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Thursday, January 22, 2009
Reuters - Microsoft stuns with profit miss, to cut 5,000 jobs
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Microsoft stuns with profit miss, to cut 5,000 jobs
Thursday, Jan 22, 2009 7:0PM UTC
By Franklin Paul and Bill Rigby
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp stunned Wall Street with disappointing results that included plans to slash up to 5,000 jobs and a warning that profit and revenue will almost certainly drop over the next two quarters.
The news from the world's largest software maker, which had not been expected to report results until after the close of trading on Thursday, sent shock waves across financial markets, pulling down the Nasdaq and the dollar, and sending Treasury debt prices higher as investors sought safer assets.
Microsoft's shares dropped as much as 11 percent to its lowest level since January 1998, adding to a 40 percent decline in the past year. It blamed the miss on the weakness of the PC market and the popularity of low-cost netbook computers, which have combined to badly undercut sales of its dominant Windows operating system.
The market has become so volatile, Microsoft cautioned, that it will not issue earnings or revenue forecasts for the rest of its fiscal year ending June 30, 2009 -- other than to predict both will very likely be lower.
"It is pretty bad when things are deteriorating so fast that even the largest companies in the world don't know how rapidly it is happening," said Jefferies analyst Katherine Egbert.
Microsoft posted a profit of $4.17 billion, or 47 cents per share, in its fiscal second quarter ended December 31, versus a profit of $4.71 billion, or 50 cents, a year earlier. Analysts were looking for earnings per share of 49 cents, according to Reuters Estimates.
Revenue rose 2 percent to $16.63 billion, missing the average analyst forecast of $17.1 billion.
Microsoft's elimination of 5,000 jobs -- 1,400 of which on Thursday -- amounts to about 5 percent of its estimated 96,000 work force, the biggest reduction ever by the software maker.
"Clearly business conditions are worse than people were expecting," said Richard Williams, analyst at Cross Research. "This is a substantial amount of jobs cuts. Microsoft has never had a layoff like this in my knowledge and it's sending a signal that the times are definitely changing."
The job cuts follow similar moves by other technology firms, including AT&T Inc, Dell Inc, Motorola Inc and Advance Micro Devices Inc, all of which are suffering from the global economic slowdown.
THREATENED BY NETBOOKS
Microsoft faces a shift by PC buyers to cheaper netbooks, which are small, stripped-down laptops. Netbooks can run Windows, but Microsoft makes more on each sale of Windows for a PC than it does for a netbook. Some netbooks also use the rival open-source Linux software.
Chief Executive Steve Ballmer said Microsoft also lost market share to Apple Inc, which on Wednesday posted surprisingly strong results.
"We are certainly in the midst of a once-in-a-lifetime set of economic conditions," Ballmer said on a conference call. "The economy is resetting to a lower level" of spending, he said, adding that he did not expect a quick economic rebound.
However, Ballmer noted that Microsoft will be adding "thousands of jobs" in strategic areas like Internet search, where it has been lagging behind Google Inc, and that he still desires a search partnership with Yahoo Inc.
But Chief Financial Officer Chris Liddell said he does not expect significant acquisitions this year, despite hopes from some Yahoo shareholders for a buyout.
Shares of Microsoft were down $2.01 to $17.37, after touching an intraday low of $17.19, the lowest level since January 1998. It was the biggest single-day drop in the stock since an 11.38 percent fall on April 28, 2006.
(Additional reporting by Jim Finkle in Boston and Robert MacMillan and Sinead Carew in New York; Writing by Tiffany Wu and Paul Thomasch; Editing by Derek Caney)
CNN - Crowley: Balance of power trying to find balance
Sent from bombastic4000@yahoo.com's mobile device from http://www.cnn.com.
Crowley: Balance of power trying to find balance
Democrats hold a strong majority in Congress, but with power comes a power struggle, and a potential headache for President Obama.
Just two days into his term, the president is already facing pushback from leaders of his own party.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid have made it clear -- it's not their job to answer to Obama.
To a certain degree, the president-Congress tension is simply politics at play -- something that happens every time a new president comes in.
But this time, the Democrats have even more power than they did before the election, meaning Pelosi and Reid both have huge majorities in their respective houses.
Pelosi's biggest problem with the president's agenda is the silence she's hearing when President Obama is asked about former President Bush's tax cuts.
During the campaign season, Obama proposed repealing the Bush tax cuts on those making at least $250,000, but now it's more likely that the president will delay any tax increases on the wealthy until 2011, when the tax cuts expire.
The Obama team says that in the middle of a recession you don't, in effect, raise people's taxes.
Pelosi, however, doesn't buy that argument. She wants to see them rolled back now.
"We had campaigned in saying what the Republican Congressional Budget Office told us: Nothing contributed more to the budget deficit than the tax cuts for the wealthiest people in America," Pelosi said in an interview Sunday with Fox News.
A spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell called Pelosi's statement "false," and cited a recent fact check by the St. Petersburg Times disputing the House Speaker's claim that tax cuts for the wealthy are the biggest contributor to the budget deficit.
Pelosi said she would not seek to block the president's proposed stimulus plan over its lack of tax hikes for the rich, but she urged Obama not to simply let the tax cuts expire in two years.
"[Tax cuts on the wealthy] have to prove their worth to me as to how they grow the economy, how they create jobs," she said.
Pelosi is also pushing for an investigation into the Bush administration's handling of the Justice Department, while Obama and his aides say there are other priorities besides focusing on the administration they are succeeding.
"I think that we have to learn from the past, and we cannot let the politicizing of, for example, the Justice Department, go unreviewed," Pelosi said last weekend. "Past is prologue."
Before becoming president, Obama made it clear that investigating the Bush administration wasn't a priority.
Over in the Senate, Reid has taken a similar stance to Pelosi's. In an interview with The Hill earlier this month, the Democrat said, "I don't believe in the executive power trumping everything. ... I believe in our Constitution, three separate but equal branches of government."
"If Obama steps over the bounds, I will tell him. ... I do not work for Barack Obama. I work with him," he said.
Obama, however, has made clear he's not letting any pushback slow him down. Even before his inauguration, he threatened to veto any attempts to block his access to the remaining bailout funds.
As the Obama administration gets settled in, one can expect the tug and pull between the White House and Congress to continue: It's that balance of power getting into balance under new circumstances.
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
USA TODAY - Application developers see iPhone as way to get noticed
This story has been sent from the mobile device of Bombastic4000@yahoo.com. For real-time mobile news, go to m.usatoday.com.
By Jefferson Graham, USA TODAY
Phanfare co-founder and CEO Andrew Erlichson has seen his future, and it's on the iPhone.
The Internet photo-sharing service recently informed 300,000 registered users of the new strategy, which ties in its website with a new Phanfare Photon application for Apple's (AAPL) iPhone and iPod Touch.
"The iPhone represents the beginning of what we believe will be a convergence between smartphones and point-and-shoot cameras," Erlichson told customers in an e-mail that also encouraged them to buy an iPhone.
Savvy software developers such as Erlichson are trying to stake a claim for early prominence in the mobile economy, where it's still a bit easier to get noticed than on the Web. The size of the market (about 1 billion phones sold annually) and the cool factor of the iPhone, makes it a desirable place to make a splash.
"The iPhone has the largest install base with the highest level of functionality," says Steven Echtman, CEO of HearPlanet, a free travel audio tour service that launched in early January. Other platforms have larger numbers of subscribers, such as Windows Mobile and BlackBerry, but users aren't as likely to add lots of new applications, he says, because Apple makes it easier via its App Store.
HearPlanet has been downloaded more than 50,000 times.
Where the action is
The iPhone is "the platform of the moment," says Mike McGuire, an analyst at Gartner. "Apple has sucked all the oxygen out of the room, and developers want to be where the action is."
Google's Android was envisioned as a similar platform with thousands of potential applications, but it hasn't yet caught on, says McGuire, and Palm is looking for a comeback with its new Pre phone and operating system in late spring. "For now, it's the iPhone," he says.
Apple's App Store has about 15,000 applications available up from just over 500 when it launched in July. Apps are available for a fee, or free. Downloads have surpassed 500 million.
The best-selling applications have been games. Also in the mix are utilities (dictionaries, restaurant guides) and time-wasters (games that simulate the sounds of bodily functions or drinking beer).
While most are from up-and-coming entrepreneurs, many established players are there as well, including MySpace, Facebook, eBay and USA TODAY.
The online radio service Pandora is iPhone's most popular music application. About 40% of new Pandora subscribers come from the iPhone daily, and they are listening to as much as 100 minutes of music at a pop, says Pandora founder Tim Westergren.
New listeners
In just six months, Pandora has picked up 3 million new listeners from the iPhone. "This whole thing has been a huge shock to us," he says. "Much bigger than we expected."
Pandora owes much of its success to being on the App Store from day one.
"It's getting really crowded out there," Westergren says. The challenge for newcomers is "how to get attention and light up grass-roots interest so you can show up on the charts."
Most iPhone owners find new applications by scrolling lists at the App Store, where Apple publishes rankings of top sellers in various categories.
"People fight really hard to make the list," says British developer Mark Terry, whose Band music application has been at the top of the charts since its July debut. "If you're No. 102, you don't exist."
When the App Store launched, many applications sold for $4.99 to $9.99.
But in an effort to make the charts, developers began cutting prices, Terry says: "Anything to get ahead. One hundred apps are released daily. That's like 100 albums by no-name bands."
Terry's $3.99 Band program down from $9.99 originally lets you play virtual piano, guitar, drum and bass on the iPhone.
i.TV, based in Palo Alto, Calif., made the chart easily when it launched its free app in late October. The "what's on" guide to TV, movies, your Netflix queue and more has been downloaded 2 million times. It made Apple's top five chart "because there was nothing like it," CEO Brad Pelo says.
"You have to deliver an app that gets buzz in the blogosphere," he says. "This is what my phone does that yours doesn't. This is why you need my app."
Pelo sees the iPhone as the new living room remote control, an essential device to be in your lap as you watch TV, answer e-mail and try to decide what to watch or where to go.
To Erlichson, mix his Phanfare with the Photon application and the iPhone becomes a "connected camera."
Sure, it's a way to entice folks to spend $54.95 a year for Phanfare's Web-based service, but he believes more folks will enjoy the ability to access their photo collection from anywhere.
"It's the beginning of a new era, where computers give way to more purposeful devices that are easier to use," he says. "This is clearly a seminal event. Apple has raised the bar, and everybody is racing to catch up."
Website address: http://www.usatoday.com/tech/products/services/2009-01-20-phanfare-Inernet-photos-iphone_N.htm
Saturday, January 17, 2009
Reuters - Steve Jobs's cancer may have recurred: doctors
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Steve Jobs's cancer may have recurred: doctors
Friday, Jan 16, 2009 10:57PM UTC
By Anupreeta Das
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Pancreatic cancer experts say they are puzzled by what is ailing Apple Inc Chief Executive Steve Jobs, because it is not clear how serious his health problems are or how directly they relate to his bout with cancer.
Last week, Jobs said he had an easily treatable "hormonal imbalance" that was robbing his body of the proteins it needs. Then, on Wednesday, the 53-year-old CEO said his problems were "more complex" than originally thought, and he would take a medical leave of absence for six months.
Doctors who have not treated Jobs say they can only speculate without hard information, but they said the tumor he was treated for in 2004 could have spread to another organ or resurfaced in the pancreas, requiring surgery or other treatment.
Jobs could also be coping with side effects of that surgery that can be treated easily, they said.
In 2004, Jobs was treated for a rare type of pancreatic cancer called an islet-cell, or neuroendocrine, tumor. Such tumors can be benign or malignant, but they usually grow slowly and are far less deadly than most pancreatic tumors.
The American Cancer Society estimates that 37,680 Americans get pancreatic cancer each year, but few get islet-cell tumors of the kind Jobs had. The tumors are easily removed surgically but recur in roughly half of patients, said Dr. Roderich Schwarz, a cancer surgeon at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas.
Dr. Clay Semenkovich, an endocrinologist at Washington University in St. Louis, said in a telephone interview, "(Jobs) may have a new mass that's substantially altering his physiology and causing him to lose weight."
WEIGHT LOSS
The pancreas -- a spongy organ the size of a large banana -- produces enzymes used in digestion.
Islet-cell tumors can cause over-secretion of hormones including insulin into the bloodstream, wreaking havoc on digestion and leading to drastic weight loss.
Semenkovich said that could explain Jobs' "hormonal imbalance," but added that the limited information made it hard to say for sure.
Apple's cryptic missives on Jobs' health have not deterred speculation -- sparked by his gaunt appearance at an Apple event in June 2008 -- that his cancer has returned.
But his drastic weight loss could have other, less ominous explanations, doctors said.
Jobs' surgery in 2004 is likely to have been the so-called Whipple procedure -- an extensive and complicated operation that involves several organs besides the pancreas, doctors agree.
Weight loss is a common side effect, since a partial pancreas may not be able to effectively aid in the digestion of proteins, carbohydrates and fats.
"If an operation removes 30 to 50 percent of the pancreas, you're missing cell mass that produces juices that aid digestion. It could lead to weight loss and fatigue," Schwarz said in an interview at an American Society of Clinical Oncology conference on gastrointestinal cancers in San Francisco.
"SIMPLE AND STRAIGHTFORWARD"?
Jobs may also have insulin deficiency, which would result in diabetes, doctors said. They added that treatments for these side effects are indeed "simple and straightforward," as Jobs has said.
Schwarz said patients who lack digestive enzymes can take enzyme capsules to aid digestion, and they are effective fairly quickly.
That would not explain why Jobs would need six months of medical leave.
Joseph Kim, a cancer specialist and surgeon at the City of Hope medical center near Los Angeles, said patients whose cancers recur in nearby organs, usually the liver, can be treated using less-invasive procedures than surgery. Cancers can be cut out or burned, and the recovery takes only a few days, he said.
In Jobs' case, "we're probably talking about something more complicated, like surgery," that would take longer, Kim said. Surgery on patients with recurrent islet-cell tumors can be "extremely difficult, if not risky," he added.
Semenkovich said Jobs may need new surgery, and that six months is a reasonable time for preparation, surgery and recovery, given his weight loss. "Surgery in somebody who has lost a lot of weight is a risk," and recovery could take longer, he said.
(Editing by John Wallace)
Friday, January 16, 2009
NYTimes.com: Can Apple Fill the Void?
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Thursday, January 15, 2009
Reuters - Cloaking device may make cell phone static vanish
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http://mobile.reuters.com
Cloaking device may make cell phone static vanish
Thursday, Jan 15, 2009 7:34PM UTC
By Julie Steenhuysen
CHICAGO (Reuters) - A new light-bending material has brought scientists one step closer to creating a cloaking device that could hide objects from sight.
Beyond possible military applications, it also might have a very practical use by making mobile communications clearer, they said on Thursday.
"Cloaking technology could be used to make obstacles that impede communications signals 'disappear,'" said David Smith of Duke University in North Carolina, who worked on the study published in the journal Science.
Smith was part of the same research team that in 2006 proved such a device was possible.
He said the new material is easier to make and has a far greater bandwidth. It is made from a so-called metamaterial -- an engineered, exotic substance with properties not seen in nature.
Metamaterials can be used to form a variety of "cloaking" structures that can bend electromagnetic waves such as light around an object, making it appear invisible.
In this case, the material is made from more than 10,000 individual pieces of fiberglass material arranged in parallel rows on a circuit board.
The team, which included Ruopeng Liu of Duke University and T.J. Cui of Southeast University in Nanjing, China, in lab experiments aimed microwaves through the new cloaking material at a bump on a flat mirror surface. That prevented the microwave beams from being scattered and made the surface appear flat.
Smith said the goal was not to make something visible disappear. Cloaking, he said, can occur anywhere on the electromagnetic spectrum.
"Humans 'see' using visible light, which has wavelengths just under a micron (a millionth of a meter). But cell phones and other wireless devices 'see' using light that has a wavelength on the order of many centimeters," Smith said in an e-mail.
He said objects can block the "view" of these devices, making mobile phone communications more difficult.
"You might have two or more antennas trying to 'see' or receive signals, one being blocked by the other," he said. "You could imagine adding cloaks that would make one antenna invisible to the next, so that they no longer interfered."
Smith said the notion of a device that makes objects invisible to people is still a distant concept, but not impossible.
"This latest structure does show clearly there is a potential for cloaking -- in the science fiction sense -- to become science fact at some point," he said.
While the study's funders included Raytheon Missile Systems and the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, Smith said the technology is not intended to replace "stealth" technology.
"Just about all technologies that have any application, naturally have potential in military applications," he said.
"If this has an impact on communications applications, even commercial, those same applications presumably exist in defense contexts."
(Editing by Maggie Fox and Vicki Allen)
Reuters - Shortwave radio still packs an audible thrill
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Shortwave radio still packs an audible thrill
Wednesday, Jan 14, 2009 8:29PM UTC
By Robert MacMillan
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Somewhere on a lonely mountaintop on a starry night, or maybe in an apartment on a bustling city block, someone is channeling the whole world onto a mobile device. It's not a phone; it's a shortwave radio.
A staple form of broadcasting in many parts of the world since the 1920s and 1930s -- shortwave in North America has been mostly a hobby for decades.
Now that the Internet is a fixture in many homes in the United States and Canada, there are few practical reasons to buy a shortwave radio. Thousands of stations that once were available only on the shortwave band are online.
Shortwave also is distinctly old fashioned, cast against the shadow of the annual Consumer Electronics Show, which was held in Las Vegas earlier this month. The mother of gargantuan gadget fests featured shortwave radio makers, but the action these days revolves around digital audio devices.
The contrast is stark: iPods and satellite radios are slim and pocket-sized, while shortwaves are throwbacks, typically as square as a textbook and just as serious looking.
So why bother with shortwave?
It's easy and cheap -- and fun. You can hear and learn things that you would never find even if you work your search engine like a mule. From Swaziland to Paris to Havana, shortwave broadcasters can surprise an adventurous listener more than any MP3 playlist.
"You tune carefully, twist the radio from side to side, and there's still a bit of a 'Hey, I made this happen!' sort of thing," said Harold Cones, retired chairman of the biology and chemistry department at Christopher Newport University in Newport News, Virginia.
It's also magic. Shortwave radio enthusiasts acknowledge the thrill -- the romance, in a way -- of going out at night and snaring news, music, odd bleeps, religious zealots and other broadcasts from the wild sea of frequencies in the sky.
In aural terms, the Internet wins. Shortwave by nature sounds dirty: Its signals whoosh from clouds of static and are subject to the whims of sunspots and atmospheric disturbances.
But when you hear voices over the noise and squeal, and realize you are hearing Mongolia, live, there is a warmth and a human connection that are hard to find on the Web.
Shortwave also can deliver news faster than you might find it online, and in places where your other devices don't work, said Ian McFarland, a former host and writer at Radio Canada International.
"It's more portable than a computer, especially if you ... don't have a laptop and you don't happen to have a hot spot on your favorite beach," he said. Batteries also keep them going a long time when the power goes out.
On a serious note, shortwave stations often resist many government attempts to jam them.
"Shortwave is unfettered by intermediaries so it's pretty much always there," said Lawrence Magne, publisher of the Passport to World Band Radio (http://www.passband.com).
GETTING STARTED
You can find shortwave radios at a variety of Web retail and auction shops like Amazon, Universal Radio, The Shortwave Store, Grove Enterprises or even National Public Radio.
Bob Grove, at Grove Enterprises in Brasstown, North Carolina, also offers a handy beginner's guide (http://tinyurl.com/8rq3bt).
You could drop thousands of dollars on a radio, but units such as the Eton E100 (http://tinyurl.com/8x5q9o) generally range from $50 to $250. A perfectly serviceable radio sells for as little as $30, but more expensive models are better at pulling in fainter signals.
Listening is best an hour before and after sunrise and sunset -- and away from urban areas -- because of atmospheric conditions and because many broadcasters in distant lands are gearing up their broadcasts.
Try searching for distant shortwave signals, identify the station, write to them and get a "QSL Card," the broadcaster's acknowledgment that you made contact.
For die hards, listening to shortwave can make hours go by in a dream. For others, its an acquired taste -- Bob Grove said his wife is "partially tolerant."
"I've had radio equipment in my car in the past, and I have learned not to turn it all on when we were going on a date somewhere."
(To find a partial English-language list of what's on shortwave, try RadioShack (http://tinyurl.com/6texnw) or C.Crane (http://tinyurl.com/yjfcrq)).
(Reporting by Robert MacMillan; editing by Richard Chang)
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The Black Rider
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Portfolio Mobile - TV.com Just Might Be a Contender
TV.com Just Might Be a Contender
Ars Technica reports: A month after launching a major site redesign,
TV.com announced on Monday new content partnerships with studios like
Sony Pictures Television, MGM, PBS, and Endemol USA. The move adds more
than 1,000 new TV episodes from shows like Californication and Dead Like Me to TV.com's established community, making it a more powerful force to reckon with for the likes of Hulu and even YouTube.
TV.com's catalog now tops out at around 38,000 videos from over 19,000 shows, ranging from current, popular series like Dexter and Brotherhood to classics like Bewitched, The Addams Family, and even Ken's old favorite, T.J. Hooker.
"With the layering of this content, TV.com continues its mission to be
a place for entertainment, information and community," Senior Vice
President and General Manager of CBS Interactive Entertainment and
Lifestyle Anthony Soohoo said in a press release.
Indeed, TV.com's established community is what gives it a leg up on new
challengers to the throne, such as Hulu, the NBC and FOX joint venture
which Ars Technica dubbed 2008's best piracy-reduction program.
Before CBS redesigned TV.com, it enjoyed 16 million monthly unique visitors who stopped by to check TV schedules, post in forums, read industry news, and participate in polls. In contrast, Hulu saw 24 million uniques last October. But after launching a cleaner, more mature site design last month that introduced full-length content while maintaining a high emphasis on community, TV.com says it saw an 18 percent increase in unique visitor traffic and a 17 percent increase in time spent on the site.
The new design takes an unapologetic page (or three) from Hulu's design book, but features things like a shoutbox on the front page, polls and ratings for each episode, and a wealth of information and trivia about each show and its stars.
"It's not enough today to just rebroadcast television shows online," Soohoo continues in the press release, firing a shot across the bows of Hulu and the many competitors in the mainstream online video space. "People go online for the community interaction and no one is better at building thriving online communities around content than TV.com."
It is a bit early to tell, but Soohoo may have a point. If everyone from TV.com, to Hulu, and even Sling.com are drawing from virtually the same catalog of mainstream content, the battle for eyeballs will be fought with weapons like great forums and content integration. TV.com already had an established community with lots of extra information and media to keep visitors engaged. With CBS actively bulking up TV.com's content catalog, it is likely to turn into a serious player in a rapidly evolving market.
Also on Ars Technica:Sony CES 3D Tech Already OutdatedObama's FCC Pick Hailed by ReformersChina Online Porn Crackdown
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