Telcos see future in TV programming

In the US., telephone companies are desperate to be seen, not just heard, and in the coming months, the Bell telephone companies, including SBC and Verizon, will start selling television programming in their most recent effort to crack a market in which they have had almost no presence.

The New York Times and Reuters report (3 April) that the US cable industry, meeting this week for its annual trade show, is already bracing for the assault on its prime turf.

The paper and Reuters say that to offer paid TV services, the Bells are spending billions of dollars to expand their superfast fibre optic networks and improving technology that can send video to their phone and internet customers. SBC alone is expected to spend about US$4 billion over three years to install fibre lines to reach neighborhoods where half of its 36 million customers live.

But, say the NYT and Reuters, in addition to laying new fibre lines, the phone companies also must acquire expensive programming rights, go through the tedious process of getting permission from municipalities to sell television, and master the internet-based technology that sends video programming over the same crowded network that now delivers voice and data streams.

The report says that even after making these gargantuan investments, the Bells will face formidable challenges to break into the saturated market for pay TV. To lure customers from the cable and satellite providers, analysts said, they have to offer better programming and features at a lower price compared to cable.

The paper and Reuters say the companies have little choice than to try, because cellphone carriers are chewing into the Bells' traditional landline business. And cable companies - leaders in the high-speed internet access business - are fast entering the phone market with internet-based services. To compete with cable's offerings, the phone companies are pushing to sell an array of services - internet connections, wireless and television - in a bundle.

To entice cable and satellite customers, the Bells are turning to a technology known broadly as Internet Protocol Television, or IPTV, says the NYT and Reuters.

The report says that by transmitting TV programs this way, the phone companies will be able to offer customers the ability to watch more programming on demand, use a video recorder remotely over the internet and view e-mail on their televisions, among other services.

The NYT and Reuters report that by 2009, some 7 million subscribers in the US are expected to get television programming from a phone company, according to forecasts from PricewaterhouseCoopers. Over the same period, cable subscribers are expected to fall to 64 million, from 70 million, while satellite companies can expect 32 million subscribers, an increase from 23 million now.

Yahoo raises profile With Hollywood push

Five years ago, a handful of companies with names like Pop, Pseudo and Icebox promised a future when original shows produced for the internet would replace traditional TV viewing. The dot-com bust deflated those grand ambitions.

The vision of creating unique, interactive multimedia programming for a generation weaned on video games is very much alive at Yahoo, says The New York Times/Associated Press in a 3 April report, although the paper adds that the giant internet portal isn't talking about its plans for content.

However, says the AP and the NYT., analysts suggest a profound shift may be at work, with Yahoo using its enormous reach to force Hollywood studios, among other video creators, to produce programming with the internet in mind.

Yahoo can offer up a worldwide audience of more than 300 million -- a number that some analysts say could reach 1 billion by the end of the decade, the paper and AP say.

According to AP and the NYT.,Yahoo has already forged partnerships to webcast content from other media. It showed the entire debut episode of the Showtime series "Fat Actress," starring Kirstie Alley, at the same time the episode was broadcast on cable.

AP and the paper say America Online has similarly broadcast the first episode of the WB Television series "Jack & Bobby" and features exclusive musical performances in its "Sessions AOL" series.

Yahoo said recently that 75 percent of users access the portal using high-speed connections, making it possible to stream video of all sorts, including content by individual users, the AP/NYT report.
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The AP/NYT say that among other moves, Yahoo recently signed a deal to buy Canadian photo-sharing startup Flickr, which lets people upload digital photos, publish photos in their blogs and share digital photo albums. Another recently launched Yahoo site lets users search for writings, lyrics, photos and other content authored by people who want others to use their ideas as the basis for new creations -- the so-called "Creative Commons." Then there's the newly announced social networking service, Yahoo 360, AP and the paper report.

It all speaks to Yahoo executives' excitement about "micropublishing" -- letting the portal's users create content attractive to fellow users that will encourage people to hang around in Yahoo's virtual world, adds the NYT/AP.

AP and the paper say it's a vision shared by others who see a future where people aren't just passive viewers of content but participate in creating the "TV shows" of tomorrow.

An analyst at Merrill Lynch, says Yahoo is attractive to investors for its diversified revenue stream from paid search, advertising and social networking ventures.

Yahoo says it's in the earliest stages of developing its entertainment strategy and thus would not make an executive available to discuss it with The Associated Press.

Hacking Google for fun and profit

Insecure websites are not the only venues at risk from Google-hacking. Network hardware can be hacked, cached printing pages can be perused and security cameras snooped on thanks to evolutions in attack techniques that are dumbing down network attacks, says The Register in a 4 April report.

The Register saysd 'So-called Google hacking' - named after the search engine - relies on employing carefully crafted combination of search terms to unveil potentially confidential files. The technique isnot particularly recent, says The Register, but says it's evolving to become an even greater source of mischief.

Consultants at security firm, CSC, told delegates at the Black Hat conference in Amsterdam last that network defenders needed to stay on top of the latest Google-hacking techniques to keep ahead of the "bad guys", says The Register.

The conference was told that there are numerous ways to exploit vulnerabilities and mount attacks that allow access to the back end of ecommerce websites. "Google can do the same thing but puts it in hands of amateurs," said CSC. This dumbing down of cracking opens the way to numerous attacks. Hunting for credit card numbers on insecure servers or network passwords is bad enough but the problem doesn't stop there, says The Register.

The Register says that using screen grabs, a CSC consultant showed how routers with default passwords could be located and turned off. The same approach allows the cache of insecure printers to be browsed, enabling hackers to view or download potentially sensitive documents. Insecure UPS systems, time lapse security cameras and even PBX telephony systems can also be nobbled. Police reports from crimes at US universities can be searched for references to social security numbers. Nothing is sacred.

According to The Register, Google can be also used to conduct reconnaissance on vulnerable systems without sending packets to a target. Attackers can map domains or get a list of vulnerable servers using the search engine.

The online news service said that Google-hacking has been picked up as a technique by virus writers. Recent worms have taken advantage of Google to automate the search for vulnerable machines. In response, Google has started blocking "evil queries", a technique described as the "Google Dork Detection System".

World chip sales down in February

Global chip sales fell fractionally during February, the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) has said after revising January's total upward.

The Register reports (4 April) that some US$18.05bn worth of semiconductors were sold in February this year, down two per cent on the previous month's US$18.41bn, but up 15.8 per cent on February 2004's US$15.59bn sales.

The IT online news publication says that a month ago, the SIA said January's sales totalled US$18.27bn. The revised figure, puts the month's sales on a par with the total recorded for December 2004, but increases the decline experienced in February, a shorter month, of course.

The SIA described the figures from the first two months of the year as "encouraging" and "stronger than expected".

The Register says the SIA reported that "Relatively strong sales of PCs and cell phones have led to year-on-year sales growth for microprocessors up 11 per cent from February 2004, DRAMs up 36 per cent, and ASICs for wireless applications up 53 per cent."

According to The Register, the SIA added that those sales are increasingly coming from consumers. Over half of all semiconductors sold in 2004 ended up in consumer-oriented kit, the reporrt said.

The Register says the SIA forecast: "The overall health of the global semiconductor industry remains strong. If the current trends continue, our forecast for flat industry sales for 2005 could prove to have been overly cautious."

UK wi-fi network buys German WISP

UK Wi-Fi network The Cloud has become Germany's third-largest WISP by acquiring local player Airnyx, the company has just announced.

The Register reports (4 April) that the terms and conditions underpinning the acquisition were not made public. Both firms are privately held.

According to The Register, Airnyx was founded two years ago in March 2003, and has since built up a network of hotspots at Agip and BFT petrol stations, and other locations throughout Germany. Airnyx operates around 500 hotspots. 

The Register says The Cloud pledged the "rapid" expansion of its German network, though it declined to detail its plans and targets. All of them will become part of The Cloud's own network, which numbers more than 5000 hotspots in the UK, across a wide range of locations, including pubs, the British Library  and the Royal Festival Hall. It also operates over 50 sites in Sweden, the result of a deal struck last November with Jernhusen, the state-owned company which manages real estate associated with Sweden's rail infrastructure, including its stations.

Like the UK operation, The Cloud Germany will not only sell Wi-Fi access direct to customers but will open its network to third-party service providers. It already allows customers of T-Online, iPass, Boingo, GoRemote (aka Gric) and others to roam on its network. In the UK, The Cloud has similar arrangements with O2 and BT Openzone, reports The Register.

US blocks use of mapping system in China

The Australian mining company BHP Billiton said Friday that the United States Defense Department was blocking it from using an advanced mapping technology to search for mineral deposits in China.

The New York Times reports (3 April) that BHP Billiton has a license to use the so-called Falcon system, which was originally intended for use on United States nuclear submarines. BHP Billiton has been using the system around the world since 1999 to help find underground deposits of minerals from aluminum to zinc.

But in a meeting this week with analysts in Australia, the head of BHP Billiton's business in China, Clinton Dines, said plans to use Falcon technology in China had been rejected by the United States Navy, according to a report published in The Australian, which was confirmed Friday by BHP Billiton in Melbourne, says the NYT

The NYT reports that a Pentagon spokeswoman in Washington said Friday that the Falcon system was on a list of American munitions banned from export to China without a presidential waiver. The ban results from sanctions imposed after the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989.

Digeo chooses Samsung to make set-top boxes

Digeo, a company that designs software for set-top boxes used with cable television systems, it set to announce that it has selected Samsung, the Korean electronics giant, to make its next generation of boxes.

The New York Times and Reuters report (3 April) that the deal is an effort by the two companies to break into a market that has been tightly controlled by Scientific Atlanta and Motorola, which both make boxes and other equipment used in cable systems.

In fact, says the report, Motorola made the first box that ran the Digeo system, which is currently used in some cable systems owned by Adelphia Communications and Charter Communications. Charter, like Digeo, is controlled by Paul G. Allen, a co-founder of Microsoft.

The paper and Reuters say that the cable box market is expected to expand as more people move to digital cable service, which requires sophisticated boxes. So far, the market has proved difficult to crack, despite major efforts over the years by Sony, Panasonic and Pioneer to sell their devices to cable companies. Samsung, a leading maker of cable boxes in South Korea, has tried in recent years to sell its devices to cable systems in the United States, the report adds.

Samsung said the deal with Digeo lets the company get into the market sooner rather than later, the paper and Reuters report.

The NYT and Reuters say that a spokeswoman for Motorola declined to comment on Di-geo's deal with Samsung, but said that the Digeo boxes represented less than 2 percent of its shipments in the fourth quarter.

The report says that Digeo's software allows a box to record video on a hard drive, play DVD's and games, and organise music and video. It has technology that allows users to link its boxes with a simpler box in another room that could play programs recorded on the more sophisticated box's drive. This feature, according to analysts, could give cable companies a way to counter satellite services, which have offered inexpensive multiroom packages.

'Podcasts' catching on with iPod owners: survey

The home-brewed audio programs known as "Podcasts" are catching on with people who own iPods or other digital-music players, according to a survey just released.

The New York Times and Reuters report (3 April) that 29 percent of US adults who own MP3 players like Apple Computer's iPod say they have downloaded podcast programs from the internet, the Pew Internet and American Life Project found.

That means more than 6 million people are listening to a form of communication that emerged only last year, according to the nonprofit group, says the NYT and Reuters.

The paper and Reuters report that podcasters create radio-like programs of commentary, music or humor, which are saved in MP3 audio format and posted online. Listeners are automatically notified when a new podcast is available.

Podcasts have grown in prominence along with weblogs, the online diaries that serve as alternative news sources, say Reuiters and the NYT., adding that nearly half of digital-music player owners younger than 29 years old have tried out podcasts, the survey found, compared with 20 percent of those 29 or older.

The Pew Internet and American Life Project based its survey on telephone interviews with 208 digital-media player owners in the US.