---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: inttk2004 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: Jan 23, 2007 3:18 AM
_______________________________________________________ INTERNET THINK TANK FLASH NEWS January 23, 2007 _______________________________________________________ About Us Internet Think Tank is a portal software and development firm specializing in portal modules, portal development tools and customized portal programming/deployment. Through portal technology, Internet Think Tank envisions enormous opportunities to enhance how people and companies interface with the Internet. Visit our website at http://www.inttk.com _______________________________________________________ Business *Microsoft is 2006 Takeover Titan Microsoft racked up the largest number of global acquisitions in 2006 with 14 takeovers. Oracle and KPN were placed joint second, with 13 acquisitions apiece, and IBM came in fourth with 12 buyouts, according to consultant Icon Corporate Finance. Among Microsoft's acquisitions were Canadian asset-tracking company AssetMetrix and a reported $75m deal for remote-access and firewall company Whale Communications. The largest global technology deal in 2006 was Alcatel's acquisition of Lucent at $11.5bn. Other large transactions in 2006 include Cisco splashing out $5.3bn for Scientific Atlanta, HP buying Mercury Interactive for $4.5bn and Big Blue acquiring Filenet and ISS for a total of $2.9bn. Despite the frenzy surrounding Google's $1.65bn splurge for YouTube, the search engine came in joint tenth position with Cisco and VeriSign - all three companies notched up seven acquisitions each. (Source: http://management.silicon.com ) *Apple Shines as Intel Stumbles Apple gave investors reeling from Intel's earnings report reason for hope late Wednesday. Apple's quarterly earnings of $1.14 a share were well above 78-cent estimates, and 24% sales growth to $7.1 billion beat $6.42 billion forecasts. iPod sales of 21 million also blew past analysts' estimates, but Mac sales of 1.6 million were a little light. The company's March quarter guidance left a little to be desired, however. Earnings of 54-56 cents and sales of $4.8-4.9 billion would come in below 60-cent and $5.22 billion Thomson Financial forecasts. Intel shares lost 5.7% during Wednesday's trading session after weaker than expected gross margins raised fears of a prolonged price war with rival AMD. (Source: http://www.internetnews.com ) *AOL Agrees to Buy Online Ad Broker for $900 Million AOL said Monday that it had agreed to buy TradeDoubler, a Swedish company that matches Internet advertisers with online media owners and e-commerce sites, as AOL tries to grab a bigger share of the booming global market in Internet advertising. The deal, at 6.3 billion Swedish kronor, or $900 million, would be AOL's first major acquisition since Randy Falco was named chief executive in November, after the company's shift to a free, advertiser-supported portal from a subscriber-based service. "If you want to get a good hold on the European Internet advertising market, TradeDoubler is the best bet," said Mats Bergstroem of Nordea Securities in Stockholm. Internet advertising is growing more than 25 percent a year, according to media buying agencies. (Source: http://www.nytimes.com ) *Net Video Firm Brightcove Reels in $59 Million Internet video company Brightcove has received $59.5 million in funding from The New York Times and other investors. Brightcove helps media companies make the jump to broadband. The company is trying to take on YouTube in the crowded video-sharing segment. The new cash will help Brightcove, founded and led by CEO Jeremy Allaire, expand into international markets, the company said in a statement Wednesday. More financial support could also help it weather a looming shakeout in the Internet video sector. Only a year since online video became a public sensation, the industry has been defined by one segment and one company: YouTube. Nearly half of the people who watch online video go to Web sites that host clips posted by members of the public, according to a recent survey. Nearly half of that audience goes to YouTube. (Source: http://www.nytimes.com ) _______________________________________________________ Portals *Startup Hopes 'Tubes' Metaphor Has Legs A powerful U.S. senator endured ridicule last year for his assertion that the Internet is "a series of tubes." But one Web startup hopes to bring that metaphor to life with a new service that makes it easy for people to share videos, songs, pictures and other big files. After downloading the Tubes application from Adesso Systems Inc., Windows computer users can create dozens of such tubes and fill each one with up to 2 gigabytes of content _ room for about a few hundred songs, for example. Tube creators then invite others to join a Tube (the recipients must also download Adesso's application to their PCs) and can grant those partners varying privilege levels. Those include locking them into a read-only mode or letting them add or remove files of their own. An e-mail, a Web link, a presentation, a video or any other file can be put into a Tube simply by dragging it from the desktop and dropping it into the Tubes application on the side of the screen. Once in a Tube, files automatically get placed on recipients' PC hard drives. (Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com ) Tubes http://www.tubesnow.com *Video Game Search Engine Eyes U.S. Launch In a new round of capital funding, Wazap has received an additional $7.9 million as part of its effort to expand its presence into the United States. Currently, the gaming search engine is only available in the Chinese, Japanese, and German languages, respectively. Wazap is scheduled to launch in the United States in February. Partech International heads up the second round of funding, with additional support from Wellington Partners. Wellington contributed $4 million in capital to Wazap in the company's initial monetary campaign. Vertical and niche searches are becoming all the rage, and with the video game industry ripe for takeoff in 2007, the timing for a U.S. launch of the gaming search engine couldn't be better. Wazap's success in the U.S. will probably come as more of a challenge, given the established presence of widely popular online gaming portals such as IGN, as well as others. (Source: http://www.webpronews.com ) Wazap http://wazap.com/ *Weebly Offers Free, Easy Web Site Creation Weebly, a start-up that lets you easily create Web sites with the latest Web 2.0 tools, has raised seed cash from YCombinator, and moved to San Francisco. Providing similar Web-based tools to create Web sites are four-year-old Santa Clara, Calif.'s Sitekreator and South Africa's Synthasite - and the biggest of them, Google Page Creator. Of all of them, Weebly is most oriented around easy AJAX-based dragging and dropping of elements on a page. For example, if you want a Google Map, you drag the Map icon onto the page where you want it, select the map coordinates you want shown, and that's it. Weebly supports any Javascript-based elements. Even Google Page Creator doesn't let you drag maps to your page. Google requires you to get the HTML code from Google Maps, and paste it in. Weebly has also just opened its software interface (open APIs), so developers of widgets can allow users to add them directly on to Weebly. (Source: http://venturebeat.com ) Weebly http://www.weebly.com/ _______________________________________________________ Internet *UN Will Not Control The Internet The new head of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), Hamadoun Toure has no new plans to change the oversight of the Internet. He currently supports the two major agencies ICANN and the ITU that govern the Internet. He says his focus will be on cyber security and closing the "digital divide" between rich and poor countries. "We all must work together, each agency has its role to play. We must come to a better cooperation... and avoid setting up a superstructure which would be very controversial and very difficult to put into effect," Toure said at a news conference on Friday. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) manages the Internet's domain name addressing system. They report to the US Commerce Department who said last September they would continue their role for three more years. (Source: http://www.webpronews.com ) *SMBs Fail to Take Advantage of E-Commerce E-commerce is more profitable and affordable than ever before--though few small and midsize businesses (SMBs) are taking advantage of it, according to new research. Last year, 90 percent of companies with e-commerce operations in the United Kingdom said their site was profitable--up from 70 percent in 2005--an all-time high. In addition, the cost of setting up an e-commerce service was around 40 percent lower than expected, according to the survey commissioned by software company Actinic. Set-up costs for an e-commerce service were £1,585 (US$3109.77) on average, compared to the £2,416 (US$4740.19) predicted. But although the proportion of businesses using e-commerce rose to 11 percent in 2006 (from 8 percent in 2005), the majority of SMBs surveyed have yet to embrace online selling. Actinic CEO Chris Barling said considering how easy it is to set up a Web store, "there is no reason not to take the plunge". (Source: http://zdnetasia.com ) *User-Generated Web Sites in Clicks-to-Cash Dilemma User-generated video Web sites, dominated by heavyweights such as YouTube and MySpace, may be awash with millions of clips, but face big challenges turning traffic to cash, a London-based research firm said Monday. Market research analyst Screen Digest predicts that although 44 billion video streams--55 percent of all video content consumed in the U.S.--will be created by 2010, the market will account for only 15 percent of total revenues. User-generated video made up 47 percent of the total online video market in the U.S. last year, said Screen Digest. Compounding the problem of making money from video streams is that many such sites do well in content that can be violent, rude and boring, not something big advertisers are drawn to. "It is the nature of content itself. How do you monetize free content? That is the core debate," said Arash Amel, a Screen Digest analyst who wrote the report. "No one has found a way to make real money from the huge audiences who participate on these sites." (Source: http://news.com.com ) *Poker, IM Most Addictive Web Apps Online poker is the most addictive application on the internet among UK users, according to new research. Users of the most popular online app, Pacific Poker, spend an average of 10 hours and 17 minutes gaming per month. Microsoft's MSN Messenger came fifth on the list of apps, with monthly use totalling three hours on average. In terms of audience, MSN Messenger came top with more than 14.7 million users (48 per cent of the UK internet population) during November 2006. It was closely followed by Windows Media Player, with just under 14 million users. Fifth on the list is Apple's iTunes media player, with 5.6 million users - 18 per cent of the total UK net audience. Online poker has most effectively harnessed the 'always-on' nature of broadband, according to Alex Burmaster, European internet analyst at Nielsen/NetRatings, which carried out the research. The 'stickiest' app - or the one used most frequently - is Yahoo! Widgets, with users on average accessing the app 37 times per month. (Source: http://software.silicon.com ) _______________________________________________________ Weekly Quote "It should be a great place for everybody, with high-speed Internet access, no copyright laws and VIP accounts to The Pirate Bay," --Pirate Bay's Buy Sealand Web Site. How do you circumvent the copyright laws of the United States? Apparently you buy your own country. Swedish site Piratebay.net, which is well known as a host tracker for countless pirated items of content, has launched a bid to buy its own country called Sealand. Just off the coast of the United Kingdom, Sealand is actually a former British defense sea platform. Its current rulers have claimed it to be an independent micro nation and it has its own currency, flag, anthem and laws. It is also for sale. (Source: http://www.internetnews.com ) ________________________________________________________ Wireless *Mobile Broadband: Too Energy Inefficient? In a piece of research that could have implications for the future of mobile broadband, a US analyst house has claimed new mobile applications will make pure cellular technology too energy-inefficient to be practical in the future. Instead, suggests the report by ABI Research - which is entitled Energy Efficiency Analysis for Mobile Broadband Solutions - operators may be forced to integrate WiMax and citywide (or metro) wi-fi into their networks. Noting that energy costs represent the third most expensive operating expense (Opex) for carriers today - and that energy costs continue to fluctuate and could rise - the authors claim that the increase in data traffic resulting from the rise of mobile broadband "will push per-subscriber energy Opex for cellular solutions past acceptable barriers". Stuart Carlaw, ABI's director of wireless research, said: "From a pure coverage perspective WiMax is twice as energy-cost-effective and metro wi-fi is 50 times more energy-cost-effective than WCDMA [a 3G network protocol]. (Source: http://networks.silicon.com ) *At Some Airports, Cellphones Can Check In Passengers Cellphone users anticipating the arrival of in-flight chatting and text messaging can also use their phones to expedite check-in at some airports in Japan and Europe. A few airlines are experimenting with systems that let passengers check in at the departure gate by identifying themselves with a cellphone. Two Japanese carriers - Japan Airlines and All Nippon Airways - are using the method for skipping the traditional check-in, as is DBA, a unit of Germany's Air Berlin. But while the new systems might save paper and time, they do nothing to lessen the time spent in security lines. And, in most cases, passengers checking bags are still required to stand in line to check in. JAL introduced a check-in system called "Touch and Go" at four airports in Japan in 2005. The service, now expanded to 44 airports throughout Japan, is available only on domestic flights, where passengers are not required to provide identification. In September, ANA outfitted 24 airports in Japan with machines for the quick check-in system and plans to have all the airports it serves in the country set up by the end of the year. (Source: http://www.nytimes.com ) *Skype to Launch Domestic Calling Plans The Internet phone service Skype is introducing new domestic calling plans for 24 countries, plus Hong Kong, where users will pay a monthly subscription and a connection fee but no per-minute charges. The monthly fees for the new Skype Pro plans have not yet been finalized, but they were expected to be set at less than 5 euros, or about $6.50, an executive told The Associated Press on Wednesday. The per-call connection fee for Skype Pro calls within a given country to a regular phone or mobile device within that same country will be 3.9 euro cents, or roughly 5 U.S. cents, said Stefan Oberg, general manager for Skype Telecoms. Skype calls are dialed over a high-speed Internet connection using either a personal computer, a cordless handset configured to communicate directly over a broadband modem, or certain cellphones with Wi-Fi capability. Each user can call other Skype users for free. (Source: http://www.usatoday.com ) ________________________________________________________ Technology *HP Claims Chip Advance HP announced an R&D breakthrough today in chip development that could lead to the creation of field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) up to eight times denser than those currently being produced. The increased density would greatly reduce the amount of energy needed to power the chips. The company said the new chips could be built using the same sized transistors used in current FPGA design, so they could be built in current fabrication plants with minor modification. "As conventional chip electronics continue to shrink, Moore's Law is on a collision course with the laws of physics," said Stan Williams, an HP senior fellow and director of Quantum Science Research at HP Labs. "Excessive heating and defective device operation arise at the nanoscale. "What we've been able to do is combine conventional CMOS technology with nanoscale switching devices in a hybrid circuit to increase effective transistor density, reduce power dissipation, and dramatically improve tolerance to defective devices." (Source: http://www.internetnews.com ) *MySpace Developing Parental-Notification Software Under fire from both the U.S. government and parental organizations, MySpace.com has announced that it is creating software to give parents a window into what their children are putting on their online profiles. Once the monitoring software is finished and distributed, parents can install it on a home computer to see what any MySpace user who logs on from that computer lists as his or her profile name, age and location. It will also track updates made to those profiles. The software doesn't give parents access to the content of the MySpace profiles in question, and the members whose profiles are being monitored will be notified that the software is keeping tabs on them. The development of the software, which is code-named "Zephyr." (Source: http://news.com.com ) *Microsoft to Make Vista Available Online Microsoft will make its new Windows Vista operating system available for sale and download online, marking a new step for the software company, which has previously sold Windows only on packaged discs or pre-loaded on computers. A relatively low number of computer users are likely to get Vista by downloading it from the Internet. But the mere availability indicates that Microsoft is fiddling with distribution methods for the extremely profitable franchise at the core of its business. The download program, being announced late Wednesday by the Redmond, Wash.-based software maker, will also include the Office 2007 line of software when both are released for consumers Jan. 30. At least initially, the huge downloads will be available in North America only. (Source: http://www.usatoday.com ) ________________________________________________________ You Tube *Outrage in India Over Offensive Gandhi Video The Indian government has been angered by an offensive video clip on Mahatma Gandhi posted on the video-sharing Internet site Youtube.com and was contemplating action against the Web site, news reports said Saturday. The controversial video which shows a man dressed as Gandhi -- apostle of nonviolence and leader of India's freedom movement -- resorting to violence, carrying an automatic rifle, gyrating to music and doing a pole dance. India's Information and Broadcasting Ministry was consulting the country's Information Technology Ministry on taking "action" against Youtube, the Times of India daily reported. The paper quoted official sources saying that the government would either block Youtube or the Web site would be asked to take off the offending video. Meanwhile, Google Inc., the company that recently bought over Youtube, said it took the matter seriously and was reviewing the clip to determine "the best course of action." (Source: http://www.chinapost.com ) ________________________________________________________ Security *Hackers Nab 800,000 in Online Banking Attack Russian hackers have stolen 800,000 from Sweden's largest bank Nordea after a sophisticated phishing attack tricked some of its internet customers into downloading a Trojan horse that recorded their account login details. The first attack took place in August 2006 and was detected a month later. Around 250 of Nordea's customers have been hit by the attack to date. Hackers targeted the bank's customers with emails purporting to be from Nordea that told them to download an anti-spam tool. But those who downloaded the attachment were infected by the Trojan ' haxdoor.ki'. The malicious software activates itself when the customer tries to log on to Nordea's internet banking service and displays an error message asking the customer to re-enter their login information, which is then recorded and sent to servers belonging to the hackers. Swedish police have traced the attacks to Russia, via servers in the US, and have arrested more than 100 middlemen in Sweden already, the bank said. (Source: http://software.silicon.com ) *Report: Keylogging, Phishing Rise Sharply Identity theft continues to plague businesses and individuals globally, according to a new white paper released by security vendor McAfee. Keylogging code or software that records key strokes for the purpose of stealing confidential information such as passwords, has increased 250 percent between January 2004 and May 2006, McAfee said in a media statement Tuesday. The security vendor noted that phishing activities also rose over the same period, where alerts tracked by the Anti-Phishing Working Group multiplied a hundred-fold. Citing various sources, McAfee reported that data theft annually costs consumers and businesses some US$50 million in the United States and about US$3.3 billion in the United Kingdom. (Source: http://zdnetasia.com ) ________________________________________________________ Legal *President Signs Pretexting Bill into Law It's official: "Pretexting" to buy, sell or obtain personal phone records--except when conducted by law enforcement or intelligence agencies--is now a federal crime that could yield prison time. President Bush on Friday affixed his signature to the Telephone Records and Privacy Protection Act of 2006. The measure threatens up to 10 years behind bars to anyone who pretends to be someone else, or otherwise employs fraudulent tactics, to persuade phone companies to hand over what is supposed to be confidential data about customers' calling habits. Even before Bush's move, federal law banned pretexting to obtain someone's financial records. Some states such as California have already outlawed telephone pretexting. But many politicians and consumer advocacy groups urged passage of a federal law to clarify that the practice is illegal. "Sales of fraudulently obtained phone records flourished because the possibility of criminal prosecution was remote," Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), the bill's original sponsor, said in a statement after it cleared the Senate last month. (Source: http://www.nytimes.com ) *MySpace Hit With Online Predator Suits Four families have sued News Corp. and its MySpace social-networking site after their underage daughters were sexually abused by adults they met on the site, lawyers for the families said Thursday. The law firms, Barry & Loewy LLP of Austin, Texas, and Arnold & Itkin LLP of Houston, said families from New York, Texas, Pennsylvania and South Carolina filed separate suits Wednesday in Los Angeles Superior Court, alleging negligence, recklessness, fraud and negligent misrepresentation by the companies. "In our view, MySpace waited entirely too long to attempt to institute meaningful security measures that effectively increase the safety of their underage users," said Jason A. Itkin, an Arnold & Itkin lawyer. The families are seeking monetary damages "in the millions of dollars," Itkin said. "Hopefully these lawsuits can spur MySpace into action and prevent this from happening to another child somewhere," he said. (Source: http://www.wired.com ) *Sundance Film Festival May Halt eBay Ticket Reselling Desperate for tickets to see your favorite stars at their Sundance Film Festival premiere? EBay may be the answer - or not. Sundance officials say they are scanning the San Jose, Calif.-based online auction site and cracking down on ticket sales. Reselling tickets online is prohibited. The festival gives locals a shot at purchasing tickets before they go on sale nationally. More than 2,460 Utah residents were selected at random for a chance to buy up to 20 tickets each at the locals-only sale last weekend. Two tickets to the first screening of Waitress, staring Keri Russell, sold for $385 on Saturday afternoon. About half an hour later, a second pair of Waitress tickets went for $255. Sundance officials warn that tickets resold online can be remotely deactivated before the film's showing. "We've contacted those sellers and informed them of our policy and what actions we are taking," said Patrick Hubley, festival spokesman. "I wouldn't advise people to buy tickets off of eBay or any other site," except for the official Sundance site, he said. (Source: http://www.usatoday.com ) *AOL Phisher Faces Up to 101 Years in Prison A California man faces up to 101 years in federal prison after a jury found him guilty of sending out e-mail scams as well as related crimes. Jeffrey Brett Goodin, 45, of Azusa, was convicted Friday on multiple counts by a jury in the U.S. District Court for Central District of California in Los Angeles, the U.S. Attorney's Office said in a statement. Goodin, who was arrested last year, was found guilty of operating a sophisticated phishing scheme, the prosecutors said in the statement. As part of the scam, he sent e-mails posing as AOL's billing department to trick people into giving up their credit card information, according to the statement. He then used the credit card data to make purchases, prosecutors said Tuesday. To run the scam, Goodin used several hacked EarthLink accounts to send e-mails to AOL customers, prosecutors said. The messages urged recipients to update their AOL billing information or lose service and referred them to fraudulent Web pages created to collect credit card information, the U.S. Attorney's Office said. (Source: http://news.com.com ) ________________________________________________________ Gadget of the Week *A Personal Computer To Carry In a Pocket Another entry is the Oqo Model 2, a hand-held computer being spotlighted this week at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, including a mention in a keynote address by Bill Gates, the Microsoft chairman. Developed in a San Francisco warehouse office by a small team of portable-computer designers who have previously worked for Apple and I.B.M., the device is a complete Windows Vista computer that fits comfortably in the palm of a hand. With a slide-out keyboard as well as the ability to connect to both Wi-Fi networks and high-speed cellular service, its selling price will start at $1,499. Those who wish to use it as a phone can add a Bluetooth headset and use an Internet phone service like Skype. "Our main goal is to reinvent the PC in a pocketable form," said Jory Bell, a computer designer who is one of the Oqo's founders. (Source:http://www.nytimes.com ) USA Today Review: It's small, but benefits are big http://www.usatoday.com/tech/columnist/edwardbaig/2007-01-17-oqo_x.htm _______________________________________________________ Tech Terms flog A blog that appears to be written by an individual, but is actually maintained by a corporate marketing department or a public relations firm. (Blend of fake and blog) _________________________________________________________ On the Web A former insider, David Sobotta, experienced the brilliant, difficult and theatrical Apple boss Steve Jobs. "iPod, iTunes, iPhone I'm apples" http://www.smh.com.au/news/biztech/ipod-itunes-iphone-133-im-apples/2007/01/12/1168709607939.html Selling ads against search -- it seemed like such a simple thing. But while CEO Terry Semel fumbled and bumbled, Google pulled ahead. "How Yahoo Blew It" http://www.wired.com/news/wiredmag/0,72497-0.html?tw=wn_index_1 After a radical redesign, Microsoft's Word, Excel and PowerPoint applications are almost totally new programs. "Purging Bloat to Fashion Sleek Software" http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/18/technology/18pogue.html?ref=technology _________________________________________________________ Wired Index January 22, 2007 18.16 Last Week +0.04 Year to Date +1.00% Guinness Atkinson Global Innovators Fund (IWIRX) tracks the share prices of 40 public companies, selected by the editors of Wired magazine to represent the forces driving the new economy. For more information about the fund including past performance, see the link below: http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=iwirx ___________________________________________________________ Internet Think Tank Internet Think Tank's mission is to enhance the Internet user interface, making the Internet an effective platform for all computing and information needs. To learn more about Internet Think Tank's products and services and the growing portal market, visit our website at http://www.inttk.com ____________________________________________________________ -- Mircea Balaceanu [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ***Apeluri umanitare George Cuzuc: website http://www.cuzuc.netfirms.com/index.htm Emilia Baba-Paun: website http://www.help-ema.puls-il.ro ------------------------------------------------------------------ **[RomaniaUSA] "Romani. Pur si Simplu" ------------------------------------------------------------------ http://egroups.yahoo.com/group/romaniausa Yahoo! 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