Silicon Valley business leaders optimistic

While a group of business and higher-education leaders said Friday that they remain optimistic about Silicon Valley's future, they also warned that the region needs to quickly address shortcomings in areas like education if it wants to remain competitive against emerging rivals such as China and India.

Silicon Valley's The Mercury News reported thaat the remarks were part the ``State of the Valley Conference'' held in San Jose. Sponsored by Joint Venture: Silicon Valley Network, the conference marked the release of the local business group's annual index of economic and social indicators.

The newspaper says that while the report contained some positive news on job creation and innovation, it also raised red flags about the region's education system. 

The Mercury News said that several speakers on Friday said the region and the nation need to renew focus on preparing the workforce for the new challenges of the digital age.

The conference attracted more than 1,000 people, who got their first official look at the 2006 Index of Silicon Valley. The study noted that the region added 2,000 jobs in the year ended 30 June. Though the increase was a slim 0.2 percent, it was the first job gain since 2001. And the region continues to lead the USin areas like venture capital and patents, indicating that the entrepreneurial spirit remains strong, reported the newspaper.

{mospagebreaktitle=Yahoo to open Spain, Chile research labs}Yahoo to open Spain, Chile research labs

Internet powerhouse Yahoo is opening its first research labs in Europe and South America, continuing a quest to close the gap separating it from online search engine leader Google.

Reuters reports in The New York Times (23 January) that the new offices in Spain and Chile, scheduled to open immediately, will be led by Ricardo Baeza-Yates, a newly hired expert in information retrieval.

The company declined to disclose how many employees it is hiring in the two offices. Yahoo had 9,800 workers worldwide at the end of last year.

''This is an exciting opportunity for Yahoo research to draw on the talent and knowledge across Europe and Latin America,'' said Prabhakar Raghavan, who was hired last year to oversee the company's research labs, reports Reuters.

Baeza-Yates, who will be based at Yahoo's new Barcelona office, co-wrote a widely used textbook on search, ''Modern Information Retrieval.''

According to Reuters, Yahoo has been spending more on research as it tries to catch up with Google in the lucrative internet search engine market. The company already had two research centres in the San Francisco Bay area along with offices in New York and southern California.

Despite the expansion, Yahoo has recently been losing search engine market share to Google. Google controlled 39.8 percent of the US search market through November while Yahoo trailed at 29.5 percent, according to comScore Media Metrix, reports Reuters.

Reuters says that Yahoo also is under pressure from investors to improve its formulas for determining which ads to display alongside search results. Ad selection plays an important role in Yahoo's profits because the company gets paid only when the links are clicked on. Even Yahoo Chairman Terry Semel has conceded Google's ad algorithms generate more revenue.

{mospagebreaktitle=China takes own path to 3G}China takes own path to 3G

China will follow its own standards for next generation phone networks. The Ministry of Information Industry (MII) released specifications for TD-SCDMA for 3G mobile networks last Friday.

The Register reports (23 January) that the technology has been tested since 2001 but has suffered problems along the way - in November it failed a five month government trial against rival European WCDMA and US CDMA2000 standards.

But now: "The technology is already mature and ready for manufacturers to move ahead with production." - according to government news service Xinhuanet.

According to the publication, the decision means China can avoid paying large amounts in royalties for 3G technology and opens the way for an auction of Chinese mobile licenses. An official told the People's Daily that Chinese firms were paying 15 to 20 per cent in royalties when they make and sell WCDMA equipment while profit margins were only five per cent. Datang Telecom owns most of the patents for the new standard.

The Register says that according to figures released by the MII last week another 58.6 million people signed up for mobile phones in China in 2005 bringing total subscribers up to 393.4 million. There are 350.43 million fixed line subscribers and 37.5 million broadband internet subscribers.

{mospagebreaktitle=Trojan blitz poses as credit card warning}Trojan blitz poses as credit card warning

UK businesses faced a barrage of 115,000 emails containing a new Trojan last Friday before anti-virus vendors scrambled out an update, according to email filtering firm BlackSpider Technologies.

The Register reports (23 January) that the Trojan downloader malware - called Agent-ADO - comes in the payload to a message that poses as a warning about a user's credit card limits been exceeded.

According to The Register, BlackSpider detected the malware at 0910GMT, 20 January, but it was three-and-a-half hours before the first anti-virus vendor used by BlackSpider issued a patch, once again illustrating the shortcomings of conventional anti-virus scanners in fighting fast-moving virus outbreaks.

The publication says that infected emails commonly have the subject line "ERROR:YOUR CREDIT CARD OVERDRAFT EXCEED!" and an infected attachment, a packed executable file called FILE1185 which is 5592 bytes long. Analysis of the malware is ongoing.

{mospagebreaktitle=EMI sees internet reviving music industry}EMI sees internet reviving music industry
 
The music recording industry, despite six straight years of falling sales, is seeing signs of hope coming from the very source of many of the industry's woes -- the internet.

Reuters reports in The New York Times (23 January) that downloaded music sales on online services such as Apple Computer's iTunes Music Store are surging, and made up 6 percent of industry revenues in 2005. Digital revenues are now expected to offset flagging CD sales within a few years.

The Chairman of EMI., Eric Nicoli said``we've seen a tripling in the last year and we've hardly gotten started,'' when speaking last weekend in an interview with Reuters at the music industry's annual conference in Cannes, where he also delivered the keynote address.

Digital music sales topped the US$1 billion mark last year, according to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, compared with US$380 million in 2004, reports Reuters.

Nicoli said ``the day is surely within our sights when digital growth outstrips physical decline and we can all compete for share of a growing pie.''

The Reuters report says that digital music is expected to make up 25 percent of EMI's and the industry's revenues by 2010, but even if growth returns, the industry's rules have changed irrevocably.

The report says that industry analysts expect sales of albums -- a format whose popularity is commonly credited to the success of the Beatles 40-odd years ago -- to fade now that consumers can buy individual songs online and thus avoid the scenario of a few good songs padded by mediocre filler.

Reuters says that Nicoli refused to be drawn on persistent speculation that EMI would eventually merge with its smaller rival Warner Music, a deal that was blocked by European regulators in 2000 when Warner Music was still a part of media conglomerate Time Warner

Since then, Sony and BMG have merged, leading many analysts to suggest that EMI and Warner would have to follow suit to stay competitive.

{mospagebreaktitle=Women and the internet: report}Women and the internet: report

Married women are about a third more likely than single women to use the internet at least occasionally.

The New York Times reports (23 January) that for men, marriage contributes roughly half as large a bounce in online rates, according to a recent study of gender differences in internet use conducted by the Pew Internet and American Life Project.

Deborah Fallows, a senior research fellow with the project, said that parenthood explains some of the increase; the same report found that parents of children under 18 were a third more likely to be online than people with older children or none.

The NYT says the survey showed also that married women tend to have higher household incomes than single women. "Being married has economic advantages," Ms. Fallows said. "The higher your income, the more likely you are to be online."

{mospagebreaktitle=AtomFilms to launch studio for online}AtomFilms to launch studio for online

As the internet has become the people's stage and online video surges in popularity, in the US., AtomFilms is launching what could be among the first of many new studios dedicated to the production of video for online audiences, according to a report by The Asasociated Press in The New York Times (23 January).

The Internet video pioneer, which already runs a web site for pre-produced video shorts or clips from independent creators, plans to keep banking on those projects, which it calls ''atom-ised'' pieces. But with AtomFilms Studio, it will finance select projects, investing upfront in the production of original content designed for internet-based delivery.

AP says that Atom hopes its roots dating back to 1999 will give it a jump in the latest online video rush, which has attracted deep-pocketed rivals such as Yahoo and CBS.

According to the report, the opening of AtomFilms Studio comes as much larger companies have entered the fray, investing in and distributing video over the internet to a bigger, high-speed Web-connected audience.

Yahoo, the largest internet portal with a worldwide audience of more than 300 million, already has forged partnerships to webcast content from other media.

Television networks also are stepping deeper into the new medium by selling their shows online and making them available on mobile gadgets.

AP says that, meanwhile, Apple Computer's iTunes store, which was the first to secure a major licensing deal to sell TV content online last October, sold more than 8 million videos in three months.

{mospagebreaktitle=Windows back door rumor preposterous}Windows back door preposterous:report

Contrary to a recent rumor circulating on the internet, Microsoft did not intentionally back-door the majority of Windows systems by means of the WMF vulnerability, according to a report in The Register.

The Register says that although it is a serious issue that should be patched straight away, the idea that it's a secret back door is quite preposterous.

According to the publication, the rumor began when popinjay expert Steve Gibson examined an unofficial patch issued by Ilfak Guilfanov, and, due to his lack of security experience, observed behavior that he could not explain by means other than a Microsoft conspiracy.

The Register says that he then went on to speculate publicly about this via a "This Week in Tech" podcast, and on his own web site. The Register says that Slashdot grabbed the story, and the result is a fair number of Netizens who now mistakenly believe that the WMF flaw was created with malicious intent.

{mospagebreaktitle=UK telco O2 reaches 27m mobile customers}UK telco O2 reaches 27m mobile customers

O2 - the UK cellco that's about to be swallowed by Spain's Telefonica for £18bn - signed up 1.75 million new customers in the last three months taking the total number of customers to almost 27.5 million.

The Register reports (23 January) that in the UK, the firm added 895,000 punters and was "particularly pleased" with the addition of 274,000 contract customers. In Germany O2 chalked up an extra 823,000 new users.

Publishing its final set key performance indicators (KPIs) before being gobbled by Telefonica, O2 noted that net service revenue grew by 12 per cent year-on-year in the UK while Germany saw growth of 17 per cent during Q3, says The Register.

But, The Register says that at the same time, though, the average amount each of its punters spent in the UK (ARPU) slipped slightly to £272 compared to the same period last year. In Germany, Q3 ARPU fell from €370 to €338 due to an "increasingly competitive market".

O2 said that the strong momentum in all its businesses was sustained through the third quarter. Across the group it added 1.75 million customers, taking the total base to 27.4 million, 18 per cent higher than last year.

Tje Register reports that earlier this month the European Commission cleared Telefonica's takeover of O2 despite concerns that the buy-out might jeopardise competition for international roaming charges, because both Telefonica and O2 belong to different industry groups that co-operate on roaming enabling punters to use their mobiles overseas as if they were at home.

Along with incumbents France Telecom, Telecom Italia and Deutsche Telekom, Telefonica is part of the so-called FreeMove alliance, The Register reports.