Mozilla's Geode brings geographic Web to Firefox

Mozilla Labs plans to announce a plug-in called Geode on Tuesday that gives the Firefox Web browser a better ability to understand and use geographic information on the Web.

Geode details at this stage remain sketchy, but here's the example used in the alert about the project: "With Geode, a user who is looking for restaurants while they are out of town will be able load up their favorite review site and find suggestions a couple blocks away and plot directions there."

Geotagging most commonly refers to photos with geographic data stored within the file, but there are plenty of other cases, too. Many Wikipedia entries have geographic information encoded, and YouTube users also can geotag their videos.

There also are plenty of cases in which Web sites have geographic information such as a business address that's not formally encoded as geographic data. The gradual arrival of the semantic Web, in which descriptive elements help computers understand the data on a Web site, could expand that significantly.

The quintessential tools that make the geographic Web useful today are online maps. Those applications are getting more useful as mobile phones--especially GPS-enabled mobile phones--incorporate their use.

Surface developer tools coming this month

The long-awaited software developer it for the Surface tabletop computerwill be made available to those attending Microsoft's Professional Developer Conference at the end of the month.

Microsoft made that pledge on its PDC Web site, as part of a listing for a session focused on writing Surface applications.

"Hear about the unique attributes of Microsoft Surface computing, dive into vision-based object recognition and core controls like ScatterView, and learn how the Surface SDK aligns with the multitouch developer roadmap for Windows 7," Microsoft said, in promoting the session. "Attendees will receive access to the Microsoft Surface SDK."

Microsoft has been promising for some time to open up Surface development beyond the select group of companies that have been working with early launch partners such as AT&T and Starwood hotels.

The company has also promised multitouch will be a part of the Windows 7 interface, but has yet to detail how that will work.
Source:News.CNet

Making sense of the tech meltdown on Wall Street

Despite the inscrutable language people often use when talking about the dynamics of the high-tech market, predicting when the industry is about to run into trouble isn't that difficult.

Here's how you do it: Start with companies like Applied Materials that make chip manufacturing equipment; when their orders are down, that means the chipmakers like Intel, Advanced Micro Devices, and Texas Instruments figure they don't need to increase their manufacturing capacity. That, in turn, means the PC and server makers are seeing demand slip. That means demand for consumer electronics and consumer software is also going to slip.

As the big guys run into trouble, the start-ups that haven't turned a profit will disappear, either into the arms of another company or into bankruptcy. Finally, the big corporate software makers like SAP and Oracle--the last refuges of tech investing--will take their hits as buyers put off long-term software projects.

At least, that's how it usually works.

(Credit: Susan Dove/CNET Networks)

The formula may have been turned upside down Monday, with the big tech stocks leading the way into the cellar. CNET's Technology Index, which tracks 66 publicly traded tech companies, dropped 4.08 percent to 1,276.67 Monday, its lowest close in more than two years. And it could have been worse: At one point in the day, the CNET Index was at its lowest point since May 2005. A late rally brought some stocks back just before trading ended. The drop in the CNET Index was similar to a 3.08 percent drop in the Dow and 4.34 percent decline in the Nasdaq index.

Don't blame the start-ups for this one, though they may end up suffering the most for it. The tech crash Monday was led by one of the most sober names in tech, German corporate software maker SAP. SAP announced Monday that it would miss third-quarter expectations, sending its stock into a tailspin. SAP shares closed at $39.68 per share, down 13.08 percent for the day and a new 52-week low. (For more on Monday's meltdown, check out CNET TV's Daily Debrief.)

The rest of the enterprise software industry went down with the Germans. Shares at archrival Oracle closed the day down more than 6 percent to $18.30 per share. On-demand software provider Salesforce.com saw its shares drop 2.81 percent to $40.40 (a 52-week low) on both the SAP news and an analyst's report that intimated that demand may be slackening.

Among big Internet companies, the news wasn't much better. eBay led declines, with shares down 5.54 percent to $17.89 per share at the end of the day. That's more than $1 below the company's previous 52-week low. eBay said it was laying off 1,000, but, oh yeah, was still flush enough to spend more than $1.3 billion on three acquisitions. Google dropped 4 percent to close at $371.21, also a new 52-week low. And Yahoo ended the day down 4.31 percent to $15.31 per share, yet another 52-week low. (That kaput Microsoft offer must be looking awfully nice to some aggravated investors right about now.)

SAP and other enterprise software companies aren't supposed to be leading indicators for the tech industry--they're usually laggards. During the dot-com boom, big software companies like Oracle and SAP were among the last to fall victim to the downturn. At one point, Oracle CEO Larry Ellison surveyed the tech industry wreckage and enthusiastically speculated whether his company was counter-cyclical. (The idea was, companies would invest in Oracle software to save money through automation.)

Turns out, Oracle wasn't counter-cyclical, nor was anyone not in the business of auctioning abandoned dot-com office supplies.

A case of the jitters
So what happened Monday? Though it's been in the making for some time, the speed at which the financial industry has unraveled has been stunning, and its impact on spending plans at big corporations is likely significant. SAP was particularly vulnerable because of the way enterprise software is typically sold--in a rush at the end of the quarter. The quarter that just ended, unfortunately, happened to coincide with the near-collapse of the American banking system.

So what about all those tanking Internet stocks? So far, the sell-off appears to be based more on fear than reality. eBay said it would come in near the bottom of its earnings expectations, and there's been no word so far out of Yahoo and Google. But investors clearly aren't thrilled with eBay's acquisitive ways in the face of a bad economy, and they're worried about online advertising slowing down. Netflix had bad news, too, casting doubt on online consumer spending heading into the holiday season.

There are other question marks before we can really make sense of what happened Monday. Shares of Apple, for example, were down as much as 7 percent at one point in the afternoon, but ended the day up 1.1 percent at $98.14 per share (that's about $4 above Apple's 52-week low). But Apple was one of only seven companies on the CNET Index to see gains for the day. Other big companies like Microsoft, Intel, and Cisco Systems saw significant losses.

Companies that aren't as reliant on selling multimillion-dollar software at the end of the quarter (and instead rely on lower-priced items sold more evenly through the quarter) aren't likely to see an impact from the souring economy quite as quickly as SAP. But they won't avoid it for long, with consumer confidence slipping and unemployment rising. Translation: the results of the current quarter will unquestionably be the most closely watched numbers since the tech industry crawled back from the dot-com bust.

People say SAP is indicative of the health of corporate software sales. But the rest of tech should hope it's not a canary in the coal mine for the entire industry.

AMD to spin off manufacturing

On Tuesday, Advanced Micro Devices will announce a long-expected restructuring, according to sources familiar with the deal.

As expected, the No. 2 supplier of PC processors will split into two companies: one for designing chips, the other for manufacturing them. The capital-intensive business of manufacturing chips is weighing on AMD as it reels under a $5 billion debt load.

The investment is expected to allow AMD to remain directly involved in chip manufacturing--crucial for competing with Intel, which has used its manufacturing prowess to great advantage.

AMD would not comment Monday.

The company has secured about $5.7 billion of "confirmed, pledged investment," with some of the money earmarked for a future manufacturing facility in Malta, New York, according to sources.

AMD will own part of the new manufacturing entity, called The Foundry Company, while Advanced Technology Investment Co. (ATIC) will own the rest. One of the investors, Abu Dhabi-based Mubadala Development Co., invested approximately $622 million in AMD last November.

Mubadala already holds an 8.1 percent stake in AMD. Upon closing the deal, Mubadala will own 19.3 percent of AMD, according to sources.

ATIC--also based in Abu Dhabi--will have equal voting rights with AMD in The Foundry Company and own 55.6 percent of the new entity. ATIC will invest an initial $2.1 billion, of which $1.4 billion will be invested directly in the new company and $700 million will be paid directly to AMD, according to sources close to the deal.

In addition, ATIC will commit a minimum of $3.6 billion and up to $6 billion in additional funds over the next five years for the upgrade and expansion of fabrication facilities in Dresden, Germany, and construction of a new facility in upstate New York, near the town of Malta.

Mubadala, for its part, will purchase 58 million newly issued AMD shares valued at $314 million and warrants for 30 million additional shares, giving it a total stake in AMD of approximately 19.3 percent on a fully diluted basis, sources said.

Mubadala will also have the right to designate a representative for election as a member of the board of directors of AMD.

All of this is expected to greatly improve AMD's liquidity.

AMD CEO Dirk Meyer and other company executives are expected to make the announcement Tuesday.

The investment is characterized by one source as coming from investors with "a long-term vision, who want to help (AMD) scale the foundry operations to compete globally." A foundry is a manufacturing facility.

AMD has been laboring for months over details of the restructuring, which it has termed "Asset Smart." AMD Chief Financial Officer Bob Rivet said during AMD's second-quarter earnings conference call that Asset Smart would be "a major reformation of the company."

Also, at that time, AMD announced that Meyer would take over as CEO and Hector Ruiz would relinquish that post but remain as chairman to oversee AMD's transition to Asset Smart.

AMD already has a relationship with IBM in which AMD uses IBM's advanced test manufacturing facilities.

Kids keep parents in the dark about cyberbullying

Online bullying could be more pervasive than you think.

Three out of four teens were bullied online over the last year, according to a study released this week by psychologists at the University of California at Los Angeles. And while that number may seem high at the outset, only 1 in 10 of those kids told their parents or another adult about it, the study showed.

The anonymous Web-based study surveyed 1,454 kids between the ages of 12 and 17. Of those, 41 percent reported between one and three cyberbullying incidents during the year; 13 percent reported four to six incidents; and 19 percent reported seven or more. In other words, no longer are victims of bullying relegated to the geeks and nerds of yore when it comes to the Internet.

The psychologists published the results of their research in the September issue of the Journal of School Health.

Many teens neglected to tell their parents about the incidents because they believed they "need to learn to deal with it," according to the research. Others kept it to themselves because they feared that their parents would cut back on their Internet access.

"Many parents do not understand how vital the Internet is to their social lives," said Jaana Juvonen, lead study author and a professor of psychology and chair of UCLA's developmental psychology program. "Parents can take detrimental action with good intentions, such as trying to protect their children by not letting them use the Internet at all. That is not likely to help parent-teen relationships or the social lives of their children."

Juvonen said it's important that parents talk with their kids about bullying well before it happens, as well as look for changes in teens' behavior.

However, it's also equally important to teach children the importance of not becoming bullies themselves, is it not? Surely if bullying is this prevalent online, it's not always a one-sided affair.

Source:cnet.news

'Brief delay' for Yahoo-Google search-ad deal

Yahoo and Google are delaying implementation of their search-ad deal to give Justice Department antitrust investigators more time to look into the deal, according to published reports.

Kara Swisher (of All Things D) and Bloomberg reported the delay Friday afternoon.

A Yahoo representative said the company is preparing a statement; Google didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

Under the Yahoo search-ad deal with Google, which had been set to go into effect this month, Yahoo plans to display some Google search ads where its own ad-delivery technology doesn't work as well. Yahoo expects $800 million in new revenue in the first year of the deal.

Update 2:57 p.m. PDT: Yahoo and Google confirmed what they characterized as a "brief delay."

"The companies have agreed to a brief delay in implementing this agreement to continue our ongoing discussions with the Department of Justice. We have had discussions with regulators and look forward to responding to their questions about this agreement," Yahoo said in its statement.

Google added this: "When we announced our advertising agreement with Yahoo in June, we agreed to delay its implementation until October to give regulators time to look at the details. As we are still in conversation with the Department of Justice we have agreed to a brief delay in implementing the agreement while those discussions continue."

Update 4:01 p.m. PDT: Yahoo wouldn't clarify how long the brief delay would last, but the companies likely want it done before a new administration is elected one month from now and major changes could take place within the Justice Department. The Reuters news agency quoted an unnamed source who said the companies still expect to begin in October.

The companies gave themselves three and a half months to implement the deal, saying they wanted to give antitrust regulators time to review it. With the June announcement date, that would have put them in early October.

However, the companies haven't been specific about when they planned to flip the switch. In a September meeting with the press, Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt wouldn't be pinned down beyond "roughly the beginning of October."

The partnership has come under antitrust criticism from Microsoft--whose unwelcome attempt to acquire Yahoo helped fuel the Yahoo-Google partnership--and from the Association of National Advertisers (ANA), the World Association of Newspapers (WAN) and Center for Digital Democracy. The European Union is investigating the partnership, too.

Some Democratic lawmakers from California, though, urged the DOJ not to block the deal. They criticized in particular the possibility of Justice Department legal action before the deal actually takes effect.

Facing the criticism, Google and Yahoo both have begun a publicity offensive. Google published a frequently asked questions site, and Yahoo President Sue Decker weighed in with her own defense last week. Yahoo has also published a site with partnership details to try to make its case.

Update 4:22 p.m. PDT: Several states are reviewing the deal, too, and Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal said there's been a two-week extension of the antitrust review. The deadline for review moved from October 8 to October 22, Blumenthal said.

"We are doing our review in conjunction with the DOJ, so I'd think our timetables are aligned," Blumenthal said.

Although it's notable that Yahoo and Google are giving antitrust regulators more time to review the deal, it's a step that other companies have taken in the past, as well, former DOJ antitrust attorneys said.

Deadlines can be pushed back as needed. One former attorney said companies usually are happy to give regulators more time to evaluate a transaction rather than push the issue for fear it will back the regulators into a corner and cause them to file a lawsuit to block the deal. Another source said delays are part of the natural ebb and flow of negotiations.

The top brass of the Justice Department's antitrust unit met with Google and Yahoo months ago, a departure from the more traditional path in which the DOJ staff issue a recommendation to the department's front office about whether a deal should be rejected. Traditionally, only then do the companies make their case before antitrust chieftains.

Source:news.cnet.com

Dell joins cut-down laptop market

Dell enters the netbook market with this unnamed machin

Dell is joining the burgeoning ranks of companies offering cut-down laptops, called netbooks, aimed at the developing world and general consumers.

The laptop was shown by Michael Dell to the editor of website Gizmodo at the All Things Digital Conference.

According to the official Dell blog, Michael Dell "positioned it as the perfect device for the next billion internet users".

Dell has not released pricing or specifications for its first netbook.

A number of firms are expected to enter the netbook market this year.

The market is being driven in part by the work of the One Laptop Per Child programme, the success of the Asus Eee PC and the availability of chips, made by companies like Intel and Via, designed for low-cost, low power consumption devices.

Hewlett-Packard has announced a cut-down laptop which will be powered by Via's processors, and Acer is also entering the market.

More than 3.6 million netbooks, which cost less than $500, are expected to be sold this year.

Asus believes it will sell almost two million of its Eee PCs, which cost between $299 and $549, in the first six months of this year.

OLPC has unveiled a new design for the developing world

At the Computex show in Taiwan next week Intel is expected to unveil a number of manufacturer partners that are using its Atom chip.

Intel chief executive Paul Otellini said the market was growing fast.

"I've not seen energy like this from our customers in a long, long time," Mr Otellini told The Associated Press.

"Everyone views this as being sort of hyper expansive to the existing market."

Intel is also pushing a range of even smaller machines, called Mobile Internet Devices (MIDs).

Vista has a larger memory footprint, a larger graphics requirement and a higher price point. This is all about low-cost computing Paul Otellini, Intel

Mr Otellini said he was not concerned that low-power processors could "cannibalise," or steal sales from Intel's high-end products.

"If a higher-priced notebook isn't substantially better and doesn't offer more utility, shame on us," he said.

"If there's cannibalisation, I'd rather be the cannibal than someone else."

Mr Otellini said he expected MIDs to be powered by Linux rather than Microsoft's operating systems.

"Vista has a larger memory footprint, a larger graphics requirement and a higher price point. This is all about low-cost computing," Mr Otellini said.

The success of the Eee PC and the rush by many companies to release similar products has seen a recent about-turn by Microsoft.

The company has said it will extend support of its XP OS on sub-notebooks, in an effort to thwart the growing use of Linux on such machines.

It has also slashed the cost of a licence for XP running on netbook machines to just $32 (£17) and £14 in developing countries.

In an effort to grab a slice of the market Via has announced a new hardware design for low-cost laptop computers, called OpenBook, making it available under an open source license.

The company hopes manufacturers will use the design, which incorporates Via's chipset, to build netbooks.

Last week the One Laptop Per Child program also unveiled a reference design for a future netbook, called the XO2.

Source : BBC News