Big hitters looking at AOL

Google and Comcast are in talks with Time Warner to buy a portion of America Online, according to several people with knowledge of the negotiations. The joint bid was widely seen as a way to head off Microsoft, which has also been negotiating to buy a minority stake in AOL.

The New York Times reports (13 October) that the development means that Time Warner, which has long been under pressure by Wall Street to sell off its AOL unit, now finds itself in the enviable position of having multiple suitors, which may drive up AOL's value.

Both Comcast and Google approached Time Warner last month after word of Time Warner's discussions with Microsoft were reported in the press.

The NYT says that Eric E. Schmidt, Google's chief executive, who was in New York on 16 September, the day after the first report appeared in The New York Post, hastily arranged a meeting that day with Jonathan F. Miller, the chief executive of AOL, and top officials of Time Warner, a person close to the discussion said.

The newspaper reports that Time Warner believes that any deal must value AOL at more than US$20 billion. But the kind of minority stake Google and Comcast may be negotiating would have a lower value because it would involve only AOL's web portal and content, and not its highly profitable but declining internet dial-up business.

Japan is readying a new network for cell phones that will allow people to connect to the internet to talk over the phone more cheaply and transmit data more quickly.

The Associated Press reports in The New York Times (13 October) that the government plans to introduce mobile Voice over Internet telephony (VoIP) by 2007, officials said Thursday.

The mobile service under consideration at the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications will allow people to use Voice-over-Internet Protocol, or VoIP, phone service, on cell phones -- similar to what's now available on fixed lines.

AP says that the mobile VoIP services now more common allow people merely to connect their cell phones to the Net at ''hot spots'' using Wi-Fi wireless access.

The report adds that nations around the world are working on internet telephony on mobile phones, and the Japanese government effort highlights the nation's efforts to keep up with global telecom trends.

Having conquered the world of portable digital music, Steven P. Jobs set his sights on television Wednesday, unveiling an Apple iPod that can play video - along with an online shop to fill it with TV shows, short films and music videos at US$1.99 apiece, reports The New York Times (13 October).

The newspaper says that Mr. Jobs is undertaking his effort to transform the world of video with only two major producers - the Walt Disney Company and his own Pixar movie studio, which have been uneasy partners in film distribution - and without the broad support he lined up from the music business for selling songs online.

Apple is not the first company to enter the market for digital video, reports the NYT., adding that a range of efforts are under way by consumer electronics companies and studios looking for ways to make high-quality digital video available on computers and hand-held players.

The newspaper reports that the Apple CEO couched his presentation on Wednesday in the terms of a drama in three acts, starting with the introduction of a six-button remote control intended to make it possible to control video, audio and other functions on the newest version of the iMac computer.  He later acknowledged in an interview that the remote might be used to control future Apple products, possibly heralding a strategic entry into consumer electronics for the living room.

Mr. Jobs's second act, says the newspaper, was the portable video hardware: a new flagship model of Apple's iPod music player with a 2.5-inch screen, selling for US$299 or US$399 depending on storage capacity, 30 or 60 gigabytes. Apple said the larger player could hold 15,000 songs, 25,000 photos or 150 hours of video.

The NYT reports that the third act was the video source: Apple's iTunes music store, which will add over 2,000 music videos, six short films from Pixar, and episodes of five television shows from ABC and the Disney Channel, including "Lost" and "Desperate Housewives."

Palm on Wednesday unveiled two pocket digital assistants, one with the power to wirelessly surf the internet, hoping to renew interest in the flagging market for digital devices that don't have phones.

Reuters reports in The New York Times (13 October) that Palm, which in the late 1990's pioneered the personal digital assistant, or PDA, introduced the Palm Z22, a US$99 entry-level model with a color screen that holds thousands of contacts, appointments, and other data.

The company also unveiled the Palm TX, priced at US$299, that features integrated wi-fi short range wireless internet access, as well as Bluetooth wireless technologies.

Reuters says in the NYT report that the new devices come a few weeks after Microsoft and Palm, longtime rivals in the mobile software market, introduced a jointly developed cell phone that many say could prove a big hit among corporate users. Verizon Wireless, will be the first to sell the new Windows Treo phone, which will blend phone functions with computer features such as e-mail, web access, spreadsheet and presentation software.

The German City of Mannheim this week outlined its migration plan to the Linux platform. Or, as the town in the grand-duchy of Baden puts it, 'we are aiming to become fit for the future," according to a report in The Register (13 October).

The Register reports that, a year ago, the German town at the junction of the Rhine and Neckar Rivers already got the go-ahead of the project.

In the current quarter, according to German news site Heise Online, the Oracle Collaboration Suite email Suite will be deployed and by the end of 2005 all registration, file-management, and printing services will have been migrated. However, the 3,700 end-users with their 150 different specialist software applications will switch much later. Mannheim calls it a "gentle migration".

The Register reports that the city is, however, planning to move from Windows applications to OpenOffice, but this may not happen for another five years.

The publication says that Mannheim has taken a different route than Munich, which has delayed its much-discussed all-at-once migration to Linux until 2006. Here, the city administration's 14,000 desktops will have to migrate from Windows NT 4.0 and Microsoft Office to Linux and OpenOffice.

Novell and IBM have struck a deal to offer customers the option of switching to per chassis subscription for SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 9, rather than paying per server, reports The Register (13 October).

The Register says that the subscription will cover all blades within an IBM BladeCenter chassis, the companies said, regardless of CPU type or quantity.

According to the publication, IBM's BladeCenter chassis holds up to 14 blades and is compatible with Intel, AMD and Power-based CPU. The savings kick in when a customer is running eight blades or more, based on a per chassis subscription of US$2,792. For a full chassis, the companies say the deal could reduce subscription costs by US$17,000.

In August, HP announced a per chassis licensing deal with Red Hat, for HP's management software and Red Hat's Enterprise Linux operating system, reports The Register.

In the US., a federal grand jury indicted three men on Wednesday in what prosecutors called the largest seizure of pirated compact discs in the nation's history.

Reuters reports in The New York Times (13 October) that the indictment followed the arrest last week of Ye Teng Wen, 29, Hao He, 30, and Yaobin Zhai, 33, on charges of illegally reproducing 325,000 music and software CD's.

Two of the men are American citizens and one has a United States work permit, a spokesman for the United States attorney for Northern California said.

According to the Reuters/NYT report, prosecutors said the pirated CD's, which included Latin music and computer security software from the Symantec Corporation, circulated widely and one of the disks was found at a store in Chicago.

The three men have been released on bail and are scheduled to appear in court on 27 October.

Japan's Pentax said on Wednesday it has tied up with a unit of South Korea's Samsung Electronics to jointly develop digital single lens reflex (SLR) cameras, aiming to pool resources and cut costs.

Reuters reports in The New York Times (13 October) that the deal will allow Samsung to make a full-fledged entry into the fast-growing market for digital SLR cameras, which are generally more expensive and offer better performance than simple point-and-shoot compact models and use interchangeable lenses.

The report also says that it marks the latest alliance between traditional camera makers and electronics firms in digital SLR models following similar deals between Olympus and Matsushita Electric, and Konica Minolta and Sony.

Pentax said it and Samsung would work together on developing entry-level and middle-range digital SLR models that sell for under 200,000 yen. Each company plans to market the cameras under its own brand.

Reuters says that Samsung Techwin is owned 25.5 percent by Samsung Electronics, the most valuable technology firm outside the United States and a vast electronics maker with leading positions in a wide range of products including chips, mobile phones and flat panel displays.

In the US, television network ABC's unprecedented plan to offer next-day downloads of its biggest prime-time hits for US$1.99 per episode via Apple's online iTunes store opens a new revenue stream for the TV industry and a new era of digital portability for viewers, experts said on Wednesday.

Reuters reports in The New York Times (13 October) that the move, unveiled in conjunction with a new partnership between Walt Disney and Apple Computer marks the latest bid by a major broadcast network and its parent company to shake up ``old media'' models and expand their avenues of distribution.

According to the Reuters report, commercial-free episodes of two of US television's highest-rated shows -- ABC's ``Lost'' and ``Desperate Housewives'' -- will be available for download from Apple's iTunes a day after their network broadcast. Last season's episodes will be available for download immediately.

Viewers will then be able to watch those shows at their leisure on the new video-playing iPods and newly upgraded iMac computers unveiled by Apple on Wednesday.

Yahoo said Wednesday it will bar chat rooms that promote sex between minors and adults and restrict all chat rooms to users 18 and older.

The Associated Press reports in The New York Times (13 October) that the changes come under an agreement with New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer and Nebraska Attorney General Jon Bruning.

Spitzer said authorities did not have to resort to litigation. He said Yahoo, ''acting as a good corporate citizen, ... did the right thing. We asked them to create a filter to stop this kind of thing and they have done so,'' AP reports.

The AP report says that, in June, while still in discussions with the attorneys general, Yahoo voluntarily closed its user-created chat rooms following complaints that some had names suggesting they facilitated illegal conduct, including sex between adults and minors.