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_______________________________________________________ INTERNET THINK TANK FLASH NEWS July 12, 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 *Larry Ellison's NetSuite Files for $75 Million IPO Billionaire Larry Ellison's NetSuite software company, which sells computer programs accessed over the web, filed on Monday to raise up to $75 million in an initial public offering. Ellison, the founder and chief executive of Oracle controls 74% of NetSuite common stock, according to the company's S-1 filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The company posted $67 million in revenue last year and is among the oldest players in the rapidly growing market for "on demand" software, but NetSuite has yet to turn a profit. On demand software has become an attractive target for investors, largely due to the success of Salesforce.com <http://salesforce.com/>, whose shares have quadrupled since its IPO three years ago to a total market capitalization of almost $5 billion. Salesforce was founded in 1999 by Marc Benioff, a former Oracle executive and protegee of Ellison. In its most recent fiscal year it pulled in almost $500 million in revenue and reported net income of $2.7 million. (Source: http://www.usatoday.com ) *Apple Creaming Profits on iPhone Apple's iPhone could deliver a profit margin of more than 55 per cent after hardware and manufacturing costs, research firm iSuppli said on Tuesday, sending shares in the company up nearly 5 per cent. The iSuppli report provided a glimpse into the financial model of the iPhone, which hit U.S. stores on Friday, and gave a new boost to Apple. Some analysts had predicted the company's shares would grind to a halt or even drop after gaining more than 30 per cent in the run-up to the iPhone launch. Based on an examination of the iPhone's components, iSuppli estimated that its hardware and manufacturing cost was $US265.83 ($NZ330), or almost 45 per cent of a $US600 retail price for its more expensive model with eight gigabytes of storage. That leaves a profit margin of more than 55 per cent, but does not include costs such as royalties or logistics. (Source: http://www.stuff.co.nz ) *Dell Expands Retail Plans Overseas Dell is continuing its expansion into the retail world, something analysts have said is long overdue. Today Dell announced plans to soon sell desktop and laptop computers in certain retail outlets in the Far East. Just which stores in which Asia-Pacific nations were not disclosed. Paul-Henri Ferrand, the head of Dell's operations in the Asia-Pacific region, excluding Japan, China and South Korea, made the announcement at Dell's Asia headquarters in Singapore. Ferrand said Dell is seeking different partners and chains to sell a range of computers, from low-end to high-end, and it needs partners in each country. As a result, there are no details on availability for now. "We are working with partners to come up with the best way to connect with our customers," Dell spokesperson Bob Kaufman told internetnews.com. "This is part of our evolving global strategy to find opportunities not only in the U.S. but outside the U.S., to connect with customers we haven't necessarily connected with in the past." (Source: http://www.internetnews.com ) _______________________________________________________ Portals *Social Sites Reveal Class Divide Fans of MySpace and Facebook are divided by much more than which music they like, suggests a study. A long-term research project has revealed a sharp division along class lines among the American teenagers flocking to the social network sites. The research suggests those using Facebook come from wealthier homes and are more likely to attend college. By contrast, MySpace users tend to get a job after finishing high school rather than continue their education. The conclusions are based on interviews with many teenage users of the social networking sites by PhD student Danah Boyd from the School of Information Sciences at UC Berkeley. In a preliminary draft of the research, Ms Boyd said defining "class" in the US was difficult because, unlike many other nations, it did not map directly to income. Instead, she said, class in the US was more about social life and networks - how people define themselves and who they define themselves with. (Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk ) *EBay Brings Kijiji Stateside Ebay's Craigslist clone is open for business in the United States. The site was launched in 220 cities and 50 states on June 29th. Named Kijiji.com <http://kijiji.com/> after the Swahili word for "village," the free, local, community-based classifieds site has operated since its 2005 founding in Canada, France, Germany, Italy, China, Japan, Taiwan, Austria, Switzerland, and India. Call the time overseas Kijiji's study abroad experience, eBay spokesperson Hani Durzy told internetnews.com. "We learned a lot abroad and we're ready to apply these learnings to the U.S. market," Durzy added. He said the classifieds site has done particularly well over the past two years in Canada, Germany, France and Taiwan. For example, it's the most popular site of its kind in Paris, Durzy noted. (Source: http://www.internetnews.com ) Kijiji http://www.kijiji.com/ *Wikipedia Remains Go-To Site for Online News Online encyclopedia Wikipedia has added about 20 million unique monthly visitors in the past year, making it the top online news and information destination, according to Nielsen/NetRatings. In May, Wikipedia had 46.8 million unique visitors, up 72 percent from June 2006, NetRatings said. Wikipedia also has finished on top of the news and information category every month this year--ranking ahead of Landmark Communications' Weather Channel site by an increasing margin--topping out with a disparity of about 10 million visitors in May. The site, operated by the nonprofit group Wikimedia Foundation, is user-run with thousands of editors and administrators constantly making edits, starting new pages and correcting mistakes. Although this open-access format often is mentioned as a negative because pages are subject to misinformation and online vandalism, it also is its greatest strength, especially when a major news story breaks and the pages can be updated almost in real time. (Source: http://news.com.com ) _______________________________________________________ Internet *China Set To Be Broadband King China is on pace to pass the U.S. to become the largest broadband market later this year as video, e-commerce and online gaming fuel demand. And the country has just scratched the surface. China added 4.5 million high-speed connections in the first three months of 2007 to 56.3 million, says research firm point 15pic. The U.S. ended the first quarter with 60.4 million. China still lags the U.S. and many other countries in broadband "penetration." Just 4.3% of its 1.3 billion people and 14.3% of households have speedy Internet connections, says point 15pic. In America, 52.7% of households have broadband, less than most other rich nations and well below South Korea's 90% penetration. (Source: http://news.yahoo.com ) *Microsoft Offers Web Storage Microsoft is giving computer users up to 500 megabytes of online storage for their documents, music, photos and video. Microsoft made an early, "beta" version of the web-based file storage system available to 5,000 people on Tuesday night in its latest effort to bulk up its online offerings and fend off challenges from Google. The beta will be widely available later this summer. The service gives users who email documents between home and work computers an alternative way to access their files on the go. Users can keep files private or share them with people they know or with anyone on the web. Rumors and leaked details have circulated for more than a year that "Live Drive" was in the works. Microsoft, however, is calling its new service "Windows Live Folders" - and it'll get another name change when the final version launches. Time Warner's AOL already offers 5 gigabytes of free online storage - 10 times more than Microsoft's offering - through its Xdrive unit. (Source: http://www.smh.com.au ) *One-Third of Teens Claim to Experience "Cyberbullying" Roughly a third of all teenagers who use the Internet have been subject to some form of cyberbullying, according to a new report by Pew Internet. The telephone survey was conducted on a representative sample of 935 teens in the US between the ages of 12 and 17 and revealed a number of observations about manipulative and bullying activity online. However, despite the fact that so many teens had experienced some level of cyberbullying, two-thirds of the group said that they believed more bullying occurred offline than on. The level to which teens have been bullied online varies from "slightly annoying" to death threats. One in six (about 15 percent) told Pew that private communications-IM logs, e-mails, or text messages-had been posted publicly by someone else or forwarded around. (Source: http://arstechnica.com ) ________________________________________________________ Weekly Quote "This report recommends that policy makers proceed with caution in the evolving, dynamic industry of broadband Internet access, which generally is moving toward more - not less - competition. In the absence of significant market failure or demonstrated consumer harm, policy makers should be particularly hesitant to enact new regulation in this area." --Chairman Deborah Platt Majoras. The report, entitled "Broadband Connectivity Competition Policy," was drafted in response to growing concerns about broadband competitiveness and network neutrality. The FTC intends the report to be consulted as a guideline by policy makers and legislators, but it has no binding force. Nevertheless, the report's findings are yet another sign that US government agencies are not particularly interested in the network neutrality problem right now. In fact, the FTC is essentially saying that they can find no evidence of a problem to begin with. (Source: http://arstechnica.com ) ________________________________________________________ Wireless *Chinese Regulators Find Mobile Phone Batteries That Can Explode After concerns over pet food, toothpaste, seafood and defective tires, China may now have to cope with another consumer product disaster: exploding mobile phone batteries. Chinese regulators in southern Guangdong Province, one of the world's biggest electronics manufacturing centers, said this week that they had found Motorola and Nokia mobile phone batteries that failed safety tests and were prone to explode under certain conditions. The batteries were said to be manufactured by Motorola and the Sanyo of Japan's Beijing operation, and were being distributed by companies based in Guangdong Province, which is near Hong Kong and is one of China's biggest export centers. It is unclear whether any of the substandard and hazardous batteries entered the export market. The announcement came just a day after China's state-controlled news media reported that in June a 22-year-old man in western China was killed after his Motorola cell phone exploded in his shirt pocket. (Source: http://www.nytimes.com ) *Users Report Faster EDGE Speeds Ahead of iPhone Launch Users experienced substantial speed increases in AT&T's data network Thursday night and Friday, fueling speculation that long-rumored infrastructure upgrades paid off just before the iPhone went on sale. On Thursday night, AT&T wireless customers using non-Apple cell phones began citing a bump in throughput on the EDGE-based data network, posting test results online at places such as Howard Forums. Most reported speeds of 200 kilobits per second, more than double the speeds that EDGE (Enhanced Data Rates for GSM Evolution) had been delivering earlier. EDGE advertises in-the-field download speeds of between 70 kbps and 135 kbps, though its technical ceiling is 384 kbps. Many users who noted the impressive increases said that their maximum transfer rate on AT&T before Thursday night was 70 kbps. Even the 200-kbps download speeds being reported, however, are a far cry from the numbers achieved by much faster 3G data networks operated by the likes of Verizon. (Source: http://www.pcworld.com ) *Sprint Breaks Up with High-Maintenance Customers The squeaky wheel doesn't always get the grease. At least not if the squeaky wheel is a Sprint Nextel customer. On June 29, 2007, Sprint sent letters notifying some customers that their service would be canceled by the end of July due to excessive calls to customer service. "Our records indicate that over the past year, we have received frequent calls from you regarding your billing or other general account information," the letter reads. "While we have worked to resolve your issues and questions to the best of our ability, the number of inquiries you have made to us during this time has led us to determine that we are unable to meet your current wireless needs." "Therefore after careful consideration, the decision has been made to terminate your wireless service agreement effective July 30, 2007." Subscribers who have gotten letters from Sprint terminating their service won't have to pay the early termination fee. Their account balances will also be set to zero. But subscribers will have to sign up with a new wireless provider by July 30 if they want to keep their phone numbers. Otherwise, the numbers won't be available after the Sprint service ends, the letter states. (Source: http://news.com.com ) ________________________________________________________ Technology *Sun Micro to Revamp Solaris with Linux Features Sun Microsystems Inc. is revamping its Solaris operating system, incorporating key pieces of rival Linux software in a move that could gain better support from developers who have massed behind Linux. Solaris is one of the main varieties of the Unix family of operating systems, known for their ability to safely and securely handle major computing tasks rather than for ease of use. Sun itself is known for its business computers that can handle major corporate loads and it long has courted programmers who cooperatively develop Linux and other so-called open-source software, with mixed success. The revamped Solaris system will have features borrowed from Linux that could make it easier to use, correspondence on Sun's Web site shows. "This is a big deal to the extent that it lowers the barrier for adoption of Solaris," said IDC software analyst Al Gillen. (Source: http://news.yahoo.com ) *Over 5,500 Projects Slated to Adopt GPL 3 The official final release of the GPL is still a day away, but it's possible that over 5,500 projects could be migrating to it in very quickly. Software vendor Palamida, which develops an application that is used to identify licenses and potential licensing issues, estimates that at least 5,509 projects have indicated an intention to move to GPL version 3. The GPLv3 figures are part of a new public online effort at Gpl3.palamida.com from Palamida to track adoption of the new license. "FSF (Free Software Foundation) will always be the site for information about GPLv3," Palamida CEO Mark Tolliver told internetnews.com. "But as we looked at it [GPLv3] we thought there would be a lot of interest in which projects have or have not decided to use GPLv3 and since it's our business to understand that we said this is an opportunity for us to give back." (Source: http://www.internetnews.com ) *Google, Yahoo Creating New Social Networks Bloggers are reporting that Google and Yahoo are working on new social networks now that their existing services (Orkut and 360, respectively) have failed to gain traction, except in Brazil in Orkut's case. Google sponsored a project last year at Carnegie Mellon University's Human-Computer Interaction Institute that was designed to "rethink and reinvent online social networking," the Google Operating System blog reported. The site also has screenshots. Dubbed "Socialstream," the service would be more like a unified social network that would allow someone to have accounts on multiple services but centralized contacts in one location. Meanwhile, at Yahoo there is a project called "Mosh," according to TechCrunch. The posting was updated with a job description for a summer intern spot at Yahoo on a "cool new social network product." According to the post, Yahoo's looking for someone with lots of friends on MySpace and Facebook and who is "damn funny." (Source: http://news.com.com ) ________________________________________________________ You Tube *MySpace, Chasing YouTube, Upgrades Its Offerings Two years ago, millions of MySpace users began adding video clips to their profile pages, helping to give rise to YouTube, which Google bought last October for $1.65 billion. This week, MySpace, a division of the News Corporation, will show that it is serious about challenging YouTube in the booming world of online video. On Thursday, MySpace plans to rename and refurbish the video-sharing service on its popular social network. The new service, called MySpace TV, will be set up as an independent Web sit (www.myspacetv.com) that people can visit to share and watch video, even if they have not signed up for MySpace. The site will also offer some new ways for members of MySpace, which attracts 110 million users a month, to more easily integrate the videos they create and watch into their personal profiles. The company's plan underscores its particular emphasis on professional video, as opposed to the homemade depictions of wrestling dogs and cats - the genre known as user-generated content - that are more prominent on most video sites. (Source: http://www.nytimes.com ) *Adap.tv <http://adap.tv/> Raises $10 Million for Online Video Ads Adap.tv <http://adap.tv/>, a San Mateo, Calif. company that provides ads for online videos, has raised $10 million as a slew of competitors, including Google, try to do the same. The company's technology provides contextually relevant advertising that runs at the bottom of a video as it plays. This is sometimes called in-line ads, which are distinct from many other video-ad providers that include ads that take over the video player before, during or after the video has finished playing. Adap.tv <http://adap.tv/> is going head-to-head with a number of other video-ad providers including Scanscout, which raised $7 million in May, and EveryZing, a video-search company also working on similar technology, that raised $10 million in June. (Source: http://venturebeat.com ) ________________________________________________________ Security *US Government Prepares for Cyber War Games In May, the nation of Estonia suffered a massive distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack on that country's major web sites, an attack that Estonian officials believed was ordered by the Russian government in response to the removal of a statue of a Soviet soldier. Russian officials denied involvement, and third-party investigation could not determine the source of the attacks, but signs were pointing towards Russian involvement on some level. Now, US government officials are sending an investigative team to Estonia to help analyze the large volume of data that was generated by the attacks and to help train Estonian IT workers to secure their network infrastructure. More important, the government is setting up a new organization, the "Cyber Command," to prepare the country for similar cyber attacks and is also changing the focus of a scheduled three-week exercise in September-designed to test the financial sector's ability to respond to pandemics-to include simulating the response to cyberterrorism. (Source: http://arstechnica.com ) ________________________________________________________ Legal *MPAA sues Peekvid, YouTVPC Note to entrepreneurs hoping to build a business using illicit content: don't grant extensive interviews (complete with pictures) to the Wall Street Journal. That's what a pair of aspiring hackers did back in April when they described how their service, YouTVPC, allowed users to watch streaming TV shows and movies without charge. Now, the MPAA is cracking down on such sites, filing a lawsuit against both YouTVPC and Peekvid this week. The case was filed Tuesday in a California federal court. The gist of the suit is that businesses should not be allowed to prosper from illicit material, even if they do not host it. Both YouTVPC and Peekvid provide access to some of the most popular video content in the world, but they do so by linking up other sites (many of them outside the US) where the content is stored. This allows them to claim that they are doing nothing illegal, even though providing access to this unlicensed material is the extent of their business. (Source: http://arstechnica.com/news.ars ) *SAP Admits Wrongdoing in Oracle Suit SAP conceded today that its subsidiary, TomorrowNow (TN), engaged in "inappropriate" downloads of Oracle support materials. But SAP CEO Henning Kagermann insisted his company did not access Oracle's intellectual property. In its first formal response to a March lawsuit filed by Oracle accusing SAP of "massive theft," the German software giant said TomorrowNow was authorized to download materials from Oracle's Web site on behalf of TomorrowNow customers. "At the same time, SAP acknowledges that some inappropriate downloads of fixes and support documents occurred at TomorrowNow," SAP said in a press statement accompanying its legal response. Kagerman told reporters on a teleconference, "TomorrowNow made some inappropriate downloads and I regret that very much. SAP did not have access to the TomorrowNow downloads." (Source: http://www.internetnews.com ) *RIAA Sued For Malicous Persecution An Oregon mother has filed suit against the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) after the organisation withdrew a two-year legal case against her for alleged file sharing. Tanya Andersen and her eight year-old daughter were charged with downloading gangster rap and other music. Andersen, who is disabled and a single mother, denied the claims and the RIAA decided to drop the case earlier this month. The woman has now filed papers to sue not only the RIAA but MediaSentry, a firm which collects evidence of alleged file sharing activity. Andersen claimed that she asked the RIAA investigators to check out her computer for illegally obtained material, but that they preferred to take legal action, claiming that they knew the time of the file sharing and the user name she was using. "Instead of dismissing their false claims the defendant record companies persisted in their malicious prosecution and publicly libelled her with demeaning and repulsive accusations," the court papers read. "She has no interest in the violent, profane, misogynistic and racist music that the RIAA and its controlling member companies monopolise." The RIAA then agreed to inspect Andersen's computer and found no trace of any shared music nor the software to do so. (Source: http://www.vnunet.com ) *Woman Pleads to Stalking Singer A former national laboratory worker has admitted that she used government computers to access the e-mail account of Linkin Park lead singer Chester Bennington and hacked into a cell phone company's Web site to obtain his phone number. Devon Townsend, 28, appeared Friday before U.S. Magistrate Judge Robert Scott and pleaded guilty to charges including stalking and unlawful access to stored communications. Townsend faces up to five years in prison and fines up to $250,000 for each count. A sentencing date has not been scheduled. Townsend's lawyer, Ray Twohig, did not return messages Friday. Townsend, who worked in Sandia National Laboratories' technology and manufacturing group, used lab computers to access private information about Bennington and his wife, Talinda, from January 2006 to November 2006. According to a plea agreement filed Friday, Townsend said she was able to access family photos, information about a new home bought by the Benningtons, the couple's travel plans, and correspondence between Warner Bros. Records and Linkin Park's business attorney - including a copy of a check made to Bennington from the record company and a copy of the band's recording contract. (Source: http://apnews.myway.com ) ________________________________________________________ Gadget of the Week *iPhone 'Sets New Bar': Reviewer Apple's iPhone has won a strong endorsement from a key technology reviewer when the Wall Street Journal's Walter Mossberg lavished praise on the new gadget. "Our verdict is that, despite some flaws and feature omissions, the iPhone is, on balance, a beautiful and breakthrough handheld computer," Mossberg said in a review on WSJ.com. Mossberg, the Journal's chief technology columnist for more than 15 years, is widely regarded as the most influential judge of new gadgets, software and services, and his pronouncements can strongly affect how a product is received. The iPhone goes on sale on June 29 in two models costing $US500 and $US600 depending on memory capacity. It requires a two-year service contract with AT&T Inc running at least $US60 a month. New York Times technology writer David Pogue also weighed in with a largely positive review saying that the iPhone lived up to most of its considerable hype even if it did fall short in some areas. (Source: http://www.smh.com.au ) The iPhone Matches Most of Its Hype http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/27/technology/circuits/27pogue.html?_r=1&ref=technology&oref=slogin _______________________________________________________ Tech Terms traffic shaping Traffic shaping provides a mechanism to control the volume of traffic being sent into a network (bandwidth throttling), and the rate at which the traffic is being sent (rate limiting). For this reason, traffic shaping schemes are commonly implemented at the network edges to control traffic entering the network. This control can be accomplished in many ways and for many reasons but traffic shaping always simply consists in delaying packets. _________________________________________________________ On the Web According to observers across the country, the technology skills shortage that pundits were talking about a year ago is real--and here are the skills that are most wanted. "12 IT skills that employers can't say no to" http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9026623&source=rss_news50 Silicon Valley has electricity on the brain: how to generate it, how to save it, and how to wring the most out of every last watt. Here's a look at how this single-minded obsession is shaping the future of computing. "Power Plays: How power consumption will shape the future of computing" http://arstechnica.com/articles/paedia/cpu/power-plays.ars Apple could do a lot more with all the sensors in the iPhone. "The iPhone's Untapped Potential." http://www.technologyreview.com/Infotech/18990/ _________________________________________________________ Wired Index July 11, 2007 21.08 Last Week +0.00 Year to Date +17.24% 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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