EDS buys into India

Services behemoth EDS is buying MphasiS, an Indian outsourcing firm for US$380 million.

The Register reports (4 April) that although the price of MphasiS shares, about US$4.58 per share, represents a 30 per cent increase on their six month average price, investors were not impressed. The deal depends on EDS getting 83m shares, or 52 per cent of the firm.

According to The Register, MphasiS employs 11,000 people in India, and another 1,000 elsewhere, and has customers in airlines, banking, brokerage, insurance, retail and technology firms.

"This offer is complementary to our overall strategy to enhance EDS' presence and capabilities in India," EDS chairman and chief executive officer Mike Jordan said.

The Register says that EDS expects the deal to close in the third quarter.

{mospagebreaktitle=Lucent's deal with Alcatel}Lucent's deal with Alcatel

The chief executives of Lucent Technologies and Alcatel are presenting their new alliance as a triumphant merger of two companies that speak the same language of technological innovation. But at a joint news conference on Monday, they sometimes appeared lost in translation, stumbling over pronunciation and mangling words in both French and English, according to The New York Times in a 4 Apri report.

The newspaper says that negotiating language differences is just one of the challenges that the companies face after announcing their US$13.4 billion combination in New York on Sunday. Others include cutting and blending a total work force of nearly 90,000, gaining regulatory approval in the United States and Europe, and reassuring investors that the merger makes sense.

Patricia F. Russo, the non-French-speaking chief executive of Lucent, and Serge Tchuruk, the Alcatel chief executive who has made English his company's official language, flew to Paris overnight to promote the deal to a European audience.

{mospagebreaktitle=Anonymizer looks for gaps in Great Firewall of China}Anonymizer looks for gaps in Great Firewall of China

Anonymizer has gone live with a service that aims to circumvent Chinese censorship restrictions, reports The Register (3 April.)

The Register says that the online identity protection firm has released software designed specifically for Chinese citizens, that offers a way around the web filters put in place by Beijing.

According to the report, in addition, the software promises to shield the personal identities and related information of users that the Chinese government is currently able to monitor. The website that currently hosts the software download is www.xifuchun.com. This URL will be changed on a regular basis to avoid blocking by the Chinese government. Anonymizer is relying on early adopters to share the regularly changing URLs with their friends and family members.

Users must first submit a valid email address to receive regular updates containing new configuration directions and the latest location of the download site. The service is only available to people whose IP address is located in China.

{mospagebreaktitle=Nokia says new smartphones late}Nokia says new smartphones late

The world's largest handset maker Nokia said on Monday six of its new smartphones missed their planned first quarter shipping deadlines as it works to sort out their software.

Reuters reports (3 April) that company officials said the models -- three of its multimedia N-series handsets and three E-series phones aimed at business users -- would start shipping to customers in the near future.

The report adds that the company's premium music phone, the N91, will start shipping this week, Nokia Multimedia division spokesman Kari Tuutti said, adding that the N71 and N80 phones would start deliveries in the next two weeks or so.

Reuters says that Nokia had originally planned to have the N91 in the shops in time for Christmas last year, but said in September it was delaying shipments until the first quarter of 2006 while it worked on some software problems.

{mospagebreaktitle=3 Verizon Caribbean units sold to Mexican magnate}3 Verizon Caribbean units sold to Mexican magnate

In the US., Verizon Communications announced Monday that it was selling its interests in phone companies in Venezuela, Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic for US$3.7 billion, saying they no longer fit in with its business focus.

The New York Times reports (4 April) that all three transactions involved América Móvil, a large cellular telephone service provider controlled by the Mexican multibillionaire Carlos Slim Helú that has grown steadily across Latin America as global telecommunications companies withdrew from some national markets.

According to the newspaper, Verizon's move fits in with a broader shift by phone companies in the United States, which are concentrating on their domestic wireless and internet businesses. Companies including BellSouth, AT&T and the Vodafone Group have left Latin America in recent years, either because their business strategies there failed or because they were struggling at home.

Analysts say América Móvil, which reported revenue of US$17 billion last year, has achieved much of its success through its ability to sell cellphones to Latin America's fast-growing working class, reports the NYT.

The NYT reports that more than 90 percent of wireless service users in the region use prepaid cards that give them a set number of minutes. But wireless companies must set up wide distribution channels to sell those cards, said Omar Salvador, an analyst at Pyramid Research in Cambridge, Mass.

{mospagebreaktitle=IBM to work with start-up on chip that uses less power}IBM to work with start-up on chip that uses less power

IBM is today announcing an alliance with a small Silicon Valley company that has designed a flexible microprocessor chip intended to perform tasks like video processing using less than a tenth the power of today's chips.

The New York Times reports (4 April) that the microprocessor was designed by a group led by a pioneer in the personal computer software industry, Andrew Singer. His company, Rapport, is one of a handful of Silicon Valley start-ups that have pursued reconfigurable computer hardware designs, a technology long thought by some computer designers to have great promise, but so far slow to find uses in more than niche applications in the computer industry.

The newspaper says that the Rapport technology, known as Kilocore, will initially be aimed at portable applications like digital video delivered to cellphones. According to Mr. Singer, reconfigurable logic promises better energy efficiency, which has become a watchword in large computer data centres as well.

The NYT reports that Mr. Singer said Rapport, which raised US$7 million last year and is based in California, licensed a computing design from researchers at Carnegie Mellon.

According to the report, that approach has permitted Rapport to create a chip with 256 computing elements that can be configured on the fly to adapt to different software problems. A follow-on version of the chip will have more than 1,000 computing elements and will contain a version of IBM's Power PC microprocessor.

The newspaper reports that an IBM executive said the Rapport technology was a clever extension of several design ideas that IBM had already proved in its Cell microprocessor to be used by Sony in its next-generation video-game console, PlayStation 3, and by IBM's own BlueGene-based supercomputers.

 {mospagebreaktitle=Samsung delays US Blu-ray player launch to June}Samsung delays US Blu-ray player launch to June

South Korea's Samsung Electronics said on Tuesday it has delayed the US launch of its next-generation DVD player for a month, to late June, in order to complete testing.

Reuters reports (4 April) that Japan's Toshiba last week started rolling out its HD DVD format players in Japan, becoming the first company to offer next-generation optical disc players worldwide.

According to the report, Samsung is rescheduling the launch of its Blu-ray standard disc player in the United States to 25 June from 23 May, the company said in a statement distributed by a public relations agency.

Reuters says that Blu-ray technology is competing with HD DVD in the emerging war over the next DVD standard, which offers more storage capacity for high-definition movies than the current DVD format. At stake is the US$24 billion-a-year home video market.

{mospagebreaktitle=Two plead guilty in huge US CD piracy bust}Two plead guilty in huge US CD piracy bust

Two men involved in what US authorities called the largest bust of pirated music CDs and computer software in America each pleaded guilty to five criminal counts on Monday, law enforcement officials said.

Reuters reports (3 April) that the pair, Ye Teng Wen, 30, and Hao He, 30, both of Union City, California, pleaded guilty on five piracy-related charges to manufacturing 200,000 illegal CDs, much of it Latin music, said Kevin Ryan, US Attorney for Northern California.

According to the report, the two, along with a third man, Yaobin Zhai, 33, were indicted in October on charges of illegally copying music CDs, as well as Symantec computer security software and Adobe Systems Photoshop.

Reuters reported Mr Ryan said officials had seized nearly 500,00 pirated CDs and 5,500 stampers used to make the bootleg products. Many of the disks had FBI anti-piracy seals.

Each of the five counts against the men -- which include copyright infringement, trademark violations and trafficking in counterfeit labels -- carries a maximum prison sentence of five years. Ye and Hao will be sentenced at a later date. Zhai, who did not plead guilty, is due to appear in court in May, Reuters reports.

{mospagebreaktitle=Intel flashes ahead to 1Gb memory}Intel flashes ahead to 1Gb memory

Intel's flash memory division is set to double the density of its largest chip by moving to the company's latest manufacturing technology.

CNet reports in The New York Times (4 April) that samples of Intel's first 65-nanometer NOR flash memory chip will be available this quarter. Mobile phone vendors will be able to start using them in large quantities by the end of the year, said Brian Harrison, vice president and general manager of Intel's flash memory group.

CNet reports that Harrison said the new flash memory chips will be able to hold one gigabit (Gb) of data, up from the 512Mb of data stored by its current 90-nanometer flash chips.

Intel will be able to sell 2Gb NOR chips by using its stacking technology, Harrison said. By the time it moves to its 45-nanometer technology, it should be able to cost-effectively produce 2Gb chips, he said.

CNet says that flash memory is used in mobile phones, PDAs and other embedded devices to store data without the constant supply of electricity needed for DRAM or the moving parts of a hard drive. NOR memory has traditionally been the memory of choice for mobile phones due to its reliability and short read-times.

NAND memory has come on strong, however, as memory cards and other devices take advantage of its density and fast write speeds. NAND memory is expected to produce 69 percent of all flash memory revenue in 2006, whereas in 2004 it accounted for 45 percent, according to data from iSuppli.

{mospagebreaktitle=TiVo's future may hinge on EchoStar patent case}TiVo's future may hinge on EchoStar patent case

Reuters reports (4 April) that in an east Texas courthouse, TiVo and EchoStar Communications have been battling over a key patent that makes digital video recorders work. A TiVo victory -- which experts deem likely -- would not only resurrect the fledgling company but also encourage a shift in DVR strategies at the major pay TV providers, says Reuters.

According to Reuters, some industry observers have put TiVo's chance of victory at 70% or more and see EchoStar paying TiVo damages of US$95 million-US$300 million. Possibly more important for TiVo, a ruling instantly would strengthen its hand in negotiating what have been very elusive licensing deals with cable TV companies that have been selling their own less-expensive DVRs and cutting TiVo out of the loop, says Reuters.

Reuters reports that TiVo is suing EchoStar, the parent of the Dish satellite TV service, claiming it stole TiVo's technology that allows users to digitally record one show while watching another.