AT&T CEO: Faster iPhone in 2008

SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) — AT&T says it plans to offer a version of an iPhone next year that runs on a faster wireless network so users can get speedier results when surfing the Web.
The move would address one of the main drawbacks about the smart phone made by Apple and distributed exclusively by wireless carrier AT&T in the United States.
AT&T Chief Executive Officer Randall Stephenson spilled the news during his appearance at an event late Wednesday at the Churchill Club in Santa Clara.
A spokeswoman for Apple declined to comment Thursday.
Stephenson said he didn't know how much more the new version will cost than the existing model, which sells for $399.
FIND MORE STORIES IN: CEO AT AT Apple San Jose Randall Stephenson
Many industry observers had expected Apple to make the iPhone work on faster 3G networks at some point but couldn't pinpoint when. The current model — Apple's first foray in the cellphone market — runs on 2.5G networks, or in AT&T's case, its relatively slow EDGE network.
The difference in performance is similar to a dial-up Internet connection versus a high-speed broadband connection.
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Google map service finds your location via cellphone

SAN FRANCISCO — Internet search leader Google is testing technology that will find the location of people using its mobile mapping service, even if the phone making the connection isn't equipped with a GPS receiver.
The new tracking feature introduced Wednesday is being touted as an added convenience because it will enable people on the go to skip the task of typing a starting address on a mobile handset's small keys when they turn to Google's maps for guidance.
Using the technology, dubbed "My Location," simply requires pressing zero on a mobile handset equipped with the new software. The sender's location shows up as a blue dot on Google's mobile maps.
The tracking system isn't set up to collect a user's phone number or any other personal information that would reveal a person's identity, said Steve Lee, product manager for Google's mobile maps. As a safeguard, the feature can be turned off at any time by simply clicking on a link in the help menu.
Those assurances probably will alleviate privacy concerns raised about the new service, said analyst Greg Sterling of Sterling Market Intelligence.
FIND MORE STORIES IN: Google GPS Greg Sterling GPS receiver
After trying out "My Location" on a Blackberry device, Sterling predicted people will embrace it. He called it "an incremental improvement but still meaningful."
Unlike GPS, Google's tracking feature works while handsets are indoors. "My Location" also drains less power from a phone's battery than a GPS receiver does.
On the downside, Google's service isn't as precise as GPS. In most instances, Google hopes to get within one-quarter to three miles of a user's location — close enough to provide helpful "neighborhood-level" information, Lee said.
The database that identifies the location of a mobile phone is still under construction, so the service still sometimes draw a blank. The company expects to fill in the holes as more people use the service, Lee said.
The tracking system's database currently spans more than 20 countries, including United States, much of Europe, Australia, New Zealand, the Russian Federation and Taiwan. It doesn't yet work in China or Japan.
By knowing more about a mobile phone's location, Google conceivably could make more money displaying ads from nearby businesses hoping to lure in more customers. The Mountain View-based company currently doesn't plan to show ads on mobile maps but may in the future, Lee said.
Already the owner of the most lucrative advertising network on the Internet, Google eventually hopes to do a better job of mining profits from the mobile Web.
To help realize that goal, Google plans to introduce a new mobile software package called Android next year in an attempt to make its online services more accessible to people while they're away from computers at home or the office.
Although a growing number of so-called smart phones come with GPS receivers, Google estimates that about 85% of mobile handsets now in use don't have the satellite-powered technology.
Google's alternative will work on most smart phones, including the Blackberry and the latest generation of Nokia handsets. But it's still not compatible with the iPhone, Motorola Q, Samsung Blackjack and Palm Treo 700w and other models.
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Gifts for gamers: Hot hardware to enhance the experience

You haven't played Halo 3 unless your tush has rumbled while firing at aliens.
Whether it's over-the-top vibrating chairs or more practical gaming accessories, such as the Wii remote charging station, hundreds of optional peripherals can enhance your interactive entertainment experience — regardless of your preferred gaming platform.
Here, a look at some of the year's best, and quirkiest.
Taking charge
While the Nintendo Wii's motion-sensing controller is one of the most exciting things to happen to the gaming industry in a long while, it's no secret the AA batteries in the Wii remote can drain faster than the pipes in a Mario Bros. game. Good news: the Nyko Wii Charge Station includes rechargeable batteries for two Wii remotes, a docking station to recharge them and rubber-lined controller backs for greater grip. It's $39.99 at www.nyko.com, but it, and all the other products mentioned, can often be found for less by shopping around at other websites.
FIND MORE STORIES IN: Game Windows Xbox Nintendo PCS Wii Playstation 2 Microsoft X Box USB Logitech Techdigest
BlackBerry for gamers?
The Xbox 360 Messenger Kit ($29.99 at www.xbox.com) includes two separate products. One is a small backlit keyboard, called a Chatpad, that snaps into the bottom of the game controller; use it to chat with friends over the Xbox Live service (during games or beforehand). The other is an Xbox 360 wired headset to talk via voice instead of text, if you prefer. We also like the comfortable Xbox 360 Wireless Racing Wheel ($129.99) and Xbox 360 Wireless Controller for Windows ($59.95) which works with both the Xbox 360 and Windows PCs.
Band in a box
We love the wireless Gibson Les Paul you get with RedOctane's Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock, but you can't beat the entire band setup included with MTV Games' Rock Band bundle ($169.99 at www.rockband.com). The game lets you jam with the finest rock songs from yesterday and today. You get a guitar (which doubles as a bass), collapsible drum kit and microphone — so the whole family can rock out. It's available for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 2/3; the stand-alone game sells for $49.99 to $59.99.
Sit on this
The Renegade Game Chair ($299.99; www.ultimategamechair.com) features 12 vibrating motors, so you can feel every bump or zap in your favorite games. The headrest-mounted 3D-stereo speakers and coordinated lighting effects add to the fun. This comfortable recliner is compatible with Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Nintendo Wii, Windows PCs, Macs and portable music players.
Big screen, small size
Enjoy your favorite games in the privacy of your own virtual movie theater with the Vuzix iWear AV920 ($349.95; www.vuzix.com), audio/video glasses that simulate a 62-inch big-screen television when plugged into a gaming console, portable DVD player or video iPod. The iWear creates this effect with its twin LCD displays. With supported games, players have the added benefit of 3-D "tilt" control by using simple head movements instead of button presses. Other features include a five-hour rechargeable Lithium Ion battery, removable and upgradeable speakers and a USB charging cord.
A breeze to use
Available for the PlayStation 3 or Windows PCs, the Logitech ChillStream ($29.99; www.logitech.com) is a clever gamepad that's perfect for heated game-play matches as it blows cool air through tiny pores on the handgrips to keep your hands from sweating. This USB-based controller, which features dual analog sticks and trigger buttons, lets you choose from one of three levels of air flow intensity (or none at all). Hardcore PC players should also check out the award-winning Microsoft SideWinder Mouse ($79.95; www.microsoft.com).

Web auctions' popularity helps live counterparts

WAYNESBURG, Pa. — His chanting is rhythmic and rapid, a staccato string of numbers that quickly grows hypnotic as auctioneer Kevin Teets scans the audience, eyes darting between buyers on opposite sides of the room.
Perched in the front row is Dave Kauffman, who has come 220 miles from Marysville, Ohio, in search of vintage, remote-control model airplanes and accessories.
Within hours, Kauffman has so many planes and parts, to be resold at flea markets and online, that it takes five trips to load his hatchback at the Greene County Fairgrounds.
"I can tell from the first sale if it's going to be a good night," he said. "Tonight was a very good night."
Although auctioneers initially considered the Internet a threat, its growth and development of searchable websites like AuctionZip have contributed to a boom in the live-auction industry, with one-time rivals forming partnerships that produce bigger audiences for sellers, often by simulcasting live auctions on the Web.
FIND MORE STORIES IN: NAA
Buyers emboldened by success on eBay and other sites are seeking live sales in search of lower prices — and the thrill of competing in person.
Sales of goods and services at live auctions totaled $257 billion in 2006, a surge of 7% over 2005.
A study for the Kansas-based National Auctioneers Association found residential real estate auctions have grown 39% since 2003, agricultural real estate grew 33%, and sales of commercial and industrial property surged 27%. Car auctions increased by 10.5% and charity auctions rose 16.5%.
"I don't know where the auction industry would be without the Internet," said Teets, of Fairmont, W.Va. He turned professional three years ago and made the top 12 at the 2007 bid-calling world championships in San Diego.
"The Internet has educated the buyers. It's educated the sellers. It's opened a lot of these small sales up," said Teets, 31, who works for Joe R. Pyle Auctions of Mount Morris, Pa.
Earlier this year, the 6,000-member National Auctioneers Association teamed up with Gemstar-TV Guide International to launch Auction Network, which produces webcasts of auctions.
"The Internet has been the greatest thing that ever happened to the auction industry," said NAA president Tommy Williams, an Oklahoma real estate auctioneer. "It made us reinvent ourselves."
Auctioneers were slow to embrace the Internet because it was considered competition, said Ina Steiner of Natick, Mass., editor of AuctionBytes, a trade publication for online merchants.
But now, even rural residents often have sufficient Web service to compete and sellers realize that customers have choices far beyond eBay. There are specialty sites like Bid4Assets for real estate and IronPlanet for construction equipment.
"General consumers, they go to sites like eBay," Steiner said. "But they might go to Google. Google's the great equalizer. If an auction site is savvy and has a listing optimized for Google, people can find them."
The intersection of live and virtual auctions promises nearly limitless opportunity, and a few companies have already found niches by pairing traditional auction houses with the online world.
Julian Ellison moved from London to New York in 1999 to launch LiveAuctioneers, a webcasting project. In 2002, he persuaded San Francisco-based eBay to partner on live Web auctions.
At the time, eBay had 25 million users; today it boasts 275 million. Ellison has ventures with 638 auction houses worldwide and annual sales approaching $100 million.
"A lot of our auction houses that we started doing business with were on their knees," he said. "Some have said to me: 'You guys have absolutely saved our bacon.'
The changing world also creates opportunity for individuals, and the NAA is beginning to see more women and minorities entering the profession. The world champion bid-caller, former real estate investor Denise Shearin of Brandywine, Md., is the first black auctioneer to hold the title.
Shearin, who went pro in March 2006, was initially captivated by the chanting but quickly learned there's more to the business, requiring constant re-education about values, intensive marketing efforts and sophisticated people skills.
"Like so many other businesses, you get out of it what you put into it," she said. "If you really enjoy it, 50, 60 and 70 hours a week really do go by very quickly and fairly easily."
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Romantics band sues 'Guitar Hero' publisher

Imitation might be flattery, but that doesn't make the Romantics any happier about it.
The Detroit rock band has sued the publisher of the popular video game Guitar Hero, claiming the game infringes the group's rights by featuring a sound-alike recording of the hit What I Like About You.
The lawsuit against California-based Activision, filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Detroit, seeks unspecified damages for use of the sound-alike recording. It's one of about 30 hit tunes featured on Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80s, released in July for Sony PlayStation game consoles.
The band is also seeking an injunction against the game, which could take the bestseller off store shelves in the thick of the holiday shopping season. In the game, users try to play along to songs with a guitar-shaped controller. Activision has used a mix of original band recordings and cover versions in its Guitar Hero series, an award-winning line that debuted in 2005.
Copyright isn't the issue for the Romantics. The band's attorneys said Activision properly secured permission to use the song What I Like About You, which allowed it to record a cover version. But by creating an imitation so much like the Romantics' original, they said, the company has infringed the group's right to its own image and likeness.
FIND MORE STORIES IN: Sony Playstation Activision Guitar Artists Bette Midler Tom Waits Romantics What I Like About You
Guitar Hero representatives did not return calls for comment.
Artists such as Tom Waits and Bette Midler have won legal victories on similar grounds for sound-alike recordings used in TV commercials. In those cases, the imitation recordings were ruled to have infringed the artists' rights to publicity by leading consumers to associate the artist with the advertised product.
What I Like About You was recorded for the game by the San Francisco music firm Wavegroup Sound, also named in the suit.
"It's a very good imitation, and that's our objection," said Troy attorney William Horton. "Even the guys in the band said, 'Wow, that's not us, but it sure sounds like us.'"
Horton said Activision should have secured a master license for the Romantics' original 1980 recording, then paid appropriate royalties. He said the band became aware of the issue when fans said they'd heard the song in the game but members saw no accounting for it on their record-label royalty checks.
"I was very upset because the band had worked very hard over many years to develop and use its distinctive sound," the Romantics' Wally Palmer said in an affidavit.
Jessica Litman, a University of Michigan law professor and copyright specialist, said the Romantics' suit may be different from the Waits and Midler cases in a few key ways.
Though she had not yet read the Romantics' complaint, Litman said that in general, "putting something in a game is quite different from putting it in a commercial."
The Waits and Midler cases hinged on the fact that the sound-alikes were used in advertising, potentially causing viewers to think those artists were making a commercial endorsement.
"Here it's being used as an intrinsic sound in the gameplay," Litman said. "That seems to me to be a loser on state law grounds and trademark grounds, because no one is going to be confused and think that they're endorsing Playstation or Guitar Hero. "
Horton said he thinks the Romantics' case is actually stronger because of the recording's use in the game.
"The music is integral to the way this product works," he said. "You have to have songs to play."
The attorney would not put a specific figure on potential money awards for the Romantics, which would likely be based on the number of Guitar Hero Encore units sold to date. The game, like the other three Guitar Hero titles, topped U.S. sales charts when it was released.
"The sales of this game are huge," said Horton. "We're all for good commerce. We just want to share in it."

Online games meet social networking tools

Jo Ann Hicks doesn't identify with gamers, but she spends hours online every day playing Kaneva.
The 41-year-old homemaker likes the shopping-and-partying game — where she operates a virtual nightclub and hosts parties — because it helps her interact with people, not provide escape from them as traditional games often do.
Social and gaming networks, once considered polar opposites, are cross-pollinating as online interactions replace prime-time TV and other, more traditional media experiences. Games like Kaneva are attracting players that games like Super Mario Brothers never did.
"I run around and act like a 40-year-old person. I have my little clan we hang with. What people will say is more interesting to me," Hicks said of her preferred game. "As opposed to Mario, who's only going to jump."
Game developers say there's money for both sides in this convergence.
FIND MORE STORIES IN: Myspace Facebook Video games Warcraft Online games Kaneva Stephen Prentice
Social networks that incorporate more features of "massively multi-player online games" could enhance their already-substantial earning power. And gaming sites would benefit from increased membership and broader acceptance.
David Dague, a 34-year-old executive in Chicago who runs a website called tiedtheleader.com, said games have changed fundamentally since the early days of Space Invaders.
"I've seen gaming go from a solitary thing to where there really is a cinematic experience going on in front of you that you can share in a social capacity," said Dague, whose site coordinates matches in Xbox Live games like Halo 3 and hosts forums about gaming.
"Video games have become the ultimate party line," he said. "The question is, who are you sharing it with?"
Played in virtual worlds with advertising and goods for sale, games like KartRider and Kaneva now go beyond the scope of early interactive games. They're less about skill levels and escapism and more about joining friends and strangers in virtual spaces where chatting, comparing fashions, going dancing — and, yes, slaying monsters — are all options.
For their part, networking sites are encompassing more interactive features that consume increasing amounts of users' time — long considered a defining feature of computer games.
MySpace and Facebook are massively multiplayer games in disguise, says Gabe Zichermann, who is developing "rmbr," which he says will make a video game out of tagging and sharing digital photos.
"The reason why Facebook is a really compelling MMO is because it's fun and you get something out of it," he said.
There are interactive titles like Scrabulous for Facebook, and MySpace is rolling out a games channel early next year.
"They're going to be able to monetize their users at the same level (as the games do)," Jessica Tams, managing director of the Casual Games Association, said of the social network sites. "That's a lot of money."
If each of Facebook's 33 million and MySpace's 72 million October users — according to figures from comScore Inc. — paid a dollar each visit for a new outfit for his or her avatar in a game, that would have produced a lot more revenue than the fractions of a penny the sites got for each click on an ad.
Nexon, which has offered free, socially rich video games for years in South Korea, introduced its English-language version of KartRider for use in North America in September.
In October, the year-old North American version of Nexon's Kaneva had 84,000 members, according to comScore. Once players download the game, they see advertising and can buy all sorts of virtual clothing and upgrades for a few dollars apiece.
It's a substantially different business model from online fantasy games like World of Warcraft, which tend to require subscriptions, at $15 or so per month, and usually don't allow users to buy things for real money, online or off.
"Think of World of Warcraft as kind of closing the book on this generation of games," says Christopher Sherman, executive director of Virtual Worlds Management. "Those folks who are developing the next generation of massively multiplayer games really need to raise the bar anew."
Venture capital, technology and media firms invested more than $1 billion dollars in 35 virtual worlds companies between October 2006 and this October, according to a study by Austin-based Virtual Worlds Management, a company that organizes conferences to discuss emerging online trends.
Second Life— where users can buy their own plots of land to build stores, castles or anything else they can imagine — is creating a game within a game with CBS, called The Virtual CSI: New York, that melds networking and gaming. Avatars will be able to go to crime scenes and figure out what happened.
The lure of interactive online games is so strong it can cut into users' sleep and boost the time they spend playing, according to a month-long study by Syracuse University psychology professor Joshua Smyth.
Smyth found that MMORPG players spent on average 14.4 hours a week playing — twice as long as video game players who don't interact online.
Stephen Prentice, a senior analyst for the Gartner Group in the United Kingdom, believes the time is right for such online social video game services to take off. The big question is who will succeed first.
"The huge opportunity is for a lightweight, three-dimensional environment, a virtual world equivalent of Facebook," Prentice says. "Trying to predict who that is going to be is difficult. Anything could happen here."
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

In Germany, iPhone will sell without contract

BERLIN — Deutsche Telekom AG's mobile unit said Wednesday it would offer Apple's popular iPhone without a contract to comply with a court injunction issued after Vodafone challenged T-Mobile's exclusive lock on the handset.
T-Mobile will start selling the phone for euro999 ($1,477) immediately as well as continuing to offer it for the discounted euro399 ($590) in combination with a two-year contract, the company said in a press release.
The iPhone made its German debut on Nov. 9 — available only with the two-year contract from T-Mobile. The German unit of rival Vodafone protested that practice at a state court in Hamburg.
The court issued an injunction, dated Nov. 12, barring T-Mobile from offering the iPhone exclusively with the minimum 24-month contract, and also from selling it only with a so-called SIM lock that prevents users from switching the device to any other operator's network.
T-Mobile said any customer can now also have the SIM lock on their phone removed — including those who have already purchased the iPhone.
FIND MORE STORIES IN: Germany Mobile Nov Deutsche Telekom AG
T-Mobile said in its statement that it would abide by the conditions "until the legal situation is resolved." The company could not immediately be reached for comment.
On Tuesday, T-Mobile said it would appeal the injunction and it also said it reserves the right to consider seeking damages.
The new phone is not operating on Europe's fastest, so-called 3G networks, but is relying on a different technology called EDGE. T-Mobile argued that it is the only carrier to offer EDGE across Germany.
The iPhone is a combined cellphone and iPod media player that also can access the Internet wirelessly.
Vodafone could not immediately be reached for comment.
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Bookmarks better in new Firefox 3

NEW YORK — A new version of the Firefox browser, now available for testing mainly by developers, offers improvements on finding frequently visited websites and tools for running Web applications without a live Internet connection.
The Beta 1 version of Firefox 3 released this week still has problems, including the inability to run newer Web-mail programs from Yahoo and Microsoft, and a final version for consumers isn't expected for several months.
But it offers a window on what's to come.
Many of its new features concern bookmarks, an area typically slow to change in the browsing world. You can now add keywords, or tags, to sort bookmarks by topic. And a new "Places" feature lets you quickly access sites you recently bookmarked or tagged and pages you visit frequently but haven't bookmarked.
There's also a new star button for easily adding sites to your bookmark list — similar to what's already available on Microsoft's Internet Explorer 7 browser.
FIND MORE STORIES IN: Microsoft Firefox Web applications
Offline Web support — for example, letting you compose Web mail while offline to send after you're back online — is bound to come in handy as more software developers design programs to be run completely over the Internet, eliminating installation complexities.
But Web developers must add the Firefox offline functionality to their sites, so the usefulness of this feature will be limited at first.
Other new features include the ability to resume downloads midway if the connection is interrupted and an updated password manager that doesn't disrupt the log-in process.
Versions for Windows, Mac and Linux computers were released Monday by Mozilla, an open-source community in which thousands of people collectively develop free products, mostly as volunteers.
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Philadelphia Wi-Fi network hits snags

PHILADELPHIA — Alfred Zaccaria was finally going to leave the world of dial-up for high-speed access to the Internet without having to pay a lot more for service.
Or so he thought.
A 63-year-old landlord in northeast Philadelphia, he signed up for EarthLink's Wi-Fi Internet service in June for $6.95 a month, a rate that would rise to the regular price of $19.95 after six months. Five months later, he still can't get it to work despite moving his wireless modem from room to room and closer to windows to get a better signal.
HOTSPOT FINDER: Find a wireless service near you
"I'm paying them and they're not giving me the service," said Zaccaria, who's stuck with a one-year contract and a $70 modem whose return date has passed. "It seems unjust."
FIND MORE STORIES IN: Wi Philly Internet access Earthlink Earthlink, Inc.
Three years after Mayor John Street announced Philadelphia would be the first major U.S. city to have its own network for wireless Internet access, the project is nearly a year behind schedule and beset by cost overruns.
Technical problems and restructuring at EarthLink Inc., the Atlanta-based Internet service provider that won the 10-year contract to set up and manage the network, slowed the process. But its future grew much murkier Friday, with Earthlink's announcement that it is considering "strategic alternatives" — in other words, a possible sale — for its municipal Wi-Fi business.
"Making significant further investments in this business could be inconsistent with our objective of maximizing shareholder value," the company has decided, Chief Executive Rolla P. Huff said in a statement.
Shares of EarthLink rose by 13 cents, or 1.8%, to $7.27 amid heavy trading Friday, then climbed another 85 cents, or 11.7%, after-hours.
Earthlink, which did not disclose what other paths the unit could follow, said the division is worth about $40 million.
The company has struggled to generate revenue as its dial-up customers have turned to high-speed services. It brokered a joint venture with SK Telecom to form wireless company Helio and launched its municipal wireless service.
Terry Phillis, Philadelphia's chief information officer, said his city's 135-square-mile network is 75% complete and EarthLink is committed to finishing it. Earthlink vowed Friday to continue working with its municipal partners.
It's not clear who will own or run Philadelphia's network once it's built, though the city could take it over and find another company to operate it.
Consumer complaints have reached the office of City Councilman Frank Rizzo, who said he also had trouble connecting to EarthLink's Wi-Fi hot spots around the city and has called for a hearing on it.
"I started to get e-mails from people complaining the service doesn't work well, and that bothered me," Rizzo said.
Jerry Grasso, a spokesman for EarthLink, declined to disclose subscriber figures. But municipal officials have said they were disappointing there and in other cities.
Wireless Philadelphia, the non-profit overseeing the project, has signed up only 440 households for the "Digital Inclusion" program for low-income residents, well below the goal for June of 1,000. Participants would get a refurbished computer, training, Internet access for a year, wireless equipment and tech support.
The network initially was to be finished last spring. Now, Wireless Philadelphia said it will be completed early next year.
Some delays were technical. EarthLink had to nearly double its number of Wi-Fi nodes to more than 40 per square mile to improve connectivity. And the company didn't require residents to buy or rent equipment to boost the signal indoors as necessary.
Then, in August, EarthLink announced it would cut 900 jobs, nearly half of its workforce, and reassess the business model for its municipal broadband projects.
"We will not devote any new capital to the old municipal Wi-Fi model that has us taking all the risks," Huff told analysts then. "In my judgment, that model is simply unworkable."
Earthlink pulled out of San Francisco's Wi-Fi project in August, and Chicago and Cincinnati abandoned their efforts about the same time. The company paid Houston $5 million for missing the starting deadline for that city's Wi-Fi project and was mulling whether to walk away.
The announcement on Friday puts in limbo the investment in Houston, which Richard Lewis, that city's chief information technology officer, estimated at $40 million to $50 million.
EarthLink agreed to foot the bill for Philadelphia's network, give free accounts to the city, lease spots from the city for its Wi-Fi nodes and subsidize Internet access for low-income residents.
The company's decision was "long overdue," Anthony Townsend, a research director at Silicon Valley think tank the Institute for the Future, said Friday.
"It was pretty clear that it was going to be a long road," he said. "It's a fragmented market. You're dealing with clients and governments that move slowly and are very risk averse. They really didn't have a lot of options, and it turned out to be a lot harder than they expected."
Associated Press Writer Greg Bluestein in Atlanta contributed to this report.
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press.

Sony encourages outside PS3 game designers

TOKYO — Sony halved the fees it charges for a software development kit for the PlayStation 3 video game machine Monday to encourage outside designers to make more games for the struggling console.
Sony's gaming unit, Sony Computer Entertainment, said prices for the development package for the PlayStation 3 will be reduced to $10,250 in North America, 950,000 yen ($8,600; euro5,900) in Japan and euro7,500 ($11,250) in Europe.
The move follows the price cuts on the PS3 around the world that the company announced last month in an attempt to woo buyers.
Tokyo-based Sony will also strengthen backup support for making new games for the PS3 in an effort to make the machine more popular, it said in a statement.
Although its predecessor the PlayStation 2 dominated the gaming market, the PS3 has struggled against the hit Wii console, the rival offering from Nintendo, which makes Pokemon and Super Mario games.
FIND MORE STORIES IN: Japan Microsoft Europe Tokyo Sony Xbox Nintendo Playstation Wii Playstation 2 Wiis
Boosting PS3 sales is crucial for Sony's overall business strategy because it also supports the Blu-ray disc next-generation video, which is vying with the rival HD-DVD format.
The Wii has succeeded in drawing people not usually accustomed to playing electronic games, including the elderly, by offering easier-to-play games that use a wandlike handheld device for the remote controller.
Sony has said that sales have improved since the price cuts on the machine in the U.S., Japan and Europe. The 80-gigabyte version PS3 now sells for about $499, down from $599.
There have been no price cuts on the Wii, which sells for about $249.99 in North America, euro249.00 ($370) in Europe and 25,000 yen ($230; euro160) in Japan.
It is generally more difficult and expensive to create games for sophisticated machines like the PS3, which is packed with cutting-edge technology and is driven by the powerful Cell chip. But machines won't sell unless there is a variety of games that can be played on them.
Game developers that had previously designed products for the PlayStation 2 are now increasingly making Wii versions of the games.
By October, Nintendo had shipped 13.2 million units worldwide of the Wii, which went on sale late last year. Nintendo is expecting to sell 17.5 million Wiis by the end of this fiscal year, or March 31, 2008.
Sony had sold 5.6 million PS3s worldwide as of the end of September, company spokesman Daisuke Nakata said. The console went on sale late last year in Japan and the U.S. and in March in Europe.
The PS3 has also lagged behind the Xbox 360 machine from U.S. software maker Microsoft. Microsoft has sold 13.4 million Xbox 360 consoles over the last two years.
Last month, Microsoft slashed Xbox 360 prices in Japan by about 13%. The 39,795 yen ($360; euro246) Xbox 360 now sells for 34,800 yen ($310; euro210).
Sony's price cuts have helped PS3 sales in recent weeks, raising hopes the machine may be catching up ahead of the critical holiday shopping season.
Japan sales of the PS3 beat the Wii for the first time in the week from Nov. 5 through Nov. 11, with 55,924 PS3 machines sold vs. 34,546 Wiis, according to Media Create Co., a Tokyo think-tank that tracks such numbers.
Sony Chief Executive Howard Stringer said last week that U.S. PS3 sales more than doubled in the weeks after the price cut.
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press.

Wal-Mart gives online shoppers extra day for holiday deals

NEW YORK (Reuters) — Wal-Mart Stores (WMT) on Monday unveiled Thanksgiving holiday sales plans that focus heavily on its website to publicize its discount prices and kick off the extended holiday shopping weekend.
The world's largest retailer has said it would post online-only deals on the website on Thanksgiving, which can be purchased the same day.
On Monday, it revealed some of those deals. For example, it will offer a Zune 30 gigabyte MP3 video player for $98.87, which it says is about 25% off, and a Garmin Nuvi 650 Portable global positioning system for $298.87, a savings of more than 30%, it says.
Wal-Mart also said Monday that it will post special "secret" deals on its website on Thanksgiving Day that can then be purchased in stores on Friday — commonly referred to as "Black Friday," which kicks off the holiday shopping season.
Those "secret" deals are not published in its advertising circulars.
FIND MORE STORIES IN: Reuters Monday IPTC Wal-Mart Stores Thanksgiving Shop
The online push comes as Wal-Mart works to incorporate its website more closely with its stores, and boost lagging sales in the United States.
This year, it rolled out a "Site to Store" program, which allows customers to order products on the website and have them shipped to a local Wal-Mart store for free. When the merchandise is picked up, Wal-Mart said customers wind up spending more money in the store.
In an interview earlier this month, Walmart.com CEO Raul Vazquez said that while overall U.S. online holiday sales this year are expected to rise about 20%, Walmart.com's sales should jump 40% to 60%.

Yahoo adds 17 more newspapers

NEW YORK — Yahoo has added 17 more newspapers to its group of online publishing partners, giving the group added heft as it approaches its one-year anniversary.
Yahoo executives told The Associated Press that The Columbus Dispatch and 16 regional newspapers owned by The New York Times Co. have joined the consortium, bringing its total number to about 415 dailies and another 140 weeklies. The New York Times itself, however, hasn't joined.
Lem Lloyd, who runs the consortium for Yahoo, said the partnership has already been bearing fruit both for newspaper publishers as well as Yahoo, but he declined to provide specific dollar figures.
The first goal was to integrate the online help-wanted classified advertising listing of newspapers with Yahoo's online job search database HotJobs. Lloyd said that has been proceeding on schedule, with some 377 papers already launched and others on the way.
For newspapers, linking their online recruitment ads with HotJobs is seen as a way to hold on to more advertising dollars amid competition from Internet rivals like Craigslist.
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Other newspapers have linked up with Monster Worldwide in online classified ads or are part of CareerBuilder, a joint venture owned by the three largest newspaper publishers, Gannett Co., Tribune Co. and McClatchy Co.
The Yahoo consortium has continued to sign up new members since its original launch last Nov. 20. It added the New York Daily News Nov. 9 and a group of 12 newspaper publishing companies in April.
Yahoo lets newspapers add job listings to its HotJobs database at a wholesale rate, while newspapers can charge higher prices to advertisers for help-wanted ads that they also upload to HotJobs.
Lloyd said Yahoo has seen a revenue bump in the tens of millions per year, but he said the effect has been varied among the various newspaper partners since they all charge different prices.
One of those partners, Cox Newspapers in Atlanta, says the partnership has "gone very well" to date, according to Leon Levitt, vice president of digital media the company, which is a unit of privately held Cox Enterprises.
Levitt also declined to discuss specific revenue gains, but he said the websites of Cox's 17 newspapers have seen significant increases in traffic since signing up with Yahoo.
In Austin, Texas, for example, where Cox owns the Austin American-Statesman, its market share for online recruitment ads is now 40%, up 19 percentage points from a year ago.
Newspapers in the Yahoo consortium also generally sign up for a system run by Yahoo that will serve advertising to Web viewers, but that won't be operational until 2008, Lloyd said. Members of the newspaper group also share news headlines with Yahoo and have Yahoo become the search provider for their websites.
The consortium, while growing, still has several conspicuous absences, including Gannett and Tribune, the No. 1 and No. 2 newspaper publishers by circulation. Both companies say they are continuing to talk with various parties about cooperating in online advertising. Separately, Gannett, Tribune, MediaNews Group and other publishers are also considering forming a joint ad-sales firm that would sell bundles of advertising to big marketers, Levitt said.
The Washington Post Co. hasn't joined the Yahoo group either, although Caroline Little, the CEO of Washington Post-Newsweek Interactive, said it also is having discussions with potential partners. She declined to identify them or say how far those talks have progressed.
Little said the Post was in an unusual position given its heavy local focus combined with national advertising. "Finding the right fit for us is a bit more tricky," Little said.
And while the 15 newspapers in The New York Times Co.'s regional group as well as the company's Worcester Telegram & Gazette have joined, neither The New York Times itself nor its sister paper, The Boston Globe, have joined.
Denise Warren, the chief advertising officer of the New York Times media group, says the Times' website is different from many other newspaper sites since it has dramatically higher traffic than many newspaper sites — with 17 million unique viewers last month according to Nielsen/NetRatings — and a unique brand for which nearly all of the online advertising is sold in-house rather than through networks.
"We need to consider these things in a very different way and a different mind-set than some of our newspaper colleagues," Warren said.
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Wireless tech lets businesses hang up on phone companies

NEW YORK — Consumers chafe at having only two choices — phone line and cable — for high-speed Internet service. For businesses, there are often even fewer options — the offerings of the phone company — due to the limitations of cable.
That's changing, at least in major cities. Internet service providers that use wireless technology to bypass the phone companies' near-monopoly now appear to be gaining traction after a false start at the height of the Internet boom.
The difference between then and now is WiMax, an emerging technology sometimes described as a cousin of the Wi-Fi standard used at home and coffee shop hot spots. WiMax, however, is capable of much greater range, in the tens of miles, and higher speeds.
From the roof of a 27-story Manhattan building, Towerstream Corp. CEO Jeff Thompson can look out over a vast swath of the city, from lowrises in Greenwich Village to the skyscrapers of Midtown. The Towerstream antennas mounted on the roof have the same panoramic view, sending and receiving customers' data.
"I call this our bowl of business," Thompson said. "Every building you can see from here can be a Towerstream customer."
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Towerstream sells connections of up to a gigabit per second, in both directions, but most are less than 20 megabits per second. That's not hugely different from consumer download speeds, but the upstream flow of data is much faster, which is important to businesses.
Speeds like that aren't in sight for consumer WiMax, and it will be years before it's available in most areas. Sprint Nextel Corp. is the major carrier that's planning to roll out WiMax, starting with Chicago later this year, but its long-term commitment to the technology is in question after Chief Executive Gary Forsee was forced out in early October. Sprint also backed out of a plan to combine its WiMax network with that of Clearwire Corp., which focuses on medium-sized cities.
By comparison, business access is low-hanging fruit for WiMax deployment. Offices are usually clustered in business districts. They don't move around, making it possible to put up a fixed antenna, ideally with a clear line sight to the transmitter.
"We're just trying to touch every rooftop out there. That's a lot easier than what Sprint and Clearwire are doing," Thompson said.
Other business-oriented WISPs, or wireless Internet service providers, have popped up as well. In Texas, for instance, iBroadband Inc. serves businesses in Dallas, Fort Worth and Austin with WiMax equipment.
Apart from New York, Waltham, Mass.-based Towerstream now sells service Miami, Los Angeles, Chicago, Seattle, San Francisco, Providence, and Boston, where it started service in 2001.
That's also the year that saw the collapse of the previous wave of "fixed wireless broadband" providers. Two of the big names in the business, Teligent and Winstar Communications, filed for bankruptcy after spending hundreds of millions of dollars to build their networks, but failed to get enough customers before money ran out.
Going back even further, telecommunications companies and the military have for decades used wireless links for long-haul data transport, or to connect to difficult locations.
But that was before WiMax, which made fixed wireless connections cheaper and faster. It's backed by a broad industry group that includes big names like Intel Corp. and Samsung, and a host of smaller equipment makers. Equipment from different manufacturers is supposed to be able work together, though the certification process is still in its early stages. Of particular benefit to Towerstream, WiMax lets it use unlicensed, and thus free, spectrum to reach customers.
Winstar's and Teligent's assets have gone through several hands. Parts of Winstar are now a subsidiary of GVC Networks, a telecommunications company focusing on government business. It still uses wireless last-mile links, but not exclusively — like most telecoms focusing on the business market, it leases fixed lines from the local telephone company.
Towerstream's strategy, by contrast, is to get rooftop rights on tall buildings, set up antennas, and start calling all the offices it can see. That's not a surefire strategy either — Speakeasy, an Internet service provider now owned by Best Buy Co., started a similar service broadcasting from Seattle's Space Needle in 2004, but wasn't able to make it sustainable.
Towerstream took over Speakeasy's infrastructure this year, and says its experience and tried business model will make the difference.
Towerstream had $1.7 million in revenue in the quarter ended Sept. 30, making it a small player compared with telecom giants. The newly public company lost $1.6 million in the same period, mainly due to the cost of expanding its reach, but its profit margin on the actual service was 59%. It won't say how many customers it has, but dividing the revenue by the average revenue per user yields a figure of about 900 customers.
Towerstream's big push this year is hiring sales people, a move supported by Eric Kainer, an analyst at ThinkEquity who follows the company.
"Each salesperson adds about $55,000 worth of value every month that they're there, which leads me to believe they should hire all the salespeople they can," Kainer said.
Other telecoms are drawing optical fiber to office buildings, bypassing the telephone companies. But Kainer isn't worried about that — the number of buildings with fiber is still small, given the work it takes to get the new lines pulled in.
And the shared nature of cable lines make them less than ideal for many businesses, who want predictable speeds and fast uploads, though they're useful for smaller businesses. The real competition is the telephone companies.
"If they wind up losing customers to you, they have no idea that they've even lost them," said Kainer, who rates the stock a "Buy." It listed on the Nasdaq Stock Market in May at about $4, but has steadily fallen and now trades around $2.40.
Newscast LLC, a Towerstream customer, gives the service two thumbs up. The company, which shoots and distributes public relations photos and video for corporations, uses it as its only Internet link, and even runs a server over the connection, though that's a temporary setup.
It's based in a former warehouse in Manhattan that isn't well provisioned for telecommunications, but it does have a good view of the Empire State Building, where Towerstream has antennas.
"There's really not an alternative to Towerstream that's in any way reliable," said Newscast vice president Jim Sulley. Before, the company had a T-1 line, the standard low-end broadband connection for businesses. It's provided by the phone company or an Internet service provider that rents the line from the phone company.
But the T-1 was unreliable. The "straw that broke the camel's back," Sulley said, was a third outage in two weeks, caused by a technician who came to connect a fax line for someone else in the building, and disconnected Newscast's T-1 in the process.
Now, Newscast pays $500 a month, half the price of a T-1, for a Towerstream connection that's about three times as fast. (It's guaranteed at 1.5 megabits per second, the same as a T-1, but the actual speed will range up to 5 mbps, in both directions.)
Newscast has had a few minor outages in two and half years with Towerstream, but only one that really caused problems.
"I deal with more problems with Windows in a day than I do in a year with the Internet," Sulley said.
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

GPS devices help cities save on gas, nab loafers

By Frank Eltman, Associated Press
ISLIP, N.Y. — GPS tracking devices installed on government-issue vehicles are helping communities around the country reduce waste and abuse, in part by catching employees shopping, working out at the gym or otherwise loafing while on the clock.
The use of GPS has led to firings, stoking complaints from employees and unions that the devices are intrusive, Big Brother technology. But city officials say that monitoring employees' movements has deterred abuses, saving the taxpayers money in gasoline and lost productivity.
"We can't have public resources being used on private activities. That's Management 101," Phil Nolan, supervisor of the Long Island town of Islip.
Islip saved nearly 14,000 gallons of gas over a three-month period from the previous year after GPS devices were installed. Nolan said that shows that employees know they are being watched and are no longer using Islip's 614 official vehicles for personal business.
Some administrators around the country emphasized that the primary purpose of the GPS devices is not to catch people goofing off but to improve the maintenance and operation of the vehicles and to design more efficient bus, snowplow and trash-pickup routes. Among other things, the devices can be used to alert mechanics that a car's engine is operating inefficiently.
FIND MORE STORIES IN: Long Island GPS Nolan GPS tracking
Still, in Indiana, six employees of the Fort Wayne-Allen County Health Department lost their jobs last year after an administrator bought three Global Positioning Satellite devices out of her own pocket and switched them in and out of 12 department vehicles to nail health inspectors running personal errands on the job.
Employees were caught going to stores, gyms, restaurants, churches and their homes. (And the administrator was reimbursed the $750 she spent.)
One of those who got in trouble, 27-year employee Elaine Pruitt, decried what she called "sneaky" methods. She said she had fallen ill and stopped at her home for a long lunch break, returning to work just 38 minutes late.
Previously, "as long as we got our work done, there was never any problem. All of a sudden, it became wrong if you stopped at a grocery store for some gum," she said.
In Boston two years ago, a snowplow driver was accused of hiding his GPS device in a snowbank and then going off to do some private plowing. The driver pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor larceny charge and was fined $300.
In Denver, 76 vehicles equipped with GPS this year were driven 5,000 fewer miles than the unequipped fleet had during the same period the year before. Denver plans to outfit police cars, snowplows and trash trucks with GPS soon.
"It's growing by leaps and bounds," said Chris Ransom of Networkcar, one of the country's leading providers of GPS systems. "I'd say we're seeing double-digit growth among the municipalities, whether it's statewide or down to the local county."
In Delaware, GPS was used to confirm two employees using state vehicles were going home early, said Terry Barton Jr., fleet administrator for the state. He would not say what action, if any, was taken against the employees.
"If they're in charge of the car and they decide to go visit their Aunt Mary, we'll know that they went someplace they weren't supposed to. It has a chilling effect," he said.
Barton said Delaware paid $425 per unit for the GPS devices, as well as $24.99 a month per vehicle for tracking services. Information from each car is sent back to a central location, where things like fuel consumption and speed are recorded. He estimated the investment will be recouped in 3 ½ years.
"If we're getting fuel reduction, less accidents and have our people slowing down, it more than pays for itself," Barton said.
The Teamsters are negotiating more contracts that protect workers from being spied on or punished as a result of the devices, union spokeswoman Leslie Miller said. She said the union's tentative contract with United Parcel Service prevents the company from firing any employee for a first offense uncovered by GPS unless there is proof of intent to defraud.
Sean Thomas, chief of staff for the Manchester, N.H., mayor's office, said a plan to use GPS units on garbage trucks was scrapped after "some union push-back. "They said, 'You are watching us like Big Brother,"' Thomas said.
GPS is helping improve efficiency in other ways.
Houston officials say they have used GPS on garbage trucks to design more efficient trash-collection routes, reducing fuel costs and other expenses.
This winter, the New Hampshire Transportation Department will begin testing GPS devices in some sand spreaders.
"It's so when Mrs. Smith on Warren Street calls and says we haven't plowed her street, we can say, 'Yes, we have,"' said Phil Bilodeau, Concord, N.H., deputy director of general services. "It's not to check up on drivers, although they would say it is for that purpose."
Boston's school system uses GPS devices on its buses — technology that proves useful when worried parents call because a bus is late.
"It's hugely helpful for us to say, 'The bus is five blocks away,"' schools spokesman Jonathan Palumbo said.
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press.

Microsoft patches a 'critical' hole

SEATTLE (AP) — Microsoft issued two security fixes in a regular monthly update Tuesday, including one that removes a dangerous bug in all versions of Windows XP and Windows Server 2003.
Microsoft gave the serious security fix its most urgent "critical" rating. Hackers could exploit a vulnerability using Internet Explorer 7, and possibly other programs, and take over a user's computer for a variety of nefarious purposes, such as stealing passwords or pumping out spam.
The security hole "is concerning as it's a publicly known issue that puts computer users at risk," said Ben Greenbaum, a senior research manager on anti-virus software maker Symantec's security response team.
The other fix, which Microsoft gave the second-highest "important" rating, is for computers running versions of Windows 2000 Server and Windows Server 2003. Hackers could exploit the flaw in Microsoft's program to redirect Internet traffic from legitimate sites to fake ones.
Windows users can visit Microsoft's security website to get the updates or configure their computers to automatically update each month.
FIND MORE STORIES IN: Microsoft Windows Windows XP Hackers Microsoft software Server
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press.

Netflix $1M prize for better movie software still available

SAN FRANCISCO — Netflix's system for recommending movies to its subscribers is proving tough to beat, as thousands of engineers and statisticians have discovered after long hours of research.
Hoping to widen its lead in the online DVD rental market, Netflix last year dangled a $1 million reward to anyone who could improve upon the Los Gatos-based company's current movie-recommendation software by at least 10%.
The prize remains on the table, Netflix said Tuesday, for the more than 27,000 contestants from more than 160 countries who have entered the quirky coding contest so far.
To keep the programmers motivated, Netflix is handing out at least $50,000 annually to whoever has come closest to the 10% improvement.
Netflix will give its first "progress prize" next week to three researchers at an AT&T Inc. laboratory in Florham Park, N.J.
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The team, consisting of Yehuda Koren, Robert Bell and Chris Volinsky, spent more than 2,000 combined hours poring through data to develop a method that improved upon Netflix's movie recommendations by about 8.5%.
The judging was done using a program that quantifies how well the recommendation systems predict which movies will be liked or disliked by a profiled consumer.
Because the AT&T trio did much of their Netflix work as part of their job assignment, the $50,000 award is being paid to their company, which plans to donate the money to charity.
Although his team is near the 10% target, Koren said he isn't sure the goal is reachable.
"Getting the first 5% (of improvement) is a lot easier than the last 5%," Koren said.
Even if they don't continue their work on the Netflix project, the AT&T research team plans to release their findings next week. Their insights conceivably could help other competitors in the contest to win the $1 million prize.
Netflix plans to blend some of the AT&T research team's suggested improvements into its movie-recommendation software early next year, said Jim Bennett, a vice president who oversees the system.
The current system draws upon about 2 billion movie ratings collected from the more than 10 million consumers who have subscribed to Netflix's service at some point during the past eight years.
Netflix ended September with about 7 million subscribers, giving the company a substantial lead over its nearest rival, Blockbuster, which has 3.1 million online customers.

IBM gets smart, buys Cognos for $5 billion cash

BOSTON — In hopes of keeping pace with rivals in the field of "business intelligence" software, IBM (IBM) said Monday it plans to buy Cognos (COGN) for $5 billion in cash.
The acquisition would follow similar moves this year. Software giant SAP recently linked up with Business Objects and Oracle grabbed Hyperion Solutions. Cognos shares had soared recently on expectations that it would be acquired.
However, the head of IBM's software group, Steve Mills, said acquiring Cognos — which already had a business partnership with IBM — was not inspired by the previous deals. IBM has been on an acquisition tear in recent years to build out its software portfolio and improve the company's profit margins.
"We never do acquisitions on defensive moves or based on what others are doing," Mills said in an interview.
IBM is offering to pay $58 a share in cash for Ottawa-based Cognos, a 9% premium over Cognos' $52.98 closing price Friday. Cognos was trading in the mid-$40s before SAP's $7 billion proposal for Business Objects was announced in October, accelerating expectations for consolidation in business-intelligence software.
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Business-intelligence software helps big organizations gather and analyze data from across their organizations, whether for marketing, determining the financial impact of strategic decisions or making staffing changes.
IBM said Cognos' portfolio will fit its information management software division. Cognos CEO Rob Ashe is expected to remain and report to the group's head Ambuj Goyal, after the deal is completed in the first quarter 2008.
Cognos has 4,000 employees worldwide and serves more than 25,000 customers. It has U.S. headquarters in Burlington, Mass.

Disney to launch cell service in Japan

TOKYO (AP) — Walt Disney and Softbank Corp. said Monday they would jointly offer mobile phone service in Japan starting next spring as "Disney Mobile."
Softbank, Japan's No. 3 carrier, and Walt Disney's Japan unit said in a joint news release they would cooperate on new handsets, mobile content, marketing and services.
"Disney brings its strong brand and legacy of developing great entertainment with broad appeal to our mutual venture," said Masayoshi Son, Softbank's chairman and CEO.
The company said details would be released later.
Disney is planning to lease Softbank's mobile network and use Softbank's stores to market phones and services, The Wall Street Journal reported.

South Korea steps right up to robot theme parks

SEOUL (AP) — Forget Disneyland. South Korea hopes to draw interest to its burgeoning robotics industry with robot theme parks.
The Commerce Ministry announced a proposal Tuesday to build two parks by 2013 for $1.6 billion.
South Korea regards robotics — which includes software and hardware used mostly in manufacturing but also in some consumer appliances and other devices — as a key area for economic development. The young field has grown about 40% a year since 2003, according to the ministry.
Combining culture and entertainment with robot technology, they are to be built in Incheon, just west of Seoul, and the port city of Masan, about 242 miles south of Seoul, the ministry said in a statement.
Visitors will be able to interact with robots and test new products.
FIND MORE STORIES IN: South Korea Seoul Ministry Disneyland
The project still needs to be approved in a feasibility study next year before getting off the ground in 2009, the ministry said.

Microsoft's Ballmer plays down Google threat

TOKYO — Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer, in Tokyo to launch the new Windows Live services, played down the threat of Google Thursday, denying the rival was ahead in any way but in online searches.
"Google is not ahead of us," he told reporters at a Tokyo hotel. "In the area of search specifically, Google would lead."
Microsoft on Thursday began offering its Windows Live programming package for e-mail, instant messaging, blogging and photo-sharing in Japan. The product was announced in the U.S. Tuesday.
On Monday, Google, which already offers similar services online for personal computers, said it will offer a new free software package for mobile devices called Android, scheduled to hit the market during the second half of next year.
Google is offering its technology to handset manufacturers so consumers will be able to use Google's search engine, e-mail and maps on mobile devices as easily as on personal computers.
FIND MORE STORIES IN: Thursday Japan Microsoft Google Windows Steve Ballmer Japanese companies Tokyo to Internet services company
Ballmer said it was difficult to comment on Google's mobile plans because they were still "just words on paper" that had yet to begin.
Ballmer expressed hopes for Microsoft's business in Japan, noting that Japanese consumers were ahead of the rest of the world in accessing the Internet on cellphones because of the popularity of the "i-mode" Net-linking mobile service that NTT DoCoMo launched in February 1999.
But Ballmer acknowledged Microsoft expects to continue to lose money in its global online business for some time. Although online advertising revenue is growing, Microsoft is still "in an investment mode" in online businesses, he said.
A Microsoft Japan official demonstrated some Windows Live features, including how 20 digital photos of a waterfall taken from various angles could be edited into a seamless panoramic photo, and then uploaded on a blog — all for free.
More than a dozen Japanese companies have signed on as partners for Windows Live, including top telecommunications company Nippon Telegraph and Telephone, mobile and Internet services company Softbank Corp. and electronics maker NEC, according to Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft.

Finnish gunman leaves mark online

LONDON — A Finnish teenager's shooting spree shows how the Internet may be fueling violence among alienated youths even in countries where such incidents were unheard of, psychiatrists and criminologists warned.
Flags flew at half-staff around Finland a day after 18-year-old Pekka-Eric Auvinen killed eight people at his high school Wednesday and then shot himself dead.
VIDEO: School shooting victims mourned
DAY AFTER: Suicide note examined
Hours earlier, Auvinen had posted a video on YouTube anticipating his rampage with material that may have been inspired by the 1999 shootings at Columbine High School in Colorado.
"No place in the world is protected from these bad things anymore … because they are connected through the Internet," said Fredrik Almqvist, professor of child psychiatry at the University of Helsinki.
FIND MORE STORIES IN: Youtube Finland Shooting Columbine High School School shooting Tom Nolan
Almqvist and others who have studied school violence said the Internet gives alienated youths an opportunity to build an identity, copycat ideas for violent behavior and reinforcement for their antisocial views by those agreeing with them on Web pages.
In the end, the experts said, the Internet gives people a sense of immortality if they kill themselves, as Auvinen did.
"We live in a global, YouTube, MySpace culture," said Tom Nolan, professor of criminal justice at Boston University. "If you are inclined toward violent, antisocial behavior, what's a better way to leave your mark than on the Internet?"
The shooting, the likes of which are extremely rare on this side of the Atlantic, received heavy news coverage throughout Europe. The Times of London led Thursday's edition with the story under the headline "The YouTube killer."
Nolan said Auvinen's actions were comparable to the April 16 killings at Virginia Tech, where student Seung Hui Cho took several photos of himself posing with guns hours before he killed 33 people, including himself.
One of Auvinen's YouTube videos showed a photo of what appears to be his high school, while the song Stray Bullet by industrial rock band KMFDM played.
Stray Bullet was one of several KMFDM songs posted on a website maintained by Eric Harris, one of the two Columbine gunmen who killed 12 students and a teacher before committing suicide.
Auvinen also called for a popular uprising against "the enslaving, corrupted and totalitarian regimes" and grinned after taking target practice with a handgun.
Sean Neill of the Institute of Education at the University of Warwick in England said there is a "copycat and contagious aspect" to some school shootings.
Neill said Wednesday's shooting was shocking because Finland, like many Scandinavian nations, has a relatively egalitarian, pacifist society. Neill, who has studied violence in London schools, said Britons and Americans tend to be more individualistic, and violence is more prevalent in those countries.
However, Finland has a high suicide rate: 28.4 per 100,000 people, according to a 2002 World Health Organization report. In comparison, France's rate is 20.0, Germany's is 14.3 and the USA's is 13.9.
People in Finland also possess more guns than other Europeans per capita, although arms are more commonly used for sport and hunting than for self-protection.
"There are weapons available" in Finland, Almqvist said. "But we don't have the gun culture like America."

Tech stocks no longer above the fray; Nasdaq feels pain

Investors taking comfort in the fact that tech stocks have been relatively unscathed in the recent slide will have to look elsewhere for consolation.
The Nasdaq composite just had its worst two days of the bull market, a 4.6% drop capped by a 53-point plunge to 2696 Thursday. It could have been far worse: Earlier the Nasdaq was down 101 points.
It's a startling development because tech, which had been relatively immune to problems caused by the credit crunch and the weak dollar, is beginning to feel the pain from other areas of the economy. Cisco Systems fanned those worries when it warned late Wednesday that some big customers were slashing spending.
"It's been an immaculate situation for tech names like Google (GOOG), Apple (AAPL), Research In Motion (RIMM) and Cisco (CSCO)," says Bernie Schaeffer of Schaeffer's Investment Research. "Now tech stocks are grabbed into the muck with the rest of the market." That resulted in intense selling in stocks that had led the Nasdaq's charge this year. Google, for instance, ended Thursday down $39.10 at $693.84 after briefly being down nearly $56 a share.
The profit taking could persist, analysts say, because some of the factors dragging the stocks down could take time to correct, including:
FIND MORE STORIES IN: Google Apple Investors Investment Cisco Systems Nasdaq composite Asset Management Tech stocks
• Lofty valuations. Encouraged by strong earnings growth, investors piled into Google and Apple thinking they will be the leaders in the next wave of tech, says Jordan Kimmel, president of Magnet Investment.
But many investors lost sight of what they're paying to own these stocks. Google, for instance, trades at 54 times its earnings over the past 12 months. Apple trades at 45 times earnings. "Some tech stocks … got ahead of themselves," he says.
• Overall market jitters. Problems in the subprime and housing markets may not directly hurt many tech stocks, but they still cause investors to temper their bullishness about the economy, says Chris Orndorff of Payden & Rygel.
Massive write-downs by investment banks "changed peoples' perceptions about the severity of the crisis," he says, and provided an excuse to sell stocks with big gains.
• Shifting momentum. Investors have been so certain Google, Apple, Research In Motion and Cisco were untouchable, they kept piling in, says Robert Maltbie of Millennium Asset Management. But those same investors are the first to lock in profits with even a whiff of bad news from the industry, he says.
Schaeffer thinks investors can still profit by buying tech stocks and avoiding financial stocks. Maybe so, but Maltbie thinks investors will need to avoid the most popular tech stocks that have run up the most and therefore still stand to correct even further. "It's a shrinking opportunity in tech," he says.

Ultra-fast Internet2, National LambdaRail won't merge

NEW YORK — The on-again, off-again talks to merge two ultra-fast non-profit Internet networks have ended again — for good this time, it appears.
Internet2 and National LambdaRail serve many of the nation's universities and research institutions by offering fast Internet connections that physicists, astronomers and other researchers need to exchange large amounts of data.
The two next-generation networks began with separate missions, but their technologies and services converged over the years. And Jeff Lehman, chairman of Internet2's board, said their clients backed the merger because the organizations largely served the same community.
Talks resumed this year, and a committee with top leaders from each network worked out a compromise in August.
Internet2's board approved it, despite misgivings by some of its board members, but LambdaRail's board sought more concessions. And last week, both sides called it quits.
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"A lot of us are disappointed," said Internet2's Lehman, a member of the merger committee. "We knew it was a challenge, and we were hopeful that we would find a way to get to the end this time."
Many LambdaRail participants felt they had invested in the system and wanted greater returns, Lehman said. He said Internet2 offered as much financial benefits as it could.
LambdaRail Chairman Erv Blythe, in a statement, described his organization as an atypical non-profit, one that tracked how much individual members gave and received. He said LambdaRail needed additional concessions to satisfy its obligations to contributing members.
"Under the circumstances, we agree that our respective organizations have no choice but to move forward independently," Lehman and Blythe said in a joint statement.

Latest additive at gas pumps: Google

SAN FRANCISCO — Lost drivers soon will be able to Google for help at the pump. As part of a partnership to be announced Wednesday, the online search leader will dispense driving directions at thousands of gasoline pumps across the United States beginning early next month.
The pumps, made by Gilbarco Veeder-Root, include an Internet connection and will display Google's mapping service in color on a small screen. Motorists will be able to scroll through several categories to find local landmarks, hotels, restaurants and hospitals selected by the gas station's owner.
After the driver selects a destination, the pump will print out directions. Eventually, Gilbarco Veeder-Root hopes to enable motorists to type in a specific address and get directions.
"We think the service will create more customer loyalty for retailers," said Gilbarco Veeder-Root spokeswoman Lucy Sackett.
Greensboro, N.C.-based Gilbarco Veeder-Root will initially offer the service in about 3,500 gas pumps and expand based on retailer demand.
FIND MORE STORIES IN: San Francisco Google Motorists Gilbarco Veeder-Root Karen Roter Davis
Unlike most of Google's services, this one won't include ads bringing the company income. But participating retailers will be able to make extra money from other merchants that offer coupons on the service.
Making maps available at gas pumps appealed to Google because the Mountain View-based company wants to make its services available whenever and wherever people need them, said Karen Roter Davis, a principal business development manager for Google.
Also this week, Google unveiled plans for free cellphone software designed to make it easier and more enticing to reach the Internet on mobile devices. The first so-called smart phones equipped with Google's software, called "Android," won't be available until the second half of next year.
Calling up a map at a gas pump should be particularly popular among motorists who are too stubborn or embarrassed to pull over and ask someone for help, Roter Davis said. "This will be sort of a Googley, more stealthy way of getting directions."

Facebook's ad plans let marketers capitalize on friends

Looking to turn its popularity with 50 million users into dollars, social-networking giant Facebook Tuesday announced new advertising initiatives.
Marketers will be able to create their own Facebook profile pages. They'll also be able to target Facebook members with ads based on the personal information members send friends on the site. Among several dozen marketers signed up: Coca-Cola (KO) and Blockbuster (BBI).
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"Pushing your message out to people isn't enough anymore," Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg told an audience of potential advertisers here. "You have to get into the connections and conversations."
What Facebook will now offer:
FIND MORE STORIES IN: Google Myspace Mark Laura Petrecca Zuckerberg
•Brand profile pages. Similar to how users build profile pages, marketers can create Facebook pages that tout their brand, make sales, have entertainment and offer branded applications, such as a ring-tone creator, that members can add to their own pages.
•Tailored ads. A Facebook user can sign up as a "fan" of brands that have profile pages. Then a message could be sent to his or her network of friends telling them of that new liaison — along with an ad.
•Partnerships with retailers. Facebook has signed 44 retail sites to broadcast member purchases to others. When a user logged into Facebook visits a site, they'll be prompted that unless they opt out, their action — such as a Caddyshack rental from Blockbuster — will be shared with their friends network.
Traditional marketing "is distorted," says Jeremiah Owyang, an analyst at Forrester Research. "Endorsements are now passed from trusted customers to prospects, not directly from the brands themselves."
The moves come as Facebook slugs it out with rivals MySpace and Google (GOOG) for online advertising revenue. Ads on social networks are expected to haul in $1.2 billion worldwide this year and $1.9 billion in 2008, researcher eMarketer says.
Facebook, which already serves some less-targeted ads on its network, is expected to post a $30 million profit on $140 million in revenue this year, according to Robert Peck, an analyst at Bear Stearns. Last month, Microsoft (MSFT) said it would pay $240 million for 1.6% of privately held Facebook. That deal puts a $15 billion value on the social-networking site.
On Monday, MySpace — the largest social network, with 110 million users — said it's expanding its ad sales network with a program deemed "hypertargeting." Using data MySpace members provide, advertisers now can target them with very specific ads. More than 50 marketers have signed up, including Procter & Gamble (PG), Toyota (TM) and Taco Bell.
While targeting based on user data may serve up more relevant ads, it also raises privacy concerns for Facebook members, who use it as a personalized scrapbook to socialize with friends and colleagues.
The sites may address that. Facebook's Zuckerberg says that if users express privacy concerns, "We'll react quickly to that." MySpace says that by year's end, it will have a way for users to opt out of targeted ads.
"It seems a little invasive," says Shenneth Dove-Morse, 23, a public-relations specialist in Washington, D.C., who uses Facebook. "This would make me more cautious about what I say about myself on my personal page."

Newspaper circulation off 2.6%; some count Web readers

NEW YORK (AP) — Circulation fell 2.6% at major U.S. daily newspapers in the six months ending in September, according to figures released Monday, the latest decline as readers continue to migrate to the Internet for news, information and entertainment.
In an effort to highlight their own growing presence on the Web, more than 100 large newspapers also began releasing data for the latest six-month reporting period that measure the size and reach of their online audiences.
USA TODAY, published by industry leader Gannett (GCI), kept its place as the largest daily newspaper in the country and also chalked up a 1% gain in circulation to 2,293,137 for the six months ending in September, according to preliminary figures filed with the Audit Bureau of Circulations, an industry group based in Schaumburg, Ill.
The Wall Street Journal remained No. 2 in average total paid daily circulation, with 2,011,882, down 1.53%. The Journal's parent company, Dow Jones (DJ), is in the process of being acquired by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. (NWS).The New York Times was No. 3 at 1,037,828, a decline of 4.5%.
Newspaper circulation has been eroding steadily over the past 20 years, as reading habits change and as people turn to other media such as cable TV for news. In recent years the declines have been accelerating, especially at large metro papers, where there tends to be greater competition from Internet usage.
FIND MORE STORIES IN: Newspaper Boston Globe Audit Newspaper Association of America Circulation Audit Bureau of Circulations
Besides USA TODAY, There were other exceptions to the rule, including Tribune Co.'s (TRB)Los Angeles Times, which saw circulation edge up 0.5% in the latest period to 779,682.
The Philadelphia Inquirer reported a 2.3% gain to 338,260, making it the 16th largest paper by circulation. The Inquirer and the Philadelphia Daily News were bought last year by a group of local business people led by Brian Tierney, a former advertising executive.
In New York, the New York Daily News edged past its longtime rival New York Post, but both papers still saw declines — 1.7% for the Daily News, owned by the real estate developer Mortimer Zuckerman, and 5.2% at the Post, which is owned by Murdoch.
According to an analysis of the 538 daily U.S. newspapers that reported average weekday paid circulation to the Audit Bureau, Monday-through-Friday circulation fell 2.6% in the six month period. For the 609 newspapers reporting Sunday figures, Sunday circulation fell 3.5%.
With print circulation on the decline and more of their readers going online, many newspaper publishers have been seeking to emphasize their online reach. Revenue from online advertising have also been growing at many publishers, but not enough to make up for the declines in print advertising.
In the data released from the Audit Bureau Monday, 112 major newspapers began reporting for the first time sets of print and online audience measurements based on surveys done by Scarborough Research. Another 94 smaller newspapers participated partially in the supplemental reporting method.
The reporting system was a joint effort by the Newspaper Association of America, a newspaper industry group; Scarborough Research, a syndicated research firm; and members of the Audit Bureau of Circulations, the circulation measurement group whose board includes publishers as well as major advertisers. The data also present combined print and online reach.
As an example, The Boston Globe, which is owned by The New York Times Co. (NYT), reported print readership of 1.9 million in its designated market, meaning the number of people who read the newspaper, not just those who bought it.
Online readership in the market was 1 million, and combined print and online readership number was 2.3 million, which takes into account the overlap of some people who read both print and online versions of the newspapers.
Separately, the Globe also reported a monthly average of 4.2 million unique users on its website, but those readers could have been located anywhere in the world. The readership figures only count those located in the Globe's home market of Boston. By comparison, the Globe's print circulation fell 6.7% in the period to 360,695.
Newspaper publishers argue that they should be measured by the size of their audience, as other media such as television are, rather than the number of units they sell. "We're trying to supply a richer look at the newspaper audience, and not focus on one single element," said John Kimball, chief marketing officer of the Newspaper Association of America.
The Chicago Sun-Times again did not report circulation figures, following its censure in 2004 for misstating circulation figures.
The New Orleans Times-Picayune resumed reporting circulation in the Audit Bureau's twice-yearly survey for the first time since Hurricane Katrina hit the city in the late summer of 2005. The paper reported average weekday circulation of 179,912, down from the last time the paper reported circulation pre-Katrina, with 261,573.