Google Has Energy For New Business

Google's core business is Internet search but that isn't keeping the company from exploring some other very different areas. On Tuesday, Google announced an ambitious plan to develop electricity from renewable energy sources that will be cheaper than electricity produced from coal. The newly created initiative, known as RE < C, will focus initially on advanced solar thermal power, wind power technologies, enhanced geothermal systems and what Google referred to as "other potential breakthrough technologies." As part of its capital planning process, Google said it anticipates investing hundreds of millions of dollars in breakthrough renewable energy projects which generate positive returns. Near term, Google said it plans to spend tens of millions of dollars next year on research and development and related investments in renewable energy. "We have gained expertise in designing and building large-scale, energy-intensive facilities by building efficient data centers," said Larry Page, Google's co-founder and president of products, in a statement. "We want to apply the same creativity and innovation to the challenge of generating renewable electricity at globally significant scale, and produce it cheaper than from coal." While there was no timetable released on when the first fruits of Google's renewable energy efforts might see the light of day, it has at least one specific target. "Our goal is to produce one gigawatt of renewable energy capacity that is cheaper than coal. We are optimistic this can be done in years, not decades," said Page. (One gigawatt can power a city the size of San Francisco.) Page said there are several promising "green" technologies that will benefit from further investment and research into making them more cost competitive. Solar thermal technology was one example he cited that "provides a very plausible path to providing renewable energy cheaper than coal." Google.org, the search giant's philanthropic arm, is also going to be investing in companies that show the potential to produce energy at an unsubsidized cost lower than coal-fired plants. Makani Power and eSolar, were mentioned as companies Google.org is "working with." A spokesman for eSolar said the company is not commenting yet on whether it's received an investment from Google.org. Pasadena, CA-based eSolar specializes in solar thermal power, which replaces the fuel in a traditional power plant with heat produced from solar energy. eSolar is headed by serial entrepreneur Bill Gross, who also runs technology incubator Idealab. Idealab recently moved into the renewable energy market with Energy Innovations, a sister company to eSolar that focuses on the retail rooftop solar market. Gross was unavailable for comment on Google's announcement, but at a recent technology conference, he told InternetNews.com it was important to diversify into alternative energy "for the good of the country." Makani Power, based in Alameda, CA, is developing high-altitude wind energy extraction technologies. According to the company, high-altitude wind energy has the potential to satisfy a significant portion of current global electricity needs. Google said it's on track to meet an internal goal it set last spring to be carbon neutral in 2007 and beyond. The company has extensive solar panel installations at its Mountain View, Calif. campus. But last year rival Microsoft announced it had installed the largest solar electric system in Silicon Valley at its facility, also in Mountain View. Google said RE < C signifies the effort to create renewable energy at a cost less than energy from coal, thus, R(enewable) E(nergy) < C(oal).

Intel Updates Compilers For 'Leopard'

Intel today announced upgraded versions of its compilers and related technologies designed to support Apple's Mac OS X 10.5, a.k.a. "Leopard." Apple released its new operating system last month after some delay. Intel has provided Mac compilers since January 2006, right after Apple switched its product line from Motorola's PowerPC processor to the Intel x86 line. The 10.1 versions of the Intel products include the C++ Compiler, Fortran Compiler, Intel Threading Building Blocks, Intel Math Kernel Libraries and Intel Performance Primitives. All have been optimized for Leopard and the Xcode 3.0 development environment. Xcode allows developers to create binaries from a single code base for multiple platforms, including the old PowerPC-based Mac. The new release fully enables 64-bit computing and multi-core support across the compiler and all libraries. Some of the libraries didn't take full advantage of the 64-bit capabilities or multi-core processors, according to James Reinders, director of marketing for Intel software developer products. "Apple developers have been very aggressive in using multi-core because Macs have always been multi-core," he told InternetNews.com. Intel also added functionality for out-of-core solvers, a fancy word for a library able to handle problems larger than can fit in system memory. The company found many scientific users were doing some heavy-duty computing on their computers, even on a MacBook Pro laptop, but the systems didn't have enough memory. "You might say, 'Just swap it out to virtual memory,' but when you solve very large problems, the performance leaves a lot to be desired," Reinders said. As a result, Intel's Math Kernel Libraries break up the problem into sections and work on it piecemeal, thereby avoiding having to use virtual memory swapping. Reinders added that the libraries and compilers are cross-platform compatible, so porting between Windows and Mac OS X should be easy -- theoretically. Of course, he qualified that claim with the warning that it depends on how strongly the app is tied to the OS in terms of custom user interfaces (UI) and using platform specific technologies. He said applications that aren't very UI-oriented -- more focused on performing tasks, such as scientific apps -- should make for a relatively smooth port. Applications with a heavy UI dependency would take a little longer to port. In addition to the new libraries, Reinders said developers are seeing around a 10 percent improvement in performance just from moving their code from the old compiler to the new one, without making any further tweaks or optimization. There are also big performance benefits coming from the auto parallelism, which examines the code and looks for places to parallelize the application, he said. Intel's C++ Compiler Professional Edition for Mac OS X, featuring the Threading Building Blocks, Math Kernel Library, and Integrated Performance Primitives, is available for $599. The Standard Edition, which ships without the extras, is $449. Intel's Fortran Compiler Professional Edition, which includes the Math Kernel Library, carries a $699 price tag, while the Standard Edition is $549.

Cyber Monday Sales Top $700 Million

It's official: Online retailers on Monday set a new record with sales of $733 million, marking the highest-ever performance on a "Cyber Monday," as the Monday after Thanksgiving has become known. The day's much-anticipated online shopping turnout saw Web retailers notching a 21 percent gain over the same day last year, according to online metrics firm comScore. Monday's results handily met comScore's prediction that sales would exceed $700 million. Yesterday, early results from content delivery firm Akamai gave the first hint of good news for e-commerce players. The company found that peak traffic to retail sites increased from last year, although Akamai did not estimate sales. While Monday represented online retail's first $700 million day, comScore is predicting that several days this holiday season will see even heavier performances, potentially breaking the $800 million mark. One counterintuitive trend comScore identified is that more people may have shopped during Cyber Monday, but overall, they spent less money. The firm said the number of online buyers rose 38 percent, but the average purchase declined 12 percent from Monday last year. The lower dollar-per-customer figure could be a partial product of the extensive discounts many retailers were offering, comScore said. In addition to overall sales, retail sites' traffic saw a healthy increase on Monday as well. Nielsen Online said it recorded 32.5 million unique visitors to sites listed in its Holiday eShopping Index, a 10 percent jump compared to last year. Monday's traffic also represented a 13 percent increase from Black Friday. Most major online retailers saw substantial gains in traffic over last year, with Amazon leading the pack. The e-commerce bellwether experienced a 26 percent increase from last year, according to comScore. More good news for the industry comes from ForeSee Results, a research group that measures online customer response. ForeSee's survey found that customers reported a slightly higher level of satisfaction with their online shopping experiences than last year. According to ForeSee, the two main detractors from overall customer satisfaction were first-time shoppers' unfamiliarity with navigating e-commerce sites, and the performance slowdowns many sites experienced due to the increased traffic. Despite the slowdowns, ForeSee said most sites did a better job handling Monday's traffic than in previous years. Though Cyber Monday is not always the biggest online shopping day of the year -- that honor often falls to a day later in the season -- it is when retailers traditionally see the first major spike in holiday buyers and browsers. Six of comScore's top 10 retail sites on Monday received more than twice their average daily traffic during the previous four weeks. The notable exception was Apple, whose Monday traffic only increased 5 percent over the previous four weeks. That may actually be good news for the company, since comScore attributes the modest gain to consistently heavy traffic to the site in the month leading up to Cyber Monday. Looking at the months of November and December together, comScore projects online spending to hit $29.5 billion this year, which would be a 20 percent increase from the 2006 holiday season. If that figure holds, Cyber Monday would account for 2.5 percent of this year's online holiday shopping. That year-over-year increase in holiday shopping also would be consistent with the growth in e-commerce spending comScore reported for the rest of the year. Web retail spending from January through October topped $93.6 billion, a 21 percent increase from the $77.5 billion consumers spent online during the same period last year.

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IBM Adds .NET Interface To Java Server

The .NET and Java worlds have long had a gulf between them that's been difficult to bridge. Mainsoft has partnered with IBM to help shrink that divide a little by offering Mainsoft's bridging software with IBM's enterprise Java server. Under the terms of the agreement, IBM will sell Mainsoft's.NET Extensions for WebSphere Portal, which consists of two major applications. Mainsoft Portal Edition will make it possible for ASP.NET applications written in C# or Visual Basic to run unmodified on a WebSphere server. The second component of .NET Extensions for WebSphere Portal is Mainsoft SharePoint/SQL Reporting Federator, an integration manager between WebSphere and Windows SharePoint services, Microsoft Office document libraries and SQL Server Reports. Such a bridge is key, said Yaacov Cohen, president and CEO of Mainsoft, because Java tends to be an enterprise solution while .NET is a departmental solution and the two don't interact very well. "Gartner has said about 95 percent of medium to large size IT organizations have a mix of .NET and Java," he told InternetNews.com. "So you may see in almost any company that has gone with Java at the top level strategic level but at the department level there are .NET developers. This can become a serious obstacle with implementing a service-oriented architecture." There is one shortcoming, and that is that Portal Edition requires that the ASP.NET applications be installed locally, rather than executed where they reside. Mainsoft's cross compiler produces JSR 168-compliant portlets from .NET source code which execute as a Java portlet. The SharePoint/SQL Reporting Federator allows for any WebSphere user to access SharePoint contents and data and SQL Reporting Services within WebSphere Portal. Rights and access controls are set and determined on the WebSphere level and brought down into the SharePoint servers, so people can't access departmental data that they shouldn't see, said Cohen. The Mainsoft applications are available now from IBM's global reseller channel.

Queen Bees Control Sex of Young After All

By Matt Kaplan
ScienceNOW Daily News
15 November 2007

Royalty has its privileges, even in the insect world. Queen honey bees can choose the sex of their offspring, a new study shows. Like a sharp stinger, that finding pokes a hole in the notion that queens are merely mindless egg layers and that worker bees have the final say on whether the queen lays eggs that give rise to males or females.

Every young queen goes on a mating flight and then stores the sperm she collects from multiple matings for the rest of her life, using it up bit by bit as she lays eggs. Males, called drones, emerge from unfertilized eggs, and females emerge from fertilized ones and become the workers. So if the queen adds sperm to an egg, it will produce a female; if she withholds sperm, the egg will produce a male. That would appear to give the queen control over the sex of her offspring. However, the dogma among entomologists is that workers control the type of eggs the queen lays. The workers build the cavities, known as cells, in which the queen will lay her eggs. A queen will lay an unfertilized egg in a particular cell only if the cell is big enough to accommodate a male larva, which is bigger than a female one. So by controlling how many cells they build of each size, the workers can limit how many male offspring the queen produces.

Despite these constraints, the queen can still tip the gender balance of the hive, report Katie Wharton and a team of entomologists at Michigan State University in East Lansing. To prove it, they confined queens inside their hives in specially built cages. Each cage was placed so that the queen could not reach the large cells where she could lay drone eggs but only the small cells where she could lay worker eggs. After 4 days, the cage was removed and the queen allowed to roam free in the hive, which had ample empty cells of both sizes. The queen then sought out the larger cells and, on average, laid nearly three times as many drone eggs as usual, apparently making up for the skewed hive gender ratio that resulted from her incarceration, the researchers report in the November/December issue of Behavioural Ecology. "The workers and the queen clearly share control of honey bee demographics," Wharton says. "It was like discovering a checks-and-balances government inside the hive."

The queen's ability to make "her own decisions" adds a new layer of complexity to life in the hive and raises questions about what stimuli the queen is responding to, says Lars Chittka, an entomologist at Queen Mary University in London. "Is she remembering how many eggs she has laid, can she sense how much sperm she has used, or is there some sort of chemosensory cue telling her how many drone larvae are in the cells?" Chittka says. "Following this new research, it's anybody's guess."

Shrewd Snake Savors Deadly Meal

By Elizabeth Quill
ScienceNOW Daily News
16 November 2007

Your mother may have warned that you'd get a tummy ache if you scarfed down your food, but for one Australian snake, eating too fast could be deadly. The death adder dines on frogs, but some of them are poisonous. So the snake has learned patience: After striking a particular poisonous frog, it waits for its victim's toxin to degrade before it dines. The finding could help ecologists decipher how one species can outevolve another.

The death adder stabs unsuspecting frogs with its fangs, injecting venom to kill its supper. The frogs have fought back, however, evolving various defenses--longer legs for bigger jumps or chemical substances that taste nasty and can kill. Ecologists Ben Phillips and Richard Shine, both of the University of Sydney, Australia, decided to study the snake's general feeding behavior. And when they did, they stumbled upon a strange twist in this evolutionary arms race.

The team dropped frogs of various species in the snakes' glass pens and kept a video camera rolling to record the action as the snakes captured their prey. The snakes gobbled up nontoxic frogs right after injecting them with venom, but they took more time with two other species, the researchers report in the December issue of The American Naturalist. The snake waited 10 minutes before munching on the marbled frog, which produces a gluelike substance on its skin when irritated. (Mouth full of goo? No, thank you!) Further studies revealed that the gunk loses its stickiness after 10 minutes. The snakes waited even longer--40 minutes--before eating the deadly Dahl's aquatic frog. Shine says that by letting the frogs' chemical defenses break down, the snakes have found an unbeatable strategy. "Any predator eating prey whose defenses will terminate after death can simply wait around," Shine says.

The results reveal an unusual adaptation on the part of the snakes, says Wolfgang W%26uuml;ster, a zoologist at Bangor University in the U.K. He says the frogs may find another strategy to continue the evolutionary battle: "It is hard to say, however, how it would happen easily."

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Stocks End Up On Volatile Day

An early rally on strong results from HP turned negative on Tuesday before stocks recovered to close in positive territory. The major indexes were up more than 1% in the first 90 minutes of trading before 25% losses in shares of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae caught up with the market. At their lows, the indexes were down nearly as much as they had been up before they recovered to end the day with modest gains. Also moving stocks was a Federal Reserve outlook that predicted economic weakness and lower inflation, yet the October Fed meeting minutes released at the same time showed reluctance to cut interest rates last month. After initially sending stocks lower, traders decided that the outlook gave the Fed room to cut interest rates %26#151; possibly even an emergency rate cut %26#151; which helped the market recover off its lows. Still, the modest gains did little for a market suffering through its worst month since Sept. 2002, the bottom of the 2000-2002 bear market. HP ended the day little changed despite results and guidance that beat Wall Street expectations. Google gained 3.6% to $648.54 after Credit Suisse set a $900 price target on the stock, and Research In Motion, Apple, Microsoft and Intel were other big-cap tech gainers. Ericsson plunged 12% on a warning, and AMD and Palm fell on negative analyst comments. Blue Coat surged 12% on results that topped analysts' forecasts. EchoStar fell 9% a day after surging 19% on reports that it could be acquired by AT%26amp;T. The Nasdaq rose 3 to 2596, the S%26amp;P gained 6 to 1439, and the Dow rose 52 to 13,010. Volume rose to 4.8 billion shares on the NYSE, and 2.61 billion on the Nasdaq. Decliners led by a 17-16 margin on the NYSE, and 17-12 on the Nasdaq. Downside volume was 53% on the NYSE, and 55% on the Nasdaq. New highs-new lows were 41-614 on the NYSE, and 51-413 on the Nasdaq.

Google-DoubleClick Privacy Concerns Prompt Senate Protest

Leaders of the Senate subcommittee that held an inquiry into Google's proposed acquisition of DoubleClick sent a letter to Federal Trade Commission Chairman Deborah Majoras yesterday urging a rigorous investigation of the merger. The letter, sent by Sens. Herb Kohl, D-Wisc., Chairman of the Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights, and Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, the ranking Republican member of the subcommittee, warns of the potential threats to competition and consumer privacy that the merger of two of the biggest players in online advertising could pose. "This proposed acquisition would combine the world's largest Internet search company, Google, with DoubleClick, the leading company that places advertising on the Internet," the letter states. It urges the FTC to consider the extent to which Google's contextual advertising overlaps with DoubleClick's display advertising, and whether the two companies, as independents, compete with each other. Google and DoubleClick both trade in online advertising, though they employ different business models. Google's algorithm-based AdSense serves up clickable links based on search queries, while DoubleClick places banner ads on Web sites. The letter also calls for the FTC to consider "whether there are significant barriers to entry impeding new competitors in this market; and the likely effects of this acquisition on the cost of placing Internet advertising." Since the announcement of the $3.1 billion purchase, Microsoft has lobbied to squelch the deal on competitive grounds, and privacy groups have raised concerns about Google acquiring DoubleClick's massive volume of data on consumers' purchases and other Internet activities. The FTC opened its investigation in May. The letter warns that the FTC must "guard against the creation of a powerful Internet conglomerate" that could hinder competition in the online advertising world by bringing multiple sectors of the market under the control of a single company. "We have already worked with the FTC to address each of the questions raised in this letter, and we remain confident that the FTC will conclude that this deal is good for consumers, advertisers and Web-site publishers," Adam Kovacevich, Google's manager of global communications and public affairs, said in a statement. "And though the FTC has stated publicly that privacy is not a factor in its review, Google is committed to protecting our users' privacy and has taken a number of industry-leading steps to do so." He is referring to remarks made by FTC Commissioner Jon Leibowitz at the commission's Town Hall Meeting on E-havioral Advertising, the same meeting where he left open the possibility of a "do-not-track list" for online advertisers. Randall Rothenberg, president of the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), won't speak to the anti-competitive questions the senators raise, but he worries about the privacy issue creeping into the FTC investigation. "The IAB doesn't take positions on the business-development affairs of our members," he told InternetNews.com. "That said, it is a concern when either legislative or regulatory bodies take issues that are by definition discrete -- in this case, privacy and competition -- and start twining them together." Despite Leibowitz's suggestion that privacy would not be a major factor in the FTC's antitrust investigation, Rothenberg is more skeptical. "We would be wrong to divorce the Town Hall from the privacy concerns. While the two have nothing to do with each other, the timing cannot be accidental," he said. A subcommittee letter simply urging further investigation, as yesterday's missive did, hardly sounds a death knell for a proposed merger. In an interview with InternetNews.com, Google's Kovacevich downplayed the significance of the letter, noting that the subcommittee "hardly ever sends a letter urging outright approval." It is much more common for the senators either to advise the regulatory agency to conduct a close investigation of a proposed merger or to block it altogether. Kovacevich points to a letter sent in July 2005 by Kohl and former Sen. Mike Dewine, R-Ohio, then-chairman of the Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights, to the FCC and Department of Justice warning that the proposed (and eventually approved) SBC-AT%26T and Verizon-MCI acquisitions "raise very important competitive and communications policy issues and should be examined carefully." That language is very similar to yesterday's letter, which warns that the "merger raises very important competition issues," but later states that "we have not reached any definitive conclusion regarding this issue." Such a recommendation for close review stops well short of the sharply worded letter Kohl sent to the FCC and the DoJ in May urging that the merger of XM Satellite Radio and Sirius Satellite Radio "would cause substantial harm to competition and consumers." The senators' letter comes one week after the European Commission decided to push its own investigation of the acquisition into the more rigorous phase two. "The EC decision to send the merger to %26#91;phase two%26#93; could have prompted the senators to remind the FTC that they should do a thorough investigation, but I don't see yesterday's letter as doing much more than that," Rebecca Arbogast, principal at research analysis firm Stifel, Nicolaus, and Company, wrote in an e-mail to InternetNews.com.

IBM Adds .NET Interface To Java Server

The .NET and Java worlds have long had a gulf between them that's been difficult to bridge. Mainsoft has partnered with IBM to help shrink that divide a little by offering Mainsoft's bridging software with IBM's enterprise Java server. Under the terms of the agreement, IBM will sell Mainsoft's.NET Extensions for WebSphere Portal, which consists of two major applications. Mainsoft Portal Edition will make it possible for ASP.NET applications written in C# or Visual Basic to run unmodified on a WebSphere server. The second component of .NET Extensions for WebSphere Portal is Mainsoft SharePoint/SQL Reporting Federator, an integration manager between WebSphere and Windows SharePoint services, Microsoft Office document libraries and SQL Server Reports. Such a bridge is key, said Yaacov Cohen, president and CEO of Mainsoft, because Java tends to be an enterprise solution while .NET is a departmental solution and the two don't interact very well. "Gartner has said about 95 percent of medium to large size IT organizations have a mix of .NET and Java," he told InternetNews.com. "So you may see in almost any company that has gone with Java at the top level strategic level but at the department level there are .NET developers. This can become a serious obstacle with implementing a service-oriented architecture." There is one shortcoming, and that is that Portal Edition requires that the ASP.NET applications be installed locally, rather than executed where they reside. Mainsoft's cross compiler produces JSR 168-compliant portlets from .NET source code which execute as a Java portlet. The SharePoint/SQL Reporting Federator allows for any WebSphere user to access SharePoint contents and data and SQL Reporting Services within WebSphere Portal. Rights and access controls are set and determined on the WebSphere level and brought down into the SharePoint servers, so people can't access departmental data that they shouldn't see, said Cohen. The Mainsoft applications are available now from IBM's global reseller channel.

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Microsoft Polishes Live Services

Microsoft on Tuesday renewed efforts to link its Windows operating system to Web-based services, relaunching its Windows Live services with the addition of several services that previously had been in testing. The company also officially released its integrated installer for the services suite. "Microsoft today released a unified suite of free downloadable Windows Live services including a new Windows Live Messenger, Windows Live Mail, Windows Live Photo Gallery, Windows Live Writer and Windows Live OneCare Family Safety, marking the final major release milestone for a new generation of Windows Live overall," a Microsoft spokesperson told InternetNews.com in an e-mail. The relaunch marks another step in Microsoft's efforts to develop a key part of its software-plus-services strategy. That initiative aims to join its PC software client with software available as services, as more and more users tap into such services on the Web. In the case of Windows Live, the suite includes Microsoft-hosted online applications such as e-mail, calendaring, instant messaging, social networking, event planning, photo sharing, blogging, and more. This week's update includes enhancements that Microsoft has spent months tweaking. In September, the company began beta testing the suite of updated services and the unified installer. More recently, Microsoft last month also began beta testing Windows Live Events, an online party planning service. Live Events enables a user to create an event Web site and use it to manage the event by sending invitations via e-mail or Messenger and interacting with invitees' calendars. It also allows users to share photos of the event afterwards. With the newest update, Windows Live Events has also emerged from beta testing. However, a highly awaited calendaring service and an online storage service each remain in testing. "The Windows Live Calendar and Windows Live SkyDrive services, while still in beta, are also included in the Windows Live family or services, and we will continue testing and evolving them over the coming months," the spokesperson said. At first glance, the latest Live update seems to have been received warmly, though there's little that's actually new to those who have been watching Windows Live closely. "While not much has changed in the applications themselves since the last beta releases, it's just nice to be running the final versions," said a posting on Live services enthusiast site LiveSide.net. At least one industry analyst, however, sees additional value in the release -- for both consumers and for Microsoft. "The biggest improvements have been in Hotmail and Contacts, as well as the downloadable Live Mail desktop client," said Matt Rosoff, lead analyst for consumer strategies at Directions on Microsoft. "I think it could draw some users back from competing online mail services, particularly Gmail, which has hardly changed since launch and has noticeable performance problems." The relaunch comes as the latest stage in Microsoft's refining and enhancing Windows Live. The company first launched its Windows Live initiative two years ago this month. At that time, the company renamed some existing MSN-branded offerings, including MSN Messenger and MSN Hotmail, as well as added brand new "Live" services. Since then, the company has worked to create a diverse suite of services under the Windows Live aegis. It also rebranded its faltering Microsoft Passport to "Windows Live ID," promoting it as the gateway to an emerging suite of Live services. Microsoft today claims some 400 million active Windows Live services users. However, according to Rosoff, Live ID accounts represent a lot of those users. The company requires a Live ID account in order to open a Live Hotmail account, for example, and to access other Live services. "The 400 million number is active Live IDs, meaning the user of that ID has logged into at least one service in the last 30 days ... but there are undoubtedly many duplicates," Rosoff told InternetNews.com in an e-mail interview.

Vonage, AT&T Settle Patent Suit

Vonage said Thursday that it had reached "an agreement in principle" with AT%26T to settle the patent-infringement lawsuit filed by the telecommunications company. According to Vonage, the terms of the deal under discussion include a payment by Vonage of $39 million over five years in exchange for AT%26T dropping its suit. Vonage would also drop its own suit against AT%26T. "We're moving in the right direction with regard to AT%26T and are focused on finalizing our agreement by the end of this month," said Vonage spokesman Charles Sahner. "We would like to be able to put AT%26T behind us together with Verizon, Sprint and our other recent settlements." AT%26T spokesman Michael Coe would only confirm that AT%26T is in discussions with Vonage, as it has been for the last two-and-a-half years. Vonage said in a statement that if negotiations of a definitive settlement agreement fail, then it will "vigorously defend itself in this matter. The AT%26T suit is the final intellectual property suit Vonage faces. Last month, Vonage settled its patent infringement case with Verizon, agreeing to pay up to $120 million if necessary. And just before the Verizon settlement, Vonage settled with Sprint Nextel for $80 million. The good thing about this settlement is that it allows Vonage to avoid paying 5 percent of its future sales to Sprint, as had been stipulated in the original Sept. 25 federal jury ruling. Vonage's legal woes factored heavily in its financial statement issued today, in which the company reported a $161.7 million loss -- including $132 million in charges due to legal settlements. "The company's cash requirements in the fourth quarter increased due to the release of $78 million of restricted cash to Verizon, an additional $2 million to Verizon, $40 million placed into escrow and reported as current restricted cash until the Verizon appeal is decided, $80 million to Sprint and $2 million in other IP litigation settlements," the company said in its statement.

Microsoft-Novell: Has Their Deal Made a Difference?

It was just over a year ago that Microsoft partnered with Linux vendor Novell, turning the Linux world on its ears. The companies now claim that they've signed 30 new customers to the deal, including Costco Wholesale Corp., Southwest Airlines Co. and the City of Los Angeles. How much impact the deal actually has had on the marketplace is, however, still up for debate. The deal between Novell and Microsoft allows interoperability between Windows and Linux and provides a patent covenant, ensuring Microsoft will not sue Novell's SUSE Linux users over alleged intellectual property infringement by open source applications. The total value of the deal was pegged at approximately $348 million by Novell and includes $240 million from Microsoft for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) "certificates" that Microsoft may either use, distribute or resell. In a statement sent to InternetNews.com, Novell noted that as of the end of the third quarter of Novell's fiscal year, it had invoiced more than $105 million in SUSE Linux Enterprise certificates through the business collaboration with Microsoft. That figure, according to Novell, exceeded its target for sales after one year. Aside from the good news, analysts are split over the impact the deal has had on the market. "It's making Novell appear to be a serious play in the high end of the Linux market," Gartner analyst George Weiss told InternetNews.com. "The derived and deferred revenues from the certificates are now passing from the somewhat to the significantly noticeable market-impact stage, and the relationship between Microsoft and Novell seems to have more resilient legs than many were willing to concede and cause market changing dynamics." Pund-IT analyst Charles King said it's still too soon to tell how the deal has affected the OS market, though for Novell the results seem to be positive. King cited the fact that during the first nine months of 2007, the revenues from Novell's Open Platform group (of which SUSE is a major part) have increased by more than 50 percent from the previous year. "This can't be traced directly to the company's deal with Microsoft, but the agreement may have had an impact," King told InternetNews.com. "The financial effects for Microsoft appear negligible (or so company CEO Steve Ballmer has said), but the Novell deal arguably paved the way for the company to pursue other agreements with open source players." Illuminata analyst Gordon Haff sees little impact. "Overall, it's hard to see a lot of impact to date in the sense that there haven't been major market share shifts among any of the major players," Haff said. 451 Group analyst Matthew Aslett is on the same side of the fence, noting that the overall impact of the agreement has not been as great as people might have expected, or feared, depending on their point of view. "Microsoft's purchase of $240 million worth of support certificates for joint customers produced a boost for Novell's Linux revenue, but it doesn't appear to have had any impact on Red Hat's business," Aslett told InternetNews.com. A Red Hat spokesperson was not immediately available for comment. Beyond the business impact there is the interoperability side of the equation to consider, as well. "There could still be some long-term impact from the interoperability initiatives around virtualization, as well as systems and identity management, but it could be some time before customers see the results," Aslett said. Regardless of what impact the deal has trigged in the marketplace over the past year, ultimately it's about meeting market requirements. "The fact is that the vast majority of businesses do not want homogeneous IT infrastructures," Pund-IT analyst King said. "Instead, they want to be able to better and more easily manage their IT assets no matter what hardware or OS platforms they buy. "Microsoft and Novell deserve congratulations on their one-year anniversary, but the needs of Linux and Windows customers are as much responsible for the partnership as the companies themselves. "

Stocks Climb Ahead of Cisco's Results

With key sectors like semiconductors and financials in bear markets, strength in big-cap technology stocks like Cisco, Microsoft, Apple and Google has kept the Nasdaq near multi-year highs even as the rest of the stock market has crumbled around them. So investors will look to Cisco's quarterly results after the market close Wednesday for evidence that technology spending can stay strong in the face of a credit market meltdown that threatens to derail the broader economy. Analysts are looking for another strong quarter from Cisco, with 16.5% sales growth to $9.54 billion and earnings of 36 cents a share, up from 31 cents in the year-ago quarter. What's more, they're looking for Cisco to continue growing at a 15-16% clip into next year and 2009. And if recent history is any indication, investors will expect Cisco to beat those numbers handily. Cisco rose 3% Tuesday ahead of its earnings report, and the rest of the market gained as investors finally started buying beaten-down financial stocks, while $97 a barrel crude sent energy stocks higher. Yahoo lost 5% after getting grilled on Capitol Hill for turning over data that resulted in the jailing of a journalist in China. The controversy overshadowed a 200% gain for Alibaba.com in its Hong Kong debut, the biggest Internet IPO since Google's 2004 debut. Yahoo owns a 40% stake in the company. Nortel shares soared 18% as investors looked past weaker than expected results to focus on the company's bullish outlook. Sun Microsystems fell 10% after missing sales estimates. DivX soared 32% after beating estimates, but Cognizant and Novatel plunged 20% on their results. The Nasdaq rose 30 to 2825, the S%26P gained 18 to 1520, and the Dow rose 117 to 13,660. Volume declined to 3.83 billion shares on the NYSE, and rose to 2.53 billion on the Nasdaq. Advancers led by a 21-11 margin on the NYSE, and 17-12 on the Nasdaq. Upside volume was 70% on the NYSE, and 57% on the Nasdaq. New highs-new lows were 151-236 on the NYSE, and 125-300 on the Nasdaq.

Microsoft Fires Its CIO

In a surprise move, Microsoft announced it's fired chief information officer Stuart Scott for what the company called "violation of company policies." The software giant did not disclose any further information regarding his departure, but said that his termination came after an investigation. Scott became CIO in 2005. Previously, he worked at General Electric for 17 years, where he was CIO of several divisions, according to his biography on Microsoft's corporate Web site. He also led the IT group responsible for security, infrastructure, messaging and business applications for all of Microsoft, including support of Microsoft product groups, corporate business groups, and the global sales and marketing organization. Scott, who was also a corporate vice president, reported to chief operating officer Kevin Turner. Microsoft is being tight lipped about Scott's firing. In fact, an annotation on his bio page, dated Monday, only says he quit working there in "early November." "In the interim, Microsoft general manager Shahla Aly and corporate vice president Alain Crozier will assume his responsibilities until a replacement is identified,%26#148; said a statement released by the company.

Barbarians At The Mac's Shaky Gates

The surest sign an operating system has arrived is when virus writers begin to target it. Welcome to the party, Mac OS X. Malware researchers found a new and, for Apple, extremely rare piece of malicious software for the Mac, which comes on the heels of a scathing security review of the Mac OS X 10.5, a.k.a. Leopard. Apple released the operating system last week after some delays due to the iPhone and other projects. The virus in question is actually a Trojan, a DNS changer called OSX/Puper. There is an identical version of this on Windows as well. It was found on pornographic Web sites where it pretends to be a codec (define) that the user needs to install to view the naughty material. Once installed, it intercepts DNS calls to Web sites and redirects the user to a malicious Web site where more malware awaits. Fortunately, McAfee and the few other antivirus vendors supporting the Mac have upgraded their definitions and can detect it. But as Dave Marcus, security research and communications manager at McAfee's Avert Labs told InternetNews.com, "most Mac users don't run antivirus software because they are under the impression there are no viruses for the Mac. That's been true up until a day or two ago." McAfee, prepared for the worst, made antivirus software for the Mac not only because of the potential for infection, but also because it can store virus files that could also infect PCs. "We've been expecting it, but Mac OS has never been a target of opportunity," Marcus said. "But now there's more Mac OS in people's hands than ever before, so it's becoming more of a target of interest for malware writers. And we always knew they could come anyway." While Mac OS X 10.5 is generally earning high marks, one area where it's getting a thumbs down is security. Upgrading a computer to Leopard disables the firewall and the firewall isn't restored until the installation is completed. Other problems are noted in a widely distributed report on the Internet from the UK security firm Heise Security. Among the shortcomings: at its default setting of "allow all incoming connections," the firewall is essentially off. The firewall does not allow for different levels of security, such as the difference between a safer environment%26#151;like a corporate network%26#151;and something riskier, like a public Wi-Fi. Heise said Mac OS X failed every test, reminiscent of Window XP, which Mac OS is often favorably compared against. "Apple is showing here a casual attitude with regard to security questions which strongly recalls that of Microsoft four years ago," wrote Heise in its conclusion. An Apple spokesperson was not immediately available to comment on the security concerns. McAfee's Marcus, a Mac user, admitted he's holding off on upgrading because of the negative anecdotes he's already heard from others. "I've heard enough feedback that makes me want to wait," he said. "Some of the features, like sandboxing, are a step in the right direction. It's a very effective way of addressing certain issues. But most of us are waiting because of all the feedback we're hearing." But IDC analyst Bret Waldman is willing to cut Apple some slack. "In general, security built into operating systems has not lived up to a gold standard regardless of which operating system it is," he told InternetNews.com. "It's not their forte, it's not their core competence. If you really want security you need to go with a security vendor."

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IronMountainSnaresStratify

Inwhatmaybethefirstofmanysuchmoves,IronMountainonWednesdayacquiredStratify,aleadingvendorofe-discoverysoftware,for$158millionincash.Thepurchasecouldinaugurateanumberoftechnology-relatedacquisitionsfortheiconicrecordsmanagementandstoragecompanyoverthenextfiveyears:IronMountainisattemptingtoreplicateitsdominanceinthephysicaldocumentmanagementindustrywiththefast-growingdigitalrecordssector.Stratify'sLegalDiscoverysoftwareincorporateselementsofstatisticalanalysis,patternrecognitionandlinguisticsanalysis.Forcompaniesentangledinlegalorregulatorydisputes,thesefeaturesspeedandrefinetheprocessforreviewingelectronicdocumentslikee-mail.Forexample,it'scostlyforbusinessestodealwithemployeestock-optioninquiriesfromtheSecuritiesandExchangeCommissionorSarbanes-Oxleyaccountingcomplianceissues.Companiesroutinelyspendmillionseachyearinattorneyfeesdirectlyrelatedtothetediousprocessofcullingthroughmountainsofinternaldocumentstosatisfythesesortsofe-discoveryrequirements.Accordingly,Gartnerexpects50percentofGlobal2000companiestoimplemententerprise-widerecordsmanagementsoftwareby2010,upfromabout25percentin2005.Increasedregulatoryoversight,particularlyforpubliclyheldcompanies,meansthesenewrecordmanagementsoftwaresystemswillhavetoculldatanotonlyfromcontentrepositoriesbutalsofromfilestores,archivesandawholeslewofbusinessapplications.JohnClancy,presidentofIronMountain'sdigitaltechnologyunit,saidStratify'ssoftwarebringsstructuretothisseaofunstructureddata.Hesaidthetechnologyallowsattorneysorparalegalstosearchthrough200to300pagesofe-mailsinanhour,ratherthanthetypicalrateof50to75pagesanhour."Ourbusinessisbasedaroundstorageasaservicetocapture,storeandusethedata,"ClancysaidinaninterviewwithInternetNews.com."The'use'pieceisusuallyablackhole.Thisacquisitionwillallowustotakeittothenextlevel,lettingourcustomersfindthoseneedlesinthehaystack."AndIronMountainwillbeprovidingplentyofpitchforks.AtthesametimeitannouncedtheStratifyacquisition,thecompanyalsoannouncedstellarthird-quarterearningsandconfirmedplanstospendbetween$500millionand$1.5billiononacquisitionsoverthenextfiveyears.Inthequarter,IronMountainpocketed$51.3million,or25centsashare,onsalesofalmost$702million,easilyhurdlinganalystestimatescallingforaprofitof18centsashareandsalesof$687millioninthequarter.ClancysaidthatwhileIronMountainis"expanding"itsdigitalrecordsbusiness,itscorepaperandphysicalstoragewillstillaccountforabout94percentofthe$2.6billionto$2.7billioninsalesitexpectstoclosethisyear.Still,thatremainingsixpercentindigitaldocumentmanagementandstoragerepresentsabout$160million,upfrombetween$30millionand$40millionjustthreeyearsago."It'snotatransitionbutanexpansion,"Clancysaid."Ourhistorysince1951hasbeenaboutprotectingandstoringinformationinphysicalform—boxesandpaperandtapes—andwejustcompletedour75thconsecutivequarterofincreasedstorage.Thatbusinessiscrankingandwillcontinuetocrank.Buttoday,somuchisbornandlivesitslifecycledigitallyandwe'vemadeacommitmenttogoafterit."ClancyhimselfisaproductofIronMountain'srelativelynewfixationwithdigitalrecordsmanagement.Beforeassuminghiscurrentrole,heservedaschiefoperatingofficeratConnected,aproviderofbackupandrecoveryspacefordesktopdatathatIronMountainsnappedupinOctober2004for$117million.Stratify,whichprovidesitshostede-discoverysoftwaretoFortune500companiesaswellasmanyofthecountry'slargestlawfirms,willbecomeadivisionofIronMountainDigitalwhenthedealclosesattheendofthefourthquarter.Gartnerreportedthatworldwidespendingforenterpriserecordsmanagementsoftwarelicensesandmaintenancetotaled$350millionin2006andisprojectedtoincreaseabout30percentayearthrough2011.ThisexpecteddemandismusictotheearsofIronMountainexecutivesaswellasestablishedcontentmanagementsoftwareproviderslikeEMC,IBM,OpenTextandemergingplayerssuchasMimosaSystemsandAutonomy,throughitsJulyacquisitionofcontentarchivingpioneerZantaz.Earlierthismonth,OracleunveiledUniversalRecordsManagement10gRelease3,itse-discoveryanddigitaldocumentmanagementsoftware.IronMountainclaimsitholdsmorethan300,000customercontractsfrommorethan100,000corporatecustomersandisresponsibleforstoringandmanagingmorethanninepetabytesofcustomerdata.IronMountainsharesralliedup$2ashare,or6percent,tocloseata52-weekhighof$34.70ashareinWednesdaytrading.

GoogleGadgetsGoIntoTheWild

Google'sannouncementofOpenSocialWednesdaynightmarkssomethingofaturningpointforthetechnologydarling.Asthecompanystrugglestoextenditsdominanceinonlinesearchadvertisingtoradio,TVandprint,theOpenSocialprojectcreatesasetofopenapplicationprogramminginterfaces(APIs)thatwillletdeveloperswritewidgetstorunonavarietyofsocialnetworks,includingitsown.VentureBeatpublishedwhatitsaidwasadraftofthepressrelease,stillofficiallyunderembargo,whichsaid,"TheproliferationofuniqueAPIsacrossdozensofsocialWebsitesisforcingdeveloperstochoosewhichonestowriteapplicationsfor–andthenspendtheirtimewritingseparatelyforeach.""OpenSocialgivesdevelopersofsocialapplicationsasinglesetofAPIstolearnfortheirapplicationtorunonanyOpenSocial-enabledWebsite.Byprovidingthesesimple,standards-basedtechnologies,OpenSocialwillspeedinnovationandbringmoresocialfeaturestomoreplacesacrosstheWeb."AGooglespokesmansaidinane-mail,"There'salotofinnovationthatwillbespurredsimplybycreatingastandardwayfordeveloperstorunsocialapplicationsinmoreplaces.Withtheinputanditerationofthecommunity,wehopeOpenSocialwillbecomeastandardsetoftechnologiesformakingtheWebsocial."OpenSocial'spurposeistotestthe"socialgraph"conceptthatillustrateshowindividualsareconnectedtoothersacrossWeb-basedapplicationsanddiscretesocialnetworkslikeOrkutorFriendster.AccordingtoMarcAndreessen,whoco-foundedNetscapeandthesocialnetworkingsiteNing,OpenSocialisnotaWebservicesAPI,butratherawayforexternalapplicationstoplugintoahostedenvironment,whichhedubbedthecontainer.TheexternalapplicationcanmakeJavaScriptcallstoretrieveinformationfromthecontainerorperformfunctionswithinthecontainer,suchas"givemealistofallofthisuser'sfriends"or"injectthiseventintothisuser'sactivityfeed."NingisamemberoftheOpenSocialconsortium.AndreessensaidittookonlyafewdaysforNingtoimplementOpenSocial,addingthatNing,Orkut,Hi5,LinkedIn,iLike,Flixster,andSlidewouldalsodemonstrateworkingcode.WhilesomeseeOpenSocialasGoogle'sattempttocombatthegrowingpopularityofFacebookwithusersandadvertisers,Andreessenthinksdeveloperswillcontinuetousebothbecausethey'llbeabletorunmultiplefront-ends—forFacebook,OpenSocialandothers—withthesameback-endcode.LinkedInfounderAdamNashwroteonhisblogthatOpenSocialwouldmakeiteasyfordeveloperstowritebusinessapplicationsthatLinkedInusersmightlike.AsGoogledeveloperBradFitzpatrick,founderoftheearlybloggingcommunityLiveJournal,explaineditonhisblog,"Peoplearegettingsickofregisteringandre-declaringtheirfriendsoneverysite,"and"developing'socialapplications'istoomuchwork.""Facebook'sanswerseemstobethattheworldshouldjustallbeFacebookapps,"hewrote."WhileFacebookisanamazingplatformandhassomeamazingtechnology,there'salotofhesitationinthedeveloper/Web2.0communityaboutbeingslavestoFacebook,dependentontheircontinuedgoodwill,availability,futureowners,notchangingtherules,etc."Fitzpatrick'sproposedsolutionwastomakethesocialgraphacommunityassetthatwouldpooldatafromthevarioussiteswithoutmakinganyonecompanyitsowner.AsofAugust17,hehadprototypedasocialgraphcomprisingdatafromfivecommunitysites,includingworkingimplementationsoftheAPIs,andhadestablishedaGoogleGroupfortechnicaldiscussions.KingoftheopenAPIsGooglehasseenterrificusageofitsAPIs.Itsextraordinarilysuccessfulanddeveloper-belovedMapsAPIskickedoffacottageindustryofmashups,whiletheenterpriseversionprovideshighfunctionalityforbusinessuses.InJuly,Googleopeneditsproprietaryitsgeo-spatialmark-uplanguage,KML2.2,totheOpenGeospatialConsortium.Butthesearchgiant'sstaturehasnotbeenaslargeoutsideofitscorecompetencies;Orkut,itssocialnetworkingsite,had24.1millionusersworldwideinJune,accordingtocomScore,comparedwith114.1millionforMySpace.AndGoogleGadgets,itsownformofwidgets,isn'tamongthetop10,accordingtocomScore.OpenSocialcouldextendGoogle'sreachintowidgetadvertising.Itlaunchedabetaservice,GoogleGadgetAds,inSeptember.GoogleGadgetAdsletsadvertisersdevelopwidgetsthataredistributedjustlikeadsacrossGoogle'sadvertisingnetwork.AstandardwidgetformatwouldmakeiteasierforGoogletodistributethemtouserswithinothersocialnetworks.ThemovealsostrengthensGoogle'stiestooutsidedevelopers.They'llneedtogotoGoogle'ssandboxtotesttheAPIsandtheirwidgets,um,gadgets.It'sinterestingtonotetheclashbetweenthecompany'sold-schoolPRtacticsandthemoreopenattitudesofSiliconValleystartups.GoogleplannedasplashylauncheventWednesdaynight,and,accordingtotheblogTechCrunch,madeparticipantssignnon-disclosureagreements,yetleakedthestorytotheNewYorkTimes.Meanwhile,techguruslikeAndreessen,FitzpatrickandNashfolloweddevelopernormsandspokeopenlyabouttheprojects,spreadingtheinformationallovertheWeb.

TechnicalAnalysis:S

SIIAGunningForOnlineSoftwarePirates

eBay'slatestmarketingcampaignproclaimsit's"betterwhenyouwinit"andencouragesbiddersto"shopvictoriously,"butwhenitcomestobuyingandsellingsoftwareontheonlineauctionsite,it'sthevendorsthataredoingallthelosing.Afull35percentofallsoftwareinstalledonpersonalcomputerslastyearwaspirated,accordingtoIDC,meaningmorethan$40billioninlegitimatesaleswerelosttoshadycharactershawkingtheirill-gottenwaresonthestreetsofShenzhenoratfleamarketsinDesMoinesor,moreandmoreeveryday,ateveryone'sfavoriteplaceto"win"online:eBay.PartlybecauseoftheefficiencyandanonymityoftheprocessandpartlybecauseofeBay'shighlypopular"BuyItNow"transactionoption,softwarepiratesaremovingastaggeringamountofstolenorcounterfeitsoftwarethroughthesitetobuyerswhoareapparentlyoblivious,indifferentorboth.Andthesituation,accordingtoinvestigators,issooutofcontrol,nobodycanofferupevenareasonableguesstimateastohowmuchillegalsoftwareissoldeachday,monthoryearonthesite.Vendorsaren'tstupidandthey'renonetoopleasedbythisdevelopment,buttheyandtheauthoritiescan'tseemtodomuchtostemtheflowofillegalsoftwarebecausethey'reconstantlyplayingcatch-uptoprofessionalcrookswhosetupmultiple—sometimeshundreds,maybeeventhousands—sellerIDs.Whetherit'sMicrosoftWindowsVistaorSymantecNortonUtilitiesorAdobePhotoshop,eBaybidderscanpickandchoosethesoftwaretheywant,makeabidandconcludethesaleinminutes,leavingnothingbutatrailofuselessfeedbackcommentsandemptylinksbehind.SteppingtotheforeinthisdecidedlyuphillbattleistheSoftwareandInformationIndustryAssociation(SIIA),atradeassociationrepresentingmorethan800softwareanddigitalcontentcompanies,ofwhichmaybetwodozenareactivemembers.ThetradeassociationinMay2005launchedwhatitcallsitsAuctionLitigationProgramtomonitoreBay—andtoalesserextentsmallernicheauctionsitesandrogueWebsites—toidentifyindividualsandgroupssellingpiratedsoftwareonline."There'salotofmoneytobemadeinillegalsoftware,"KeithKupferschmid,theSIIA'sseniorvicepresidentforintellectualproperty,saidinaninterviewwithInternetNews.com."It'sacombinationofstolensoftwareorOEMsoftwarethat'ssomehownotsoldwiththehardware.Sometimesit'sacademicsoftware.Sometimesit'scounterfeit.Usuallyit'sbeingsoldbyanindividualwho'sjusttryingtomakeabuck."

Everex PC Goes Linux, Low-Cost

PC maker Everex has announced a low-cost Linux PC for the masses that it hopes will succeed where others have failed. The $198 price tag might help.

The Everex gPC will hit Wal-Mart shelves tomorrow and is designed to attract new PC users. Running on Ubuntu Linux 7.1, the gPC is a mini-tower system that comes with a Via C7-D low-power x86 clone running at 1.5Ghz but drawing only two watts of power. Under full load, the PC requires only 20 watts of power, a tenth of what most PCs use. The machine also comes with 512MB of memory, an 80GB hard drive and a CD-RW recorder.

"If you look at it by Vista standards, it seems bottom of the barrel," said Paul Kim, director of marketing for Everex. "But running in the Linux environment -- it's pretty powerful."

gPC

The gPC's user interface called Enlightenment, which replaces the more comprehensive Compiz Fusion UI -- a standard in Ubuntu Linux. Enlightenment's developer, gOS, is behind the gPC's OS, also called gOS.

The gOS has a distinctly Mac OS-like look to it, which isn't too surprising as gOS founder David Liu is a Mac fan, but there were some things he didn't like about it. "On the developer side it's closed, and on the end-user side it's not affordable. So we wanted something inspired by Mac OS in look and feel and ease of use but centered around the Google apps family," he told InternetNews.com.

The gPC comes loaded with Google's suite of applications, such as Gmail, Google Docs %26 Spreadsheets, Google Calendar, Google Product Search, Google Blogger, YouTube, Google Maps, and Google News. Other free apps include Meebo for instant messaging, GIMP for image editing, Firefox, Xing Movie Player, RhythmBox, an iTunes substitute, Facebook, Skype and OpenOffice.org 2.2.

"In the Linux community, your standard distribution may or may not have all the apps you need, and most Linux people are savvy enough to go online and get what they need. We recognize most users are not savvy enough to get all that stuff and install it," said Liu.

There have been previous attempts at low-cost Linux PCs for the masses, such as Linspire, but they failed to make a sizable dent in the market (although Linspire was hamstrung by a protracted legal fight with Microsoft that had nothing to do with the product).

Liu thinks gPC can succeed by making the system easy for beginner or inexperienced PC users.

"Our target is first-time users and someone who wanted a simple experience," he said. Everex tried to anticipate as much consumer need as possible in loading all of the free software on the computer. "There is some value to integration. We want the out-of-box experience to be as seamless as possible.

Kim added that while the Google name and logo are used, this is not a Google-endorsed product. While it's full of Google apps, the goal of both companies was to create an out-of-the-box Web 2.0 experience, he said.

Whether the gPC will have luck in Wal-Mart when other efforts have failed remains to be seen. IDC analyst Richard Shim isn't so sure about the U.S. market but said overseas presents a better opportunity. "In this market there are already established players and they are likely to move into that space as the market becomes more commoditized," he told InternetNews.com.

For instance, Dell, a much bigger player than Everex, is also in Wal-Mart with a $359 computer that has sold well. Shim said Everex is better off looking in other markets than competing against Dell.

"If you go somewhere with lower penetration rates, there's more opportunity, both from lower expectations from the customers and from a lower market penetration standpoint."

Privacy Groups Seek 'Do Not Call' List for Web Ads

Consumer privacy groups are pushing for increased regulatory oversight of online advertising, including a "Do Not Track" registry that would ban companies from tracking online users and targeting ads based on their activities.

The groups, which include the Center for Democracy and Technology, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Consumer Action, sent a proposal to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) asking for it to oversee a mandatory "Do Not Track" registry.

The registry would loosely follow the model of the successful national and state "Do Not Call" registries that prevent telemarketers from making unsolicited sales pitches to consumers who have signed.

The online advertising industry, however, has long claimed that targeted ads are more relevant to consumers, and thus more useful and interesting to them.

In their petition to the FTC, the groups also said they want online advertisers to instantly reveal to Web users the specifics of the information they are tracking.

"The online tracking and targeting of consumers ... needs to be limited so that consumers can exercise meaningful, granular preferences based on timely and contextual disclosures that are understandable on whichever devices consumers choose to use," the groups wrote in their proposal to the FTC. "Specifically, we urge the U.S. Federal Trade Commission to take proactive steps to adequately protect consumers as online behavioral tracking and targeting become more ubiquitous."

The groups' proposal comes as AOL, one of the largest players in online media, is undertaking efforts to address a glitch in how its Web sites handle consumer requests to opt-out of receiving marketing messages.

The online media giant today announced an improvement to its opt-out system, which better protects customers from being mistakenly solicited by the company's Web sites if they've asked to no longer receive marketing messages.

Typically, if a user decides not to accept getting messages or ads from one Web site, that preference is noted in a Web browser cookie. However, under the current system, if they then delete that cookie, that site no longer can tell that the user has opted out of receiving marketing messages.

Now, a new Web caching technique from AOL's behavioral targeting unit Tacoda is designed to preserve users' opt-out choices across the company's network of online properties.

"One of the problems was users overwriting that unique cookie," Jules Polonetsky, Chief Privacy Officer at AOL, told InternetNews.com. "People's choices need to be respected, so we're enhancing the opt-out process."

AOL, which purchased its Tacoda unit earlier this year to better assist it in targeting ads across its sites, said it is unsure about the necessity of the privacy groups' proposals to the FTC.

"We're studying this proposal to see if it's feasible," Polonetsky said. "What's important is consumer awareness. There is an opt-out process up and running."

The move comes as AOL and the larger online advertising industry are facing renewed calls for increased consumer protection.

Last year, after leaking 20 million search queries, a class-action suit filed in California against AOL alleged that the company violated the Electronic Communications Privacy Act and a set of California fair business laws.

Online privacy advocates have also sharply criticized Google's proposed acquisition of Web ad player DoubleClick, which is pending regulatory approval. In testimony given during Senate committee hearings on the subject, a handful of competitors and consumer advocates cautioned that the merger could have dire implications for online privacy.

The announcements also come a day before taking AOL and other online leaders are slated to take part in a two-day forum on privacy issues and tracking in online advertising, held by the FTC. The commission said the event will come as part of its effort to examine the effects of behavioral advertising on consumer privacy.