Agitation over control of the internet

As the internet's reach has extended worldwide, an international political battle over its control has arisen, according to a 14 November report in The New York Times.

The newspaper says that a meeting sponsored by the United Nations this week in Tunis will take up a challenge to American authority over Icann, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. Icann was established in 1998 to manage the Domain Name System, or D.N.S., which assigns network names like disney.com and assures unique addresses.

According to the NYT., the Tunis meeting, called the World Summit on the Information Society, will consider calls for an end to unilateral American oversight. But several people involved in the internet's creation are concerned that the dispute may be based on a false premise - that the internet can lend itself to centralised or governmental control - and could wind up fragmenting the network itself.

The NYT says that, to varying degrees, the nine proposals to be considered by as many as 15,000 delegates convening Wednesday to Friday in Tunis call for replacing the United States as the overseer of Icann with a new international political structure, perhaps a treaty-based organisation like the International Telecommunication Union, a United Nations agency.

Icann was created at the Clinton administration's behest as a private-public alliance to oversee internet addresses. Although Icann says it is advised by more than 80 nations and has had citizens of many countries on its board, it operates under a memorandum of understanding with the US Commerce Department.

Icann was founded with the intent of becoming an independent or "denationalised" group. But in June, the Bush administration backed away from that plan, saying in a "statement of principles" issued by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration that the United States had the right to maintain oversight of Icann indefinitely.

The NYT says that in recent years, Icann has become a lightning rod, focusing opposition to American political and economic power. A group of countries, led by developing nations like Iran, China and Brazil, has put forward a range of proposals calling for Icann's management to be made international; most call for a shift to a group like the United Nations. Over the summer, a European Union commissioner offered a parallel proposal.

{mospagebreaktitle=EBay expected to end fees for third-party developers}EBay expected to end fees for third-party developers

EBay is expected to announce immediately that it is ending the fees it charges software developers who build web sites and software programs that channel buyers and sellers its way.

The New York Times reports (14 November) that the move could help eBay protect its dominance of online auctioneering from an encroachment by Yahoo or Google.

The newspaper says tat Google has been encouraging software developers to create online programs using Google applications like Google Maps to entrench its applications as a dominant standard. Yahoo, and more recently Microsoft with its Windows Live and Office Live initiatives, are adopting a similar strategy, an approach known as Web services or Web 2.0.

Yahoo already maintains a marketplace that it has been enhancing. As Google and Microsoft show increased interest in creating online marketplaces, eBay needs to ensure that it stays at the center of e-commerce. Google, for instance, has been filing patent applications for a system that would let individuals quickly create an online classified ad for a product or service, reports the NYT.

The NYT says that one way to forestall any potential threat is to encourage third-party developers to create more programs that make it easier for buyers and sellers to use eBay. Removing the fees to use eBay's application programming interface may increase the number of eBay developers from the current 21,000. The number of third-party developers doubled in the last year, the company said.

According to the newspaper, more developers mean more applications and a greater number of web sites that would channel additional buyers and sellers through eBay, where about US$40 billion in merchandise already changes hands in a year.

EBay estimates that 724,000 merchants use the site as a primary or secondary sales channel and that a third of the items sold on eBay are listed at a fixed price.

The fees have not been a significant source of revenue for the company, says the NYT., adding that EBay expects revenue of more than US$4 billion this year.

The company boasts 4.4 million daily transactions and 168 million registered users worldwide. About 22 percent of eBay listings are placed there by third-party programs using eBay application programming interfaces.

{mospagebreaktitle=Cisco moves Linksys into small business market}Cisco moves Linksys into small business market

Data and communications equipment maker Cisco Systems on Monday said it will release a version of its Linksys home networking system for small businesses, a key area in the company's growth strategy.

Reuters reports in The New York Times (14 November) that the ``Linksys One'' product will be Cisco's seventh so-called advanced technology, a group of businesses the company hopes will spur billions of dollars in sales and jump-start its revenue growth rate.

Linksys One is designed for small- and home-office businesses, the company said. It is designed to give users telephone, video and data services through a wireless local access network, small router and telephone handset.

According to the NYT., Cisco hopes to persuade small business customers that buying the service at a monthly cost of US$62 per user will prove to be easier than dealing with separate internet access, telephone and computer networks.

The announcement comes less than a week after Cisco Chief Executive John Chambers said the company was turning more attention to small- and medium-sized businesses, a market that it estimates to be worth US$12 billion worldwide.

The newspaper reports that Cisco plans to try to make this new business area profitable and worth at least US$1 billion within five to seven years, said Marthin De Beer, vice president and general manager in the Linksys division of Cisco.

{mospagebreaktitle=IBM machine again tops supercomputer list}IBM machine again tops supercomputer list

An IBM-built computer that has topped the list of the world's 500 most powerful supercomputers has widened its lead in the latest ranking released Monday.

The Associated Press reports in The New York Times (14 November) that the computer named Blue Gene/L, deployed at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in the US., has doubled its performance to 280.6 trillion calculations per second (teraflops), up from 136.8 teraflops from the list released in June.

The system, which is used to study the US nuclear stockpile and perform other research, was officially completed this summer after it was doubled in size. Researchers expect it will hold the top spot for the foreseeable future.

The AP/NYT report says that IBM built the top three systems on the list released Monday by the Top 500 project, an independent group of university computer scientists who release supercomputer rankings every six months.

Big Blue built 43.8 percent of the systems on the entire list.

The No. 2 machine is another Blue Gene system, with performance ranked at 91.2 teraflops. It's installed at IBM's Thomas Watson Research Center. The No. 3 system, also at LLNL, reached 63.4 teraflops in the test.

AP also reports that Hewlett-Packard is the No. 2 manufacturer, with 33.8 percent of the machines on the list. No other computer maker has more than 7 percent in any category.

Of the chip makers, Intel microprocessors were used in a total of 333 systems, with 81 using the company's EM64T technology. IBM chips are in second place, with its Power microprocessors at the heart of 73 systems.

Advanced Micro Devices's Opteron chips were used in 55 systems, up from 25 six months ago, says AP.

{mospagebreaktitle=Sony Ericsson launches new entry-level phones}Sony Ericsson launches new entry-level phones
 
Mobile phone maker Sony Ericsson said on Monday it was launching three entry-level phones as it seeks to broaden its portfolio beyond the high-end handsets for which it is best known.

Reuters reports in The New York Times (14 November) that the group, owned by Ericsson and Sony, was boosted in the third quarter by sales of its Walkman phone, which builds on Sony's brand of portable music player.

Sony Ericsson said in a statement that the new phones were the J220 and the J230, which has a radio, as well as the Z300 clamshell handset.

According to Reuters, Nordic product market chief Per Alksten told Reuters that the phones would cost around 1,000 Swedish crowns.

This would compare with the group's average selling price in the third quarter of 149 euros.

Analysts noted that in launching cheaper phones Sony Ericsson had to balance profitability with volumes, says Reuters.

{mospagebreaktitle=Sun Microsystems will Offer new generation of processors}Sun Microsystems will Offer new generation of processors

Sun Microsystems is set to announce the first of a new generation of processors for computer servers that the company says offers faster performance with far less energy use.

The New York Times reports (14 November) that Sun Microsystems, once a high flier in Silicon Valley, hopes that the new chip, called the UltraSparc T1, will help it win back the market share it lost to higher-performing yet less expensive Unix servers the last few years.

The chip, code-named Niagara while in development, is designed for a specific niche of the server market: high-volume Web service operations, like those at Google and eBay. Sun has not yet announced the specific server models that will use the new chip, but the company's executives said the servers would be available before the end of this year, several months ahead of the original schedule.

According to the newspaper, Sun is hoping the new chip will restore the high profile of its core Sparc server line, which still accounts for a majority of its revenues.

The NYT says that while the overall Unix server market has been growing - it increased 6.6 percent, to US$4.2 billion, in the second quarter of 2005 from a year ago, according to the Gartner Group, Sun's overall share has been falling, from 38 percent to 33 percent in the second quarter of this year. Hewlett-Packard's market share remained about the same, and IBM's grew slightly.

The newspaper says that the UltraSparc T1, following a trend in the semiconductor industry, adds new features that conserve energy significantly, which could translate into huge savings for web services companies. Sun's announcement comes just a month after Google said it would expand its use of Sun equipment, though neither company has provided any details about their plans.

The UltraSparc T1 has eight processing cores, each able to execute four instruction sequences, called threads. As a result, the chip includes the same processing power and features of an entire network server, said Greg Papadopoulos, Sun's chief technology officer, the NYT reports.

{mospagebreaktitle=Siemens cuts 3, 000 jobs}Siemens cuts 3, 000 jobs

Siemens is cutting 3,000 jobs in its computer division after posting a big fall in profits.

The Register reports (14 November) that the jobs will go from outside Germany - the firm had already announced a reduction of 2,400 in the German headcount.

According to the publication, questions were raised about the timing of the announcement - a day after the company posted its financial results. Siemens' IT division made a bigger than expected loss of €427 million. Turnover was up some two per cent. Siemens Business Services is looking for €1.5 billion in savings within two years.

The Register says that Siemens is believed to be looking for a buyer for the division. An offer from ATOS Origin, made earlier this year, was "derisively low", according to the Financial Times.

{mospagebreaktitle=Internet service to put classic tv on home computer}Internet service to put classic tv on home computer

Warner Brothers is preparing a major new internet service that will let fans watch full episodes from more than 100 old television series. The service, called In2TV, will be free, supported by advertising, and will start early next year. More than 4,800 episodes will be made available online in the first year.

The New York Times reports (14 November) that the move will give Warner a way to reap new advertising revenue from a huge trove of old programming that is not widely syndicated.

Programs on In2TV will have one to two minutes of commercials for each half-hour episode, compared with eight minutes in a standard broadcast. The internet commercials cannot be skipped.

The newspaper says that America Online, which is making a broad push into internet video, will distribute the service on its web portal. Both it and Warner Brothers are Time Warner units. An enhanced version of the service will use peer-to-peer file-sharing technology to get the video data to viewers.

Warner, with 800 television programs in its library, says it is the largest TV syndicator. It wants to use the internet to reach viewers rather than depend on the whims of cable networks and local TV stations, said Eric Frankel, the president of Warner Brothers' domestic cable distribution division.

The NYT says that many of the recent moves include charging viewers for current programs. ABC has started selling episodes of some programs to download to Apple iPods for US$1.99. And NBC and CBS announced last week that they would sell reruns of their top new shows for 99 cents an episode through video-on-demand services. CBS is working with Comcast and NBC with DirecTV.

{mospagebreaktitle=Start- Up aims to join telephone and wireless calls}Start- Up aims to join telephone and wireless calls

A secretive start-up backed by two powerful Silicon Valley venture capital firms is today to outline its plans for bridging the gulf between mobile telephones and fixed-line phone networks.

Reuters reports in The New York Times that executives of MCalifornia-based Stoke say they are developing a way to offer so-called ``fixed mobile convergence'' inside offices, at home and around town as well -- a major stumbling block the communications industry is facing.

According to the Reuters/NYT report, Stoke, which has been operating in "stealth" mode since its founding, joins a dozen start-ups trying to solve the question of how to hook up mobile phone networks to fixed-line phone or cable networks to give phone users a single point of contact.

Led by veterans of some of the hottest makers of network gear in the 1990s -- Bay Networks, StrataCom, Ciscoand Juniper -- Stoke is backed by US venture capital powerhouses Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Sequoia Capital.

Reuters says that competitors include UK-based Apertio and Norwood Systems, Ireland's Cicero, Israel's Commil, Canada's NewStep, and US start-ups Azaire, Kineto, BridgePort NetMotion, Persona Software, Quorum Systems and Tatara Systems, analysts say.

Stoke's software helps manage incoming calls and determine the most efficient way to route the call onto local networks. A mobile phone call could be connected via a Wi-Fi connection, a cable broadband link or a citywide wireless WiMax network, reports Reuters.

{mospagebreaktitle=Intel 'Broadwater' chipset to ship 'Q2 06'}Intel 'Broadwater' chipset to ship 'Q2 06'

Intel's follow-up to its 945 chipset family, the 965 series, will ship in Q2 2006.

According to The Register (14 November) reports The Register (14 November), DigiTimes cites unnamed sources who claim to have seen the chip giant's roadmap.

The Register reports that the 965 family, codenamed 'Broadwater', will divide into four lines, the sources claim: the P965 and G965 for consumer-oriented systems, and the Q963 and Q965 for business-class machines. Both pairs of the chipsets will be offered as part of Intel's 'Bridge Creek' and 'Averill' platforms, respectively.

Ultimately, says the report, the 965 will be extended with mobile chipsets, but with the Centrino-oriented version of the 945, the 945M, hitting the market in Q1 2006, it will be some quarters before the mobile 965 makes its debut.