping for a quick fix at the slumping Internet company or for an online search partnership with Microsoft Corp. — don’t expect either to happen any time soon. The no-nonsense executive hired by Yahoo five months ago got her latest points across Wednesday during an appearance at an investor conference hosted in New York by Bank of America Corp.’s Merrill Lynch. Bartz has been trying to streamline Yahoo’s operations and improve its online advertising system since she came in January to replace co-founder Jerry Yang. While pointing to some progress, Bartz said it probably will take another year or two before Yahoo reaps the gains from her shake-up. “For everything you can do in three steps, it will take Yahoo 22 steps,” Bartz said. Yahoo has reshuffled management and laid off 700 employees, or about 5 percent of its work force, as part of Bartz’s efforts to reduce bureaucracy and sharpen the company’s technology. As usual, Bartz was peppered with questions about the on-again, off-again talks that Yahoo has been holding with Microsoft since 2006. Although she didn’t rule out the possibility of turning over Yahoo’s search operations to Microsoft, Bartz left no doubt she believes the company will thrive without Microsoft. “Yahoo actually has a bright, bright future — possibly clearer and simpler — without the Microsoft connection,” Bartz said. When the topic continued to come up, Bartz finally said, “Forget about the Microsoft stuff, it’s honestly not that relevant.” But Bartz clearly has given serious thought to the ramifications of a Microsoft partnership. The rivals have explored various combinations, including Microsoft’s $47.5 billion bid last year to buy Yahoo in its entirety, as they try to gain ground on Google Inc. in the lucrative Internet search market. ...

NetApp Inc. has claimed victory over EMC Corp. in a bidding battle for Data Domain Inc., a company whose products help cut unnecessary data storage. The showdown over a technology that seems an odd fit for both companies might not be over, though. NetApp and Data Domain said Wednesday they reached a deal for Data Domain to be acquired for $1.9 billion in cash and stock. The announcement caps a two-week public battle for the maker of “de-duplication” machines, but doesn’t mean the jostling is done. EMC could come back with another higher offer. EMC said in a statement that it believes its $30-per-share offer is “superior” because it is all in cash. An EMC spokesman didn’t immediately return a message seeking further comment. NetApp defended its offer. “They seem to be saying that the battleground has moved from the dollar-per-share amount into the specifics of the terms of the offer, and we believe we offer better long-term value in our offer,” Jay Kidd, NetApp’s chief marketing officer, said in an interview. Brian Marshall, an analyst with Broadpoint.AmTech, said he expects EMC to put up a higher bid out of a desire to keep Data Domain out of a rival’s hands. He said he expects the price for Data Domain to go up to $33 to $35 per share. “If I’m NetApp, I think it’s a difficult proposition to win because EMC has substantially larger resources — it’s my expectation EMC will probably win this war,” he said. “EMC doesn’t really need this company. I just think it’s a defensive move; they don’t want their closest competitor to have it.” EMC had cash and investments of $9.8 billion at the end of its latest quarter, which ended in March. NetApp had $2.6 billion in cash and short-term investments at the ...

On June 3 mobile phone maker Sony Ericsson used the occasion of the annual JavaOne software developers’ conference in San Francisco to announce that it, too, will launch an online software applications store. By August, Sony Ericsson customers will be able to personalize their phones with a range of downloadable programs such as utilities, tools, and games. In announcing its own virtual software mall, Sony Ericsson — a joint venture of Japan’s Sony and Sweden’s Ericsson — joins an increasingly crowded field of rivals jostling to replicate the huge success of the Apple iTunes App Store, which offers thousands of programs for the popular iPhone. In recent weeks, both Nokia, the world’s No. 1 handset maker, and Vodafone, the world’s largest mobile operator by revenue, have jumped into the fray, following the path of other handset makers and carriers such as BlackBerry-maker Research In Motion and France Telecom’s Orange unit. One way Sony Ericsson hopes to stand out is by supporting a wide range of software environments in its phones — including not just internally developed platforms but also the Symbian operating system, the mobile version of Microsoft Windows, and the new open-source Android system backed by Google. To help independent developers get around the complexity of supporting so many options, Sony Ericsson is putting a heavy emphasis on mobile Java, an intermediary layer from Sun Microsystems — soon to be owned by Oracle — that lets authors write a program once and run it on many different platforms. Aiming for Affordability Sony Ericsson’s new app store will initially lean toward programs written for Java or directly for Symbian, but the company says it will expand support to other platforms later this year. Starting on July 1, developers will be able to submit programs to Sony Ericsson for testing and ...

To the iPhone’s extensive resume, add magazine cover illustration. Artist Jorge Colombo recently drew widespread attention for creating the image for The New Yorker’s June 1 cover on an iPhone using Brushes, a $3.99 mobile application. Brushes was designed by Steve Sprang, a 32-year-old programmer who lives in Mountain View, Calif. Brushes simulates the experience of painting on the iPhone screen. Users select from a set of brushes and paint colors using their fingers directly on the screen. It is an application that he wanted to use himself: “I like computer graphics and I like creative tools, so Brushes was definitely an app that I wanted to use myself,” Sprang wrote in an e-mail. “I expected it to appeal to others as well. I think a painting app is a natural fit for the iPhone.” He was right about that. More than 50,000 iPhone owners have downloaded it from Apple’s iTunes Store since Sprang released it in August 2008, and the pace quickened with publicity from The New Yorker cover. Under Apple’s rules, Sprang gets $2.80, or 70 percent, of each purchase, meaning Brushes has earned him about $140,000 before taxes. Apple Leads the Way There is, as Sprang’s experience proves, money to be made selling software applications for the iPhone and other wireless devices. Apple’s iTunes Store has led the way, providing the official channel for software that runs not only on the 21.2 million iPhones it has sold, but also an additional 16 million iPod Touch devices. In less than a year of sales, Apple has reported more than a billion downloads overall. Some apps are free, while many cost 99 percent to $9.99 — and higher. The most expensive iPhone app, IraPro, at $899.99, is a remote surveillance controller for businesses. And while Apple has led the ...

By Andrew Liszewski My desk seems to be plagued by a constant turf war between my mouse, keyboard and Wacom tablet who are constantly battling it out for real estate. But could the Combimouse finally bring peace to my desktop? It takes the idea of the split ergonomic keyboard one step further by allowing the right side to double as a mouse, so in theory you never have to take your fingers off the keys. When your hands are poised in a standard typing stance the right side operates like a regular keyboard, but when you hold it like you would a mouse, you end up touching a contact switch on the side which automatically changes it to ‘mouse mode’. So not only can it be used to move the cursor, but the I, O, J, K, L and < keys become your mouse buttons. But don’t get excited about ordering one just yet. It seems the Combimouse is still in the prototype stages at this point, though successful usability tests have been carried out by Wichita State University, so it just might make it to the market some day. [ Combimouse ] VIA [ Coolest Gadgets ]

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Combimouse Is A Mashup Of Human Interface Devices

Web browsers from the Norwegian company Opera Software ASA have been better known for their innovation than their usage. For instance, they sported the ability to open multiple tabs in a single window long before that became standard practice. Now a new version available as a “beta” test lets you work with those tabs more easily. A resizable tab bar in Opera 10 lets you stretch the row of tabs at the top so that mini, “thumbnail” versions of your open pages appear inside. That way, you can choose which tab to switch to based on the appearance of the Web page, not just its name. Thumbnails aren’t new to browsers. Microsoft Corp.’s Internet Explorer offers them, as do previous versions of Opera. But Opera 10 lets you see those thumbnails up top while you continue to browse a Web site normally in the larger space below. IE lets you do one or the other. Opera 10 retains the Speed Dial feature, which displays thumbnails of your favorite sites, not just your open ones — similar to what’s available on Google Inc.’s Chrome and Apple Inc.’s Safari browsers. You simply click on any thumbnail to load the full site. The new version is more customizable: Instead of just nine Speed Dial sites, you can choose four to 25. The new Opera browser also has built-in compression technology that can help improve browsing speeds, particularly for those with dial-up Internet access. Such technology is commonly offered by Internet service providers, but not by browsers. It’s not clear whether any of these features will significantly improve Opera’s market share, which is tiny compared with market leader Internet Explorer and the increasingly popular Firefox. Unlike IE, though, Opera has versions for Mac and Linux computers as well.

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