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Some Business Press Releases We're Reading Now (Note: These are public feeds and do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, recommendations, etc. of the Big Innovations team)
YellowBrix Top Technology
Amazon strikes back at tablets with redesigned Kindle
Jul 29, 03:10 PM
SEATTLE _ Amid growing competition from Apple's iPad and other e-readers, Amazon.com is launching a redesigned Kindle that's smaller, faster and has Wi-Fi and twice the battery life.
The $189 price and 6-inch screen size are the same, but the new version has an improved navigation system that replaces the Kindle's quirky joystick with a more standard control pad. It also has the higher-contrast display that debuted last month on the larger Kindle DX.
But the blockbuster is likely to be a $139 Wi-Fi-only version of the new Kindle _ the first without 3G cellular service _ that could help Amazon maintain its lead position as the market surges in coming years.
"We think that will make a significant impact on the number of multi-Kindle households and just broaden the overall ability for people to get it," said Ian Freed, vice president of Kindle at Seattle-based Amazon.
The company announced the new models and began taking orders Thursday. They'll be shipped starting Aug. 27.
Amazon's not saying a lot about what's inside the new models, but it provided lots of specifications. They're 15 percent lighter and 21 percent smaller, and they turn pages 20 percent faster. The battery charge lasts four weeks, up from two weeks, and the device holds 3,500 books, up from 1,500 books.
Amazon also has finally added a light of sorts to the Kindle. For the new model, the company is releasing a $60 book cover with a slide-out LED light that's powered by the Kindle battery.
The bare-bones Kindle is also priced $10 under a new Wi-Fi-only version of the Nook e-reader that Barnes & Noble announced last month.
Yet Freed insists the company is focused more on improving its reading device than on the competition. "Our goal is to build the best possible reading experience in a device that we possibly can," he said.
Still, the Kindle's competition now includes the iPad, with its vivid color touch screen, and the Nook, which has a dual display with both color output and black and white for text.
Freed said the company considered adding a touch screen but found it interferes too much with the display.
In the meantime, Freed believes the Kindle can hold its own against the iPad, noting that "most books are black and white" and the Kindle's display is readable outdoors and in bright sunlight. At 8.7 ounces, it's nearly half the weight of an iPad.
Although the Kindle has become an important part of Amazon's business, with sales of Kindle books recently overtaking its sales of hard covers, the company refuses to say exactly how many Kindle devices have sold since it debuted in November 2007.
Freed said Amazon has sold "millions" of Kindles and sales were up year-over-year in each of the last three months, especially after its price was cut to $189, from $259, in June.
James McQuivey, an analyst at Forrester Research, estimates Amazon has sold about 4 million and will reach 6 million by the end of the year. He believes it has about two-thirds of the U.S. market for e-readers.
In a report last week, he predicted 29.4 million people in the U.S. will own e-readers by 2015, up from 3.7 million at the end of 2009. It cited surveys that found more people are still interested in e-readers than iPads.
Of the 20 percent of Americans thinking about buying an e-reader, 69 percent are eyeing a Kindle, the report said.
___
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Dell and HP to Certify and Resell All Three Oracle Operating Systems -- Oracle Solaris, Oracle Enter
Jul 29, 08:01 AM
Oracle (NASDAQ: ORCL)
News Facts
-- Oracle today announced Dell and HP will certify and resell Oracle Solaris, Oracle Enterprise Linux and Oracle VM on their respective x86 platforms. -- Customers will have full access to Oracle's Premier Support for Oracle Solaris, Oracle Enterprise Linux and Oracle VM running on Dell and HP servers. This will enable fast and accurate issue resolution and reduced risk in a company's operating environment. -- Customers who subscribe to Oracle Premier Support will benefit from Oracle's continuing investment in Oracle Solaris, Oracle Enterprise Linux and Oracle VM and the resulting innovation in future updates.
Supporting Quotes
-- "Oracle Solaris is the industry's #1 UNIX operating system, and is in demand across multiple x86 platforms," said Oracle President Charles Phillips. "Additionally, more and more customers are building virtual environments using Oracle Enterprise Linux and Oracle VM on x86 platforms. Today's announcement demonstrates Oracle's commitment to openness and will provide Dell and HP customers with new levels of support, and immediate access to deep product expertise, limiting risk in their IT environment." -- "Dell provides customers with choice and flexibility by offering Solaris, Oracle Enterprise Linux and Oracle VM as well as other operating systems on its x86 servers," said Joyce Mullen, Vice President of Global Alliances for Dell Inc. "Our joint customers will be able to leverage our award-winning servers and the software assets from Oracle to build out robust, dependable and optimized IT platforms, helping them be more competitive while maximizing ROI on technology investments." -- "Customers need to instantly adjust to dynamic business demands, but many have hardwired stacks of applications and infrastructure that can't rapidly change," said Paul Miller, vice president, Solutions and Strategic Alliances, Enterprise Servers, Storage and Networking, HP. "The combination of Oracle infrastructure software and HP ProLiant servers delivers outstanding performance, scalability and virtualization capabilities on x86 servers. Our joint customers can have complete confidence to grow their businesses while also controlling their costs."
Supporting Resources
-- About Oracle -- Follow Oracle on Twitter -- Join the Oracle Community on Facebook -- Oracle PartnerNetwork (OPN) -- Judson Althoff's blog -- Connect with the Oracle Partner community at OPN on Twitter, OPN on Facebook, OPN on LinkedIn, and OPN on YouTube.
About Oracle Oracle (NASDAQ: ORCL) is the world's most complete, open, and integrated business software and hardware systems company. For more information about Oracle, visit oracle.com.
Trademark Oracle and Java are registered trademarks of Oracle Corporation and/or its affiliates. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners.
Contact Info Karen Tillman Oracle +1.650.607.0326 Email Contact
SOURCE: Oracle Corporation
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Google is hiring -- again
Jul 29, 06:45 AM
By Mike Swift, San Jose Mercury News, Calif.
July 29--In a county with more than 100,000 people looking for work and an unemployment rate above 11 percent since June 2009, Google has gone on a hiring spree, increasing the size of its global work force by nearly 2,000 people during the first six months of 2010.
While the pace of the search giant's hiring hasn't quite reached the boom years of 2006 and 2007, when its work force routinely grew by 15 percent each quarter, it stands in contrast to other Silicon Valley companies that are reporting big profits but adding little to the size of their work forces. Other valley companies, such as Cisco Systems and Intel, have also said they plan to increase their work force this year, but the percentage growth for those companies would be much less than the growth at Google.
The hiring growth, analysts say, reflects the increased competition Google faces as it tries to expand beyond paid search advertising that provides the bulk of Google's revenues into new areas like smartphones and selling its online software services to businesses and government.
"There is no reason to fix what isn't broken -- their paid search business -- but they need to have a few more arrows in their quiver," said Rick Munarriz, a senior analyst at The Motley Fool. Google "really doesn't know whether its biggest enemy now is Microsoft or Apple."
Huge turnaround
From Jan. 1 to June 30, Google's work force grew by 10 percent, a
huge turnaround from 2009, when the number of Googlers shrank for the first time in the company's 12-year history. But while Google says it is looking to hire several hundred people at its Mountain View headquarters, including engineers, product managers, lawyers, advertising sales people, communications experts and others, the Internet giant also is aggressively hiring engineers and advertising sales people around the world, from Boston to Santa Monica and from Accra to Zurich, on every continent except Antarctica.
Google is even hiring in China, despite its very public problems in the world's largest Internet market this year. The company is also asking some of its senior software engineers and technical managers in Mountain View to consider relocating to Beijing or Shanghai, to work on products ranging from social networking to maps.
Google executives say the hiring is focused on four key areas -- Internet search revenues, display advertising, development of its Android mobile software, and applications, such as Google's online suite of word processing, spreadsheet and other office products.
Google's global work force is now nearly 22,000 people. In recent securities filings, Google said it planned on "significantly increasing our hiring rate" through 2010, even if the hiring cuts into the company's bottom line. Google is not saying how many workers it plans to add during the balance of 2010, or how many hires it plans to make in Santa Clara County, where the unemployment rate is 11.3 percent.
Part of Google's aggressive hiring reflects increasing competition, including from Apple. With Android facing off against the iPhone and iPad, Apple has had a hiring surge of its own, boosting its work force by 7 percent or about 2,300 people in 2009. In search, Google is facing the deep-pockets combination of Microsoft and Yahoo.
The nearly 1,200 people Google added during the second quarter of 2010 included about 300 who joined through
acquisitions including Google's $750 million purchase of the mobile advertising company AdMob. The 5.7 percent jump in the company's global work force was Google's largest since the first quarter of 2008. That surge was one factor, analysts said, in the company narrowly missing second-quarter earnings expectations.
"Google knew they were going to come up light on the bottom line, yet they kept on hiring," Munarriz said. "This is Google pretty much thumbing its nose at the market, saying, 'We don't have to please you quarter by quarter -- we're trying to build a company that will please you three to five years from now.' "
Most jobs Google is trying to fill in Silicon Valley and elsewhere require a college degree, and often a master's degree or doctorate.
Despite Google's confrontation with the Chinese government over censoring its search results, Google still hopes to attract highly educated engineers and scientists to develop key technology in China. In Beijing and Shanghai, Google is trying to fill jobs for lead software engineers, technical team leaders, and even a computer research scientist position, according to job openings listed by the company.
Market share shrinks
Google has a tradition of encouraging its workers to spend time in its offices around the country and abroad to spread and invigorate the company's culture. But some observers say Google also is facing personnel problems in China in the wake of its confrontation with the government that has caused it to lose search market share and advertisers.
"I think among the search community here, morale is relatively low," said Mark Natkin, managing director of Beijing-based Marbridge Consulting, a market research firm that follows the tech industry in China.
Google said there has been "very little attrition" in its Chinese offices.
"Our leadership team in China has not changed. We have always said we intend to keep an engineering presence as well as a sales team, and we are looking to hire top talent for a variety of roles," a Google spokesman said.
There is little indication that Google's growth spurt through hiring and acquisitions is about to end. Indeed, Google kicked off the third quarter by announcing plans July 1 to buy ITA Software, an airline flight information software company, adding 500 more employees.
Mercury News staff writers Brandon Bailey and John Boudreau contributed to this report. Contact Mike Swift at 408-271-3648. Follow him at Twitter.com/swiftstories.
-----
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3rd-generation Kindle unveiled
Jul 29, 05:00 AM
By Edward C. Baig
Amazon.com will unveil today its answer to Apple's iPad and other devices seeking to replace its Kindle as the premiere digital book reader.
It's a third-generation Kindle that's lighter, smaller and faster than the current model -- and also has a sharper display, longer battery life and twice the storage.
Amazon has added Wi-Fi reception for those who want to use a speedy Internet service to download e-books. This Kindle will keep the free service that uses AT&T's wireless network to download a book in less than a minute.
The model, which starts shipping on Aug. 27, will be priced at $189, same as the current Kindle.
But Amazon hopes to rattle rivals by offering a version that just uses Wi-Fi for wireless connections and that will sell for $139. That's about $10 below the least-expensive versions of Barnes & Noble's Nook and the Sony Reader.
At these prices, "People are going to buy multiple Kindles for the household," CEO Jeff Bezos told USA TODAY. "Remember: 33 months ago, Kindle was $399."
Forrester Research analyst James McQuivey agrees: "Anyone who said 'I don't want to get (a Kindle) because they're too expensive,' will look at $139, and say, 'It's time to become a digital reader.' "
Amazon has sold about 4 million Kindles in the U.S. and will top 6 million by year's end, McQuivey estimates. It has two-thirds of the e-reader market.
Yet, in 2012, multimedia tablet PCs, led by the iPad, will outsell dedicated e-readers, he says.
That's not all bad for Amazon. Owners of such devices can read e-books from Amazon using its free Kindle app. The U.S. Kindle store has more than 630,000 titles. Still, Bezos is betting that lots of people will still want a dedicated e-reader.
"We will try to make the best reading device possible, so when you really want to read for two hours, you'll choose a Kindle," he says.
The latest Kindles, in white or graphite, sport the same 6-inch reading area as the current model even though the bodies are 21% smaller. But the text will look sharper; the contrast on the screen is 50% better.
At 8.7 ounces, the new Kindle is about 15% lighter, too, even though Amazon has doubled the storage so it can hold up to 3,500 books.
Page turns are faster. With wireless settings off, Kindle can go a month without a charge.
The product announcements follow Amazon's disclosure last week that it now sells more Kindle e-books than hardcovers. Next milestone: paperbacks. "It's hard to know for sure, but I predict we will surpass paperback sales sometime in the next nine to 12 months," Bezos says.
(c) Copyright 2010 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc. A service of YellowBrix, Inc. Comcast revenue up; but profit, TV subscribers down Jul 28, 06:12 PM By Bob Fernandez, The Philadelphia Inquirer July 28--Revenue at Comcast Corp. rose the fastest since late 2008, but costs associated with the proposed merger with NBC Universal Inc. cut into profit, and the cable giant lost 265,000 cable TV subscribers. Comcast said Wednesday that quarterly sales were $9.5 billion, up 6 percent when compared with the year-earlier quarter of $8.98 billion. Net income was $884 million, down from $967 million. Comcast reported $59 million in legal and other costs in the NBCU transaction in the current quarter and a $137 million tax benefit in the 2009 second quarter. "We are very focused on profitable growth," chief executive officer Brian L. Roberts said in a statement, adding in a conference call that he believed the company was "striking a balance" between financial gains and pleasing customers. Roberts was hopeful that government regulators would approve the proposed $30 billion deal for NBCU by the end of the 2010. Some industry experts say the regulatory review could stretch into 2011 and Comcast could agree to conditions that would limit its economic power in the TV business. Wall Street reacted with a yawn to the earnings -- with the stock basically flat throughout the day, even though equity analyst Craig Moffett, with Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. L.L.C., noted in his newsletter Wednesday: "On every financial measure, Comcast's results beat expectations." He and others say new potential regulations on the Internet could hurt Comcast and other Internet providers. Steve Burke, the No. 2 executive, said that Comcast's cable advertising increased 23 percent when compared with results from a year earlier and that a rebound in advertising boded well for Comcast-NBCU. The merged company would have about $10 billion in advertising revenue a year because of NBCU's portfolio of cable- and broadcast-TV businesses. Burke is leading the integration of Comcast and NBCU. Burke said he was encouraged by the recent programming successes at NBCU, the weakest of the four broadcast-TV networks, and mentioned Despicable Me, a 3-D animated film from Universal Studios released July 9. Universal is part of NBCU. Rate increases in cable TV and Internet businesses led to an 8 percent boost in the average revenue per customer, a key financial measure, to $127.78 per month. The company also has been selling more high-definition and DVR services, Michael Angelakis, chief financial officer, said. He said 9.7 million customers bought high-definition or DVR services through Comcast in the second quarter. Expenses for programming content increased 6.5 percent in the quarter, and marketing expenses increased about 12 percent, Angelakis said. Meanwhile, customer-service expenses fell 2.4 percent, and expenses for technical labor fell about 7 percent, he said. The second-quarter earnings continued to tell the story of Comcast's cable TV business slowing because of competition and maturation, but other parts of the business are expanding. The company added 118,000 high-speed Internet customers, or 82 percent more than in the year-earlier quarter, and 230,000 phone customers, or about the same as a year earlier. In the year-earlier period, Comcast lost 214,000 cable TV subscribers. Comcast said it believed that some of the 265,000 lost subscribers this year were those that had signed onto steeply discounted cable TV packages in 2009 during the nation's transition to digital over-the-air TV transmissions. At the time, Comcast offered a $10-a-month package. Converting those customers into regular Comcast packages was difficult, Comcast said. Comcast considers satellite-TV providers its biggest competitive threat. Comcast shares closed up 23 cents, at $19.56. Contact staff writer Bob Fernandez at 215-854-5897 or bob.fernandez@phillynews.com. ----- To see more of The Philadelphia Inquirer, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.philly.com/inquirer. Copyright (c) 2010, The Philadelphia Inquirer Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For more information about the content services offered by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services (MCT), visit www.mctinfoservices.com, e-mail services@mctinfoservices.com, or call 866-280-5210 (outside the United States, call +1 312-222-4544). NASDAQ-NMS:CMCSA, A service of YellowBrix, Inc. Blowing the whistle Jul 28, 02:12 PM By Andrew Fowler, Al Jazeera, Doha, Qatar July 29--DOHA, Qatar -- The leak of more than 90,000 US military files by whistle-blower website, WikiLeaks is one of the biggest in US military history. The London press conference by Julian Assange was also a rare public appearance for the WikiLeaks founder who has been dubbed "one of the most dangerous men in the world" by critics. To supporters he is a hero, the godfather of whistleblowers. But what of Assange and his organisation? The US authorities have made it plain they would like to talk to him about the leaks. But as Australian reporter Andrew Fowler explains so far he has proved elusive. This report was made before the latest Wikileak. It used to be nondescript parcels on the doorstep, cryptic phone calls at midnight or shadowy meetings in underground car parks. Now explosive information is more likely to arrive -- to the tune of a novelty sound effect -- in an email. But profound and important questions surround the transaction of secret, highly sensitive, classified material. Governments and big business are fiercely protective of their internal dynamics and are increasingly coming down hard on leakers and whistleblowers. The public though demand and defend their right to know when governments they have installed are making decisions on their behalf, or the actions of big business impact their lives. And so a group of one-time hackers and activists are trying to build a global truth machine: WikiLeaks. WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, a hesitant, quietly spoken Australian, has become the global face of a nebulous operation with secret computer servers in a number of countries and aspirations to build an information freedom zone -- the leaker's equivalent of a tax haven -- in Iceland. WikiLeaks exploded into prominence earlier this year when it released hitherto top secret video of a helicopter gunship strafing and killing more than a dozen people in Baghdad including media covering the war. The footage caused outrage around the world. The Wiki-team spent some time stripping the video of any electronic fingerprints that would expose the insiders who leaked it and then launched it online under the banner Collateral Murder replete with damning Orwellian quotes. Critics call this reckless, potentially dangerous activism not journalism. The WikiLeaks exclusive illuminated the failures of the mainstream media and made Assange an enemy of the US government. "Leaking is inherently an anti-authoritarian act. It is inherently an anarchist act," Assange says. Assange's hero, Daniel Ellsberg, famous for outing US government lies about the Vietnam War, was once called the most dangerous man in the US. "I believe that Barack Obama was lying when he implied to the public in his State of the Union Message, just like Lyndon Johnson in '65 that there was a limit, a low limit to what he's going to put into Afghanistan," Ellsberg says. "I'm sure it's a high priority for them to try to neutralise him one way or another and I wouldn't exclude physical danger, but in particular, trying to find ways that discredit him or to keep him from communicating with possible sources, is a very high priority for them." Ellsberg should know. In 1971 he leaked the Pentagon papers. Until recently, he was one of the few US government employees ever to be prosecuted for leaking. But the Obama administration is cracking down on whistle-blowers. In 17 months it has outdone all previous administrations in pursuing leakers. "The Obama administration is as secretive as the Bush administration in matters of so-called national security, in matters of war and peace and aggression and in many cases have gone beyond Bush, so I hope that in the future WikiLeaks will induce a great deal more leaking," Ellsberg says. For the past three years WikiLeaks has challenged governments everywhere -- outing human rights violations in Guantanamo Bay, exposing political murders in Africa and banks laundering money through off shore tax havens. WikiLeaks has hit the political left and right and won media awards from Amnesty International and the Economist magazine. Naturally enough WikiLeaks is very guarded and difficult to track down. Arranging meetings involves a lot of cloak and dagger -- conversations in lifts so no one can be bugged, locations and times of meetings shift at the last minute. "It may seem elaborate to you but it just seems every day to me. The issue is not my safety. Rather the issue is the safety of our sources, so there's some simple precautions but it's enough to make it costly and inconvenient to spy on us and try and find out who our sources are," Assange says. WikiLeaks built an information system it thinks is foolproof. Instead of secret documents physically changing hands, they are anonymously sent to digital drop boxes and stored on servers around the world. Finally they are posted on the WikiLeaks site. "What we want to create is a system where there is guaranteed free press across the world, the entire world, that every individual in the world has the ability to publish materials that are meaningful," Assange says. "We are kept honest by the fact that we release primary source material and journalists who base their articles on us, on our materials are also kept honest because readers can check... [what] the primary source[s] say." It has been a meteoric ride to the top for Assange. His WikiLeaks idea grew out of a Melbourne teenage computer hackers club in the 1980s known as the International Subversives. In October 1989 the hackers targeted the US space mission. "This kind of an attack was really something that nobody thought was going to happen and later we would describe things as an electronic Pearl Harbour," Ron Tencati, a former manager of NASA Cyber security, says. Tencati was on duty at NASA control when the computers went haywire. As control staff prepared for the launch of the nuclear powered Galileo probe aboard the Atlantis Space Shuttle, the word 'WANK' stared back at them from their screens. "When you see this banner that says 'Worms Against Nuclear Killers' and, you know, we at the time at NASA we had a shuttle on the launch pad about to launch that had plutonium energy canisters for its power source. If this blew up like the Challenger did, all of this plutonium is going to kill everybody in Florida," Tencati says. One clue to where the attack came from appeared at the bottom of the screen, the lyrics of Australian rock band Midnight Oil: "You talk of times of peace for all and then prepare for war." Assange was part of the hacker club, but specifically denies being involved in the NASA attack. Nevertheless, police attention focused on his activities. Ken Day was part of the investigating team. "He was monitoring what we were up to and knew that we would be coming some time, but we were monitoring him monitoring us so we were one step ahead of him. For Julian Assange and all the hackers it was ego. They were there in a very new field and they had to prove they were the best," Day says. Police tracked Assange's hacking to Melbourne's main telephone exchange. He was piggy-backing on its computer power to launch his overseas adventures. He was charged with computer offences, but the court let him off with a fine and a suspended sentence. By then Assange had felt the power and the scope of a developing network. "To be exploring the world and being involved in international politics from your bedroom, it was certainly a feeling that you were on the right path, that this was an extremely educational experience and you were able to do a little bit about the things that were pissing you off," Assange says. Fast-track 20 years, WikiLeaks is a powerful global force, but if there is an HQ you will not find it in Melbourne, New York or London. Its spiritual home is Iceland. "It is a safe haven more for journalism in general, for in particular investigative journalism and also for people that, for example, risk their lives from China or Sri Lanka to publish information about the situation, might risk being tortured or killed and their story also vanishing," Birgitta Jonsdottir, a member of Iceland's parliament, says. Urged on by the likes of Assange and others, Jonsdottir was at the forefront of a push to change the country's media laws, transforming it into an information freedom zone. "It's the same sort of idea as they use with great success in the tax havens around the world," she says. And so Iceland would be the launch pad for Wiki's defining leak. Journalists, politicians and others were ushered into a preview screening of a video that would soon rock the rest of the world. "I was shown it at a cafe here and was completely shocked and I was sitting there crying like many people do when they see it for the first time," Jonsdottir says. A top secret US video shot from a military helicopter showed people gunned down in a hail of cannon shells in East Baghdad. WikiLeaks formed an impromptu alliance with old media -- a local TV channel and one of its journalists, Kristinn Hrafnsson. "Julian Assange showed me the Iraqi video a few weeks prior to its release. That's the first time I saw that video of the killing in Baghdad. I thought it was essential to find the identity of the people who were killed, to get their story basically, what they were doing there in the square that day," Hrafnsson says. Hrafnsson and his TV crew tracked down the family of the mini-van driver, Saleh Matasher Tomals for their side of the story. "This was a guy who was basically dropping his kids to a special tutoring and picked up a neighbour on the way and gave him a lift and he just stopped to help somebody who was bleeding to death on the kerb," Hrafnsson says. "He was killed that day. He got 30mm explosive rounds straight in the chest and his two children were wounded heavily, they were in the front of the car with him. I met all the children and the widow." The WikiLeaks video made headlines around the world, but it had not been seen where it would have its most devastating impact -- in this small Iraqi home. When the Iceland TV crew showed the family the video, they were grief stricken but they were at last able to piece together a little more of the puzzle. But for some the Iraq video was not new. Washington Post journalist, David Finkel was embedded with US troops in Baghdad that day. "What happened that day was part of a large operation where soldiers I was writing about for my book, The Good Soldiers, were trying to clear out an area that over the previous weeks had been especially vicious, several soldiers had been killed by roadside bombs, and there had been a number of catastrophic injuries," Finkel says He is critical of WikiLeaks not providing what he says is the correct context. He is among those who accuse WikiLeaks of putting its own ideological spin on the video. "They provided artificial agenda driven context. It comes up on a site called Collateral Murder, which gives it a certain feel to a viewer coming into it and before you see the video there's this great George Orwell quote providing the context. "The context of that day was not what George Orwell had to say so many years before, the context was that there was an operation under way in reaction to an ongoing war, not that Apache helicopters were circling looking for a bunch of guys to just shoot up and kill." Ellsberg disagrees: "It would be interesting to have someone speculate or tell us exactly what context would lead to justifying the killing that we see on the screen. As the killing goes on, you're obviously seeing the killing of men who are lying on the ground in an operation where ground troops are approaching and are perfectly capable of taking those people captive, but meanwhile you're murdering them before the troops arrive. That's a violation of the laws of war, and of course what the mainstream media have omitted from their stories is this context." For WikiLeaks and its supporters, the video defined the difference between the old guard and the new. After all, the Washington Post's David Finkel in his book, The Good Soldiers, gives a word accurate recount of the cockpit conversation you hear in the video. Had he seen it, and if he had why didn't his paper, famous for Watergate, the biggest political expose in US history, investigate the killings? "Finkel had seen it but we know that at least one member, I won't mention their name, had that video at the Washington Post. Retained ... for at least the past year," Assange says. The Washington Post denies having a copy of the video. "Unfortunately, typical of newspapers, they don't follow up these atrocities. Things that are extremely critical of the administration only get you in trouble with the White House if you seem to be obsessed by them and pursue them," Ellsberg says. "I haven't seen anyone raise the question now of why, on what basis, that video was denied to Reuters, who were after all interested in the circumstances under which two of their journalists had been killed. Now, have you seen anyone raise the question, all right now we have the video, what was the basis for denying this? How does it hurt national security?" WikiLeaks subscribes to traditional journalistic principles when it comes to protecting its sources. "All that we can guarantee is that we won't be the source of the problem. I mean, coming in through us, we're going to protect them and that if they are exposed, then we'll fight like hell to bring attention to their plight and we'll send lawyers, and cash if necessary, to try and get them out of that bad situation," Assange says. Two years ago a secret US intelligence report recommended targeting WikiLeaks' sources. Washington administration officials do not see the public interest in the Iraq video or anything else WikiLeaks might be about to unleash. "We take the reports of the deliberate, unauthorised disclosure of classified state department cables and materials very seriously. And the security of these materials is our highest priority," Philip Crowley, a US state department spokesperson, says. The video release triggered a major investigation but strangely the biggest breakthrough did not come from crack police work but from a former hacker named Adrian Lamo who we tracked down on Skype. If Adrian Lamo is to be believed, he casually found himself chatting online to a man claiming to be a military insider. The insider was bragging about leaking the video and a truckload of other national security documents to WikiLeaks. "He proceeded to identify himself as an intelligence analyst and posed the question, well what would you do if you had unprecedented access to classified data 14 hours a day, seven days a week," Lamo says. Instead of celebrating the insider's cyber heroics as a fellow traveller might, Lamo blew the whistle and 22-year-old Bradley Manning, an intelligence officer based in Baghdad, was arrested. "He was firing bullets into the air without thought to consequence of where they might land or who they might hit," Lamo says. The bigger concern for authorities is 'what else?' Did Manning leak a library of other classified material to WikiLeaks and what is its next shot in the locker? Julian Assange is cryptic, he is not giving anything away yet. "I'm not commenting, but its not any one operation," Assange says. "Well, it's something involving, you know, it's not this [a mass bombing that took place or a financial expose] but I can give an analogy. If there had been mass spying that had affected many, many people in organisations and the details of that mass spying were released, then that is something that would reveal that the interests of many people had been abused." Is Assange a wanted man? There is no official word on that, but strangely one man who hunted him, Ken Day, now wishes him the best. "I think one of the strengths of democracy is having a strong media, an independent voice to actually challenge what government and corporate worlds are doing. I think we've lost a lot of that in recent years. And so I, at a very high level, I would support what he is doing to support transparency, but I will caution there are always inherent dangers in how it is done, but I think it is great," Day says. And Ellsberg, the one time world title-holder in the expose business appears happy to pass the mantle on to a new generation. "He is not only a danger to governments, to withholding wrongfully information ... so yes I think he is a good candidate for being the most dangerous man in the world in the eyes of people like the one who gave me that award." Ellsberg says: "I'm sure that Assange is now regarded as one of the very most dangerous men and he should be quite proud of that." ----- To see more of Al Jazeera, go to http://english.aljazeera.net. Copyright (c) 2010, Al Jazeera, Doha, Qatar Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For more information about the content services offered by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services (MCT), visit www.mctinfoservices.com, e-mail services@mctinfoservices.com, or call 866-280-5210 (outside the United States, call +1 312-222-4544). A service of YellowBrix, Inc. FBI: Arrests made in botnet investigation Jul 28, 12:25 PM The FBI said Wednesday an international investigation of the Mariposa Botnet, a "zombie" network formed by a computer virus, is showing progress. The two-year investigation was conducted with the Slovenian Criminal Police and the Spanish Guardia Civil. The Mariposa Botnet was built with a virus called "Butterfly Bot," the FBI said. The botnet was used to steal passwords for Web sites and financial institutions, steal computer users' credit card and bank account information, launch denial of service attacks and spread viruses. The FBI said experts estimated the Mariposa Botnet may have infected 8 million to 12 million computers. "In the last two years, the software used to create the Mariposa botnet was sold to hundreds of other criminals, making it one of the most notorious in the world," FBI Director Robert Mueller said. "These cyber intrusions, thefts, and frauds undermine the integrity of the Internet and the businesses that rely on it; they also threaten the privacy and pocketbooks of all who use the Internet." The Spanish Guardia Civil arrested three suspected Mariposa Botnet operators in February, the FBI said. The three are being prosecuted in Spain for computer crimes. Last week, the Slovenian Criminal Police identified and arrested the Mariposa Botnet's suspected creator, a 23-year-old Slovenian citizen known as "Iserdo." A service of YellowBrix, Inc. Feds allow iPhone ';jailbreaking' Jul 28, 11:36 AM WASHINGTON (AP) -- Owners of the iPhone will be allowed to legally unlock their devices so they can run software applications that haven't been approved by Apple Inc. under new government rules announced Monday. The decision to allow the practice commonly known as "jailbreaking" is one of a handful of new exemptions from a 1998 federal law that prohibits people from bypassing technical measures that companies put on their products to prevent unauthorized use of copyright-protected material. The Library of Congress, which oversees the Copyright Office, reviews and authorizes exemptions every three years to ensure that the law does not prevent certain non-infringing uses of copyright-protected works. For iPhone jailbreakers, the new rules effectively legitimize a practice that has been operating in a legal gray area by exempting it from liability. Apple claims that jailbreaking is an unauthorized modification of its software. Mario Ciabarra, the founder of Rock Your Phone, which calls itself an "independent iPhone application store," said the rules mark the first step toward opening the iPhone app market to competition and removing the "handcuffs" that Apple imposes on developers who want to reach users of the wildly popular device. Unless users unlock their handsets, they can download apps from only Apple's iTunes store. Software developers must get such apps pre-approved by Apple, which sometimes demands changes or rejects programs for what developers say are vague reasons. Ciabarra noted that Google Inc. has taken a different approach with its Android operating system, which is emerging as the biggest competitor to the iPhone. Google allows users of Android phones to download applications from outside the Android Market. Although Apple has never prosecuted anyone for jailbreaking, it does use software upgrades to disable jailbroken phones, and the new government rules won't stop that. That means owners of such phones might not be able to take advantage of software improvements, and they still run the risk of voiding their warranty. Apple's spokeswoman Natalie Kerris said Monday that the company is concerned about jailbreaking because that can make an iPhone unstable and unreliable. (c) 2010 Tulsa World. Provided by ProQuest LLC. All rights Reserved. A service of YellowBrix, Inc. Disney to buy Mountain View social gaming startup Playdom Jul 28, 06:25 AM By Scott Duke Harris, San Jose Mercury News, Calif. July 28--Playdom, a Mountain View startup whose virtual mobsters, farmers and gamblers have competed with Zynga's in the vibrant online social gaming market, is being acquired by The Walt Disney Co. in a deal that could be worth more than $760 million, Disney announced Tuesday. The deal, which calls for $563 million upfront and another $200 million for Playdom shareholders if it achieves financial goals, underscores the remarkably rapid success of games on Facebook, MySpace and other online social networks -- a sector that roared to success amid the recession. The Playdom deal comes only eight months after Redwood City-based Electronic Arts, branching from console games into online gaming, acquired another top brand, Playfish, for a reported $300 million upfront with a potential $100 million bonus. Zynga, the market leader with such popular titles as "FarmVille," has meanwhile attracted investments that have pushed its value to about $4 billion, according to SharesPost, a marketplace that enables trades in privately held companies. Zynga has been expected to go public. Meanwhile, Google has reportedly been in talks with Zynga, Playdom and others about developing games to enhance Google's social networking strategy to compete with Facebook. In the real world, Zynga and Playdom are jousting in a game that might be called Lawyers. Zynga has sued Playdom and four of its employees, alleging that Playdom hired away Zynga employees and persuaded them to bring trade secrets with them. Playdom has denied the claims. While the vast majority of social games are played for free, a multibillion-dollar business has been built on the willingness of a small fraction of players to pay for "virtual goods" on their favorite games, such as a bigger stack of poker chips, a weapon or a gift for a fellow player. The cost to create such goods is negligible to the gaming companies, making for a lucrative business. For Disney, the acquisition will let it create new games based on its vault of characters. Those range from Mickey Mouse and Goofy to Pixar's "Toy Story" characters to the comic book superheroes it corralled in its $4 billion purchase of Marvel Entertainment in 2009. Social games may become a new promotional vehicle for blockbuster films. In a statement, Disney CEO Robert A. Iger cited "strong growth potential" and said his company is eager to deliver entertainment to "a new generation of fans on the platforms they prefer." Playdom, whose founders include two 2001 graduates of Palo Alto's Gunn High School, was still in stealth mode in early 2009 when it became a leading game maker on MySpace with such titles as "Mobsters," "Bumper Stickers" and "Own Your Friends." The company now claims more than 38 million active users. In interviews with the Mercury News in March 2009, Playdom founders Rick Thompson and Daniel Yue described their startup's early success. Thompson, whose previous startups include FlyCast Communications and Adify, funded Playdom's launch and served as its chairman. Yue, who was 12 when he coded his first game, a "Space Invaders" knockoff, recalled how he would tell people he was working "on an Internet thing" even as the startup's games claimed three of the top four spots on MySpace. Thompson said he sensed the opportunity on MySpace because so many rivals were focused on Facebook's rapid growth. Since its coming out in March 2009, Playdom has raised $76 million from venture capital firms and used the money to acquire eight startups, building up its roster of game offerings. Playdom's investors include New Enterprise Associates, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Norwest Venture Partners and Bessemer Venture Partners. Steamboat Ventures, Disney's venture arm, became an investor in June. The Playdom deal comes less than a month after Disney bought Tapulous, the maker of the popular iPhone music game "Tap Tap Revenge." In another social gaming deal earlier this week, Texas-based retailer GameStop acquired San Francisco-based Kongregate for an undisclosed amount. Contact Scott Duke Harris at 408-920-2704. VIRTUAL GAMES = REAL MONEY Playdom, a Mountain View maker of games on Facebook and MySpace, is being acquired by Disney in a deal potentially worth $763 million. Here is how Playdom pitches some of its most popular games: Mobsters: Lets your underhanded ambition loose in New York, where burglaries and bribes reign supreme. You"ll move up quickly in the Godfather"s world by completing petty crimes and big-time cons. Get your friends in on the action, build a bully of a mob and manhandle rival gangs. Sorority Life: Has your simulated glamriffic self covered. Whether you"re getting dressed to kill, or actually killing (OK, wrecking someone"s self-esteem), you can do it with up to 500 of your BFFs. Shop "til you drop. Own Your Friends: Fulfills your unsettling need to buy and sell your favorite people. At the same time, you gain your own personal price tag and the chance to be bartered for like day-old bread. The ultimate virtual marketplace! ----- To see more of the San Jose Mercury News, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.mercurynews.com. Copyright (c) 2010, San Jose Mercury News, Calif. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For more information about the content services offered by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services (MCT), visit www.mctinfoservices.com, e-mail services@mctinfoservices.com, or call 866-280-5210 (outside the United States, call +1 312-222-4544). NYSE:DIS, NYSE:NWS, NASDAQ-NMS:ERTS, NASDAQ-NMS:GOOG, NYSE:MVL, NYSE:GME, A service of YellowBrix, Inc. Apple unveils new iMacs, Mac Pro, multi-touch trackpad, 27-inch display Jul 28, 06:22 AM By John Boudreau, San Jose Mercury News, Calif. July 28--APPLE'S WORKHORSE PRODUCTS -- its desktop computers -- got a makeover Tuesday. The company announced upgrades for iMac and Mac Pro desktop computers, as well as a new multi-touch trackpad called the "Magic Trackpad" and a 27-inch Cinema Display. Although the iMac received an update last fall, its sales lagged during the most recently completed quarter compared with its laptop line. Apple's portable computers saw a 41 percent jump in sales, while the desktop business increased 18 percent. "This was arguably the weakest part of the product line in the last quarter," Kaufman Brothers analyst Shaw Wu said. "I think this should help. I think the new iMac is pretty interesting. They have put in the new fast processors from the Intel Nehalem" chip architecture as well as more powerful graphics chips from ATI, he added. Analysts say the Cupertino company's traditional computer business has benefited from the popularity of the iPhone and now the iPad. Last week, Apple said sales of its Mac computers shot up a record 33 percent during its recently completed third quarter. It sold a record 3.47 million Mac computers, about a million of which were desktop computers. "It's very strong," Wu said of the Mac business. The newer gadgets are "actually expanding the Mac. The Mac is still the ultimate Apple experience. It's where all these products come from." The all-in-one iMacs, starting at $1,199, get faster microprocessors and improved graphics chips. At $69, Apple's glass and aluminum Magic Trackpad "brings the intuitive Multi-Touch gestures of Mac notebook trackpads to the desktop," the Cupertino company said in a news release. Apple's top-of-the-line Mac Pro starts at $2,499. The widescreen 27-inch Cinema Display, at $999, can be connected to Mac desktops and notebooks. The display includes features such as a built-in video camera, speakers and microphone. Contact John Boudreau at 408-278-3496. APPLE UPGRADES The Cupertino company unveiled several new or upgraded products Tuesday: iMacs: Upgraded with Intel"s i3, i5 or i7 microprocessors; prices start at $1,199 for the 21.5-inch screen and $1,699 for the 27-inch screen; Mac Pro: Base model has a quad-core Intel Xeon multiprocessor; can accommodate as many as 12 processor cores; Magic Trackpad: Borrows multi-touch technology from Apple"s Mac notebook computers; priced at $69; Cinema Display: $999 for 27-inch widescreen display. Source: Apple ----- To see more of the San Jose Mercury News, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.mercurynews.com. Copyright (c) 2010, San Jose Mercury News, Calif. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For more information about the content services offered by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services (MCT), visit www.mctinfoservices.com, e-mail services@mctinfoservices.com, or call 866-280-5210 (outside the United States, call +1 312-222-4544). 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