Two days, three die at Vietnam’s highest building

VietNamNet Bridge – An occupational accident occurred on July 22 at the construction site of the Keangnam building in Tu Liem district, Hanoi, which will be the highest structure in Vietnam, killing one and injuring another. The day before, two workers died after falling from the 13^th floor.

The construction site of the Hanoi Landmark Tower project.

According to police, the first accident happened at 10 pm, July 21, with two workers aged 43 and 22. They died immediately after falling from the 13^th floor.

The second accident was recorded at 4 pm, July 22, with one death and one injured. The names of the victims and the reason for the accident have not been released.

The Hanoi Landmark Tower project, invested in by South Korean group Keangnam, was launched in 2007, at a cost of $1 billion, the biggest project in Hanoi at that time.

This project comprises a twin tower of 48-storeys, totalling 918 apartments and a 70-storey building.

In late 2008, as many people were doubtful about the feasibility of the completion of this project, the investor Keangnam affirmed it would finish the construction in October 2010.

According to Keangnam, Hanoi Landmark Tower will be the highest building in Vietnam and the 17^th-highest in the world.

The Hanoi Construction Department’s chief Bui Van Chien said that it is serious to have two occupational accidents occur at the same place within a few days.

The department’s experts inspected the construction site today, July 23.

VietNamNet/VNE

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HCMC employers funnel insurance money into their own pockets

10:23' 22/07/2009 (GMT+7)

A worker collects his social insurance compensation at an insurance agency in Ho Chi Minh City. VietNamNet Bridge - Thousands of workers in Ho Chi Minh City are working without health and social insurance policies as employers illegally pocket chunks of their salaries meant to pay for mandatory insurance. The city’s Social Insurance Agency, which is also in charge of health insurance, told Thanh Nien Monday it was filing a lawsuit against more than 40 businesses for neglecting to pay more than VND200 million (US$11,230) each in insurance fees. The agency reported they had failed to collect a total of VND62 billion ($3.48 million) of health and social insurance fees from nearly 200 companies that had ignored payment. In Vietnam, workers pay 3 percent of their salary each for both health and social insurance policies and employers are required to deduct the money from salaries to pay the insurance agency directly. Agency director Cao Van Sang said the companies in the lawsuit had ignored payment although they had signed a commitment to pay the fees after several inspections and collection efforts by the agency. This lawsuit includes the highest number of companies the agency has ever filed suit against since its first case in late 2007, the agency reported. Nguyen Dang Tien, head of the agency’s inspection section, said the agency had rejected negotiation efforts as the companies had been using talks to delay payment, he said. He said several companies had requested negotiations as a way to extend payment deadlines, adding that nearly all the firms had blamed salary hikes and the global recession for the delays. The agency also rejected offers by some of the companies to pay just parts of their fees, he said. Tien also said many companies were aware of the lawsuit but had continued pocketing the insurance fees collected from workers without paying a single dong to the insurance agency. He said besides losses to the state budget, the lack of payments also meant that workers would not be entitled to their rightful benefits, especially when they fall ill or get injured. Lax rules “Regulations have not deterred, but only encouraged violations,” said Dang Quang Dieu, deputy head of the Law and Policy Bureau under the Vietnam General Confederation of Labor. He said the actions taken to enforce the payment rules were too lax. “The measures are inadequate: the maximum fine of some dozens of millions of dong is issued against those who ignored billions of dong in insurance fees.” He said health and social insurance violations would have serious and long-term negative consequences on workers. Stricter penalties, including criminal charges, were needed as a deterrent, he said. Nguyen Van Tien, chief inspector of the Ministry of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs, also said that many violating companies had agreed to pay the fines without paying the insurance fees. “Some showed their business’ bank account figure to prove they had no money,” he said. “But they have other bank accounts to deposit money and we were unable to inspect those.” VietNamNet/Thanh Nien

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IMF chief says recovery could emerge in 2010

The global recession may be ending and a recovery could emerge next year, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Dominique Strauss-Kahn said here on Thursday.

China's exports figures plummeted 25.7 percent in February from a year earlier, the fourth straight monthly fall as global demand shrank, the General Administration of Customs said on Wednesday.(Photo: News.cn)

"The freefall in the global economy may be starting to abate, with a recovery emerging in 2010," said Strauss-Kahn in a speech at the National Press Club.

But "this depends crucially on the right policies being adopted today," he noted.

He urged all countries to act together and immediately adopt policies aimed at ending the recession.

"Of course, the solutions differ by country, but there must be a coherent and coordinated response by the international community," said the chief of the 185-member IMF.

Strauss-Kahn said "2009 will almost certainly be an awful year -- we expect global growth to enter deeply negative territory."

"It originated in advanced economies, and spread like wildfire across the world," he said. "This is a truly global crisis, and nobody is escaping."

At the G-20 summit earlier this month in London, leaders from rich countries and emerging market nations focused on urgent actions needed to restore growth and on what must be done to repair some of the underlying problems that caused the world crisis.

Strauss-Kahn said he was happy the G-20 leaders had made progress on "three urgent priorities" -- the financial sector reform, fiscal stimulus, and financial support.

To fix the financial sector is essential to get the global economy moving again, he said. "Until this is done, attempts to restore demand are likely to falter."

The IMF has been recommending, as early as January 2008, a 2 percent of GDP discretionary loosening for countries that have the fiscal space to do so, according to the chief.

"Countries have largely delivered in 2009," he said. "But efforts need to be sustained in 2010, because we are not out of the woods just yet."

He also stressed that urgent actions should be taken on the financing front, "especially to alleviate pressures on emerging markets, to help them overcome the economic and social costs of the crisis."

"This is the area where the G-20 was boldest, agreeing to triple the IMF's lending capacity to an unprecedented 750 billion dollars," and "to at least double its concessional resources for lending to low-income countries."

"We now have the resources to make a difference," said Strauss-Kahn.

The chief's remarks on the current global crisis came a few days before the IMF holds its spring meetings with the World Bank on April 25-26 in Washington.

VietNamNet/Xinhuanet

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GDP growth expected to be 5%, overspending 8%

VietNamNet Bridge – At the first online cabinet meeting on March 30, Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung said that with a first-quarter GDP growth rate of 3.1%, the lowest level in many years, the government might have to ask the National Assembly to reduce the expected GDP growth rate to 5% and increase the scheduled state-budget overspending to around 8% for 2009.



Previously, the expected GDP growth rate was set at 6.7%. At the cabinet meeting in October 2008, the Government said it would try to maintain the GDP growth rate at 6.5% in 2009 and slash overspending to 4.3%, compared to 4.8% of 2008, through cutting down regular expenditures.



In late December 2008, at the National Assembly Standing Committee’s session, Finance Minister Vu Van Ninh admitted: “The impacts from the global economic crisis came earlier and quicker than the forecast made at the 4th National Assembly session. At that time, the National Assembly’s resolution noted that the expected GDP growth rate for 2008 was 6.7%. At the cabinet meeting in November 2008, the Government still said that the GDP growth might reach 6.5%. But statistics by December 23 showed that the figure was 6.23%”.



“The growth rates for all major economic fields fell very quickly in the last three months of the year. The situation seems to be very bad, with mutations in every area,” Ninh spoke to the National Assembly Standing Committee.



Tax reduction suggested



At the cabinet meeting on March 30, the Chairman of the National Financial Supervision Committee, Le Duc Thuy, said that the GDP growth rate of 3.1% in the first quarter of 2009 is the bottom point. The figure will increase in the coming time.



Related to the proposal of adjusting the expected GDP growth rate for 2009, Thuy said that it is very good if Vietnam gains a growth rate of 5% this year. The change of planned GDP growth rate is not meaningful in terms of theory but it will have a positive impact on budget estimations and the government’s spending.



The inflation rate in the first quarter is also lower than forecasted; Thuy suggested lowering the lending interest rate from 8% to 6%, to encourage economic sectors.



Minister of Planning and Investment Vo Hong Phuc put forward groups of solutions to encourage economic growth, such as concentrating investment in key projects, quickly disbursing official development assistance (ODA), issuing government bonds, cutting down lending interest rate to support enterprises, particularly the mechanical engineering industry and export.



Minister of Finance Vu Van Ninh asked the government to help enterprises by reducing value added tax (VAT) to yarn, fabric, garment, and construction materials; automobile and motorbike industries; cutting down and exempting corporate income tax for small and medium enterprises; and exempting personal income tax for low-income earners.



Ninh said the government would slash corporate income tax within nine months for enterprises that have capital of less than VND10 billion or less than 300 workers; reduce the corporate income tax rate by 30% for textile-garment, footwear and mechanical engineering enterprises, or extending the deadline for financial duties for importing enterprises. The government will issue bonds worth VND8.5 trillion to build dormitories for students.



Ninh also said that the implementation of social welfare and stimulus measures made budget revenue in the first quarter equivalent to 88% of the same period of last year while spending is up by 4.1%. If the country’s GDP this year is 5%, budget revenue will reduce by VND12 trillion.



The Finance Minister said that the government needs to increase budget revenue by relaxing or stopping ineffective projects, reducing unnecessary meetings and purchasing public assets.

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Vietnam appoints Ambassador to ASEAN

VietNamNet Bridge – After Singapore, Vietnam is the second ASEAN member country that has its own Ambassador to ASEAN.

Ambassador Vu Dang Dung presented the credential to ASEAN Secretary General Surin Pitsuwan in Jakarta, Indonesia.

On February 19, the Vietnamese Ambassador to ASEAN, Vu Dang Dung, presented the credential of Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Pham Gia Khiem to the ASEAN Secretary General Surin Pitsuwan in Jakarta, Indonesia.

Secretary General Surin Pitsuwan welcomed Vietnam as the second country to appoint its Ambassador to ASEAN.

He emphasized the important role of Vietnam in the association and praised Vietnam’s positive contribution to strengthen unity and cooperation inside ASEAN for common goals.

In the context of the global economic crisis, Vietnam and other ASEAN member countries’ establishment of its permanent representative delegation to ASEAN and putting the ASEAN Permanent Representative Committee into operation will help further unity and cooperation in ASEAN.

In 2010, Vietnam will assume the ASEAN Chairmanship. 2010 will mark the country’s 15^th ASEAN membership.

Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung will lead a Vietnamese delegation to the 14^th ASEAN Summit in Huahin, Thailand form February 28 to March 1.

Xuan Linh

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The service and support industry’s definitive online resource

Welcome to helpdesk.com, the definitive help desk software and CRM solutions directory on the Internet.

Since 1995, helpdesk.com has been the service and support industry's leading online resource for helpdesk and CRM-related products and services, providing a one-stop knowledge and information portal for CRM, help desk, and IT professionals, users, and evaluators alike.

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ITIL Heroes’ White Paper
Understand and implement ITIL Service Support without shedding blood!

The ITIL Heroes Handbook gives you a quick backgrounder on ITIL basics and dives deep into ITIL Service Support with examples drawn from real-world customers. It packs some action; you get to implement a Service Desk to understand how easy it is.

Oh, and we almost forgot -- the comic approach taken here keeps you awake while you are trying to read all this stuff!

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Cord blood

Umbilical cord blood is up to 180mL of blood from a newborn baby that is returned to the neonatal circulation if the umbilical cord is not prematurely clamped. In some obstetric and midwifery practices, physiological extended-delayed cord clamping protocol, as well as water birth, allows for the cord blood to pulse into the neonate for 5-20 minutes after delivery. If the umbilical cord is not clamped, a physiological clamping occurs upon interaction with cold air, when the internal gelatinous substance, called Wharton's jelly, swells around the umbilical artery and veins.

Contents [hide] 1 Cord blood harvesting 2 Controversy 3 See also 4 References 5 External links 5.1 General information 5.2 Free, public donation information 5.3 Diseases treated with cord blood

[edit] Cord blood harvesting

A cord blood bank may be a private commercial enterprise, or public medical resource, used to store umbilical cord blood for future use.

Cord blood banking is controversial in the medical and parenting community. Blood collected this way takes up to 180mL from the neonate (sometimes up to half of the total blood volume) which is a highly controversial subject in perinatal medicine. Cord blood is rich in hematopoietic stem cells, however, The American Academy of Pediatrics 2007 Policy Statement on Cord Blood Banking^[1] states that:

"Physicians should be aware of the unsubstantiated claims of private cord blood banks made to future parents that promise to insure infants or family members against serious illnesses in the future by use of the stem cells contained in cord blood;"

Cord blood is stored by both public and private cord blood banks. Public cord blood banks store cord blood for the benefit of the general public, and most U.S. banks coordinate matching cord blood to patients through the National Marrow Donor Program (NMDP). Private cord blood banks are for-profit organizations which store cord blood for the exclusive use of the donor or donor's relatives.

Public cord blood banking is supported by the medical community. However, private cord blood banking is generally not recommended unless there is a family history of specific genetic diseases.

New parents have the option of storing their newborn's cord blood at a private cord blood bank or donating it to a public cord blood bank. The cost of private cord blood banking is approximately $2000 for collection and approximately $125 per year for storage, as of 2007. Donation to a public cord blood bank is not possible everywhere, but availability is increasing. Several local cord blood banks across the United States are now accepting donations from within their own states. The cord blood bank will not charge the donor for the donation; the OB/GYN may still charge a collection fee, although many OB/GYNs choose to donate their time.

After the first sibling-donor cord blood transplant was performed in 1988, the National Institute of Health (NIH) awarded a grant to Dr. Pablo Rubinstein to develop the world's first cord blood program at the New York Blood Center (NYBC),^[2] in order to establish the inventory of non embryonal stem cell units necessary to provide unrelated, matched grafts for patients.

In 2005, University of Toronto researcher Peter Zandstra developed a method to increase the yield of cord blood stem cells to enable their use in treating adults as well as children.^[3]

[edit] Controversy

While there is general support in the medical community for public banking of cord blood, the question of private banking has raised objections from many governments and nonprofit organizations. The controversy centers on varying assessments of the current and future likelihood of successful uses of the stored blood. In March 2008, a paper was published by Nietfeld et al.^[4] in the journal Biology of Blood and Marrow Transplantation which computed the lifetime probability (up to age 70) that an individual in the US would undergo a stem cell transplant. The likelihood of an autologous transplant using your own stem cells is 1 in 435, the likelihood of an allogeneic transplant from a matched donor (such as a sibling) is 1 in 400, and the net likelihood of any type of stem cell transplant is 1 in 217.

The National Marrow Donor Program estimates that by the year 2015, there will be 10,000 cord blood transplants world-wide per year using publicly banked cord blood. It is therefore vitally important to build public repositories of cord blood donations throughout the world. In the United States, the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) of the US Dept. of Health and Human Services is responsible for funding national programs to register marrow donors and bank cord blood donations.^[5]

The European Union Group on Ethics (EGE) has issued Opinion No.19 ^[6] titled Ethical Aspects of Umbilical Cord Blood Banking. The EGE concluded that "[t]he legitimacy of commercial cord blood banks for autologous use should be questioned as they sell a service, which has presently, no real use regarding therapeutic options. Thus they promise more than they can deliver. The activities of such banks raise serious ethical criticisms."^[6] However, in the final section 1.27 of their Opinion, the EGE admits that: "if in the future regenerative medicine developed in such a way that using autologous stem cells became possible, then the fact to have one's own cord blood being stored at birth could increase the chance of having access to new therapies."^[6]

In May 2006, The World Marrow Donor Association (WMDA) Policy Statement for the Utility of Autologous or Family Cord Blood Unit Storage^[7] stated that:

1. The use of autologous cord blood cells for the treatment of childhood leukemia is contra-indicated because pre-leukemic cells are present at birth. Autologous cord blood carries the same genetic defects as the donor and should not be used to treat genetic diseases.
2. There is at present no known protocol where autologous cord blood stem cells are used in therapy.
3. If autologous stem cell therapies should become reality in the future, these protocols will probably rely on easily accessible stem cells.

As of spring 2008, there are several known instances where autologous use of cord blood is indicated:

1. Whereas the WMDA cautioned against autologous transplant for diseases with a genetic signature, there are pediatric cancers (ex: neuroblastoma) and acquired conditions (ex: aplastic anemia) which can be treated by autologous transplant. There has even been one autologous transplant for leukemia^[8]
2. Type 1 Diabetes, also known as Juvenile Diabetes, has been shown to improve if treated shortly after onset with an infusion of autologous cord blood.^[9] The American Diabetes Association reports that 1 in 7000 children is diagnosed each year with Type 1 diabetes, and 1 in 600 children are living with it.
3. Cerebral Palsy and other forms of pediatric brain injury have responded well to infusions of autologous cord blood in a clinical trial conducted at Duke University.^[10] The Brain Injury Association of America^[11] estimates that the prevalence of Cerebral Palsy is about 1 in 300 among children up to age 10.

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UPDATE 5-Japan finmin denies drunk at G7, faces call to go

02.16.09, 04:48 AM EST

By Tetsushi Kajimoto

TOKYO, Feb 16 (Reuters) - Japan's finance minister denied on Monday that he had been drunk at a G7 news conference but the opposition demanded he be fired, piling pressure on unpopular Prime Minister Taro Aso ahead of an election this year.

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Asked ahead of a meeting with Aso if he was considering resigning, Shoichi Nakagawa told reporters: 'If I was told to resign, I would.'

Nakagawa, 55, a close ally of Aso, said he had only sipped a little wine at a luncheon before the news conference, which followed a Group of Seven finance leaders meeting in Rome.

But he said he had taken a large amount of cold medicine, which may have affected his performance badly.

The fuss over Nakagawa's behaviour at the news conference comes as Aso's public support is plummeting ahead of an election that must be held no later than October and as the economy sinks deeper into recession.

If Nakagawa is fired or forced to quit, analysts said, it would be a heavy blow to Aso, struggling to keep his own grip on power after a series of gaffes and policy flip-flops.

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iFart Mobile to Pull My Finger: You stink

by Elinor Mills

• 10 comments

The maker of iPhone app iFart Mobile has taken rival Air-O-Matic to court over the rights to use the term "pull my finger."

(Credit: InfoMedia)

The iPhone farting app market is starting to get pretty noisy.

iFart Mobile, maker of an app that simulates farting noises, asked a court on Friday to rule that it can use the term "pull my finger" without risking trademark infringement claims by another iPhone fart app named, you guessed it, Pull My Finger.

InfoMedia, which developed iFart Mobile, filed a complaint for declaratory judgment in Colorado District Court and named rival Air-O-Matic as defendant.

In a blog posting, InfoMedia said it filed the complaint after an attorney for Air-O-Matic asked the company to pay $50,000 to its rival for using the terminology.

Air-O-Matic had also complained to Apple that InfoMedia was guilty of unfair business practices and trademark infringement because it used the term "pull my finger" in a news release and YouTube promo video. Air-O-Matic also asked that iFart Mobile be removed from the iPhone App Store, but Apple told the companies to work it out among themselves.

In its filing with the court, InfoMedia claims the term "pull my finger" is common English slang and a "descriptive phrase" and therefore not covered by trademark.

"I've got nothing against the people who make Pull My Finger. In my opinion, their app was inferior to ours," InfoMedia's Joel Comm wrote in the blog post. "As a matter of good will, I changed the press release the very same day they contacted me. I have also changed the name of the video to show that there are no hard feelings."

Representatives from Air-O-Matic could not be reached for comment on the filing, and their lawyer did not immediately return a call and e-mail seeking comment Friday evening.

The iPhone fart app market is nothing to hold your nose over. There are at least 75 different flatulence simulation software apps on the App Store, according to InfoMedia's filing.

I don't know which company is in the right here, but frankly, this whole mess stinks.

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Apple sued over iPhone screen tech

by Natalie Weinstein

• 41 comments

Two related companies are suing Apple over screen rendering technology used in the iPhone and iPod Touch, according to reports.

Picsel Technologies and Picsel Research, based in Glasgow, Scotland, filed a patent-infringement lawsuit Friday in U.S. District Court in Delaware, Dow Jones reported. The suit alleges that Apple is violating a Picsel technology that accelerates the process of updating a device's display.

According to Macworld, the suit is focused on Picsel technology that people use to zoom and pan documents, sites, and images. Apple's devices wouldn't function as fluidly without the technology, alleges Picsel, which wants compensation for devices already sold.

Picsel's site says its customers include Motorola, Nokia, NTT DoCoMo, Palm, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, and Sharp. According to Dow Jones, Apple declined to comment.

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Microsoft researcher stores digital life

by Colin Barker

• Post a comment

Chronicling our lives has been part of our culture for as long as we have kept personal diaries. Today, technology offers many different ways of recording our thoughts and feelings, which makes the task far easier.

Ten years ago, Gordon Bell, a principal researcher at Microsoft, set out to chronicle his life by recording everything that happened to him. Visit him in his office and you will face microphones and video cameras. As he travels, he goes "laden down with stuff."

The Microsoft-funded project is still going, and Bell sees it as "one of the most important things I have done."

Seventy-four-year-old Bell is no stranger to ambitious projects. A computer engineer, he joined Digital Equipment Corporation (now part of HP), in 1960 and is best known as the designer of the some of the early PDP minicomputers and of the VMS (virtual machine extended) operating system in the 1980s. The operating system was for a while Unix's most important competitor with widespread adoption in industry, commerce, and academia, and is still in use as OpenVMS.

Bell talked to ZDNet UK about the challenges posed in chronicling a life at the Digital Lives conference, hosted by the British Library in London on February 10.

Q: How did you get involved with Microsoft?
Bell: Nathan Myrvold contacted me 10 years ago and said "we want you to run research" or "we want you to find someone to run research," neither of us can remember which.

I don't want to run anything so I thought I would help him find someone. But from there I started with Microsoft.

How would you describe what you do now?
Bell: It was really to capture everything in my life. The project was called MyLifeBits, and in 2001 I said that what we want is to do is capture everything. That became a kind of "let's see what all this is about."

Basically, I came at it from an engineering perspective of "what good is this" and I firmly believe that what we are doing and what we have done is the natural progression for the PC. It is the ultimate personal computer. This is what the computer is all about.

This is a memory surrogate, so I think of a machine as a memory aid and then, incidentally, your life ends up there as a residue because everything goes through there.

From a Digital Lives perspective this is what you live and breathe, and everything is there, so what more do you want?

Do you see the MyLifeBits project as a device or as software or something else?
Bell: Actually, I see it as the collective set of data that we call "e-memory."

(The project) has evolved from something that was more a personal computer--where everything is kept in one place, on the computer--to what we have today where the information, the memory, is distributed in all kinds of places and in all kinds of devices, in particular the mobile phone.

That is itself a personal computer with a lot of function, and is also a place where there is a lot of capture. All of that information has to map back into the server space for your memory.

This has come at the right time. I know that when I was working, I went to Bill (Gates) at one of the anniversaries of the PC, and at the event people were asking: "What's next?" I told them that I know what's next.

So what you are saying is, don't worry about the format?
Bell: Exactly. Get on with it. Whether you decide to throw it away or not, that is another thing. The fact that you have a computer working on this stuff is important. Look at the archiving with people sitting and gnawing on each piece of data, and you know it is not a task for humans at all. It is unfit for human consumption.

So you should just digitize everything?
Bell: You can digitize a substantial amount and for the stuff you can't digitize, it is a question of how much you want. There are feelings about the past but, in terms of the future, it is a question of how much you want to guide people.

You know, there was a survey they had (at the British Library) which showed that people don't really understand e-mail and how to handle it, and file it, and so on. You know, I think that there is not as much knowledge as you think about this. I think a lot of people do not understand what a file is. People say I wrote a letter, but how do I ever find the thing again?

They see it as just like a magic typewriter that lets them write a letter but if they want to change anything, or move it, then: "That's magic." Computers are so easy to use, but then you have a kind of training issue I think.

Some people want to keep everything?
Bell: Keep it, absolutely. Do not throw it away.

But you can't keep everything, where would you put it?
Bell: Physical stuff? Then there is no reason not to discard everything but once it is digitized, don't throw anything away. Don't ever delete an e-mail.

What do you see as the next step?
Bell: I want to see that more and more of the stuff that we've done gets into the product (MyLifeBits). What happened is that we were on a course to get this implemented with (the Microsoft file system) WinFS. Then WinFS got thrown out of Vista. You see all of the stuff that the archivists are talking about (at the conference) really revolves around the data and the metadata.

You see, if I want to send a bunch of my files, then the files will need metadata. Well, metadata I probably already have, and it should be there, but that probably requires a much more robust file system, a database file system.

The problem is that by not having a database (for MyLifeBits), what's happened is (Microsoft has) seven databases now. For media, I've got Zune and another one but, actually, you have four, all pointing at the same song. For Money, I've got a database, for Outlook, I've got a database, for photos, I've got a database. And a lot of these databases have information that, if they could copy each other, using a common database would be much better.

So when you see Steve Ballmer your first words are: "I want a database?"
Bell: That's right. The other thing is transaction processing, because a message comes in and it gets lost in the database. Time and place are great search terms, so they are both in there. And "place"--well, we are seeing great things happening around place.

But I don't think people got what happened in this last decade, in that we ended up with this factor of 1,000 in data-storage capability. Remember we were at a gigabyte and now on a desktop it is a terabyte. And that factor-of-1,000 increase is a big deal. Half-a-billion hard-disk drives were manufactured last year.

Look at this library we are in (the British Library), and with 1,000 drives you probably have the whole thing. We are at another amazing time, and it is a storage thing and the fact that video is becoming so prevalent. That's going to have a major impact.

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Microsoft splits Zune team in two

by Ina Fried

• 13 comments

Microsoft has quietly reorganized its Zune team, splitting up the hardware and software teams, CNET News has learned.

Rodriguez

(Credit: Microsoft)

The software and services portion of the Zune team--the bulk of its staff--will be added to the portfolio of Enrique Rodriguez, the vice president who currently runs Microsoft's Mediaroom and Media Center TV businesses. The hardware team, meanwhile, will now report to Tom Gibbons, who also leads the hardware design efforts within Microsoft's Windows Mobile unit.

"We're just being very pragmatic and even more so in a world in which not even Microsoft can afford to over-invest," Rodriguez told CNET News.

The move was made on January 22, as Microsoft made its first-ever companywide layoffs--layoffs which also hit the Zune team, although Microsoft won't say how many people were cut. It also follows a holiday quarter in which Zune sales dropped by more than half from a year earlier.

In an hour-long interview on Thursday, Rodriguez said the move was not made in response to recent Zune sales, but rather as the company looks to create a more unified entertainment business and gears up to expand the Zune service to be available on more than just Microsoft's own devices.

"The goal is to make non-gaming entertainment a first-class citizen within Microsoft's business," he said. That means building better software and gaining scale "a little further out than just in Redmond."

"The other thing we are trying to do, like any other business, is to make some money," Rodriguez said.

Rodriguez wasn't ready to offer details on when the Zune service would come, say, to Windows Mobile, but he did say to expect products within this calendar year that take the Zune service beyond just Microsoft's own line of digital music players.

"Zune the service needs to transcend Zune the device," Rodriguez said.

Zune, the device, has faced an uphill battle in its effort to offer a rival to Apple's iPod. Although the company has gained some share, it has come largely at the expense of the companies that were on the market with devices using Microsoft's PlaysForSure software, which predated the Zune.

Microsoft has been saying for some time that it would expand to other "tuners" beyond the Zune player and work on that front predates the latest reorganization. Meanwhile, the company says it is not getting out of the Zune hardware business altogether and in fact new Zune hardware models are expected to come out this fall.

"You have to have a hero device," he said. "If you ask me how important is it from a numbers perspective, today it's ultra-important. If I do my job right, part of my job is to make it less important. Part of my job is to make sure the service comes into every device."

"Zune the service needs to transcend Zune the device."

--Enrique Rodriguez, vice president, Microsoft

But that doesn't mean Rodriguez doesn't see a need for Microsoft to keep making the Zune.

"The reality is that will continue to be the one vertical device that we control every...aspect of it all the way to what it says on the box," he said. "So shame on us if it is not the best."

Rodriguez said that a large part of the reorganization was about bringing more heads together to work on a unified entertainment approach, one that is headed toward a more cloud-based approach.

"To write the type of software...it's a complex job, it's a Microsoft scale job," he said. Microsoft won't say how many people work on Zune now or how large the team was prior to the reorganization, however, Rodriguez said by combining teams, Microsoft has more people focused on entertainment broadly.

"The aggregate of people is more today than it was two weeks ago," Rodriguez said. "We're taking what used to be 300 people there, 300 people there, and 300 people there...into being 1,000 people all around the same vision."

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Robbie Bach on stores, Windows Mobile, Zune

by Ina Fried

• 3 comments

Microsoft Entertainment unit president Robbie Bach fielded some tough questions on Friday.

Then, after that go-around with the crowd of high schoolers, Bach signed up for round two and spoke with a few Seattle-area reporters. In the follow-up with the reporters, Bach discussed upcoming updates to Windows Mobile as well as the company's just-announced move into retail and its Zune efforts.

Robbie Bach, president of Microsoft's Entertainment & Devices Division

(Credit: Microsoft)

I wasn't there, but enjoyed the team coverage from TechFlash's Todd Bishop, The Seattle Times' Ben Romano, and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer's Joe Tartikoff.

Bach told the reporters that the move into retail, unlike Apple's, is more about brand-building than distribution.

"Apple's approach was about distribution. People forget that when they entered their stores...they didn't have distribution for Macintoshes, so they created their own distribution,," Bach said, according to the The Seattle Times. "We have plenty of distribution. These stores for us are about building our connection to customers, about building our brand presence and about reaching out and understanding what works and what improves the selling experience."

As for the Zune, Bach wouldn't talk specifics of whether touch is coming to the new players (expected this fall), but he did talk about the overall importance of the touch interface throughout Microsoft.

"Independent of specific plans for any specific product, you should just assume over time that that's going to become part of the products that we produce," Back said, again according to the Times. "And, you know, specific timing and all those things, I'll leave aside, but it is a huge trend. And once you have something like touch or voice to interact with, you wonder why you did it the old way."

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Intel partners with LG on mobile Internet devices

BARCELONA--Intel announced here Monday at the GSMA Mobile World Congress that LG Electronics will use its latest generation technology to build a new class of device called mobile Internet devices, or MIDs.

Specifically, Intel and LG will work together to build these new devices using a processor that Intel has code-named Moorestown. The devices will also use a version of the Linux open-source operating system called Moblin. The LG device is expected to be one of the first Moorestown designs to market. And Intel has said that devices using the new Moorestown chips will hit the market by 2010.

Intel and LG have already been working closely together on other products. In the fourth quarter last year, LG launched a Netbook using Intel's Atom processor. And LG also ships full-fledged notebooks using Intel's Core processor.

Now, the companies are working on a new class of product that are mini-computers that can also be used to make phone calls using a wireless Internet connection. Intel sees the category of product as something that is somewhere between a smartphone, like the Apple iPhone, and a Netbook, a scaled-down version of a notebook computer.

As the global economy continues to deteriorate, Intel, like many other large companies, is looking for growth markets. The company's bread-and-butter PC processor business is suffering as people stop buying desktop computers.

Intel sees mobile devices, and specifically the MID market, as an important area for growth. While the overall cell phone market was down about 12.6 percent worldwide in the fourth quarter, according to IDC, smartphones were actually up about 22.5 percent.

To date, Intel hasn't really played in this growing market. Instead, other players, such as ARM, Qualcomm, and Texas Instruments, have divvied up considerable market share in the cell phone market.

But Intel wants a piece of the pie. So the company has been pushing this new category of device. Intel argues that consumers need a device that's more powerful than a smartphone but not as bulky as a Netbook or laptop. The idea is that consumers who buy a MID could use it to watch high-definition video, make phone calls using the Internet, or download information from the Web while on the go.

Not surprisingly, Intel's vision of a MID is exactly why many people want to buy a smartphone like the iPhone. And this is essentially the conundrum that Intel faces. It has to convince consumers that they need to spend a few hundred dollars or more on an additional device.

But since this mobile device will also require wireless Internet access, Intel is also tacitly asking consumers to sign up for yet another wireless service plan. Of course, these devices will likely have Wi-Fi, but Wi-Fi isn't everywhere. And if someone wants a device with ubiquitous coverage, he'll have to pony-up an extra fee for a service plan.

So far, wireless operators have done a poor job of providing people with a single subscription for multiple devices. Some carriers allow certain smartphone devices to be used as modems for laptops that essentially share the same data service. But some devices, like the Apple iPhone, can't be used in this way, which means that consumers who want wireless 3G Internet access on their laptop and on their phone have to subscribe to separate services.

Data service for laptops and Netbooks service generally costs about $60 a month. Meanwhile, carriers are also charging smartphone users an additional $30 a month on their bill for unlimited Internet access. All told, a single consumer could have to come up with about $90 a month just for mobile Internet access on two devices. Compare this with the $30 a month that DSL broadband subscribers pay, which allows them to connect multiple devices at much higher speeds to the Internet.

Most likely when these MIDs rollout, mobile operators will have a more affordable plan in place. Operators, such as AT&T and Sprint Nextel have already expressed interest in rethinking data plans to accommodate more devices that will access the Internet wirelessly. But one thing is certain. An expensive data plan could hurt MIDs before they even get out of the gate.

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Sony Ericsson unveils new strategy

BARCELONA--Sony Ericsson has been hit hard by the global recession, but the company says it has a new strategy focused on services and entertainment that it hopes will get it back on track.

Steve Walker, head of product marketing for Sony Ericsson, and Lennard Hoornik head of global marketing for Sony Ericsson show off the Idou phone at the company's press conference at Mobile World Congress.

(Credit: Marguerite Reardon CNET News/CBS Interactive)

On Sunday evening here on the eve of GSMA's Mobile World Congress, the cell phone maker, which is a joint venture between consumer electronics maker Sony and telecom equipment maker Ericsson, unveiled a new strategy that it says fuses "communication and entertainment."

At the core of its new strategy is something Sony Ericsson calls "Entertainment Unlimited." Executives were thin on details at the press conference here, but the company is planning a strategy that will bring together cell phones with PCs and the TV to share entertainment content.

As part of this strategy, the company announced MediaGo, which is an extension of its PlayNow Music service. MediaGo adds a service that lets users download movies onto their PC and then transfer them over to a Sony Ericsson device. The company announced the W995 Walkman phone, which will be able play the feature-length movies.

The service will also allow the transfer of other media, such as music, photos, and podcasts. The service will also allow users to sync their phone's music library automatically, subscribe to podcasts, and auto-convert files for the best quality playback.

The company also gave a sneak peek at a new high-end, touch-screen phone, called the Idou. This 12.1-megapixel camera phone is supposedly designed for all kinds of multimedia functionality. But details about the product are scarce until it launches in the second half of next year.

The Sony Ericsson Idou under lock and key at the press conference.

(Credit: Marguerite Reardon CNET News/CBS Interactive)

That said, executives alluded to the fact that these two new phones will play a much larger role in the company's "new" strategy to better integrate entertainment on mobile devices and other devices throughout the home.

What's interesting about this supposedly new strategy for the company is that it doesn't sound terribly new. Sony Ericsson was formed in 2001 as a joint venture between a media company and telecommunications equipment maker. And since 2005, it has been selling its Sony Walkman phones, which allow people to listen to digital music on the go.

But now the company claims that its "Entertainment Unlimited" strategy takes things to a new level, where consumers can share and access media across multiple products from cell phones to PCs to their TV screens.

"Everything that we have done to date has brought us to this point," said Lennard Hoornik, head of global marketing and a vice president at Sony Ericsson. "We created the music phone category in 2005 selling over 100 million Walkman phones, and we are now ready to unveil the next chapter in the evolution of the company."

The idea sounds like a good one, but it happens to be one that its competitors share. Nokia, the world's largest cell phone maker, has been developing an entire service platform called Ovi for more than a year that allows users to share files from the PC to the phone and vice versa. And one of the things that has made Apple's iPhone so successful has been its integration with the existing iTunes media store, where users get access to music, videos, and podcasts.

While Sony Ericsson's strategy may not be revolutionary, adding more value to its products is likely a necessary move. The entire cell phone market took a beating in the second half of the year, as consumers bought fewer cell phones due to economic concerns. And that trend is expected to continue until the market starts to pick up.

The recession hit Sony Ericsson particularly hard. For the fourth quarter of 2008, the company lost 187 million euros or about $248 million. This is compared with a profit of about 373 million euros in fourth quarter of 2007.

But it's difficult to say if this "new" strategy will help the company much. The one bright spot in the mobile phone landscape for the next couple years appears to be smartphones. Market research firm IDC recently reported that while overall cell phone sales declined by 12.6 percent worldwide in the fourth quarter, sales of smartphones were actually up 22.5 percent.

The problem that Sony Ericsson faces is that it's not competing very well in the smartphone category. Last year at Mobile World Congress, the company made a lot of buzz with its first Windows Mobile device, the Xperia X1. As of November, the phone has been available in North America.

But the problem is that it's not offered by any major carrier in the U.S. And the $800 price tag for an unlocked and unsubsidized phone is way too high for consumers who can get an iPhone 3G from AT&T, a BlackBerry Storm from Verizon Wireless, or a Google Android G1 from T-Mobile USA for the subsidized price of $200 with a two-year contract.

Given that the smartphone market is where all the action is expected to be over in the next couple of years, it's surprising that Sony Ericsson would choose high-end feature phones to anchor its new "Unlimited Entertainment" strategy.

The details are still too scarce to know exactly how this will shake out. But Sony Ericsson needs a compelling and affordable smartphone that can take advantage of these entertainment and communication features. And to effectively compete in this market, it's going to need to expand its distribution beyond Europe and Japan. Namely, it needs to bring an affordable and cool smartphone to North American consumers.

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Viacom to shut off MTV music video API

Media giant Viacom plans to restrict the embedding of music videos from MTV Network.

Justin Tormey, a staff member for MTVN developer services, announced in a blog posting Friday that starting next month it would no longer make video embeds available through MTV's API:

We've got a number of changes coming on the MTVN Content API. If you're currently using the API for your site or application please take note of the changes and the timeline.

First, we want to thank everyone for their involvement with the API. You've provided valuable feedback and insight through your usage, forum posts and comments.

Going forward we'll no longer be making our embeddable video player directly available to third-party developers. Specifically, starting in early March the nodes, which contain our embedded player, will no longer be published in any returns.

We'll also be updating our returns to include links to our videos on the new MTV Music site. The node will now contain these links.

While developers won't be able to incorporate MTVN's video content, apparently end users will still be able to use an embed code, but there no word on whether this will change, according to an exchange TechCrunch had with MTVN.

Corporate Communications representative Mark Jafar told the site:

All of our online video is and will remain embeddable for end users, just like Hulu. That includes music videos, clips and full-episode content across MTV.com, VH1.com, ComedyCentral.com and our entire Web portfolio.

The only thing we're pulling back is fully open access to our music video API, and it's purely an issue of economics. Every music video we stream through the API costs us money due to our deals with the record labels, regardless of whether an ad is attached or not. So, allowing developers to use the open music video API can be a money-losing proposition for us. However, we're absolutely open to extending the music video API to third-party publishers who are willing to work with us to monetize. It's all about striking that right balance between innovation and commerce as we continue to move forward and try new things.

As TechCrunch notes, when other TV media companies are embracing the distributive power Internet, it's sad to see a company resisting that opportunity.

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Viacom to shut off MTV music video API

Media giant Viacom plans to restrict the embedding of music videos from MTV Network.

Justin Tormey, a staff member for MTVN developer services, announced in a blog posting Friday that starting next month it would no longer make video embeds available through MTV's API:

We've got a number of changes coming on the MTVN Content API. If you're currently using the API for your site or application please take note of the changes and the timeline.

First, we want to thank everyone for their involvement with the API. You've provided valuable feedback and insight through your usage, forum posts and comments.

Going forward we'll no longer be making our embeddable video player directly available to third-party developers. Specifically, starting in early March the nodes, which contain our embedded player, will no longer be published in any returns.

We'll also be updating our returns to include links to our videos on the new MTV Music site. The node will now contain these links.

While developers won't be able to incorporate MTVN's video content, apparently end users will still be able to use an embed code, but there no word on whether this will change, according to an exchange TechCrunch had with MTVN.

Corporate Communications representative Mark Jafar told the site:

All of our online video is and will remain embeddable for end users, just like Hulu. That includes music videos, clips and full-episode content across MTV.com, VH1.com, ComedyCentral.com and our entire Web portfolio.

The only thing we're pulling back is fully open access to our music video API, and it's purely an issue of economics. Every music video we stream through the API costs us money due to our deals with the record labels, regardless of whether an ad is attached or not. So, allowing developers to use the open music video API can be a money-losing proposition for us. However, we're absolutely open to extending the music video API to third-party publishers who are willing to work with us to monetize. It's all about striking that right balance between innovation and commerce as we continue to move forward and try new things.

As TechCrunch notes, when other TV media companies are embracing the distributive power Internet, it's sad to see a company resisting that opportunity.

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Twitter Raises $35 Million

By Claire Cain Miller

Updated 3:45 p.m.: Added comment from Todd Chaffee of Institutional Venture Partners.

Twitter has raised $35 million in venture capital, bringing the microblogging start-up’s total funding to $55 million.

The new money came from Institutional Venture Partners and Benchmark Capital. Peter Fenton, a partner at Benchmark who has also invested in Web 2.0 darlings Yelp and FriendFeed, will join the Twitter board.

The fundraising round brings in two top West Coast venture firms. The San Francisco start-up had previously raised $20 million from investors including Union Square Ventures, based in New York, and Spark Capital, based in Boston. Those firms will also participate in the latest round, as could previous angel investors including Ron Conway and Marc Andreessen, which could bring the total to $40 million, said Todd Chaffee of Institutional Venture Partners. They are still working out the final details.

The company was not looking for new investors and still has money in the bank, said Biz Stone, a co-founder, in an interview. In December, Twitter C.E.O. and co-founder Evan Williams said that though he had originally planned to raise more money in 2009, when the economy turned, he decided not to. But the two new investors approached Twitter, Mr. Stone said, and “we went for it.” Institutional Venture Partners closed its part of the deal on Jan. 16 and Benchmark closed its funding Thursday night.

The announcement from Mr. Williams appeared, of course, in fewer than 140 characters on Twitter: “We raised more money: http://bit.ly/mbEO9 I feel very fortunate we were able to do this and very excited about what we will build. Go team.”

“We’re fired up,” Mr. Chaffee said. “They’ve had unbelievably explosive organic growth like I’ve never seen before, and an amazing level of interest from developers, the digerati and the media. We really need all hands on deck to figure how to shepherd that growth.”

Twitter will use the money first and foremost to hire new people. “We really need to grow the company,” Mr. Stone said. “We have 29 employees, which is shockingly low considering the work we have to do.”

Despite its growing popularity — active users have increased 900 percent in the last year, Mr. Stone said — Twitter has not earned a single dollar. It does not sell advertising on its site and is free for users. The company plans to slowly roll out a revenue plan over the next few months. That will likely include charging businesses for certain features they can use to talk to customers on Twitter.

Though Twitter has said that revenue is a priority in the first quarter of this year, the new money could buy the company some time. “I would much rather have this thing grow to natural scale than build in a revenue model artificially, too quickly,” Mr. Chaffee said.

Mr. Fenton said he had been watching the company, which turned down a reported $500 million acquisition offer from Facebook last year, for two years.

“They decided to partner with an active West Coast syndicate to vigorously pursue the path of independence,” he said. “As a business opportunity, it jumped out to us as having many potential revenue streams that support, and don’t undermine, its success.” h

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How Will $99 iPhone Impact Phone, Music Businesses?

Melissa Perenson, PC World

Feb 11, 2009 5:55 am

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The Apple iPhone has been a game changer since day one. So it's to be expected that the phone would transform the competitive landscape if it were to hit $99. And I'm not just talking about the handset landscape.

Consumers would clearly win out in a $99 iPhone scenario. Even if the phone had reduced functionality (really, when did you last use all of the features in your phone?), it would ultimately get the powerful general capabilities and broad features of the iPhone out to mainstream audiences. So long as you get the basics -- the full, app-enabled iPhone operating system, the multitouch screen, the music player -- many users may not miss the GPS, or a better camera. For that matter, many would probably be willing to sacrifice 3G connectivity -- it's just my luck that 3G speed remains hit and miss, six months after the iPhone 3G's release.

Presumably, enthusiasts will benefit from a $99 iPhone, too. Why? Because Apple will be forced to give the second-generation iPhone 3G a beefier set of new features, to make it appealing vis-à-vis the low-end offering. Let's face it: Beyond iPhone 3G's faster 3G radio, GPS, and a few cosmetic and light design changes, the iPhone 3G was a dramatic change from its predecessor.

So, who gets squeezed in a $99 iPhone 3G world? Well, Apple, for one: the company's iPhone profit margins will likely take a hit -- a hit that may, or may not, be made up for in sheer volume. More critically, at 99 bucks, suddenly iPhone is an attractive alternative to a dedicated MP3 player. A Shuffle costs just $20 less and lacks all of the fancy accoutrements of an iPhone. Of course, there's the pesky issue of the service contract, but if priced right, service providers should find interested consumers interested in a middle ground between the class act of iPhone 3G and the lower cost model.

Why? Because most people use a cell phone, no matter what. When the cost delta narrows between a low-end iPhone and competing cell phones, more people are bound to consider it as a viable alternative. That means that music-centric cell phones will also get the squeeze: Phones like Sony Ericsson W350 and other music phones from AT&T and T-Mobile (like the Nokia 5310, the Nokia 7510, and Nokia 5610) will have to struggle to find an audience. They'll be going up against the Apple iPod juggernaut.

I wouldn't want to be one of those phone companies when Apple drops the price on the iPhone.

• See more like this:
• apple iphone,
• market trends

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Microsoft Puts Up $250K Reward For Conficker Creators

By Stefanie Hoffman, ChannelWeb
4:56 PM EST Fri. Feb. 13, 2009

Microsoft (NSDQ:MSFT), Symantec (NSDQ:SYMC) and other security industry and academic leaders will be cracking down on the Conficker/Downadup worm by putting up a $250,000 bounty and disabling domains that enable the spread of the botnet.

In an effort to impede the spread of the Conficker malware, Microsoft is forming a coalition composed of security industry researchers and academia to tackle the problem.

And to spur the effort, the newly formed coalition is offering a $250,000 bounty for any information leading to the arrest and conviction of malware authors responsible for launching the Conficker worm over the Web. Microsoft researchers say that the reward serves as a counteracting force for what the security industry considers a criminal attack. Residents of any country are eligible for the reward, according to their national laws, due to the fact that the Conficker worm affects businesses and individuals on a global scale.

Security experts say that as worms like Conficker evolve in sophistication, a greater level of industry coordination, as well as new technologies, will be required in order to mitigate the threats and keep users safe.

"Botnets themselves have been getting more and more sophisticated. Conficker is no different," said Vincent Weafer, vice president of Symantec Security Response. "It was too big a problem for any single group or organization."

One new approach, Weafer said, will be to nip the problem in the bud by collaborating with domain registrars to ensure that they're not leveraged by botnet creators.

"What's easier, fighting 10 million spam or taking down one domain?" Weafer said. "Now, domain registrars are increasingly coming into this discussion, as well as hosting providers. It's another model. If you can cooperate and if you can share data, then you can see that collaboration continuing."

Altogether, the coalition, formed specifically to fight Conficker, is composed of Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), Neustar,VeriSign (NSDQ: VRSN), CNNIC, Afilias, Public Internet Registry, Global Domains International, MID Global, AOL, Symantec, F-Secure, ISC, researchers from Georgia Tech, The Shadowserver Foundation, Arbor Networks and Support Intelligence.

"The best way to defeat potential botnets like Conficker/Downadup is by the security and domain-name system communities working together," said Greg Rattray, ICANN chief Internet security adviser, in a written statement. "ICANN represents a community that's all about coordinating those kinds of efforts to keep the Internet globally secure and stable."

The Conficker worm emerged last October, exploiting a critical Microsoft flaw occurring in the way the server service handles RPC requests. Since then, the worm has spread rapidly across corporate networks, infecting millions of users with multiple variations. One recent Conficker variation spread from network to network through infected USB sticks.

One of the features that distinguishes the Conficker worm is that it patches its own vulnerability on the machines that it infects, possibly to prevent the machine from being infected by competing malware, experts say.

While Microsoft issued an emergency out-of-band patch in October of 2008 repairing the vulnerability, the security update was too late to prevent attackers from exploiting the flaw in the weeks that followed.

Microsoft also warned users in its security advisory that the vulnerability "could be used in the crafting of a wormable exploit," and advised users to protect their networks from external malicious threats with updated firewalls.

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