3G cell standard set to take root in China

China's home-grown third-generation (3G) mobile telecoms standard is set to take root as more big industry names back it and as the prospect of soft loans and technical support attracts developing market interest.

The Associated Press reports (21 November) that, first, China must prove outside critics wrong by building and operating a system that works, industry executives say.

The government has spent hundreds of millions of dollars to develop the standard, known as TD-SCDMA, over the last few years.

According to the AP/NYT report, the plan, once dismissed by many outsiders as a pipedream, has gained slow but steady momentum in the last year, with most of the world's major telecoms equipment vendors signing on with Chinese partners to support the technology.

Motorola, like a number of other global telecoms equipment makers, has said it will support TD-SCDMA through joint ventures and less formal tie-ups.

AP says that others on the list include Ericsson, Nokia Oyj, Siemens, Alcatel and Nortel

US-based Lucent Technologies became one of the last to fall into line. The company told Reuters it was forming an alliance with China's Datang Telecom Technology to develop TD-SCDMA systems.

{mospagebreaktitle=Study: search now No. 2 among web tasks}Study: search now No. 2 among web tasks

The number of people who use internet search engines to find information has jumped over the last year, claiming a solid No. 2 spot behind e-mail among online tasks, a new study finds.

The Associated Press reports in The New York Times (21 November) that of the 94 million American adults who went online on a given autumn day this year, 63 percent used a search engine, compared with 56 percent in June 2004, the Pew Internet and American Life Project said Sunday.

Until recently, search and news have been running neck-and-neck for the No. 2 spot among internet tasks, said Lee Rainie, the project's director. But search had a dramatic jump over the past year to widen the gap over news, used by 46 percent of the internet's daily population.

The AP/NT report says that use of search engines was higher among users who are richer and better educated, as well as those with high-speed broadband connections that are continuously on.

E-mail remains the most popular application, used by 77 percent of the daily sampled population.

The AP report says that separate tracking by comScore Media Metrix finds that users averaged 24 minutes a day on e-mail, compared with less than 4 minutes for search. Pew researchers note that the gap signals that e-mail remains a powerful application.

Nonetheless, although the number of daily e-mail users has grown because of increases in the overall online population, the percentage of the daily population accessing e-mail has dropped. It was 85 percent in the 2004 survey.

{mospagebreaktitle=Patchy response to reducing security exposure}Patchy response to reducing security exposure

Enterprises have improved their patching practices over the last 12 months but two out of three (70 per cent) are currently vulnerable and in jeopardy of potential exploit or attack, according to a study by on-demand vulnerability management firm Qualys.

The Register reports (21 November) that Qualys's third annual Laws of Vulnerabilities research shows organisations have improved patching processes on internal systems by 23 per cent and on external systems by 10 per cent. In the last year, the half-life of critical vulnerabilities (the time it takes users to patch half of their systems) for external systems has been reduced from 21 days to 19 days and from 62 days to 48 days for internal systems.

According to the report, vulnerabilities released on a predefined schedule (such as Microsoft's monthly Patch Tuesday) witnessed an 18 per cent increase in patch response. However, the time it take hackers to develop security exploits is also shrinking faster than the remediation cycle. The vast majority (85 per cent) of damage from automated attacks occurs within the first fifteen days from the outbreak. According to Qualys, 90 per cent of vulnerability exposure is caused by 10 per cent of critical security bugs, which frequently lend themselves to the creation of computer worms.

The Register reports that there has also been a significant shift from server-side to client-side vulnerabilities. More than 60 per cent of new critical vulnerabilities occur in client applications, such as web browsers.

{mospagebreaktitle=DVD forum approves twin rewriteable HD DVD formats}DVD forum approves twin rewriteable HD DVD formats

Re-recordable HD DVD discs will be branded 'HD DVD-RW', the DVD Forum confirmed at its most recent steering committe last week.

The Register reports (21 November) that, in a move which would seem to be calculated to win support from as many firms as possible, the Forum also said re-writeable discs will be branded 'HD DVD-RAM'. They were originally supposed to be called 'HD DVD-RW'.

According to the publication, DVD-RAM has been very popular in Japan, but largely failed to make much of an impression elsewhere. Indeed, the format's availability around the world is largely because of its support in DVD+RW and DVD-RW drives. But DVD-RAM is backed by some big Japanese consumer electronics companies, many of them DVD Forum members, and the trade body clearly wants them on-side when the world goes HD, says The Register.

The Register says that the organisation did say it has adopted 'HD DVD-R DL' as the formal name for dual-layer recordable (ie. write once) discs.

{mospagebreaktitle=Dell 'sourcing AMD-based PCs from Taiwan'}Dell 'sourcing AMD-based PCs from Taiwan'

Dell has contracted three Taiwanese manufacturers to supply it with PCs based on AMD processors, the Asian press has claimed.

The Register reports (21 November) that, according to Chinese Language newspaper Economic Daily News this past weekend, Asus, Quanta and Hon Hai Precision (aka Foxconn) are all developing AMD-based systems for Dell. Their specialisms suggest the PC giant is buying desktops, notebooks and servers, respectively.

According to The Register, Dell has traditionally been an Intel-only house, and is the only major Wintel systems vendor to hold out against AMD. Some observers claim Intel makes it worth Dell's while, but Dell is canny enough to play the two chip makers off against each other to ensure it always gets the most favourable terms.

{mospagebreaktitle=Skype in US retail distribution pact}Skype in US retail distribution pact

Skype, the internet-calling phenomenon that eBay acquired for US$4.1 billion, is set to break into the US consumer mainstream by selling its telephone kits in RadioShack stores.

The Associated Press reports (20 November) that Skype Technologies, which counts 66 million users of its free- and low-cost web-based telephone services, mainly in Europe and Asia, said on Sunday that it will distribute Skype phone gear through 3,500 US RadioShack stores.

The move into retail promises to raise Skype's profile with US broadband users who have begun using alternatives to traditional phone systems that rely on internet connections on computers or phones from Vonage, SunRocket and others, reports AP.

The AP/NYT report says that Skype, which has signed up 20 to 30 times more users than other broadband phone alternatives, offers simple-to-install software to allow users to call other computers or phones. It works like a music file-sharing service and needs no central phone network switches as Vonage does, making it cheaper to operate.

Radioshack provides a missing link by supplying phone headsets or handsets that most consumers will require in order to use low-cost Web-based calling, which costs only a few cents per minute or less to call long-distance or internationally, reports AP.

AP says that since a limited number of computers come with built-in microphones and speakers needed to make Skype calls via computers or phones, the company sells the microphones, earpieces and other accessories on its web site. There are more than 200 phones and accessories for Skype users, Klein said.

According to AP., beginning Monday in Fort Worth, Texas-based RadioShack will feature Skype products in a special kiosk, including a new Motorola headset that uses short-range wireless Bluetooth technology to make calls via Skype, priced at US$100. It will sell a US$40 headset from Logitech and a US$129 cordless phone from Cisco Systems's Linksys unit.

{mospagebreaktitle=New Xbox goes on sale}New Xbox goes on sale

The transition to a new generation of video game consoles is set to kick off in the US when retailers immediately begin selling Microsoft's Xbox 360.

The New York Times reports (21 November) that the event is a much-anticipated step in an intensifying business battle between Microsoft, a relative newcomer to the video game industry, and Sony and Nintendo. Sony plans to release its own successor console, PlayStation 3, in the spring, while Nintendo is expected to follow later in 2006.

The newspaper says that the new consoles are, in general, considerably more powerful than their predecessors, but they will be more expensive, as will the games made to be played on them. The high-end version of the Xbox 360 is priced at US$399 and the basic version at US$299, though some enthusiasts are not blinking.

According to the NYT., for Microsoft, the challenge is whether it can build its base of consumers beyond the hard-core game players that supported the first version of the Xbox, which came out in 2001.

A key to Microsoft's success is whether there will be enough mainstream video games to attract a range of consumers to the console, industry analysts said. Analysts have said it is too soon to say whether that is the case, though they consider the number of games available at the outset, 18, to be relatively healthy.

The newspaper reports that some Wall Street analysts said they were puzzled by the question of how many consoles would be immediately available for sale. Microsoft has declined to comment about its supply, leaving analysts to estimate that there are two million to three million to be distributed in North America, Europe and Japan. Sales in Europe begin on  Dec., and in Japan on 10 Dec.

Microsoft has said that within 90 days, it expects to ship 2.75 million to 3 million consoles worldwide.

{mospagebreaktitle=TiVo to transfer shows to iPods, Sony PSP}TiVo to transfer shows to iPods, Sony PSP

TiVo, the maker of digital video recorders, plans to announce a new feature on Monday that will let TiVo owners watch recorded television shows on Apple's video iPods and on Sony's handheld PSP game machine.

The New York Times reports (21 November) that the announcement builds on TiVo's release in February of an update to its video recorders that allows its users to transfer programs to personal computers and DVD's, as well as to portable video players that support Microsoft's mobile video format. When the company releases new software in the first quarter of next year, it will extend that capability to the video iPod, released last month, and the Sony PSP.

According to the newspaper, TiVo recorders, which compete with similar devices offered by cable and satellite television companies, allow users to automatically record television programming, as well as pause and replay live broadcasts. Subscribers to TiVo's service receive automatic updates to broadcast schedules. The company has 3.6 million subscribers and says it is signing on as many as 250,000 new ones each quarter.

{mospagebreaktitle=Samsung invests US$614 million in Flash, DRAM chips}Samsung invests US$614 million in Flash, DRAM chips

Samsung Electronics said on Monday it would invest US$614.2 million won in new memory chip lines to boost production of flash and DRAM (dynamic random access memory) chips.

Reuters reports in The New York Times (21 November) that the South Korean firm, the world's top memory chip maker and the most valuable technology firm outside the United States, is aggressively spending in an attempt to maintain an edge over rivals in the price-volatile and highly competitive market and to capitalise on an expected recovery in chip prices.

The report says that under the investment, which is part of Samsung's 2005/2006 budget plan, mass production from the new lines should start in the second half of 2006, a Samsung spokeswoman said by telephone.

The move comes after a top Samsung executive said that prices of its core memory chips were set to stabilize in the second half of 2006 and lower NAND flash chip prices would boost demand.

Samsung, which competes with local rival Hynix Semiconductor, Micron Technology and German chip maker Infineon Technologies in the computer chip market, aims to boost its chip sales by more than three-fold to US$61 billion by 2012 from US$17 billion last year.

In the flash chip market, Samsung competes with Japan's Toshiba.

Reuters reports in the NYT that, in a separate statement, Samsung said it planned to triple its chip sales in China to US$5.5 billion by 2010 to meet demand from China's IT sector, which it said was expected to grow at an annual rate of 11 percent for the next five years.

{mospagebreaktitle=Fox to offer movies online via Movielink}Fox to offer movies online via Movielink

Movielink, a joint venture of five Hollywood studios to offer movies over the internet, has signed a deal with Twentieth Century Fox, allowing it to offer movies from all major studios for the first time.

The Associated Press reports in The New York Times (21 November) that the deal, announced Monday, comes at a time when studios and TV networks are looking at alternative ways to distribute programs, including video on demand and portable devices, such as Apple's iPod.

While Fox has offered some of its content online at sites such as CinemaNow.com, it waited until more homes had high speed Internet access and could view downloaded movies on large screen TVs before signing a deal with Movielink, reports AP.

The AP/NYT report says that Movielink and similar legitimate movie download services exist, in part, to offer an alternative to illegal piracy. But Movielink has yet to become popular, in part because films can only be viewed on a computer or watched on a TV screen using a cable.

But over the next few months, consumer electronics devices, such as the recently released XBox 360 game console, will allow users to more easily view material stored on a hard drive on a large TV screen.

The report adds that studios also are expected to experiment with other business models, including allowing viewers to purchase movies online and burn copies to DVDs.