eBay buys payment firm, lays off over 1,000
EBay announced two acquisitions Monday, at the same time saying it will lay off more than 1,000 staff worldwide and cut back on recruitment.
EBay to lend buyers a hand
EBay took a big plunge into the consumer credit market Monday with the acquisition of Bill Me Later, the No. 2 online payment service.
Cydia 2.0 repository hits 400 iPhone/iPod touch apps
Cydia has posted their 400th package in their 2.0 Cydia repository. They have also added better stat tracking in the repository from within. You can view the most recent 100 apps posted here.
TV scramble is muted
Four days into the corporate tug-of-war between Time Warner Cable and LIN Broadcasting, Western New York TV viewers continue to remain frustrated that the stalemate has seen two stations blacked out to the cable company's 330,000 Western New York subscribers.
Wal-Mart Threatens Site Over Black Friday Ad Deals
Want to know how we know the holidays are coming? It's not the Christmas decorations already showing up in stores; it's the annual ritual of retailers threatening any website that posts the deals from their "Black Friday" (the day after Thanksgiving) sales circular prior to that day. Last year, Wal-Mart went beyond what others stores had done, in pre-threatening sites . In the past, companies like Target and Best Buy had simply threatened to sue sites after the ads went up. But Wal-Mart took it a step further and threatened to sue before the ads even went up, ignoring, of course that they don't own pricing data . The data on sales prices are not copyrightable and cannot be owned. Wal-Mart simply has no legal leg to stand on in demanding the data from the circular be taken down. But why let that stop them? An anonymous reader alerts us to the fact that Wal-Mart is already sending the notices out to various sites , threatening legal ramifications if the sites were to post the prices prior to the date Wal-Mart makes them "official." Permalink | Comments | Email This Story
RealDVD taken down temporarily
Last week we reported that RealNetworks was suing the Hollywood studios in an effort to have their RealDVD software ruled completely legal by a judge. RealNetworks claims that the software "allows consumers to securely store, manage and play their DVDs on their computers" and "does not enable users to distribute copies of their DVDs." It also mentions that RealDVD adds another layer of DRM to the ripped movies which makes it much harder to move to films off the computer that has the program installed. However, the movie studios have sued the company back and it seems the software is now down temporarily with no word on when it will be available again. A visit to the RealDVD site will give you this message: "Due to recent legal action taken by the Hollywood movie studios against us, RealDVD is temporarily unavailable. Rest assured, we will continue to work diligently to provide you with software that allows you to make a legal copy of your DVDs for your own use." We will keep you updated.
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Facebook's Other Founder Goes Off to Found Some More
One of Facebook's two cofounders is jumping ship to start his own Internet company. Dustin Moskovitz announced he'll leave the social networking site in about a month. He and colleague Justin Rosenstein, a Facebook engineering manager who previously worked at Google, will launch a new enterprise software business.
CA plans to unveil this week its datacenter automation product that industry watchers say will help IT staff offload server resource-provisioning duties and give CA an advantage over competitive products from BMC and HP .
CA Data Center Automation (DCA) Manager r11.2. will let customers automate systems monitoring and resource provisioning. The software competes with technology HP acquired with Opsware and BMC bought with BladeLogic. CA developed its product in-house, which industry watchers say could give CA an edge if competitors are still working to integrate acquired software.
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"CA's seemingly slow progress on the DCA technology is a sign of an internal design approach which might just be the right one," says Evelyn Hubbert, senior analyst with Forrester Research. "Acquisitions are always challenged by architectures, which need to be matched or modified mostly to the disadvantage of the client. CA knows its architecture and can design integrations and extensions from the ground up."
For instance, DCA Manager will integrate software for network and systems management as well as ties to Wily Introscope 8 and Customer Experience Manager 4.2 products for application performance management, which are also scheduled to be announced this week.
DCA Manager runs on a server and works with existing agents in a customer environment to gather information and trigger events. The software collects system software and hardware configuration information, discovers applications and their dependencies, and detects change across the environment. Integration with existing products also give the software access to network availability, application performance, and business service management data, which CA says can help automate resource allocation based on demand.
"The software includes algorithms and policy-based management features that, for instance, can compare how application performance correlates to resource consumption. Based on that information, DCA Manager can determine if resources need to be provisioned," says Stephen Elliot, vice president of strategy for CA's Infrastructure Management and Data Center Automation business unit (and a former IDC analyst). "Customers need to be able to allocate resources based on the business demand."
DCA Manager monitors utilization and performance across mixed-platform datacenter environments. The data can then be fed into customizable dashboards that give data center managers a view of their physical and heterogeneous virtual environments, which analysts say is a capability many vendors are looking to offer.
"It's unclear at this point if the market for data center automation products is tied to hardware, which could be HP's selling point, virtualization platforms like VMware and Microsoft or third-party software that can handle heterogeneous hardware, operating systems and virtual technologies," says Mary Johnston Turner, senior analyst with Enterprise Strategies Group.
CA says the DCA Manager software can also be used to provision resources on a scheduled basis, letting customers delegate duties. For instance, a self-service features lets non-IT staff schedule desired resources for specific applications or events at the university. Once scheduled, DCA Manager will use images and templates built by Husain's staff to automatically provision the server capacity for the assigned function. When the need is no longer there, the resources can be reclaimed by IT.
"When it comes to management, IT decision makers list the impact on IT staff and cost as the top factors they consider. CA's self-service reservation management systems gets IT in part out of the workflow and lets end users schedule resources for themselves," Turner says. "Technology that saves on staff time and keeps the business going is compelling, and right now investing in automation tools is really going to pay back for IT."
Naveed Husain, CIO at Queens College, a City University of New York public educational institution, is conducting a proof of concept on CA DCA Manager. He says the software, which is not fully implemented, could help him manage more than 100 Dell servers running Windows and Linux operating systems and supporting more than 20,000 students, staff, faculty and other employees at Queens College -- without adding head count. And with virtualization on the horizon, Husain realized he couldn't postpone an investment in infrastructure monitoring and automation technology any longer.
"It's embarrassing to have built a high-availability environment with redundancy and failover and get calls because disk utilization on a server is over 75 percent and you didn't know because you can't have human eyes on all the servers all the time," Husain says. "At the low end we would pay $36,000 for a help-desk position and then anywhere between $60,000 and $90,000 for senior IT staff. Because I can't invest in staff, I am going to invest in this automation tool because I believe it will make my staff's lives easier now and save us money while the work still gets done."
Mixing together a m?lange of services, software and marketing, IBM's announcement this week of its Cloud Services Initiative is about putting an organizing construct around all of its cloud offerings, according to one IBM executive.
To that end, it does not appear that there is much new in the way of products or services in the initiative.
Mostly repackaging of IBM datacenter and Lotus technology Bluehouse?, the centerpiece of the initiative, is a Web-based tool for collaboration. However, while the name may be new, Bluehouse actually incorporates a great deal of Big Blue's existing products, such as IBM's Lotus SameTime collaborative and social networking environment. Bluehouse builds on the services currently offered in SameTime for instant messaging and unified communications. "Bluehouse adds document sharing, contact sharing, and community building all in a SaaS (software-as-a-service) model," said Dave Mitchell, director of strategy for cloud services at IBM.
[ Confused about what cloud computing really means? Find out in InfoWorld's definitive guide to cloud computing . ]
Along with Bluehouse, IBM also announced SameTime Unyte, a Web conferencing offering. Unyte is also part of Bluehouse.
In addition to Bluehouse, the four-part initiative adds to IBM's SaaS platform offerings, whereby IBM hosts the delivery infrastructure for software vendors. What's new is not technological but marketing: IBM has broadened the definition of a partner, expanding it to mean any software vendor that uses two out of three products IBM delivers: middleware, hardware, and managed hosting. Partners are also the beneficiary of joint marketing efforts.
Services to integrate cloud components into an organization's business environment are also available for IBM customers.
The fourth component will provide a datacenter environment based on IBM's Cloud Computing Centers around the world. This will give customers remote access to computing power in an on-demand environment.
Looking past proprietary clouds Although the Bluehouse effort appears to be something IBM has been doing for a considerable number of years through its data center services, Mitchell hinted at doing something more, resolving an issue that has recently been swirling around the use of cloud solutions. "We are working with our partners using SOA to develop open clouds as opposed to proprietary clouds as in the past."
This comes on the heels of recent statements by Richard Stallman, for example, founder of GNU? and a well-respected industry watcher who was quoted in the British newspaper The Guardian as saying cloud computing is nothing more than a "marketing hype campaign" and a "trap which will lock users into proprietary systems."
The difference between what IBM is offering and others, says Mitchell, is that an open cloud environment will give users more interoperability and more connections to partners.
Two research papers published Monday have finally made it official: The world's most widely deployed radio frequency identification (RFID) smartcard - used to control access to transportation systems, military installations, and other restricted areas - can be cracked in a matter of minutes using inexpensive tools....
Little did Microsoft executives realize when they blessed the seemingly brilliant wheeze of "Windows Vista Capable" as a way of flogging the operating system that the idea could turn into a bitter pill their company might have to swallow....
RealNetworks has been forced to shut down sales of its DVD copying software, RealDVD, while a California judge decides if it violates US copyright laws....
MySpace nabs Yahoo sales exec
Valeh Vakili will join the News Corp.-owned social network as senior vice president of sales strategy and operations, the latest high-level hire that MySpace has made recently.
Google begins testing image search ads
Search giant makes its money from text ads, but putting ads in image search results lets it show graphics as well. It insists that it'll place ads only in a way that adds to user experience.
Hakia Retools Semantic Search Engine to Better Battle Google, Yahoo
Hakis relaunches its semantic search engine to better differentiate itself from Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and other search engines. The application development efforts have made Hakia a fully tabbed search engine, with a credible sites tab for validated expert results. Hakia joins Microsoft's Powerset, Wikia and others in trying to provide users a different experience from Google. - Semantic search engine startup Hakia has retooled its Web site, adding tabs for news, images and quot;credible quot; site searches as a way to differentiate between itself and what it calls the quot;10 blue links quot; approach search incumbents Google, Yahoo and Microsoft in the first era of sear...
Microsoft Focuses on BI for SQL Server Kilimanjaro
Microsoft unveils roadmap for SQL Server Kilimanjaro , which will contain new BI capabilities. Microsoft officials also discusses plans for the DATAllegro integration with SQL Server, which they say will enable SQL Server to penetrate deeper into data warehouse environments by improving scalability. - Microsoft offered the public a glimpse of the future of SQL Server at its Business Intelligence Conference 2008 in Seattle. During his conference keynote, Ted Kummert, vice president of Microsofts Data and Platform Storage division, laid out the companys plans to build additional business intellig...
T-Mobile Triples Production of Android Phone
A surge in consumer demand for the first smartphone phone powered by Google's Android software has prompted T-Mobile to triple it order to HTC for the G1 smartphone and to extend the deadline for pre-sales before the Oct. 22 launch. - Strong pre-sales of T-Mobile's G1 smartphone have prompted the mobile carrier to triple its orders for the first smartphone phone powered by Google's Android software. Set for an Oct. 22 launch date, T-Mobile also announced it was extending pre-sales to Oct. 21 although the much antic...
MSI Says Change is in the Wind
MSI is readying a new Wind netbook for business users and says Wind Desktop will be coming to America.
One In Four Mammals Risks Extinction
A quarter of the world's mammals are threatened with extinction, an international survey showed on Monday, and the destruction of habitats and hunting are the major causes....
D.Telekom Seeks Stolen Data On 17 Million Mobile Users
Thieves have hijacked sensitive data on millions of Deutsche Telekom mobile phone customers, the German company has acknowledged in its second major security scandal this year....
Portuguese Bank Offers "McCain/Obama" Rate Deal
A Portuguese online bank unveiled a novel interest rate deal Monday by letting clients bet on the outcome of the U.S. presidential election....
Podcaster returns under jailbreak
Podcaster, the application booted from the App Store for reportedly duplicating the podcasting functionality of the iPhone, is now being distributed via the open-source installer used to place applications on jailbroken iPhones and iPod touches. Christopher Breen has the details.
Japan's Softbank Mobile signs major corporate contract for iPhone 3G
Japan's Softbank Mobile has signed its first major corporate contract for the iPhone 3G, reports PC World. The deal, with management and technology consultancy BearingPoint, will see 1,000 of the phones put into the hands of the company's analysts and workers across the country, the two companies said on Monday.
'setteB.IT': UBS cuts estimate and lowers target on Apple
By Fabio M. Zambelli Today UBS cut its estimate on Apple. Analyst Maynard Um wrote: "We are cutting targets and estimates on AAPL, HP, and Dell on PC demand and enterprise IT spending concerns.
Apokalypse acquires TrackTime from mamooba
mamooba and Apokalypse Software have jointly announced that Apokalypse has acquired TrackTime, mamooba's in-depth activity tracker for users that wish to have a sophisticated accounting of their computer-or project-based activities.
EBay to Lay Off 10% of Work Force
The move to cut about 1,000 jobs is an attempt to improve the performance of its core marketplace division. EBay also said it is buying Bill Me Later, a Web-payment start-up.
Phone News (via Gizmodo ) reports that AT&T wireless users were "abusing" their unlimited pre-paid GoPhone data service by tapping into it with their laptops -- so AT&T is pulling the plug on the $19.99/month option starting on November 12th. Pre-paid users can spend $60 for 5GB of usage, but can expect to be billed $0.00048 per kilobyte, or $480 per gigabyte -- though Gizmodo claims that the customer account gets locked should it hit $100 in overages. read comment(s)
Banks May Say 'Thanks, But No Thanks' To That New $700 Billion
Last week, in that big post about the financial crisis , one thing I mentioned is that despite all the talk of "moral hazard" -- the bigger fear might be moral hazard's sister problem: adverse selection. That is, it would only be those with truly awful assets and no other options that would take the government up on its offer to buy its "toxic" assets. That may be happening. Reports are coming out that some on Wall Street are considering saying "thanks, but no thanks" to the new ~$700 billion that the Treasury Secretary has been given. The article paints the issue as being about the strings that come attached to it, such as limits on executive pay and golden parachutes. That almost certainly could be a part of the reasoning, but a much bigger part may simply be that these banks recognize that the assets they have aren't quite as toxic as they're being made out to be. Yes, there are bundles of highly questionable mortgages, but contrary to what the media tells you, plenty of the people who possess those mortgages are still paying -- and even if they're not, the property and houses they represent still do have some value on the market -- or will someday. Thus, it may be that the only banks that really take up Paulson on a buyout offer, are those with really toxic assets that aren't likely to appreciate in value. That's not good for anyone. The more you look at this bailout, the worse it seems. It also makes you wonder why there isn't more of a focus on using a so-called "stock injection" plan, whereby the gov't becomes an investor in the banks, rather than just buying out certain questionable assets. That would, in theory, help avoid sticking the taxpayers with only the worst of the worst assets. Permalink | Comments | Email This Story
No names: inside the fake identity racket
WANT to buy enough information about a stranger's credit card to steal their money? All it takes is one email and a transfer of funds through Western Union.
Angelina shows off her new geo-tattoos
Mother-of-six Angelina Jolie adds tattoos giving mapping coordinates pinpointing the French hospital where her twins were born in July.
Brand Reps: Not Your Father's College Job
On a sunny afternoon last spring, JJ Anthony leapfrogged across the University of Pennsylvania campus. As collegiate stunts go, this one was a pretty tame: There was no alcohol, nudity, or avant garde political agenda -- just a 21-year-old with a megaphone, hopping over a string of eager accomplices.
It was "really fun," Anthony recalls. It was also a marketing ploy.
As he hopped through campus, Anthony, a senior communication major with a concentration in business, trumpeted the launch of Radar.net, a photo-sharing service for mobile-phone users. Meanwhile, his friends tossed promotional fliers and T-shirts to nearby students. "Check it out," they urged. "You're gonna love it."
Like a growing number of U.S. millennials studying marketing and/or business, Anthony is a "campus ambassador." For several hours a week, he works with San Francisco's Tiny Picture, the technology firm that developed Radar. His duties are diverse, ranging from brainstorming new marketing tactics to boosting brand awareness [hence the leapfrogging].
Walking Taller
Almost every decent-sized company, from Apple (AAPL) to ZipCar, employs several campus ambassadors; their mere existence is nothing new. But as college-aged consumers become increasingly elusive [BusinessWeek.com, 8/22/08], more of these student employees -- once relegated to passing out free pizza and product samples -- are watching their roles expand.
At Tiny Pictures, campus ambassadors are "an integral part" of the company, says Ian Jeffrey, vice-president for marketing and communications. Last year, all 14 were flown to San Francisco for a corporate conference, where they helped revamp Radar's interface. During school, they routinely chat with senior executives, including CEO John Poisson, to discuss possible new features.
Recently, several ambassadors suggested that Radar users be able to make all their photos public [as opposed to friends-only] by default. The idea was implemented within weeks, and Jeffrey readily credits ambassadors for its success. Adds Anthony, who was part of...
87° P/sunny
