Intel, Microsoft back next-generation DVDs

Intel and Microsoft, the leading suppliers of chips and software for most of the world's personal computers, are throwing their support behind the next-generation DVD standard known as HD DVD.

The Associated Press reports (27 September) in The New York Times that, after taking a neutral stance for months in the battle between the competing HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc formats, the companies said Tuesday they have joined the HD DVD Promotion Group that includes Toshiba, Universal Studios and others.

According to AP, the move means upcoming PCs running Microsoft's upcoming Windows Vista operating system or Intel's Viiv entertainment technology will come with support for HD DVD drives.

AP says that the decision by Microsoft and Intel pits the two largest makers of equipment for PCs against many of the companies that build and sell computers. Blu-ray is backed by Sony, Apple Computer, Hewlett-Packard and Dell, along with a variety of other tech companies and studios.

The report says that it was not clear how Microsoft and Intel's move would affect the stance of computer makers, but the PC industry has managed to skirt confusion over dueling standards in the past by offering drives that can handle multiple formats.

Efforts so far to merge the standards into a single format have gone nowhere as tech companies and studios have divided into the two camps. Analysts say consumers are likely to stick with standard DVDs until there is a resolution.

The AP/NYT report says that, though Intel and Microsoft's action gives the HD DVD group additional muscle, it does not deal a knockout blow to Blu-ray.

HD DVD will offer consumers the ability to keep on their PCs a copy of a movie that can be streamed to other devices in the home. It also allows studios to store high definition and standard versions of a movie on a disk.

Supporters of Blu-ray have claimed they have a more sophisticated technology with a greater storage capacity. HD DVD companies have pointed to the fact that their offering will be available sooner and at less cost -- an argument disputed by the Blu-ray group, reports AP in the NYT.

Intermix, the company behind MySpace, has rejected a rival offer from ex-CEO Brad Greenspan.

The Register reports (27 September) that the board of directors agreed unanimously to reject his offer and stick with Murdoch's offer. The board said Greenspan's offer was unlikely to be superior to that from NewsCorp.

According to The Register, reasons for the rejection include: Greenspan's offer was for only one half of the common stock. He would need to raise about US$300m to fund the takeover but has no credible funding sources. Grrenspan offered £13.50 a share, more than Murdoch, but for only half the stock - the rest would be converted into shares at a later date.

The publiocation says that Intermix's board of directors also rejected the offer because the return of Greenspan to Intermix "could create morale issues....and potentially harm the company's business". Greenspan was asked to leave as CEO when the company's shares were at US$2 each and it was under investigation by the SEC.

Hutchison Whampoa is buying three Indian mobile companies for US$1.15 billion.

The Register reports (27 September) that Hutchison, which operates in India as a Hutchison Essar Ltd - a joint venture with Essar Teleholdings Ltd, is buying BPL Mumbai, BPL Cellular and Spacetel.

The publication says that BPL Mumbai is number two in the city with 1.3 million customers. BPL Cellular has 1.5 million customers in MAharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Kerala. Spacetel has applied for licenses in seven areas which Hutchison Essar does not currently operate - Madhya Pradesh, North East, Himachal Pradesh, Bihar, Orissa, Assam and Jammu and Kashmir. Hutch is paying US$6 million for the firm.

The deals should give Hutch 12 million customers and operate in all 23 licence areas, reports The Register.

Google, celebrating its seventh birthday today, has revamped its video search service.

The Register reports (27 September) that Google video now plays back search results in a large video window within the browser without the need to download irrititating media players. This means the service is available on Linux and Mac machines for the first time.

According to The Register, next to the video window is a brief description of the video clip, its length, the date it first appeared and a link to the originating website.

The Register says that Google is promoting the service with the exclusive airing of Everbody Hates Chris - Chris Rock's new comedy. Episodes will be available via Google all week prior to broadcast on Thursday. Google has also removed the page count from its front page. Yahoo and Google were quibbling over who had the most pages indexed - Google now claims three times as many as any other search engine but no longer says how many pages that is, says the publication.

Seven years ago today Google, with three employees - Larry Page, Sergey Brin and Craig Silverstein, began life in a friend's garage, The Register adds.

AMD today won a round of its ongoing chip marketing battle with Intel by pumping out a new fleet of speedier dual-core Opteron chips. Intel did its best to counter the move with a couple of variations to its single-core Xeon line but obviously fell short of its rival, reports The Register (27 September).

The Register says that customers can start buying 2.4GHz versions of the Opteron 280 and 880 chips. That's a boost from AMD's 2.2GHz mainstream Opteron parts and puts the rest of the line on par with an existing premium 2.4GHz chip used by Sun Microsystems. The Opteron 180 chip for single processor servers and workstations will ship at 2.4GHz as well within 30 days.

According to the publication, AMD was quick to note that it's already updating the dual-core Opteron line "less than five months" after first putting the product on sale. Meanwhile, Intel still has not released either a dual-core Itanium or a dual-core Xeon processor, says The Register,leaving it behind AMD on x86 servers and the likes of IBM and Sun in the RISC market. Intel does, however, plan to fix this embarrassing problem by year end and ship dual-core parts for both lines, The Register adds.

HP, IBM and Sun are all expected to bring the faster Opterons to their servers in short order, reports the publication.

UK-based security firm Sophos announced plans to launch centrally-managed client firewall and adware detection and removal products on Monday as it reported an increase in annual turnover of 19.2 per cent to £66.2 million (US$122.6 million) for the year ending March 2005.

The Register reports (26 September) that, although Sophos exceeded its growth expectations, its profits slipped from from £6.8m in 2004 to £3.1m this year. The firm says the drop in profits reflects an increase in investment in engineering and its North American operations as well as costs associated with the construction of its new HQ and deferred costs associated with its September 2003 acquisition of Canadian anti-spam firm ActiveState, The Register adds.

The report says that Sophos specialises in selling integrated IT security products to defend against threats such as computer viruses and spam. The last fiscal year saw Sophos's global workforce rise to 925 employees - an increase of 26 per cent on the previous year. New recruits include industry veteran Mark Harris who recently left rival McAfee to become global director of SophosLabs.

The New York Times reports (27 September) that, in the bitter war of words between Google and Yahoo over search-engine index size, Google has decided to give its latest answer in the form of a question.

The newspaper reports that Google said yesterday that it had phased in a larger index over the last four weeks. But rather than directly proclaiming that it had surpassed its archrival Yahoo, which last month claimed index supremacy, Google said it would ask web surfers to decide for themselves.

Google's chief executive, Eric E. Schmidt, said the company would remove the current number from its home page ("Searching 8,168,684,336 Web pages," it said yesterday) and instead ask users to guess the size of the new index.

Moreover, says the NYT.,in typical offbeat Google style, there will be no announced prize for the best guess, although Mr. Schmidt did not rule out the possibility that one would be awarded.

Google said it would post guidelines to help users make their own comparisons on its web log at googleblog.blogspot.com.

Although Google would not specify the new index size, Mr. Schmidt said Google technologists said it was about three times the size of its nearest competitor - a competitor he would not name.

The NYT says that, in response, Yahoo issued a statement saying: "We congratulate Google on removing the index size number from its home page and recognising that it is a meaningless number. As we've said in the past, what matters is that consumers find what they are looking for, and we invite Google users to compare their results to Yahoo Search."

Several search-engine industry executives have said that the one-upmanship on index size is not useful for consumers. They contend that the relevance and freshness of search results are more important.

The newspaper reports that last month, Yahoo said it believed that it had the largest search-engine index, tracking 19.2 billion documents. The assertion outraged Google's executives, who asserted that Yahoo was overestimating its index by counting duplicate information.

Microsoft's truce with Palm, its longtime rival in palmtop software, was forged with a rare agreement to allow Palm to tinker with the Windows Mobile software, the companies' leaders said on Monday.

The New York Times reports (27 September) that the details of the new relationship came as Microsoft and Palm unveiled a Windows version of Palm's popular line of cellphone-organisers, the Treo, in a combined effort to capture a market that has eluded them both: corporate customers.

Until now, says the newspaper, the Treo has run only on Palm's own operating system. But the new Treo for Windows device, yet to be named officially, will provide customers with the Windows interface that is the standard in most businesses.

The newspaper reports that Bill Gates, Microsoft's chairman, said the companies decided to put their rivalry behind them more than two years ago, when Jeff Hawkins, a Palm founder, visited Microsoft to discuss a development and marketing agreement. But Mr. Gates said a partnership made no sense until Microsoft was well along in developing Windows Mobile 5.0, which it released in May.

According to the NYT., initially Microsoft resisted the idea of allowing Palm to differentiate the way Windows Mobile worked on the Treo, but eventually relented. Palm added interface elements like the ability to speed dial by pressing a person's photo on the screen, the ability to decline to take a call by automatically sending a message (rather than ignoring it) and the ability to go through your cellphone voice mail with on-screen icons.

A combination cellphone and organiser, the Treo lets customers send and receive e-mail, view spreadsheets and create documents, as well as conduct a range of specialised tasks. The Windows version will be sold initially through Verizon Wireless, the US's second-largest cellular carrier, beginning early next year. No pricing details were given.

MTV Networks said yesterday that it would license the Warner Music Group's music video catalog to create programming for mobile phones worldwide, featuring videos by performers like Green Day, Sean Paul and Twista.

Reuters reports in The New York Times (27 September) that MTV plans to create short programs based on shows like "Driven" and "You Oughtta Know" on VH1, and programming for high-speed internet users. The pricing for the service will be determined by the mobile network. It will be available either by subscription or as video-on-demand.

Warner is the first of the major labels to sign a mobile deal with MTV, which is owned by Viacom, reports Reuters.

Governments in the developing world should cut taxes on mobile handsets to help the poorest take advantage of the technology.

So says the GSM Association, after studying the mobile-phone markets around the globe, reports The Register (26 September).

The Register reports that the GSMA survey found that in 16 of the poorest 50 countries taxes make up more than 20 per cent of the total cost of owning a mobile. In 14 countries this would mean a yearly tax burden of US$40. The GSMA is promoting a US$30 handset to increase mobile use in the developing world. It believes lack of mobile phones is holding back social and economic development.

According to the report, partly because of the high taxes the black market in handsets is booming. The GSMA estimates that 39 per cent of sales in the 50 countries are black market - representing US$2.7 billion in lost tax revenues, reports The Register.

The Register says that the GSMA welcomed India's decision to cut taxes, which it credited with that country's fast-growing mobile use.

The London Business School analysis of the data predicted a 20 per cent increase in mobile phone penetration if all taxes were removed, The Register adds.