Google resists US subpoena of search data
The New York Times reports that the US Justice Department has asked a federal judge to compel Google, the internet search giant, to turn over records on millions of its users' search queries as part of the government's effort to uphold an online pornography law.
Google has been refusing the request since a subpoena was first issued last August, even as three of its competitors agreed to provide information, according to court documents made public this week. Google asserts that the request is unnecessary, overly broad, would be onerous to comply with, would jeopardize its trade secrets and could expose identifying information about its users.
According to the newspaper, the dispute with Google comes as the government is moving aggressively on several fronts to obtain data on internet activity to achieve its law enforcement goals, from domestic security to the prosecution of online crime. Under the antiterrorism law known as the USA Patriot Act, for example, the Justice Department has demanded records on library patrons' Internet use.
Those efforts have encountered resistance on privacy grounds, says the NYT.
But, the newspaper says that the government's move in the Google case, however, is different in its aims. Rather than seeking data on individuals, it says it is trying to establish a profile of internet use that will help it defend the Child Online Protection Act, a 1998 law that would impose tough criminal penalties on individuals whose Web sites carried material deemed harmful to minors.
The newspaper reports that the government's motion to compel Google's compliance was filed on Wednesday in the US Federal District Court near Google's headquarters in Mountain View. The subpoena and the government's motion were reported on Thursday by The San Jose Mercury News.
In addition to records of a week of search queries, which could amount to billions of search terms, the Google subpoena seeks a random list of a million web addresses in its index.
The NYT reports that a spokesman for the Justice Department, said on Thursday that three Google competitors in internet search technology - America Online, Yahoo and MSN, Microsoft's online service - had complied with subpoenas in the case.
Mr. Miller declined to say exactly how the data would be used, but according to the government's filings, it would help estimate the prevalence of material that could be deemed harmful to minors and the effectiveness of filtering software. Opponents of the pornography law contend that filtering software could protect minors effectively enough to make the law unnecessary.
The government's motion calls for Google to surrender the information within 21 days of court approval.
{mospagebreaktitle=MS, AOL and Yahoo! cooperating with government}MS, AOL and Yahoo! cooperating with government
The US Justice Department has confirmed that Microsoft, Yahoo! and AOL have already complied with its request to hand over the details of queries submitted to the search engine - a fact that was disclosed in court documents.
The Register reports that the DoJ wants the information, not for a criminal prosecution, but as background material to bolster its attempt to revive a Clinton-era anti-pornography law.
Google is the only one of the four major search engines to balk at the request, a stance which has won the company a lot of goodwill this week, reports The Register.
{mospagebreaktitle=Disney reportedly looking at Pixar, Jobs could join Board}Disney reportedly looking at Pixar, Jobs could join Board
Walt Disney's board of directors will meeet today amid speculation it may buy Pixar Animation Studios in a deal that could revive Disney as the world's dominant animation studio and give computer pioneer Steve Jobs a powerful new platform.
Reuters reports in The New York Times (20 January) that sources familiar with the talks said the meeting was a regularly scheduled board meeting. It was not clear whether the board was prepared to vote on a merger proposal.
The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday that Disney proposed to buy Pixar in a stock transaction worth more than US$6.7 billion, making Pixar CEO Jobs its largest individual shareholder and possibly giving the man who also co-founded Apple Computer a seat on Disney's board.
Disney, for decades the preeminent maker of such hand-drawn animated films as ``Cinderella'' and ``Lion King,'' has struggled in recent years to maintain its position in an industry that has embraced computer-generated (CG) films.
The two companies were in the midst of renegotiating their distribution agreement, which expires in June with the release of Pixar's ``Cars,'' when rumors of the purchase surfaced.
Reuters says that media industry watchers have speculated that the merger talk was driven by Disney's lack of confidence in its upcoming slate of animated films.
Disney's first CG release, ``Chicken Little,'' released 4November, has performed respectably with worldwide box office sales of US$279 million, but less than Pixar's lowest-grossing film, ``A Bug's Life,'' which reaped US$363 million worldwide.
{mospagebreaktitle=Mobile phones don't cause brain tumours}Mobile phones don't cause brain tumours
Using a mobile phone will not increase your chances of contracting cerebral cancer, a four-year study conducted in the UK has concluded.
According to a report in The Register (20 January) the results of the study, published in the British Medical Journal, indicate that no matter how long you have used a phone for, or how frequently you make and take calls, your risk of developing a brain tumour remains the same.
The survey, conducted by the Leeds, Nottingham and Manchester Universities in conjunction with London's Insititute of Cancer Research, focused on the incidence of glioma - the most common form of brain tumour - in phone users.
The Register says that the researchers interviewed 966 people, aged 18 to 69 years, with glioma brain tumours and 1,716 randomly selected healthy individuals. They were all asked about their mobile phone usage, including how long they had used mobile phones, the number and duration of the calls they made, and what make and model of phone they had used. The interviews took place between 1 December 2000 and 29 February 2004, and included people in the Thames region, southern Scotland, Trent, the West Midlands and West Yorkshire.
According to the publication, the results contradict earlier studies exploring potential relationships between brain tumour risk and mobile phone usage. For example, a Swedish study suggested an increased risk of tumours among phone users in rural areas - where base-stations are typically further apart, requiring handsets to operate at higher power. The UK study found no evidence to indicate such a link.
However, past studies have pointed to an increased incidence of tumours on the side of the brain closest to where users hold their phones, and the UK study also observed a "significant excess risk" here. However, the results indicate a parallel "significant reduction in risk" of tumours on the other side of the head, from which the researchers concluded that there is currently insufficient evidence to indicate whether the phenomenon is a real effect or may simply be a case of tumour sufferers attributing their cancers to their mobile phone usage.
{mospagebreaktitle=Million $ pixel site faces legal threat}Million $ pixel site faces legal threat
The student entrepreneur behind the milliondollarhomepage.com is facing the threat of legal action from the firm that paid more than US$38,000 for the last 1,000 pixels.
The Register reports(20 January) that Milliondollarweightloss.com secured the last slot on Alex Tew's website after he auctioned it on eBay.
But the FT reports that lawyers representing the weight-loss site are preparing to sue Tew in a US court for "breach of contract", among other things.
According to the report, lawyers representing milliondollarweightloss.com maintain that Tew told them they would receive "substantial free publicity" from the auction.
"Our clients won the auction and wired the money eight days ago and it took Mr Tew at least five days just to put up their pixels and to engage in any PR," they said.
The Register reports, however, that Tew said that he never "guaranteed" that the winner of the auction would receive any publicity and hopes the matter can be resolved without having to resort to legal action.
Indeed, says The Register,part of the problems stem from the fact that the site was floored by a DDoS attack, with the techo-extortionists demanding he cough up US$50,000.
The Register says that in his blog, he makes a point of congratulating milliondollarweightloss.com for winning the auction and that the FBI in the US and the UK's National High-Tech Crime Unit (NHTCU) are investigating the DDoS attack.
{mospagebreaktitle=Sex.com owner sells up to chase US$65m damages}Sex.com owner sells up to chase US$65m damages
He may just have sold it for US$14million, but the owner of the world's most valuable domain name, Gary Kremen, now intends to spend his time recovering the US$65m he is still owed by the con-man who stole the domain 10 years ago.
The Register reports (20 January) that Kremen sold Sex.com to Escom for US$14m on Wednesday but retains the technology he has built behind it since November 2000, plus a trademark for the name Sex.com.
It is also believed that Kremen has not sold the entire domain but only a majority holding in it, retaining a minority stake for himself.
According to The Register,Kremen refuses to discuss any details of the deal but exclusively told The Register he had been "made an offer I couldn't refuse".
The Register says that Kremen had originally registered Sex.com in May 1994 but it was stolen by lifelong con-man Stephen Cohen from under his nose in October 1995. Cohen spent the next five years battling to regain control of the domain.
Cohen continued to run the domain at the height of the dotcom boom, making tens of millions of dollars each year and using part of the profits to ruin legal efforts by Kremen to get it back. Eventually, however, Kremen won the case and with it US$65m in damages.
The Register says that rather than pay, Cohen fled to Mexico and was on the run from May 2001, until he was finally caught in Tijuana in October. He is now resting in a US jail.
{mospagebreaktitle=Format war looms for new wireless standard}Format war looms for new wireless standard
A technology that promises to replace the cables behind TV sets and entertainment centres with wireless connections appears to be headed for a format war, after two industry organisations formally broke off their collaboration.
Reuters reports in The New York Times (20 January) that at a meeting in Hawaii on Thursday, the UWB Forum and the WiMedia Alliance voted to shut down a working group that sought to create a common standard for a radio technology known as ultra-wideband, or UWB.
Utilising UWB allows data transmission at extremely high rates, more than enough for high-definition TV signals, at ranges up to 30 feet.
Reuters says that the UWB Forum -- led by Motorola spinoff Freescale Semiconductor -- and the WiMedia Alliance -- supported by Samsung Electronics and chip-makers Intel and Texas Instruments -- had been trying to unite on a single standard since forming a task group with the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers in 2003. The IEEE has been the umbrella group for a number of successful standards, including Wi-Fi.
Freescale got a head start on UWB in 2003 by buying Xtreme Spectrum, a company that already had a working prototype chip, and wanted that chip to be the basis of the standard, says Reuters.
At the same time, the WiMedia Alliance wanted to go in an entirely different direction. While Freescale's chip sent out extremely rapid ''clicks'' of radio signals over a wide range of frequencies, the WiMedia Alliance wanted to use a method of dividing the spectrum into a large number of channels and transmitting over them simultaneously, almost like playing the piano with a finger on every key.
On the other side, Reuters reports, Martin Rofheart, director of the UWB operation at Freescale, said the effort toward hammering out a common standard ''has been stalemated for some time. We felt for our part that it wasn't going to produce a specification that would be useful to the industry.''
The UWB Forum and Freescale are promoting a personal-computer-centered approach to introducing usage of UWB, emphasising it as a replacement for the USB cables that connect computers with their peripherals. Rofheart said their Cable-Free USB standard is designed to work with existing computers and peripherals without requiring upgrades or new software.
According to Reuters, Freescale's Rofheart said the technology can later be extended to work with consumer electronics, including TVs and stereos.
The first products using the WiMedia Alliance's technology are expected by the end of the year.
{mospagebreaktitle=German Wikipedia back up amid lawsuit}German Wikipedia back up amid lawsuit
The German version of Wikipedia returned to the internet on Friday after three days offline, a blackout prompted by a lawsuit in which the parents of a dead hacker objected to the site's use of his real name.
The Associated Press reports in The New York Times (20 January) that the Wikimedia Foundation, which runs the collaborative Web encyclopedia, reached a temporary settlement with a Berlin court that will let users access the German-language version of Wikipedia, hosted in the United States, instead of its usual https://www.wikipedia.de.
The site also remained available by going to www.wikipedia.org, and clicking on the German language link.
AP says that the Berlin court had issued an injunction taking down Wikipedia's German site Tuesday. But on Friday, the court declared the injunction unenforceable until a final decision is made, noting it was not proper to block access to all of the encyclopedia's entries because of concern about just one.
The case began when the family of the German hacker known as ''Tron,'' who was found hanged in a park in 1998, sued to stop Wikipedia from including the man's real name, citing German privacy law.
AP says that a decision is expected in two weeks.
{mospagebreaktitle=Sony eyes big push into high-end digital cameras}Sony eyes big push into high-end digital cameras
Sony said on Friday it would aim for a quarter of the digital single lens reflexcamera market after acquiring assets for a push into that market from Konica Minolta Holdings.
The Associated Press reports in The New York Times (20 January) that Konica Minolta announced on Thursday that it would sell a portion of its SLR camera business to Sony for an undisclosed sum, part of its move to pull completely out of the business of selling cameras and photographic film.
The deal was not a total surprise as the two agreed last July to jointly develop digital SLR cameras, which are generally more expensive and offer better performance than simple point-and-shoot compact models, and typically use interchangeable lenses.
According to the AP report, Sony is the world's No. 2 digital camera maker behind Canon but it currently has no presence in the potentially lucrative digital SLR market, having lacked the history selling interchangeable lenses for film SLRs to warrant a push.
The digital SLR market is currently dominated by a handful of traditional camera makers that sold millions of interchangeable lenses during the film era. This is seen as key factor because many of those lenses can also be used on digital SLRs.
AP says that Canon and Nikon control the lion's share of the digital SLR market, but Pentax and Olympus have recently formed alliances with electronics makers in a bid to boost their sales.
The report said that Yutaka Nakagawa, president of Sony's digital imaging business group, told reporters the company would aim for 20-25 percent of the fast-growing digital SLR market by focusing on relatively inexpensive models that could achieve mass-market appeal.
Nakagawa said Sony would have several advantages in the market including its ability to produce image sensor chips, displays and batteries in-house, as well as leveraging its strong audiovisual technology used in its electronics products.
AP reports that Sony plans to launch its first model this summer based on Konica Minolta's Maxxum/Dynax mount system, meaning that existing owners of those lenses -- Konica Minolta sold about 16 million lenses over the years -- will be able to use them on Sony's SLR.
Sony's has set a target of selling 13.5 million digital cameras this business year to March, seeing little impact from the recent sales suspension of some models in China that local officials said did not meet quality requirements.
{mospagebreaktitle=Sony to debut Blu-ray PC in UK in March}Sony to debut Blu-ray PC in UK in March
Sony is to bring Blu-ray the high capacity optical disc system to the UK as early as March, but only as part of a desktop PC package.
The Register reports (20 January) that the VGC-RC204, which also breaks with Sony PC tradition in that it is the first desktop from the company to run using Microsoft's Windows XP Media Center Edition operating system, features a Blu-ray recorder that can archive up to 25GB of data on one disc.
According to the publication, Sony is expecting that the £1800 PC will appeal specifically to video editors. The PC also sports a 600GB hard drive and is accompanied by Sony's MR100 wireless media receiver, which streams audio video and images to other screens and devices. Recordable Blu-ray discs will go on sale next month, with Sony estimating that they will retail for around £10. The recorder isn't compatible with the 50GB double-sided discs. A laptop with integrated Blu-ray drive will be available later in 2006.
As for a Blu-ray video player, The Register reports that Sony, at its annual dealer conference in Lisbon last week confirmed that it hopes to launch the BDP-S1 in the UK before Christmas 2006.
Sony also made some big announcements about its TV on the move system Location Free TV. It confirmed a UK launch for the service for PSPs and laptops PCs which the company says will be before the summer, says The Register.
{mospagebreaktitle=HP confirms plan to attack Sun via Solaris}HP confirms plan to attack Sun via Solaris
HP has gone really, really public about its support for Sun Microsystems Solaris 10 operating system by sending out an internal memo.
The New York Times reports (21 January) that HP has long "officially" supported various versions of Solaris on its Xeon- and Opteron-based servers. Now, however, it's kind of ready to talk about this support. The company this week "announced" support of Sun's version of Unix in a statement to staff, according to insiders.
The Solaris embrace is being pitched as HP's answer to disgruntled Sun customers trying to make their way off SPARC systems and onto HP's x86 kit, according to the newspaper.
"As HP is recognised as the leading supplier of standards-based servers, many Sun customers are approaching HP to help them make the transition," an HP spokesman told us. "Specifically in the entry-level UNIX server space, many Sun customers are looking to transition from under-performing SPARC systems running Solaris to better price/performance of an HP x86 platform running Linux", the HP spokesman said, reports the NYT.
Accordging to the newspaper, HP has long been the most able Solaris x86 supporter. This is largely a result of a decent sized Solaris x86 business at Compaq. IBM follows with its recent agreement to let Sun service Solaris running on Big Blue's blades. And Dell only ship Solaris when customers order a ton of servers and demand the OS.
{mospagebreaktitle=Motorola makes up for lost time with Kreatel buy}Motorola makes up for lost time with Kreatel buy
The New York Times says in a 21 January repoprt that Motorola came out of the IPTV closet this week, spending an unspecified amount of cash to buy IPTV specialist set-top maker, Kreatel of Sweden.
According to the newspaper,Kreatel is credited with being among the first-ever set-top companies to focus entirely on IPTV and has had good success in the Nordics - with customers such as TeliaSonera - and elsewhere in Europe with Telefónica and KPN. The company recently opened offices in Shanghai in China.
The report says that the move catapults Motorola from its initial indifference in chasing IPTV sales closer to the market forefront as the area starts to attract bigger telcos. Motorola has a huge 50 per cent-plus market share of the US cable set-top market, where it handles head-end encoders, set tops, cable termination systems and full-scale implementation services and offers its own conditional access system.
The NYT says that so far in IPTV, Motorola's moves have been limited to selecting a conditional access partner in Widevine, a move which acknowledges that, with IPTV, there is a reliable return path, which can strengthen how conditional access works and extends to more flexible DRM.
In the US., Motorola was recently prime contractor in rolling out a cable-IPTV hybrid for Verizon in its fiber-based Fios TV service.
{mospagebreaktitle=IT security a problem, says FBI}IT security a problem, says FBI
People are frustrated with the "non-stop barrage" of intimidation they get from computer security troublemakers, says the FBI.
The Register reportysd (20 January) that it's annual survey of computer crime contains some other stunning revelations, like the fact that most of the companies it surveyed had encountered problems with viruses, spyware and so on.
Most of the 2,066 firms in the survey knew nothing about Infraguard, "a joint effort by the FBI and industry to educate and share information related threats to US infrastructure."
The Register says that most of those surveyed had reported their problems to "law enforcers" and where happy with the response they got.
And they were all keen to attend seminars hosted by the FBI, apparently.
{mospagebreaktitle=Apple to open stores in Germany, reseller claims}Apple to open stores in Germany, reseller claims
Apple is planning to open a series of Apple Stores in Germany, with the first shop coming on stream before the end of the year.
The Register says (20 January) that so claimed Archibald Horlitz, head of German reseller Gravis, in an interview with local business newspaper the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung this week. The move is "99.9 per cent" certain, he said.
According to the publication,Apple Germany is looking at retail locations in Munich, Hamburg, Cologne, Berlin and possibly Frankfurt, too.
To date in Europe, Apple has only opened stores in the UK, but it is known to be planning to open a retail venture in Rome. A variety of Apple-branded stores - typically called Apple Centres - are maintained by the Mac maker's reseller partners throughout the continen, reports The Register.
{mospagebreaktitle=UK splashes out £5bn on bumper e-Xmas}UK splashes out £5bn on bumper e-Xmas
Consumer demand for online shopping broke more records this Christmas with UK sales up almost 50 per cent compared to last year, according to research from Interactive Media in Retail Group (IMRG).
The Register reports (20 January) that the company estimates shoppers spent almost £5bn in the 10 weeks to Christmas compared to £3.33bn during the same period last year.
These latest figures cap off yet another good 12 months for online sales, with IMRG describing 2005 as a "year of remarkable dynamic growth for UK online shopping".
According to The Register, the survey showed that over the past 12 months, UK consumers spent £19.2bn on goods and services - 32 per cent more than in 2004. Researchers reckon that 24 million UK shoppers bought something online last year, spending, on average, £816 each.
The survey firm said thaat consumers have spoken:"They want the convenience and choice that online shopping provides. Many just don't have time to trudge the streets hoping goods are in stock."
Looking ahead, IMRG reckons that e-tail will grow 36 per cent during 2006, with sales of £26bn and punters spending on average more than £1,000 online, The Register reports.
{mospagebreaktitle=Global digital music sales triple}Global digital music sales triple
Global sales of digital music tripled to US$1.1 billion in 2005 and the popularity of recordings on iPods and mobile phones will result in digital music generating 25% of worldwide music revenues by 2010, a music industry trade group said Thursday.
Reuters reports in The New York Times (20 January) that according to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry's (IFPI) Digital Music Report 2006, consumers last year downloaded 420 million tracks legally, comprising 6% of global revenues. Record companies doubled the number of tracks available to 2 million as subscription services boasted 2.8 million subscribers in 2005 compared with 1.5 million the year before.
IFPI said that Apple iTunes leads the pack, operating in 21 countries and selling more than 850 million downloads since launching in 2003. Music for mobile phones now accounts for 40% of digital music revenues, the report said.
The Reuters report says that, speaking at a news conference to launch the report, IFPI chairman and CEO John Kennedy said that legal downloading in the UK and Germany from such sites as iTunes, Musicload and MSN exceeds that from illegal file sharing. ``Predictions are always dodgy, but I do believe that by 2010, digital music will comprise 25% of global revenues,'' Kennedy said.
According to Reuters, the report said the number of online music services grew to more than 335, up from about 50 two years ago. Illegal file sharing remains a problem, however, and the trade body said it has now filed close to 20,000 lawsuits against individuals.
Kennedy said that he will be speaking to internet service providers at next week's MIDEM international music mart in Cannes about the need for internet service providers to share in the fight against piracy.
{mospagebreaktitle=Report: new accounting technology not popular}Report: new accounting technology not popular
A revolutionary technology that could standardise the way corporate results are reported and speed up trading decisions is facing a big problem -- few people are interested, according to a Reuters report in The New York Times (20 January)
The NYT reports that the technology, known as XBRL or Extensible Business Reporting Language, has been around for about eight years and is touted as a development as important for financial reporting as the bar code was for retail pricing. It works by labeling financial information with computer-readable tags so regulators, investors, managers and other stakeholders can make apples-to-apples comparisons in financial statements.
XBRL has the support of about 400 organisations, including some of the biggest players on Wall Street and in Silicon Valley, as well as a ringing endorsement from US Securities and Exchange Commission chairman Christopher Cox.
However, Reuters says that despite five years of marketing, few companies are using the technology and investors are not exactly clamoring for it. Only about 200 people showed up at an XBRL convention this week in San Jose, where it was clear much of the investment community and corporate America are giving the technology the cold shoulder.
The attitude among the business community is 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it', said Michelle Savage, vice president of investor relations services for PR Newswire and chairwoman of the XBRL-US Adoption Working Group.
According to Reuters, Cox says the development of XBRL is one of his top priorities this year, but under a voluntary filing program, the commission has received only 22 XBRL filings from nine companies. With this in mind, the SEC said earlier this month it would expedite the review of registration statements and annual reports for companies that use XBRL. It will also alert companies when it plans a review.
But critics say the technology is too complicated and would require expensive consulting from the very companies that back it. It also lacks simple-to-use software that would make the difference for some, Reuters reports.
Reuters says, however, that XBRL's backers, which include Microsoft, Morgan Stanley and Reuters Group , say the system would simplify accounting systems. And instead of sifting through mountains of information, investors would be able to search for data instantly, or set up automatic trades based on earnings or cash flow results.
United Technologies, the maker of Otis elevators, jet engines and heating and air conditioner systems, said this week that XBRL helped it simplify some of its accounting and it only cost about US$35,000 to implement.
Reuters says that according to Morgan Stanley, financial statements in XBRL can reduce the four or five hours it takes analysts to update financial models and copy information to as little as 45 minutes.
