Science & Technology World

Microsoft has announced plans to open up the format of the data files used by its e-mail program Outlook. The software giant said it would provide full documentation on the format so non-Microsoft developers can interrogate and use it. Microsoft said it was making the move because data portability was becoming increasingly important to customers and clients. No deadline was given for when the documentation effort will be complete. Microsoft already provides two ways to get at the data Outlook and Exchange servers store about e-mail messages, contacts and calendar entries in a format known as .pst. However, that information can only be accessed if Outlook is installed on a user's desktop or laptop computer. The documentation effort will provide full information about the .pst file format and remove the need to have Outlook installed to get at it. "This documentation is still in its early stages and work is ongoing," wrote Paul Lorimer, group manager, Microsoft Office Interoperability, in a blog post announcing the move. When the documents are complete, Microsoft said they would be released to make it possible for anyone to use the .pst format "on any platform and in any tool, without concerns about patents, and without the need to contact Microsoft in any way". Microsoft said it was already talking to key customers and industry experts to ensure the information it provides is useful. The move could see novel e-mail, contact and calendar clients that work on many different devices. Mr Lorimer said the move was taken as part of Microsoft's commitment to Interoperability Principles that it announced in 2008. Microsoft is not alone in pursuing a more open agenda for its products. Many firms now provide detailed interfaces to their data or software so others can find out how they work and put that information to their own ends. For instance, in September Google set up a Data Liberation Front - a team of engineers whose job it is to ensure that its users can get at their data and do what they want with it.

Facebook has announced that it will be giving friends and family the option to "memorialise" the profiles of members who have died. It follows some cases of members receiving updates about dead friends. If a user is reported as deceased, Facebook will remove sensitive information such as status updates and contacts. When reporting a death, users must offer " proof" by submitting either an obituary or news article. "When someone leaves us, they don't leave our memories or our social network," Max Kelly, head of security at the firm, wrote in the official Facebook blog. "To reflect that reality, we created the idea of " memorialised" profiles as a place where people can save and share their memories of those who've passed." Memorialised accounts will have new privacy settings so that only confirmed friends can see the profile or locate it in search. Contact information and status updates will be removed and the person will no longer appear in the newly-introduced Suggestions panel which, according to its blog it is designed "to remind people to take actions with friends who need help on Facebook". But there have been some some cases where people were 'reminded' about dead friends or relatives. "We understand how difficult it can be for people to be reminded of those who are no longer with them, which is why it's important when someone passes away that their friends or family contact Facebook to request that a profile be memorialised," Mr Kelly wrote in his blog. In separate news, Facebook has once again been targeted by cybercriminals. Security firm Websense has reported thousands of fake messages, purporting to come from Facebook Support, with a malicious payload. The fake message invites users to download a new password as part of ongoing security messages. If users click on it it will download a piece of software which could allow their machine to be taken over by malicious hackers. In one day, Websense has seen 90 ,000 such messages.

The US space agency will make another attempt to launch a prototype rocket designed to replace the ageing shuttle. Tuesday's launch of the Ares I-X had to be scrubbed due to bad weather, and the forecast for Wednesday is no better. There is just a 40 % chance of acceptable weather for today's launch attempt, according to Nasa. The slender, 100 m-tall Ares I-X vehicle will test technology crucial for the development of a manned craft that could return astronauts to the Moon. A combination of high wind speeds and clouds contributed to Nasa's decision to postpone the launch from Kennedy Space Centre in Florida on Tuesday. Overnight, the area was lashed by rain and there were four lightning strikes near the launch pad. Nasa is testing the launcher to ensure no issues arise as a result. The experimental craft has a four-hour launch window between 1200 and 1600 GMT (0800 and 1200 EDT) on 28 and 29 October. The craft is the first new launch vehicle that Nasa has designed and built in more than three decades. Prior to the scheduled take-off on Tuesday, a fabric cover designed to protect a probe on the nose of the craft whilst it was on the launch pad became tangled. It was finally released to a round of applause by the mission team. A ship that had sailed into the seas surrounding the launch site caused further delays. Finally, bad weather forced controllers to scrub the event. Winds at ground level were blowing above 20 knots, higher than allowed for launch, and clouds obscured the pad. The flight team was particularly concerned about the cloud coverage, partly because they needed clear skies to watch the flight but also because of a problem known as " triboelectrification". This phenomenon occurs when the rocket encounters water or ice droplets in the clouds. As these collide with the rocket they cause a static charge to build up on its skin, creating interference with radio signals. This is a problem for the 1- X team, which needs clear signals to gather data from 700 sensors wired throughout the vehicle, which are designed to collect flight data. In addition, the team needed to be able to send a signal to a detonator and explosives onboard the craft, which would be used to destroy it in case of an emergency. The slim-line rocket is a prototype of the Ares I craft, part of the Constellation programme intended to return the US to the Moon by 2020. However, a recent report has cast doubt on the future of the programme. The Augustine panel, which had been asked to review the US human spaceflight programme, published its report on 22 October. Although the panel supported the Ares I-X test flight, it questioned the need to develop the Ares I. In particular, the panel queried the cost and design of the craft as well as its development time.

It was supposed to run like clockwork. The launch of a new service that would give XBox Live users access to dozens of live Sky channels and on-demand TV shows. But Tuesday's 10 am launch didn't quite go according to plan. All some people logging on to the service could see was an error message. It was announced months ago that XBox Live and Sky were going to work together. The idea was to give users on- demand access to shows, as well as some live channels. Toby Doyle, 15 , from Cheltenham was one of those affected. He said: "I was really disappointed when I found out it wasn't working. "There's been lots of hype going on about it and I thought it'd all go well, so I was a bit shocked when it wasn't." Sky statement Sky has apologised and said: "The service has been suspended due to an unforeseen technical issue. "Sky Player engineers are hard at work to resolve the problem. We expect to have the full service available on Wednesday." Eighteen-year-old Liam from Dumfries said that wasn't good enough for him. "I'm quite annoyed. I think they could have done a bit more to let people know they are having problems," he said. This service isn't the only one to suffer problems. Nintendo's Wii has offered users the chance to watch the BBC's iPlayer for months but has also suffered technical problems since September. When the Sky Player service on XBox does get up and running users will be able to sign up to it on a month by month basis. Depending on what package users go for it costs anywhere from £15 to £50. Users also need good broadband speeds, around two meg, to make it work properly and it doesn' t come in HD quality. But, if you are willing to pay, you can see live Premier League football games, get Sky One on- demand and connect with online friends at the same time, using headsets to speak while you're watching.

People who persistently download illegal content will be cut off from the net, Business Secretary Peter Mandelson has announced. Speaking at a government-sponsored forum to debate copyright issues he said the UK would introduce a similar policy to France. It means persistent pirates will be sent two warning letters before facing disconnection from the network. The issue has divided the telecoms and media industries. Mr Mandelson said that cutting internet connections would be a "last resort". "I have no expectation of mass suspensions. People will receive two notifications and if it reaches the point [of cutting them off] they will have the opportunity to appeal," he told the audience at the C&binet Forum, a talking shop set up by government to debate the issues facing the creative industries. The pay-off for tough penalties against persistent file-sharers would be a more relaxed copyright regime, Mr Mandelson said. The details of it would need to be hammered out at European level but it would take account of the use of copyright material "at home and between friends", he said. It would mean that, for example, someone who has bought a CD would be able to copy it to their iPod or share it with family members without acting unlawfully. Mr Mandelson praised the UK's creative industries, which are worth around £16 bn and employs 2 million people. ILLEGAL FILE-SHARING File-sharing is not illegal. It only becomes illegal when users are sharing content, such as music, that is protected by copyrights The crackdown will be aimed at people who regularly use technologies, such as BitTorrent, and websites, such as The Pirate Bay, to find and download files There are plenty of legitimate services which use file-sharing technology such as some on-demand TV services But it has been eroded in recent years, he said, by new ways of accessing content. "I was shocked to learn that only one in 20 music tracks in the UK is downloaded legally. We cannot sit back and do nothing," said Mr Mandelson. The fact that young people now expect to download content for free was "morally as well as economically unsustainable," he added. But he emphasised that "legislation and enforcement can only ever be part of the solution". The long-term answer was for the industry to offer new and cheaper ways to download content, he said. In France the government has just approved a so-called three strikes policy. Under its system, those identified as illegally downloading content would initially be sent warning letters and, if they failed to comply, could be removed from the network for up to a year. UK internet service providers have argued that it is not their job to police the network while content providers are keen to get due recompense for artists. At the same forum, Jean-Bernard Levy, chief executive of Vivendi, a French content and internet service provider, called for a tough stance. He believes the UK will damage its economy if it does not follow France and clamp down on internet piracy. "At Vivendi, we are in the content business, we are in the telecom business and there is no internal debate," he told delegates at the C&binet forum. "The priority is not to grow traffic on the ISPs. The priority is that creators, people who develop content, should find a way [to be rewarded]."

EVERY two weeks, the sun pours more energy onto the surface of our
planet than we use from all sources in an entire year. It is an
inexhaustible powerhouse that has remained largely untapped for
human energy needs. That may soon change in a big way. If a
consortium of German companies has its way, construction of the
biggest solar project ever devised could soon begin in the Sahara
desert. When completed, it would harvest energy from the sun shining
over Africa and transform it into clean, green electricity for
delivery to European homes and businesses. Prospects for the project,
called Desertec, have blossomed over the past year, and this month
20 major German corporations are expected to announce the formation
of a consortium that will provide the €400 billion needed to build a
raft of solar thermal power plants in north Africa. They include
energy utilities giants E.ON and RWE, the engineering firm Siemens,
the finance house Deutsche Bank and the insurance company Munich Re.
The current plan, outlined by the German Aerospace Centre (DLR) in a
report to the federal government, envisages that the project will
meet 15 per cent of Europe's electricity needs by 2050 , with a peak
output of 100 gigawatts - roughly equivalent to 100 coal-fired power
stations. Preliminary designs in the German report show electricity
reaching Europe via 20 high-voltage direct-current power lines,
which will keep transmission losses below 10 cent ( New Scientist ,
14 March, p 42). Trans- Mediterranean links will cross from Morocco
to Spain across the Strait of Gibraltar; from Algeria to France via
the Balearic islands; from Tunisia to Italy; from Libya to Greece;
and from Egypt to Turkey via Cyprus. It is claimed that the project
could meet 15 cent of Europe's electricity needs by 2050 Desertec
would take its place in a wider European supergrid that conveys power
generated from wind turbines in the North Sea, hydroelectric dams in
Scandinavia, hot rocks in Iceland and biofuels in eastern Europe.
Adding solar thermal capacity would help ensure a steady supply of
green electricity. But is this really the best use of such a colossal
amount of money? Critics are lining up to point out the project's
shortcomings. They say it could make Europe's energy supply a hostage
to politically unstable countries; that Europe should not be
exploiting Africa in this way; that it is a poor investment compared
to covering Europe's roofs with photovoltaic (PV) solar panels; and
that, while deserts have plenty of sun, they lack another less obvious
but equally indispensable resource for a solar thermal power plant -
water. Is Desertec really the model of future power generation, as
its promoters would have us believe, or is it politically
misconceived and a monumental waste of money?

Amazon.com is apparently shelving its planned effort to sell wine
online. A little more than a year after word of the effort trickled
out , a senior Amazon account manager told wineries in an e-mail that
the company has decided "not to resume shipping." "As you know, we
were excited to work with you to build the AmazonWine business," Dini
Rao said in an e-mail first reported by WineBusiness. com . "For
that reason, this was a very tough choice for us. Many of you took
the time and leap of faith to really support us." Amazon
representatives did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Word of the effort leaked out in September 2008 when a nonprofit
vintner group announced it had partnered with Amazon to drum up
interest from its members to sell wine through the retail giant.
However, its fulfillment partner New Vine Logistics briefly suspended
operations this summer before securing additional financing from
Inertia Beverage Group. Since the Supreme Court ruled in May 2005
that states must grant the same shipping rights to out-of-state and
in-state wineries, winery-to- consumer shipping has become legal in
35 states , according to wine advocacy group Free the Grapes. But
state laws governing direct wine shipping vary greatly, creating an
onerous task in managing compliance. Amazon had dabbled in the wine
business before, investing $30 million for a 45 percent share in
Wineshopper.com in 1999 , a start-up that was acquired by Wine.com in
2000 before going through a series of layoffs. Wine.com has a
storefront on Amazon, through which it sells gourmet food baskets
but not wine.

Netflix online streaming is coming to the PlayStation 3 . A Netflix
press release spelled out the details of deal. The good news is that
the streaming feature--which enables Netflix subscribers to access
thousands of movies and TV shows on- demand via the Internet--is
available at no extra charge beyond the monthly Netflix DVD- by-mail
subscription, which can be as low as $9 a month. (By contrast, Xbox
360 owners also need to subscribe to Xbox Live, which is an extra
$50 per year.) The bad news: PS3 owners will need to put a special
Blu-ray disc in the game console, which will enable streaming via the
Blu-ray's BD Live functionality. That's a departure from all other
Netflix-enabled devices (including the Xbox 360 and other Blu-ray
players), which just have the Netflix option as a built-in feature.
In our experience, tends to be slow and clunky, though it's
generally better on the PS3 than on other Blu-ray players. However,
the press release specifies that the disc will be needed "initially,"
so perhaps a future software upgrade will add Netflix as a built-in
feature on the PS3. Still, the Netflix feature of the 360 has long
been envied by PS3 owners, so its inclusion-- even with the need to
be launched from a disc-- will be welcome news. The Netflix site says
that the feature will be available before the end of the year, and
Netflix subscribers who own a PS3 can reserve a copy of the Netflix
disc as of now. So, what do you guys think: does the addition of
Netflix put the PS3 at the top of the game console heap, or is the
Xbox 360 an all-around better deal? Share your thoughts below.

Acer on Thursday announced a notebook with 3-D viewing technology
aimed at gamers and entertainment buffs. The Aspire 5783 DG has a
15.6- inch backlit Acer CineCrystal HD display integrated with a
TriDef 3- D screen. It comes with 3- D software and glasses. CLOSE X
Loading Image... The Acer AS5738 DG 3- D laptop (click image to
enlarge) It also has an integrated multi-in-one media reader and an
HDMI port. The 5783 DG's Tech Specs At the heart of the notebook is
an Intel (Nasdaq: INTC) Core Duo T6600 processor with 2 MB of
L2 cache. The notebook also has a Mobile Intel PM45 Express chipset
and 4 GB of DDR2 1 ,066 MHz memory. For graphics, it incorporates
the ATI (Nasdaq: ATYT) Mobility Radeon HD 4570. This has 512 MB
of dedicated DDR3 VRAM and up to1 ,792 MB of shared system memory.
Storage consists of a 320 GB 5 ,400 RPM SATA hard drive. The Aspire
583 DG also has an 8 x DVD-Super multi double-layer drive and four
USB 2.0 ports. For sound, the notebook has Dolby Home Theater Audio
Enhancement and built-in stereo speakers. It provides 5.1- chanel
surround output. The Aspire 5783 DG has integrated 802.11 a/b/g/ n
wireless support and Gigabit Ethernet. It incorporates a built-in
Acer Crystal Eye webcam that can capture still photos and video. The
notebook has a multi-gesture touchpad. The notebook comes with 64- bit
Windows 7 Home Premium preinstalled. It has a six-cell lithium ion
battery and weighs 6.16 pounds. It measures 15.1 by 9.9 by 1.03
inches and uses Acer's Gemstone design. Three-dimensional
capabilities are provided by the TriDef 3- D solution, which consists
of the 3- D screen, software and special glasses. The TriDef Media
Player lets users play back videos and photos in 3- D, and the TriDef
Ignition tool enables 2- D to 3- D conversion for games and
applications supporting Microsoft's (Nasdaq: MSFT) DirectX9 and
above. The TriDef Media Player includes 2- D to 3- D conversion
technologies that let users watch standard definition 2- D DVDs in
3- D at run time, according to DDD , the developers of the Tri-Def
technology. DirectX is a collection of application programming
interfaces for handling multimedia tasks, especially game programming
and video, on Microsoft platforms. The first product in the Aspire
5738 DG line, the AS5738 DG-6165 , will be available at retailers in
the United States this week. Pricing starts at US$ 779.99. TriDef and
3- D Technology DDD, a 3 D software and content creator, first
publicly displayed its TriDef technology in 2006 at the Adult
Entertainment Expo in Las Vegas. The company's patented technologies
enable features like 3- D viewing without glasses, the integration
of computer graphics applications with 3 D displays; 2- D to 3- D
conversion; and 3- D transmission over existing networks. Several
electronics manufacturers use TriDef in their products. Sanyo
demonstrated LCD screens with TriDef at the 2004 CEBIT sow
Targeting the Gamers The Aspire 5738 DG notebook is aimed at gamers as
well as business users. "This holiday season, we are seeing 3- D
content become more prevalent in popular films and games," said Ray
Sawall, senior manager of product marketing for Acer America. "The
new Acer Aspire 5738 DG notebook enables consumers to enjoy exciting
new 3- D entertainment on a mobile PC that can also replicate a 3- D
experience from standard 2- D content." Targeting both markets might
work, Laura DiDio, principal at ITIC , told TechNewsWorld. "I can
see the appeal to business users," she said. " We've all been stuck on
public transport or sitting in planes, or stuck at airports doing our
work, but sometimes we just need junk food for the mind, and that's
where the games capability comes in." At this point, the Aspire 5738
DG is not a threat to video game console makers, she said. "It'll
sell in parallel with video game consoles," DiDio explained. "But in
18 months or so, when quad- or six-core processors become more
standard in notebooks and we see more filter down to ATI and Nvidia
graphics cards, these notebooks might pose a threat." With
competition so keen in the computer market, manufacturers are
grasping at anything they can to make their products stand out. "
Hardware vendors are really stepping up the game," DiDio said. Dell
(Nasdaq: DELL) , for example, lets users overclock its latest gaming
notebook, and it's letting customers choose not only the colors for
their computers but also logos, such as those of their favorite
baseball teams. "The competition is fierce at every price point, and
it's going to remain that way," DiDio said. 3- D or Not 3- D? Whether
or not 3- D technology will help Acer's products stand out remains to
be seen. Japanese electronics manufacturer Sharp unveiled its Actius
RD3 D in 2004. That computer weighed 12 pounds and cost about $3
,000. Sharp's 3 D computer has not been heard of since, according to
DiDio. "It sank without a trace," she said. Its fate may be a warning
for Acer. 3- D is really a gimmick right now, Carl Howe, director of
anywhere research at the Yankee Group , told TechNewsWorld. "While a
3- D display sounds cool, 3- D is irrelevant for most office work,"
Howe pointed out.

hey think it's pointless, narcissistic. Some don't Even so, more young
adults and teens -- normally at the cutting edge of technology --
are finally coming around to Twitter , using it for class or work,
monitoring the minutiae of It's not always love at first tweet,
though. Many of them are doing it grudgingly, perhaps because a
friend pressures them or a teacher or boss makes them try the 140-
character "I still find no point to using it. I'm the type of person
who likes to talk to someone," says Austyn Gabig, a sophomore at the
University of California, San Diego, who only joined Twitter this
month because she heard Ellen DeGeneres was going to use tweets as a
way to win tickets DeGeneres set off a frenzy on the UCSD campus
when she promised the tickets to those who, minutes of the tweet,
e-mailed her cellphone photos of themselves wearing a red towel and
standing with someone in a uniform. Gabig got the tweet, found a towel
-- and won Twitter Denial, Then Acceptance She might think she won't
tweet again, but social networking expert David Silver predicts
she'll change her mind. "Every semester, Twitter is the one technology
that students are most resistant to," says Silver, a media studies
professor at the University of San Francisco, where he regularly
teaches a class on how to use various Internet applications. "But
it's also the one they end up using the most." It is a rare instance,
he and others say, of young people adopting an Internet application
after many of their older counterparts have already done so. Their
slowness to warm to Twitter comes in part from a fondness for the ease
and directness of text messaging and other social networking
services that most of their friends already use. Many also are under
the false impression that their Twitter pages have to be public,
which is unappealing to a generation that's had privacy drilled into
them.

lthough no one waits in long lines for a new edition of Windows
anymore, the debut of (Nasdaq: MSFT) latest software that runs
PCs is part of why buying a computer is starting to feel fun for the
first time in years. is expected to work better than its predecessor,
Vista. At the same time, Microsoft's has gotten savvier, and PC
makers (Nasdaq: AAPL) lead by improving hardware design. Computers
with the Windows operating system suddenly seem a lot "If you line up
the six or seven most interesting PC designs, people will say, 'Wow.
I didn't know all of that could be done with a PC,'" Microsoft CEO
Steve Ballmer said in an interview. Liking It, Not Just Tolerating It
Windows 7 , which became available Thursday, is designed to look
cleaner than Vista, streamlining the ways people can get to work, with
fewer clicks and fewer annoying notifications. Setting up home
networking to share photos and music won't require an advanced
degree in information technology. Plugging in a new device won't set
off a mad hunt online for driver software, which tells the equipment
how to work with an operating system. Making a version of Windows
that people like, rather than tolerate, is critical for Microsoft.
Most people don't choose Windows as much as they end up with it,
because it's familiar and affordable. However, it's conceivable
Microsoft will have to work harder to win people over, thanks to a
small but growing threat from Apple's Macs and a forthcoming PC
operating system from Web search nemesis Google ( Nasdaq: GOOG) .
Vista fell flat because it didn't work with many existing programs
and hardware. Microsoft fixed many of Vista's flaws but didn't spread
the word, instead allowing Apple to attack with ads that pit a dorky
office stiff (PC) against a casual creative type (Mac) and paint Vista
PCs as unjustifiably complex.

$999 is as low as Apple will go. (Credit: Apple) By not coughing up a
low-cost MacBook, as some had expected , Apple has ceded a
potentially huge market to PC makers. But is this just all part of
Apple's marketing genius? during the third quarter, putting it right
behind Hewlett-Packard, Dell, and Acer. Comparatively, overall PC
shipments in the U.S. grew by 3.5 percent from a year earlier. But
among those unimpressive overall PC numbers (HP's third-quarter
shipments grew only 2.7 percent), was an impressive statistic for
Acer: buoyed by Netbooks, Acer's shipments grew by 61.4 percent
year-over-year, and it blew past Dell to become the No. 2 PC maker
worldwide based on this growth. Granted, Netbooks are a relatively
low-profit segment (i.e., profit on a $400 Netbook is going to be a
lot less than that on a $999 laptop). Nevertheless, they're a hot
market. Intel CEO Paul Otellini has stated numerous times that Intel
was able to create a market that grew faster than either the iPhone
or Nintendo Wii . Case in point: Windows 7 -based Acer Netbooks are
now big on the Home Shopping Network-- which claims to have sold more
than 5 ,000 in one segment on Saturday. And that's not the only
market Apple is punting on. A new category of inexpensive, thin
laptops has emerged with the roll-out of Windows 7 on Thursday.
Like Netbooks, these laptops are light (typically 4 pounds) and
don't include an optical drive. But they are relatively powerful and
full featured. The 15.6-inch Acer Aspire Timeline , for example,
with a 320 GB hard disk drive and dual- core Intel processor is fairly
well-endowed at only $500. Apple is not receiving a lot kudos in the
mainstream business press by sticking to its $999 guns. The Wall
Street Journal said that users can get roughly equivalent laptops
for a lot less at Dell and HP. And other publications have said
that Apple is not just ignoring new market realities but, in fact,
ignoring the Mac lineup as a whole in favor of the iPhone . So, do
consumers lose by not getting the chance to buy a competitive
low-cost Apple MacBook? The short answer to that rhetorical questions
is yes--because Apple offers no alternative to, for example, a thin,
light $650 HP Pavilion dm3 laptop. But an apples-to-apples (pun not
intended) comparison shows that while Apple skimps on a couple of
white MacBook features, it's not an egregiously bad deal for $999.
Let's do a quick side-by-side of the cheapest MacBook with a
mainstream HP laptop. • For $999, you get white polycarbonate wrapped
around a 13.3- inch 1280- by-800 LED- backlit glossy widescreen
display, a 2.26 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 2 GB of memory, a
250 GB (5400 RPM) hard disk drive, an optical drive, and the standard
wireless features. All in a 4.7- pound package. • For $997, HP will
sell you (online) an HP Pavilion dv3 t series with a 13.3- inch 1280-
by- 800 LED-backlit glossy widescreen display, 2. 0 GHz Intel Core 2
Duo processor, 4 GB of memory, a 500 GB (5400 RPM) hard disk drive,
an optical drive, and the standard wireless features. Also, in 4.7-
pound package. Apple beats the HP by a hair in the processor category
and loses in the memory and storage departments. If polycarbonate
is, in fact, better than the plastics HP uses, then that aspect of
the design would be a win for Apple. The real win, though, is for
Apple the company. It avoids the cut-throat sub-$900 laptop market
and still sells--quite profitably--a lot of laptops. But will Apple be
able to snub this growing market of inexpensive Windows 7 laptops
indefinitely? We should know in about six months when Gartner
reports first-quarter 2010 numbers.

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--John Lilly wants it both ways. Working at
Mozilla Corporation since 2005 and as chief executive since early
2008 , he helped oversee a remarkable achievement. Mozilla has built
the Firefox browser from a largely unsuccessful remnant of the
Netscape era of the 1990 s into the browser that nearly a quarter of
people on the Web use . Now the challenges are different. First, for
new growth, Mozilla must make its open-source browser appeal to an
even more mainstream crowd, one that's more interested in working
and playing online than in sticking it to Microsoft or being part of
a cause. Second, it's got to keep the loyalty of the technically
savvy early adopters and Web developers that Google now has been
courting with its Chrome browser. "We have to do both," Lilly said in
an interview at Mozilla headquarters here. "We have to be a better
browser for your standard everyday user of the Web who uses IE now,
but I think we have to redouble our efforts to be good for Web
developers." The world changed for Mozilla when Chrome burst onto
the scene in 2008 . Mozilla didn't see itself as complacent, but
Chrome was a wake-up call that "clarified some of our priorities,"
Lilly said, including snappy performance. "It made some things real
crisp," Lilly said. Indeed, in the months after Chrome's arrival,
these priorities appeared in Mozilla's Firefox planning: "Observable
improvements in user- perceptible performance metrics such as
start-up, time to open a new tab, and responsiveness when interacting
with the user interface. Common user tasks should feel faster and
more responsive." And future versions of Firefox likely will look
more like Chrome embracing some of its less obtrusive framing of
Web content and applications. 'Web-native' Google Mozilla's biggest
rivals before, Microsoft's Internet Explorer and Apple's Safari ,
came from companies firmly rooted in the era of desktop computers
and operating systems. Not so Google, which not only has Web-based
applications such as Google Docs and Gmail to support, but also a
browser-based operating system called Chrome OS. "Competing was hard
but at some level simple. Google is much more Web-native," Lilly
said.

A standard for a universal phone charger was approved this week by
the International Telecommunication Union, a branch of the United
Nations. The Universal Charging Solution will enable the creation of
one-size-fits-all chargers that can be used on any future phone,
according to the ITU . The standard is based on input from the GSM
Association, which expects the shift to eliminate 51 ,000 tons of
redundant chargers, or 13.6 million tons of greenhouse gas
emissions each year. Based on Micro-USB , the new chargers will also
be energy efficient. "Universal chargers are a common-sense solution
that I look forward to seeing in other areas," Malcolm Johnson,
director of ITU's telecommunication standardization bureau, said in
a statement. Manufacturers are not required to adopt the new
chargers, but some have already signed up, such as Sony Ericsson,
according to the BBC .

Nokia has delayed the release of its N900 Internet tablet. The N900 was previously set to arrive in October--and Nokia's preorder site still states that. However, it is now set for release "during November," Peter Schneider, head of Maemo marketing at Nokia, said Thursday in a post . Schneider did not state the reason for the delay, but Reuters reported that the company is waiting for more feedback from developers. N900 , which costs $649 , is part cell phone and part computer . It's considered a potential game-changer for Nokia, which is pushing it as "fusing the power of the computer, the Internet and the mobile phone." The device uses Nokia's Linux-based Maemo 5 operating system to offer multitasking, Web browsing via Mozilla, a touch screen, and slide-out keyboard. It includes an ARM Cortex-A8 processor, 1 GB of application memory, and 32 GB of storage (expandable to 48 GB with a MicroSD card). It measures 4.4 inches by 2.4 inches and features a 3.5- inch widescreen display.The device also sports a 5- megapixel camera.

Carl Icahn, who launched a shareholder insurrection at Yahoo last year over its handling of a takeover offer from Microsoft, is leaving Yahoo's board of directors. MarketWatch reported Friday that Icahn has informed the company he's moving on to other interests. It's been a over a year since he forced his way onto the board after expressing his displeasure at Yahoo's rejection of Microsoft's offer to acquire the company , which at one point was valued at $33 a share. Yahoo's stock closed at $17.22 on Friday. Yahoo confirmed Icahn's departure, and said in a statement: "Carl has been an important member of our Board and has helped us through some significant transitions. We are all grateful for his active role shaping the future of Yahoo." Icahn has recently turned his famously wandering eye to struggling financier CIT Group, offering it a $6 billion loan . In a letter to Yahoo, he said "I don't believe that it is necessary at this time to have an activist on the Board of Yahoo and currently, my attention is focused on other matters." He expressed his support for CEO Carol Bartz and the pending search deal with Microsoft , two strategic decisions that he said he was " proud to have played a role" in bringing to fruition. "Carol is doing a great job and I believe the Microsoft transaction will provide great long term benefits, the potential of which many still do not understand," Icahn wrote in the letter. His departure leaves Yahoo with 11 board members, which will decrease again to 10 when current director Maggie Wilderotter leaves at the end of the year.