Corporate & legal

Mobile phone Wi-Fi usage on the rise

Wi-Fi has come to the mobile phone, and people all over the world are taking advantage of the faster speeds to access the Net from their phones.

According to AdMob, a mobile advertising marketplace, mobile Internet usage on Wi-Fi picked up steam in January in the U.S. and Europe. Worldwide Internet requests originating from Wi-Fi hot spots increased 8 percent month over month to 6.8 billion, led by double digit growth in Western Europe and Asia, AdMob said in a recent study.

In Europe, Wi-Fi access on a mobile phone increased by 132 percent over the past year … Read more

MyScreen Mobile to launch Android rewards program

MyScreen Mobile announced Thursday it is offering a version of its advertising rewards service for Google's Android smartphones.

Under the service, users sign up for MyScreen Mobile to receive targeted ads on their mobile phones. In exchange for viewing the full-screen ads, users receive rewards points for such subsidized mobile services as ringtones, mobile games, and gift cards.

MyScreen, which already has versions of its service for BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, Symbian, and Palm OS devices, is offering up a service that is akin to other Internet advertising incentive programs that have popped up over the years from the former AllAdvantage … Read more

LCD TV shipments show first yearly dip

Update: This article was corrected to reflect that the information is for the fourth quarter of 2008, not the whole year.

The liquid crystal display TV market is beginning to lose some steam.

The fourth quarter was the first time that the total number of shipments of LCD TVs in North America was lower than the same quarter the previous year. Just 8.7 million units were shipped during the last quarter of 2008, a 2 percent decline from the 8.9 million shipped during the same time in 2007, according to data released Thursday by DisplaySearch, which tracks the … Read more

Reports: DirecTV in talks with Sirius XM

It appears Sirius XM Radio is seeking some sort of an investment from Liberty Media, which controls DirecTV, according to several media reports quoting anonymous sources close to the matter.

A deal between the satellite radio giant and the largest U.S. satellite-TV provider could help for Sirius fend off bankruptcy and an unsolicited takeover attempt from satellite company EchoStar, which has bought up Sirius' debt.

The Wall Street Journal, citing a person familiar with the matter, wrote that "though the talks between Sirius and Liberty are advanced, a deal remains far from certain. It wasn't clear how … Read more

Microsoft nabs another Yahoo exec

Microsoft is continuing its one-employee-at-a-time acquisition of Yahoo.

The software maker confirmed late Wednesday that it has hired Larry Heck, a Yahoo vice president.

Microsoft said that Heck will start in a few weeks and report to Satya Nadella, senior vice president of the online services division of Microsoft's R&D group.

"We look forward to welcoming him to the team," Microsoft said in a statement.

Heck is the latest in a string of executives to move from Yahoo to Microsoft, with the most notable being Qi Lu, who now runs Microsoft's online unit. Other … Read more

Authors to Google Book Search: Pay up!

Authors and publishers of tens of thousands of out-of-print books have submitted claims for compensation from Google Book Search as called for in a settlement agreement to a copyright lawsuit, a lawyer in the case said on Wednesday.

Under a $125 million settlement Google reached in October with book authors and publishers who sued over the company's book-scanning project, the search giant is required to provide notice to authors, publishers, and their heirs and successors that they may be eligible for payment.

The notice is being published in 218 countries and 72 languages, according to a statement from Boni &… Read more

Research In Motion tempers earnings estimates

Research In Motion, maker of the popular BlackBerry smartphone, warned investors Wednesday that it will likely hit the low end of its earnings forecast for the fourth quarter.

The news comes despite the fact that RIM also predicts strong subscriber growth for the quarter. RIM said Wednesday that it will add about 3.5 million new subscribers by the end of the quarter. This figure is about 20 percent higher than the 2.9 million new subscribers the company said it had expected on December 18.

So what does this mean? Analysts believe the fact that RIM is growing subscribers … Read more

Ballmer urges stimulus approval

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer sent a letter Wednesday to every member of Congress urging speedy approval of the pending financial recovery bill. Ballmer has been calling for congressional action on the matter.

Here is the text of Ballmer's letter, as posted to Microsoft's Web site:

February 11, 2009

Dear member of Congress:

Microsoft strongly supports passage of the conference agreement announced today between the House and Senate on the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (H.R. 1), and I urge Congress to act now. We believe the final conference agreement will help families during this difficult … Read more

IBM Pulse offers industry pulse

In between the Michael Phelps' no-show incident, Smash Mouth, and celebrity talking-head Forrest Sawyer, IBM's Pulse event in Las Vegas was a good microcosm of the state of IT today and where it is going. Here are a few of my takeaways:

IBM's "Smart Planet" initiative previews the future. Within the next few years, all kinds of stuff will be instrumented with RFIDs, IP addresses, and bountiful cheap processing power all connected by wired and wireless broadband networks. Organizations that capitalize on this infrastructure will successfully collect, analyze, and make decisions on this overwhelming global intelligence. … Read more

Cisco funnels cash to Melbourne firm

U.S. networking giant Cisco Systems has invested an unknown amount into Melbourne-based Majitek, an Australian firm primarily created by the founding members of Sausage Software, an early Australian dot-com success.

The company, which specializes in cloud computing and service-oriented architecture solutions, announced Monday that Cisco had participated in a $7.5 million round of equity financing, along with existing investor Pierce & Pierce.

Majitek will use the funds to further enhance its products and also to expand its international operations; Majitek will open a permanent office in Dubai and will work with Cisco facilities in Bangalore. The news comes … Read more