Oracle, Sun Deal Approved By Justice Dept.

The Justice Department ruling came earlier than expected, a possible response to Sun Microsystems' declining revenues in a steep recession.

By Charles Babcock

Oracle (NSDQ: ORCL) announced late Thursday that the U.S. Department of Justice has approved its proposed acquisition of Sun Microsystems (NSDQ: JAVA).

The European Commission has still to rule on the deal, a step that will be required before it can close. That body has indicated it will issue an initial opinion on Sept. 3, according to the Wall Street Journal. It may OK the deal at that time or launch a four-month probe of it.

Oracle had originally hoped to complete the acquisition in August. Sun shareholders on July 16 approved the $5.6 billion deal by a wide enough margin for the Justice Department to terminate the waiting period normally required under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act. Oracle announced the planned acquisition in April.

The Justice Department ruling came earlier than expected, a possible response to Sun's declining revenues and precarious business position in a steep recession, as the required reviews proceeded.

The antitrust unit of the department announced a second round of review into the ramifications of the deal in June. That round was completed promptly for DOJ's approval to be announced Thursday.

One antitrust concern was that Oracle will become the owner of the widely used Java programming language. Oracle's database and middleware competitors, such as IBM (NYSE: IBM) and Red Hat (NYSE: RHT), rely on Java.

Oracle will also acquire the Solaris operating system, a portfolio of Java middleware and the open source database system, MySQL, in the acquisition.

Burton Group analyst Nik Simpson said in a July Webcast that Sun's hardware business was "between a rock and hard place." Rock, noting it was the code name for Sun's next generation of UltraSparc servers. UltraSparc sales "never really recovered from the Dotcom bust," he said during the Webcast.

In the most recent quarter, hardware sales were down 33%. Sun's design project for its next generation UltraSparc architecture, code named "Rock," has been cancelled, according to numerous reports. "That leaves them without a next-generation architecture," Simpson said.

As a result, HP (NYSE: HPQ) and IBM have been making offers aimed squarely at migrating UltraSparc server users to their own brands of hardware.

The U.S. Department of Justice has approved Oracle's acquisition of Java and other assets in its $5.6 billion acquisition of Sun Microsystems.

Pay Per Post offers to sell your soul

Ted Murphy, CEO of advertising firm Mindcomet, has launched a new service called PayPerPost.com. You guessed it, it’s a marketplace for companies to connect with bloggers who are willing to blog about a product - for a price. The companies can set guidelines for their requests such as whether a picture must be included and whether they will only pay for positive blog coverage. There does not appear to be any requirement that the payment for coverage be disclosed. There is a requirement that PayPerPost.com must approve your post before you are paid. Wow.

TechCrunch does not accept payment for posts.

Is this a bad joke designed to torpedo the blogosphere’s credibility in general? It doesn’t appear to be. If we’re all trying to negotiate a space between Hollywood and mainstream journalism, this is taking things way too far towards the most insipid parts of Hollywood.

Clearly comfortable with the “all press is good press” paradigm, Murphy is emailing bloggers with a link to scathing coverage at Business Week (”Polluting the Blogosphere“) and even includes the words “As seen in Business Week” in the company logo. Blogger Jeremiah Owyang gave us the tip on PayPerPost.com and assures us that though he has grave concerns about this, Ted Murphy is not the devil. I don’t know if I’m convinced.

If you visit the Mindcomet.com website you’ll see that they do advertising for some very high profile clients. I can imagine many of them wouldn’t want to be associated with a project like this at all. Like EarthLink. They have a major campaign underway to improve advertising by paying people to make authentic promotional materials for them. How ironic.

Google Adds Social Networking To Personalized Home Page

Google launched a suite of "social gadgets" for iGoogle, including games, shared to-do lists, and video-sharing on YouTube.

By Antone Gonsalves

Google (NSDQ: GOOG) is giving people the option of adding social-networking capabilities to iGoogle, potentially expanding the personalized home page's reach into such popular sites as MySpace, Friendster and others.

Google on Wednesday launched 19 "social gadgets"developed by the search engine or third parties. The mini-applications included multi-player games, such as Scrabble and chess; joint to-do lists and video-sharing on YouTube.

In addition, Google is giving iGoogle users the option of adding a "friends" section comprising people selected from the users' Google contacts list. iGoogle users can share social gadget activities with these people. Google also has added a chat feature for messaging contacts directly from iGoogle.

Before the new social features, iGoogle primarily offered a single location for search and accessing applications, such as Gmail, and content, including syndicated feeds, weather information and news articles. Users can choose to leave out the new features, which are meant to keep people on iGoogle longer by eventually making it a hub for social-networking activities.

Third-party developers will be able build iGoogle gadgets using the Google-backed OpenSocial API. The application programming interface is used to make applications interoperable with with any supporting social network, such as MySpace, which developed the API with Google, Friendster, Hi5.com, Sonico.com, Ning and Google's Orkut.

However, Facebook, the Web's largest social network, does not support OpenSocial. Instead, the site offers its own APIs called Facebook Connect, which provides users with the opportunity to share content created at a third-party Web site on Facebook.

China's Alibaba Plans U.S. Campaign

The e-commerce giant, owned in part by Yahoo and Cisco, will launch a $30 million promotional campaign to attract U.S. business
By W. David Gardner

China's big Internet company, Alibaba, is preparing to aggressively enter English-speaking countries including the U.S. and India, giving its major U.S. investors Yahoo and Cisco (NSDQ: CSCO) a chance to cash in on their investment in the Chinese e-commerce powerhouse.

The initial effort will be an ad campaign to be launched in the U.S. next week, the company said Friday. And, according to media reports, Alibaba is in negotiations to establish a partnership with companies in India to work with small and medium-sized companies.

According to a report in Friday's Wall Street Journal, a $30 million promotional campaign planned for the U.S. will introduce U.S. entrepreneurs and businesspersons to Alibaba's English-language site.

The e-commerce site acts as a combination online catalogue and clearing house for business buyers and sellers. Alibaba Group CEO Jack Ma visited the U.S. earlier this year to talk with Amazon (NSDQ: AMZN), eBay (NSDQ: EBAY), Google (NSDQ: GOOG), and other potential partners.

Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) was a major early investor, putting up a reported $1 billion to acquire a major piece of the Chinese firm in 2005. Later, Cisco invested in Alibaba.

Modeling its business approach after trade shows, Alibaba links sellers and buyers as well as wholesalers and suppliers. However, it generally doesn't complete transactions, leaving principals to work out details themselves. Alibaba generates revenue by charging for promotions and for listing products and services.
The e-commerce site's slogan -- "Find It. Make It. Sell It." -- is well known in China and the company wants to introduce the slogan to a broader English language business audience.

Windows 7 Now Available For Business

Microsoft has released its new OS to high-volume subscription customers

By Paul McDougall

Microsoft(NSDQ: MSFT) on Friday made its new Windows 7 operating system available to its Software Assurance customers—businesses who pay an upfront fee to the company in exchange for the right to free upgrades whenever new products are released.

Tech pros who subscribe to Microsoft's TechNet and MSDN programs got access to the new OS Thursday, as did independent hardware vendors and independent software vendors.

Microsoft is releasing Windows 7 gradually to its industry partners and high-volume business customers weeks ahead of the product's Oct. 22 public debut to ensure that it's fully supported and bug-free by the time it hits store shelves or shows up on new PCs.

That's not surprising. Vista's January, 2007 launch was plagued by a range of hardware and software incompatibilities—including a lack of device drivers for some widely used Intel(NSDQ: INTC) chipsets. The problems ultimately doomed Vista in the corporate market.

"Now is the time to work on your applications to make sure they are Windows 7 compatible," said Brandon LeBlanc, Microsoft's in-house Windows blogger, in a post Thursday.

Gold or Certified members of Microsoft's Partner Program get access to Windows 7 on August 16, while Action Pack subscribers get the OS on August 23. Sept. 1 marks the day when Volume Licensing customers who do not have Software Assurance subscriptions can download the Release To Manufacturing, or final, version of Windows 7.

The full version of Windows 7 Home Premium is priced at $199, with an upgrade from Vista or XP costing $119. The full version of Windows 7 Professional is $299, with upgrades going for $199. Windows 7 Ultimate is priced at $319, with the upgrade version at $219.

Microsoft Opens Mobile App Store to Developers

Microsoft officially opened its Windows Marketplace for Mobile application store to software developers on Monday as the giant software maker moves to catch up to the success of Apple's iPhone App Store.
Microsoft is now accepting submissions of mobile phone software applications from registered developers in 29 countries and is offering prizes for the most popular applications as judged by downloads, revenue, usefulness and more, said Todd Brix, leader of Windows Marketplace for Mobile at Microsoft, in a blog posting.

Developers can start uploading applications to Windows Marketplace now and will probably have to wait about 10 business days for certification or a detailed explanation of why a program was not accepted, according to Brix.

"Our strategy for all of this is pretty straightforward; we want to create a global marketplace for Windows Phones where developers and users meet to sell and buy high quality and high value applications that make work easier and life more fulfilling," said Brix.

Software developers can include their own marketing materials with their applications and will be able to earn money on sales.

People buying software on the site will be able to download applications to their PCs or mobile phones, use a variety of payment options, and enjoy a money back guarantee, said Brix.

Brix estimates the software customer base for Windows mobile phone applications is around 30 million people.

Apple runs the world's largest mobile phone application store. Over a billion software applications have been downloaded from the App Store, which is available in 77 countries, has 65,000 applications and serves 45 million iPhone users, Apple executives said during the company's quarterly investors conference last week.

Microsoft-Yahoo-Bing Deal

So what's it mean for computer users now that Microsoft and Yahoo today finally are announcing their long-anticipated marriage of Microsoft's Bing search engine and Yahoo's premium search advertising tools? Will this change our lives?

Actually, I think this partnership will mean far more for Microsoft and Yahoo and their corporate balance sheets than it will for those of us who are technology consumers, and here's why.

1) Will search get better due to the deal between the two companies?
Now I don't have a crystal ball, but I tried Bing, I played with Bing, I experienced Bing, but Bing, you're no Google search. Yes, it has some cool features, like bringing up found items in new and useful lists that are highly targeted for users, but there's this little problem that no amount of money and advertising can change -- people's habits. And my habit, like the habit of tens of millions of computer users around me, is to call up Google whenever and wherever I have to search, every time. It's like a mother's love -- it's there forever.

2) Will Yahoo go to the dogs now that it's linked itself in a partnership deal with the slow, hard-to-steer, behemoth known as Microsoft?
I do think there are more risks for Yahoo here than there are for Microsoft. Remember when the huge cable TV conglomerate Time Warner Inc. bought the original America Online (AOL) Internet provider back in 2000, thinking it was the wave of the future and all of humanity would follow in a sea of dollar signs and goodwill? And do you know where they are now? Time Warner is spinning off AOL, which has been struggling for years, as it continues to try to figure out just what to do with it. Before being bought by Time Warner, AOL was the king of the Internet, as we all clamored to have slow, software-laden Internet access at $2.99 an hour like the good consumer lemmings we were in those days. But then cheaper, faster access arrived with DSL, cable and all-you-can-use plans, but AOL and stodgy Time Warner couldn't react quickly enough. There's a lesson here. Bigger isn't always better. I read that in a fortune cookie. I could have saved Time Warner and AOL a lot of money if I'd have told them that. Hey, Microsoft and Yahoo, are you listening?

3) Are there privacy concerns I should be worried about from this deal?
That depends on the fine print, and that we'll have to have to check carefully to be sure what Microsoft and Yahoo want to do with all the consumer data they'll be able to collect from our searches. This is already an issue with Google and other search engines as we continue to make our way through this still relatively new global Internet adventure. When we use "free" services like search on the Internet, whether through Google or Yahoo or Bing or whatever, there really is no "free." Someone somewhere is using the spoils of the search - our preferences about what we are looking for - for marketing, for potential revenue enhancement and to help them in their businesses. It's an acceptable risk to us as consumers only when we know what the rules are. Somehow, though, we usually don't ask what those rules are ahead of time. Maybe we should get that information up front this time.

4) Will this Microsoft-Yahoo partnership be enough to knock Google from its perch as the king of search for savvy consumers?
I doubt it, and here's why - I just don't see Microsoft and Yahoo, even with the new Bing search engine as its mascot, coming anywhere near Google with the kinds of innovations that make us all excited and Googly. There's Google Earth. Could Microsoft or Yahoo have thought of that? And there's Google Voice. OK, it's still a fledgling effort, but it is interesting and innovative, and users are lining up early to try to get a Google invite to test it out and take it for a ride. What always amazes me is how the Google tech folks are always introducing fascinating new technologies that they can bring to users in ways that no one has else has yet imagined. OK, they haven't found an answer for world peace or the vaccine for swine flu yet, but you never know. I'm just not sure that Microsoft still has any of that kind of turn-on-a-dime mentality anymore. And that's why this partnership may not help search-loving consumers or Yahoo as much as the new partners believe it will.

Data Overload on Dating Sites

The information overload caused by too much choice could have lessons for other websites
By Andrew Schrock

Consumers can find more of what they want on the Web, but that may not always be such a good thing. New research about online dating sites shows that users presented with too many choices experience "cognitive overload" and make poorer decisions as a result. The findings could have implications for other kinds of websites, although new technologies and approaches could help address the problem, researchers suggest.

Dating sites are big business. According to a survey conducted in 2006 by the Pew Center for Internet and American Life, over 37% of all single Web users have tried them. Dating sites frequently resemble e-commerce sites such as Amazon.com; users enter search criteria such as height, appearance, and religion and are presented with a set of matches. 

Pai-Lu Wu from Cheng Shiu University and Wen-Bin Chiou from the National Sun Yat-Sen University in Taiwan performed an experiment that involved giving online date-seekers varying numbers of search results to their queries on dating sites. Their study, published last month in the journal Cyberpsychology and Behavior,, shows that having more search results leads to a less careful partner choice.

Chiou calls this a "double-edged sword," since people desire a wider selection, but then devote less time to evaluating each prospect. Wu and Chiou conclude that "more search options lead to less selective processing by reducing users' cognitive resources, distracting them with irrelevant information, and reducing their ability to screen out inferior options." In other words, when faced with cognitive overload, date-seekers evaluated as many matches as possible, even ones that weren't a good fit, and they were less able to distinguish a good option from a bad one.
Michael Norton, an assistant professor at Harvard Business School, coauthored a study published in the Journal of Interactive Marketing last year that suggests that this kind of cognitive overload is common on dating sites. His study found that the average date-seeker typically spends nearly 12 hours a week searching online and emailing for a payoff of less than two hours of offline dating. Norton says that date seekers "evaluate each person only superficially, never investing the time and energy to explore whether a match might work." Having too many options raises our expectations of potential matches too high, leading to an "often fruitless search for an ideal person who may not exist." Incessant browsing for Mr. or Ms. Right may be exactly the wrong decision, Norton says.

Apple working on a tablet PC and music deal, according to report

APPLE is working on two new projects including a portable touchscreen gadget for watching movies and reading e-books, according to a report.

One of the trend-setting company's new projects was to release a tablet PC in time for Christmas, The Financial Times said.

The tablet will connect to the internet with Wi-Fi like Apple's iPod Touch and may have a screen as large as 10 inches (25.4cm), the paper said.

Publishers have reportedly been in talks with Apple about offering books on the device, which could lead it into competition with Amazon's Kindle e-book reader.

The Kindle and Kindle 2 readers have a 6-inch screen (15.24cm). Amazon recently announced a new version, the Kindle DX, with a 9.4 inch (23.8cm) screen.

Amazon also offers a Kindle application for Apple's iPhone that allows users to read its e-books on the handset.

 However the rumoured Apple tablet would also let users watch movies and would cost more than Amazon's device.

One analyst estimated that the Apple tablet could cost between $US600 and $US1000 ($734 and $1224).
"I think it will have a lot of the functionality of the iPod touch, but will be quite a bit bigger," Oppenheimer & Co analyst Yair Reiner told the paper.

The other rumoured Apple project, codenamed "Cocktail", would see the company team up with all four major record labels to add interactive features to music downloads, the paper said.

EMI, Sony, Warner and Universal were hoping for a September launch to help increase album sales, according to anonymous sources.

With Reuters 

Bonica Snapper-XP S5 Digital Underwater Camera - Discover The Outdoors

If God had know that we’d like to snap fish underwater he would have fitted us with shutter, we might as well capture fishy tales from down under with this awesome Digital Camera Mask. This high-quality 5-meg digital camera also doubles up as a cool underwater mask. Splosh!

Google Chrome Operating System Is Coming Our Way, Finally!

This post has been viewed 26108 times since Thursday 9 July 2009 @ 10:49 am

Did you see it coming? I would say this is the most anticipated product that I have been waiting for in these few years. This piece of exciting news just arrived after 10 months since Google Chrome Web Browser was released last year.

Most of the Operating System (OS) we are using today were designed and development prior to the Internet era. Google Development Team realizes this and is aiming to produce an OS for people who are relying on the web (Btw, who doesn’t?). Besides, they are also smart enough to sense that netbook is the new trend right now. Therefore, Google Chrome Operating System is designed for the web and will be initially used on netbook.

Below are some highlights of Google Chrome Operating System :-
Open source – Like many of the Unix-based OS, it offers accessibility to its source code
Lightweight – Less complicated, fast and easy to use
Runs on x86 - Computer Architecture – Meaning it runs on the same PC you are running Windows, Mac, Linux, etc, as well
Secure – The security architecture of the OS was completely redesigned so that it’s virus, malware and security update free

The OS is scheduled to be available for consumers in the second half of 2010. I just can’t wait to see it!

More FAQ about the OS.

Dive Into The Ocean With New Google Earth 5.0

Continuing the trend of online search, Google launched a new service that allows Internet users to explore the depths of the oceans from the comfort of their homes.

Google Ocean expands this map to include large swathes of the ocean floor and abyssal plain.

Users can dive beneath a dynamic water surface to explore the 3D sea floor terrain.

The map also includes 20 content layers, containing information from the world’s leading scientists, researchers, and ocean explorers.

Full Article:
Click here.....

Internet Connection Speed: The Top 10 Countries

At the end of 2008, approximately 19 per cent Internet connections around the world were at speeds greater than 5 Mbps — a 21 per cent increase over the average global connection speed at the end of 2007.

This is according to the State of the Internet report, a quarterly study by Akamai Technologies, the US-based Internet content distribution giant. The State of the Internet report tracks average connection speeds for countries around the world.

Check out the top 10 nations in terms of average Internet connection speed.

1. South Korea
South Korea rules supreme when it comes to Internet connection speed and broadband connectivity. It is the world’s No.1 with average connection speed of 15 Mbps, ten times the global average!

During 2008, South Korea’s rate of quarterly change appeared to be locked into a cyclical pattern, with quarterly decreases being recorded in the first and third quarters, and increases seen in the second and fourth quarters.

For the whole year, South Korea saw a modest 7 per cent rise in their levels of high broadband adoption. South Korea is also ranked first in terms of high broadband connectivity with 69 per cent connections above 5 Mpbs.

2. Japan
Japan ranks 2nd in terms of Internet connection and high broadband connectivity. Japan ranks 2nd in terms of high broadband connectivity. About 54 per cent of the connections in Japan are above 7 Mbps.

3. Hong Kong
Hong Kong ranks third with an Internet connection speed of 6.9 Mbps. The country ranks fifth in terms of high broadband connectivity with 38 per cent of the connection above 5 Mbps.

4. Romania
Romania is at the fourth position with a Internet connection speed of 5.7 Mbps. The country ranks third in terms of high broadband connectivity with 45% of the connection above 5 Mbps.

5. Sweden
Sweden is at the fifth position with a Internet connection speed of 5.6 Mbps. Sweden ranks fourth in terms of high broadband connectivity with 39 per cent of the connection above 5Mbps.

6. Switzerland
Switzerland has bagged the sixth position with an Internet connection speed of over 5 Mbps. The country however does not figure in the top ten list of countries with high broadband connectivity.

7. Netherlands
Netherlands ranks 7th with an Internet connection speed of 4.9 Mbps. The country ranks 7th in terms of high broadband connectivity with 28 per cent of the connections above 5 Mbps.

8. Belgium
Belgium is at the 8th position with an Internet connection speed of 4.7 Mbps. The country ranks sixth in terms of high broadband connectivity with 31 per cent of the connection above 5 Mbps.

9. Slovakia
Slovakia bags the ninth position with an Internet connection speed of 4.5 Mbps. The country does not figure among the top ten in terms of high broadband connectivity.

10. Norway
Norway ranks tenth with an Internet connection speed of 4.5 Mbps. The country ranks fifth in terms of high broadband connectivity with 38 per cent of the connection above 5 Mbps.

United States is at the 17th position with an Internet connection speed of 3.9 Mbps, up approximately 8 per cent from the average connection speed for the first quarter of 2008.

In terms of Internet connection speed, China is way behind leading economies with an average Internet connection speed of 833 kbps.

India has been ranked at a dismal 115th among 223 countries in terms of average Internet connection speeds. India has an average Internet connection speed of just 772 Kbps compared with the global average of 1.5 Mbps.

Article from http://www.techpark.net