Techno Sider

There's no question that mobile mapping software on a phone can be a very cool thing, but if you don't have a GPS-enabled phone, it can also be incredibly tedious: to plot a route or figure out what's nearby, you have to laboriously determine and enter your own location, and then (potentially) the address of your destination as well.

To ease your frustration, Google has added a new beta My Location feature to its Google Maps for Mobile service: even if you don't have a GPS-enabled phone, pressing "0" will plot a blue dot on the map to show your current location. If you have a GPS phone, the blue dot is a precise little point. Without a GPS phone, the blue point is surrounded by a light blue area, indicating some uncertainty about where you are. The larger location area results from Google using information broadcast from mobile towers to get an approximate idea of where you are. Google says the algorithm, on average, can pinpoint your phone within about 1,000 meters (a little over half a mile).

Google built the service independently of mobile phone carriers by anonymously analyzing mobile signals received by Google Maps users and constructing its own database of cell towers. Using that information, Google can compare the mobile signal readings on a particular mobile phone and make a reasonable guess where that phone must be located.

The feature is available on most Web-enabled phones, including Java-enabled phones, BlackBerry devices, Windows Mobile phones, and Nokia/Symbian devices. Google is offering the service free of charge; eventually, the company hopes to tie it in with local advertising and other location-aware services.

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Taiwan based Genius has announced the availability of stylish accessories, the DPF-101K Digital photo keychain with photo album, in India.

Keychain is an essential product to carry vehicle, office or home keys. If you get a photo album with that, then it’s surely a best buy. Imagine you are about to attend a meeting, away from home and are dying to see your kid or loved one. And if you have a device like this, you can surely watch your favorite image and get a smile to your face.

Sandeep Ramani, Country Manager, KYE Systems (India) Corp., mentioned “This is a perfect sentimental gift for your beloved ones. You can even preload precious photo moments on Pocket Album for different entertainment occasions.” He also adds, “This pocketable digital keychain photo viewer is the answer to a wallet stuffed full of photos.”

The features of the Genius DPF-101K include a 1.0 -inch color screen, built-in flash memory to store up to 80 selected images. Moreover, the digital photo frame also has the ability to display real-time clock, temperature display alarm and calendar.

This mini digital photo album also sports CD-ROM including photo compression software and a multi-language manual. You can also set turn on/off time and manually set slideshow photo or else you can leave it on to the auto slide show photo function.

The Genius DPF-101K Digital photo Key Chain carries a suggested price of Rs. 1399 and is available with Transtek, Ingram Micro and Redington, the authorized distributors for Genius products in India.

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India is at a nascent stage of gaming but holds burgeoning opportunities along with challenges, speakers at the India Gaming Summit 2007 said.


"With 57 per cent of the Indian population below the age group of 25 years, it makes India apt in terms of demographics to explore gaming. The market is eager to take on to gaming provided the cost is right and the resources are within an arm's reach," said Reliance Entertainment president Rajesh Sawhney.

The main issues blocking the progress of the gaming sector are connectivity, costs and reluctance to move to the subscription model.

"If the above problems are sorted out, then the $3-5 million gaming industry will grow at a much faster pace," Sawhney said.

Although mobile has seen rapid growth, it alone can't drive the gaming industry. "We are still at a very low broadband penetration. Our target was to achieve 10 million subscribers in 2007 but we have only three million subscribers. The telecom companies are striving hard to achieve 10 million broadband subscribers by 2010," said Sawhney.

The event was organised by Zapakmail.com and Internet and Mobile association of India (IAMAI) in partnership with Intel.

The morning session included a panel discussion involving Sony Online Entertainment VP business development and international operations David Christensen and Shanda Interactive Entertainment business development director Desmond Lu. It was moderated by Level Up India MD Venkat Mallik.

Said Christensen, "The demographics in India is favourable to take gaming forward and it is good that players have already started exploring various platforms."

Speaking about the gaming industry in China, Lu said: "Virtual social communities, no software cost and lack of other entertainment choices have been instrumental in the growth that we are witnessing today. Shanda Entertainment has been leading the space with a market cap of $2 billion."

Remarking about India, Lu said, "Gaming cafes hold a lot of potential here, particularly in smaller cities as people don't have much choice for entertainment."

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Google is expected to launch an online information storage service in an attempt to become the central depository for the world’s digital data.

Its new data storage facility – code-named “GDrive” – would allow users to store digital files such as music tracks and photographs on the internet and access them through any web browser.

The move will escalate the rivalry between Microsoft and Google over how best to steward the explosion in domestic digital data. Analysts agree that answers are needed to consumers’ data problems, ranging from how to keep highly sensitive information secure, to avoiding the loss of holiday photographs. It is estimated, for instance, that more than 270 billion digital photos will be taken this year.

In January Microsoft announced a hardware-based solution with its Home Server platform, a scaled-down version of the servers that companies use to store data.

A spokesman for Google, the dominant force in internet advertising, refused to be drawn on speculation that the company will release a rival web-based system in a matter of weeks. However he did say: “Storage is an important component of making web applications fit easily into consumers’ and business users’ lives.”

Last year Google inadvertently leaked an internal memo that made plain the scale of its ambitions over online data storage – a strategy that would apparently make computer hard drives all but defunct.

“With infinite storage, we can house all user files, including e-mails, web history, pictures, bookmarks, etc and make it accessible from anywhere (any device, any platform, etc),” the document said.

Google is likely to look at how to extend advertising to the service.

Privacy activists are expected to complain that Google already has access to too much information and any new data storage service would be launched into a freshly febrile atmosphere. Fears over data security soared last week when the Government lost personal details of 25 million Britons in the post. However, Google executives are so far unabashed, insisting that the public will trade access to some of its information for improved online services, such as adverts targeted to an individual consumer’s interests.

Executives at Microsoft will also be wary of Google’s plans. Analysts have argued that the long-anticipated GDrive system will make it easier for users to abandon Windows, Microsoft’s dominant operating system.

Henry Blodget, the former Wall Street analyst, who has become a technology blogger, said: “The critical element here will be seamlessness. If Google forces users to go through an inconvenient uploading process, the product will be just another easy-for-Microsoft-to-duplicate (tool).”

$300
cost of a 1-terabyte (1,000-gigabyte) hard drive by 2010, according to Microsoft

270bn
digital photos will be taken this year

79m
number of users of Gmail, Google’s e-mail service, in which stored messages are scanned for keywords to allow the delivery of targeted ads

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In an exciting bid, Microsoft is launching six blockbuster titles on the 'Games for Windows' platform.

All six games are thrilling playoffs, and offer great variety of subject to explore.

Among them, "Age of Empires III: The Asian Dynasties" is an interesting game based on India's history -- the period of British rule, and the Great Mutiny of 1857. While "Zoo Tycoon 2 Extinct Animals Expansion Pack" takes gamers back into the Ice Age, and to a life surrounded by animals that are mostly extinct today.

"Flight Simulator X Expansion Pack" meanwhile, is for gamers who love the thrill of adventure, and to fly across the skies as an aviator on a journey of 24,000 airports across the globe. "Viva Pinata" is a crazy funny hilarious game, offering the ultimate party enjoyment.

"Gears of War" and "Age of Empires III Gold Edition" both offer jam pack action, promising enough bang for the buck in the action genre.

With these new titles, Microsoft is trying to offer a diversified portfolio of games that will cater to each and every kind of gamer.

All new games are available today onwards.

While "Zoo Tycoon 2 Extinct Animals Expansion Pack" and "Age of Empires III: The Asian Dynasties" are available for Rs 1,149 each; "Age of Empires III Gold", "Flight Simulator X Expansion Pack", "Gears of War", and "Viva Pinata" are each priced at Rs 1,649.

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In order to make it easier to expand your friends network on Xbox Live, Microsoft has announced a new feature dubbed "Friends of Friends".

This feature will be released with the Fall Dashboard update on December 4.

"Friends of Friends" will enable users to check out the friends list of fellow Xbox Live members from the Dashboard itself.

Using this new feature, members can find old friends or connect with new ones within the Xbox Live community. They will also be able to send messages and game invites, as well as compare games and achievements.

With this, Xbox Live intends to play the role of a social networking platform for the community.

"Friends of Friends" feature will be available as the new default setting on Xbox Live and will be active with the Fall Dashboard update.

However, for those who prefer to keep their friends list private, they can change the settings beginning today by logging onto www.xbox.com/fof, and selecting one of the three options available for the Gamertag.

The three options are -- everyone (only available to members who are 18 years of age and above); friends only (available to members who are 13 years and above); and blocked (available to all members, and automatic for anyone under the age of 13).

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Search categories related to music and technology continue to be among the most dangerous, according to a new McAfee report.

In its 'The State of Search Engine Safety' report, McAfee points out that one of the riskiest terms to search for on the Web is 'screensavers'.

It is learnt that nearly 42 percent of search results on the term 'screensavers' got a 'Red' warning flag or a 'Yellow' cautionary flag from McAfee SiteAdvisor.

SiteAdvisor even said that music- and technology-related Web sites have a negative impact on computers, since they often leave spyware and other malware, which could lead to a massive increase in the amount of spam generated.

Interestingly, the study revealed that while browsing porn Web sites through search engines carries an approximately 9 percent risk of infecting PCs with spyware, adware, and spam; the risk quotient jumps to nearly 19 percent when searching digital music Web sites. Other sites found to harm computers are those related to electronic gadgets, and those that offer background wallpapers.

In a statement, Mark Maxwell, Senior Product Manager for SiteAdvisor, said that the lesser risk posed by porn Web sites is due to the fact that they are already raking in a lot of money, and have no reason to indulge in such practices. On the other hand, faced with a slow electronics market, people related to such industries tend to look for additional ways to promote their products.

The study further found that queries related to file-sharing software such as 'BearShare', 'LimeWire', and 'Kazaa' posed a significant risk for computers. In fact, 'BearShare' was found to be the riskiest search term, with over 46 percent of search results marked as dangerous.

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New McAfee research puts the spotlight on a dangerous cyber practice known as "typo-squatting".

The McAfee report titled, "What's in a Name: The State of Typo-Squatting 2007", reveals how typo-squatters register domains using common misspellings of popular brands, products, and people in order to redirect consumers to alternative Web sites.

These squatter-run sites generate click-through advertising revenues, lure unsuspecting consumers into scams, and harvest email addresses to flood users with unwanted email.

McAfee has reviewed 1.9 million variations of 2,771 of the most popular domain names to arrive at these results.

According to Jeff Green, senior vice president (Avert Labs and Product Development) of McAfee, "Typo-squatting illustrates the 'Wild West' mentality that remains dominant in major portions of the Internet. Even at its most benign, this practice takes consumers to places they never intended, and penalizes legitimate businesses by siphoning customers away, or making them pay a charge to re-acquire customers. At its worst, typo-squatting leads to online scams, 'get-rich-quick' offers, and other risks."

McAfee cites a recent example of typo-squatting as 'iPhone mania', saying that even though Apple's iPhone appeared on the market just a few months ago, there would be at least 8,000 URLs using the word 'iPhone' by the end of this year. With some fan- or rumor- sites, and others run by hackers and spammers. The only factor common to them all is that they have no affiliation whatsoever to Apple.

The McAfee study highlights: that a typical consumer who misspells a popular URL has a one-in-14 chance of landing at a typo-squatter site;
that children's sites are heavily targeted; and that some typo-squatters may even take advantage of typos to expose children to pornography.

As per the study, the five most highly squatted categories are game sites like miniclip.com, runescape.com, and minijuegos.com; airline sites like ryanair.com, united.com, and lufthansa.com; mainstream media sites like vh1.com, globo.com, and gvc.com; dating sites like plentyoffish.com, true.com, and singlesnet.com; and technology and Web 2.0 related sites

Five non-US countries most likely to have popular sites squatted are: the UK, Portugal, Spain, France, and Italy. And, five non-US countries least likely to have popular sites squatted are: the Netherlands, Israel, Denmark, Brazil, and Finland.

Interestingly, McAfee notes that "typo-squatting" is not a new phenomenon. Also that with the emergence of new, top-level domains; more automatic registration tools; and in general, proliferation of parking portal sites, all these are typically feeding the phenomenon.

As a precautionary measure, McAfee advises customers to use the McAfee SiteAdvisor, which is downloadable for free at http://us.mcafee.com.

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Earlier this year we stepped back to examine the value users, advertisers, and publishers derive from clicks on content ads. As you integrate ads with your site's content and navigation, we want to ensure a positive user experience. We identified a few areas for improvement and began implementing changes, starting with our new ad formats in April.

Continuing these improvements, we've just changed our text ads slightly to help reduce accidental clicks. In the past, users could click on both the background and full text of an ad, but now they can click only on the title and URL of a text ad. By allowing users to click only on the ad title and URL, we aim to decrease accidental clicks, better aligning visitor behavior with their intent. Overall, the decrease in accidental clicks will keep users on your website, interacting with your content, until they intend to click on an ad.


In addition, this new clickable format better aligns with the text ad formats shown on Google.com. We hope this format change contributes to a better, more consistent user experience.

Finally, this change won't just improve user experience on your site; it benefits advertisers as well. We currently monitor clicks on Google ads for accidental clicks, and the format change complements our monitoring system by further ensuring advertisers only pay for meaningful clicks. By reducing accidental clicks, we hope to increase advertiser campaign value and satisfaction, encouraging additional spend and facilitating higher monetization for all publishers.

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Google has introduced a top 100 searches words / phrases chart called Hot Trends. More than that, what we never had from Google (except the Zeitgeist), a daily history of top 100 searches.

The top was compiled starting from 15 May and continues till the day I posted this article (23 May).

The Hot Trends top is compiled only from US based searches (for now …).

If you click on any of the searches (eg. fleet week), you will be presented with additional information about that particular search:

* 5 Levels of Hotness (how searched the word is): Low, Medium, Spicy, On Fire, Volcanic
* Related searches (pretty obvious)
* The top search hour for that word (Pacific Daylight Time)
* The top geo location
* News articles for the searched phrase (linked to Google News)
* Blog posts for the searched phrase (linked to Google Blog search)
* Web results for the searched phrase (linked to Google search)

There is a Google Hot Trends Group if you want to participate.

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Driving traffic to your new blog ain’t easy. You really have to work hard for it and you need tools to help you do it. Luckily, Google is here to help bloggers, like you, find a spot on the search engine. It offers different tools on search engine optimization like the Google Analytics and Google Alert.

Another interesting and powerful tool that is not often seen in the limelight, since it is still in Google Labs, is the Google Trends. This analysis tool can help bloggers decide what content to build on their blogs by finding out the current popular search terms on the web. Through Google Trends, your traffic may eventually increase since you are writing contents on the popular queries.

Google Trends does not only list the hot trends today but also allows you to find the trend on the keywords related to your blog. Just type in a main keyword for your blog and a linear graph will be loaded. The graph will show you the total number of searches done on Google for that particular keyword you typed in over time. Just set a particular time frame like for the past 12 months or All Years (2004-present).

Some keywords would have News items related to it. These items are tagged with letters on the graph, where on the right side are the links to the news items corresponding to the letters in the graph.

Aside from a graph, included in the results are the top cities, regions, and languages in which people searched for the term you have entered.

You can also compare up to five search terms by separating them with a comma. This may help you decide what queries to focus and what queries to set aside for the meantime.

Google Trends only works, however, with general search terms. If the keyword is very specific, a graph may not be shown because the search volume collected is not enough to show a graph. Google also claim that the results may contain innacuracies for a number of (technical) reasons. Yet, Google Trends is an interesting tool still for building contents in your blog. Information provided by Google Trends is now updated daily, while Hot Trends is updated hourly.

Related Posts from other Blogs:

• What’s Hot Today?
• Google Trends: Peer Into Google’s Database Of Searches
• Different Types of Google Trends
• Google Trends, Updated Daily
• Google Meme: Hot Trends Added To Google Trends
• Using Google Trends to Select Website Keywords
• Using Google Trends for search engine optimization

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Too much dependence on the Internet is fine, except that by 2010, we might be headed for an information highway traffic jam that will make life on the Internet extremely difficult.

This -- as per a newly minted study by US analyst, Nemertes Research, partly-funded by the Internet Innovation Alliance (IIA) that campaigns for universal Broadband in the US.

The Nemertes report warns that by 2010, our friendly information super highway might become so clogged with data, forcing Broadband users to return to using dial-up modems.

How? Simple things like downloading Web pages will begin to take longer. Especially -- those fun videos from popular Web sites like YouTube. And, we may never get to see another Google or YouTube, thanks only to the lack of sufficient infrastructure.

The remedy, as prescribed by Nemertes, is an almost $137 billion investment in global Internet infrastructure, which happens to be double of that originally envisaged.

But the Nemertes report says in no uncertain terms that until and unless this scale of investment happens, a gridlock would develop to such an extent that it would make functioning on the Internet near-impossible.

Top-level officials at the IIA voiced the view that necessary steps must be taken to build network capacity, and potentially face Internet gridlock which might wreak havoc on Internet services.

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Hey, Facebook users: Put down those virtual hamburgers. It's time to talk politics.

The New York Times reported Monday that Facebook and ABC News are close to announcing an agreement to collaborate on political coverage. The two will co-sponsor debates for both parties in New Hampshire shortly before the presidential primaries, and Facebook members will be able to "follow" ABC reporters and interact with news content in a special "U.S. Politics" category.

The Times article fails to mention that ABC is actually a bit late to the game here. CNN has co-sponsored debates with Google's YouTube, and Facebook rival MySpace has an ongoing series of "dialogues" with candidates that it has organized in conjunction with MTV.

What makes the ABC deal different is that it's with Facebook; not only is it the hottest name in social networking these days, but the young company has a history of inking few formal partnerships (the Microsoft equity stake aside), instead relying on its third-party developer platform and advertiser-sponsored pages for "content."

The Times article notes that the ABC-Facebook deal apparently was money-free.

But ABC News doesn't seem to have caught onto the fact that Facebook's user base sees the site as a platform for social recreation, not information consumption. None of the front-runners in the list of most popular third-party applications on the site deal with politics or news--instead, they include Flixster's movie rating application, Slide's "Top Friends," iLike's music app, and the woefully addicting Scrabulous.

And while the Times article pointed out that a "One Million Strong for Barack Obama" group has gathered over 164,000 members on Facebook, it left out the fact that a similar group devoted to the fleeting candidacy of comedian Stephen Colbert actually did pull in over a million members--in a week's time.

Facebook might have 56 million users, many of whom are gleefully hooked on the site, but when some of the most popular pastimes include turning your friends into virtual zombies and rallying around a gag presidential candidate, a news organization might be slightly skeptical about just how much attention it'll snag. (Hey, Facebook addicts: When was the last time you actually watched ABC News?)

That's not to say that Facebook users are apathetic. Many applications devoted to charity and environmental awareness have become extremely popular; maybe not as popular as SuperPoke, but noticeable nonetheless. And the Events and Groups features have made it a whole lot easier to spread the word among the site's young user base. Presidential politics, unfortunately, doesn't fit the viral-time-waster mold quite as well. I can't see my friends reacting positively to a notification that reads, "poke"-style, "Caroline McCarthy has filibustered you."

Maybe ABC News can pull it off--who knows, anyway?--but I'm skeptical.

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The short Italian is back and this time he's gone astro, writes Jason Hill.

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Google increased its share of the U.S. Internet search engine market in October, taking share away from rivals Yahoo and Microsoft, according to market researcher ComScore.

Google widened its lead over the competition by winning 58.5 percent of all U.S. searches last month, up 1.5 percentage points over September. Yahoo took second place with 22.9 percent of the search market, down from 23.7 percent, while third ranked Microsoft dropped to 9.7 percent from 10.3 percent.

Ask Network remained steady at fourth place with 4.7 percent of the U.S. search market in October, while Time Warner Network dropped a tad to 4.2 percent from 4.3 percent a month earlier, ComScore reported.

Google captured 6.1 billion of the 10.5 billion Internet searches Americans conducted in October, ComScore said, far more than second place Yahoo's 2.4 billion.

Leading Search Engines - October 2007

Google:58.5 percent (+1.5 points)

Yahoo: 22.9 percent (-0.8 points)

Microsoft: 9.7 percent (-0.6 points)

Ask Networ: 4.7 percent (no change)

Time Warner Network: 4.2 percent -0.1 points)

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Until about a month ago, it looked like Unreal Tournament 3 (UT 3) for the PS3 would ship -- not before next year.

But all that has changed with Epic Games Chief, Mark Rein's announcement that the game will ship this year itself -- that too ahead of the upcoming holiday season -- but only in North America.

In Europe and PAL territories, Rein said UT 3 for the PS3 would ship possibly early next year. The reason being Epic Games needs time to wrap-up some issues related to localized content in these regions.

All said, Rein's confidence is remarkable. Earlier on, he had said the same thing -- that despite game publisher, Midway Games' pessimism, he is confident that the game will arrive in 2007.

The SCEA seal of approval for the game was obtained just a few days ago, along with news that it had been released to North American Manufacturing.

Currently, Midway is co-ordinating with retailers to come up with some definite date for shipping the game, which according to Rein, will mostly be around Dec 10, 2007.

Meanwhile, the PC version of UT 3 has just arrived this week. However, Midway had also announced plans to bring UT 3 to Microsoft's Xbox 360 sometime next year.

All in all, it's going to take some waiting for the game -- either which ways!

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The weekend is witnessing Sony Computer Entertainment India's (SCEI) "PlayStation Experience -- Entertainment like never before" being played out at the Taj Land's End in the Queen of Suburbs, as Bandra is often called.

Apart from the larger-than-life scale of the event, yesterday saw SCEI Country Manager, Atindriya Bose, make a series of announcements.

Of which, the big one came in the form of the launch of Sony's 40GB PS3 in the country. The console will cost Rs 24,900 apiece. Sony also launched the Slim and Lite PSP (PlayStation Portable) with Video Out facility, priced at Rs 8,990; the PSP Spiderman Specialty Pack for Rs 10,490; and the PSP Simpsons Specialty Pack for Rs 9990.

The company announced availability of games for its PlayStation platform including Uncharted: Drake's Fortune; LAIR; Ratchet & Clank: Tools of Destruction; WipEout Pulse; and Syphon Filter: Logan's Shadow.

While kicking-off the 'PlayStation Experience', Bose explained that gaming is becoming an increasingly accepted form of entertainment amongst Indian consumers, and that the Expo aims to capture the attention of Indian youth, who is modern, and who gives value to quality entertainment solutions.

Also present, Milestone Interactive Software Chairman and CEO, Jayant Sharma, quoted that nearly 60 percent of market share in the virtual gaming industry in the country belongs to Sony's PlayStation.

Meanwhile, for those who missed out on the event yesterday, they can still walk into a live performance by Robert Miles tonight, and soak-in the sights and sounds that the 'PlayStation Experience' has to offer.

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Has Google lost your address? Now you can help it find you.

Starting this week, the Mountain View search giant is letting users edit the errors found in its online mapping product.

"Sometimes, a location can be a little off on a map and your friends can't find you," the Mountain View company explained in a video posted on YouTube by software engineer Seth LaForge. "Now you can fix that."

The move comes as Google grapples with opening more of its operations to outsiders. Once notoriously closed and secretive, the company is increasingly seeking to turn itself into a platform for other businesses.

To be successful, the ambitious effort will require contributions from people around the world, ranging from software developers who write new applications to owners of mom and pop businesses who enter information on the site about their grocery store, coffee shop or dry cleaners.

"There are multiple reasons that Google is doing this and one of them is to clean up and improve the quality of the data," said Greg Sterling, an analyst with Sterling Market Research.

"Inaccurate Google map locations are a problem occasionally for most people who use online maps," said Gus Allen, founder of Swamplot, a Houston real estate blog. Among other services, Allen directs his readers to local demolitions using Google maps. Last week, Google mistakenly placed a Houston address in Oklahoma, he said.

To edit Google Maps, a person needs a Google account. If someone see an error while searching for a business, he or she can click an "edit" link. For example, Google originally marked the entrance to the San Jose Mercury News on a side road leading to the employee parking lot until a reporter dragged the marker to the correct location - the newspaper's grand 1950s style entrance - on Tuesday afternoon.

Google said it will prevent abuse by restricting changes to certain listings, like hospitals, police stations and schools, as well as the addresses of businesses that have claimed their listing online at Google's Local Business Center. Edited addresses will be clearly marked, and links to original address markings will be retained.

Users can also report abuse through a link. Certain edits, such as moving a marker more than 200 yards, must be reviewed by a Google employee.

"Move a marker, and make your virtual neighborhood a better place - that is, in the U.S., Australia and New Zealand, where it works right now," LaForge wrote in a blog post on Monday.

By making maps more useful, Google is trying to capture a larger share of the dollars spent on online Yellow Page advertising and local search - which is estimated to grow from $1.9 billion this early to $4.9 billion in 2011, according to the Kelsey Group of Princeton, NJ.

Yahoo is also eyeing this market. It began allowing businesses to update their information in January 2007. A spokeswoman for Yahoo said the number of companies that has done so is in the high hundreds of thousands.

A spokeswoman for Google said more than a million businesses have "interacted" with their online business center.

While there are an estimated 25 million local businesses in the United States, the total number of advertisers in the traditional Yellow Pages is 3.5 million, according to the Kelsey Group.

Sterling said the relatively large numbers reported by Yahoo and Google illustrate the great potential for local search online, which is still at a very early stage. "There's been a lot of learning and now all the parties are figuring it out," he said.

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Taking a long-term view isn't easy nowadays.

Even the recent past seems blurry at times. Google's just seven years old, but it's hard to imagine life before instant search. Broadband has been widely available for only a few years, but already dialup internet seems to high-speed users like a throwback to the Neanderthal era.

In an age of rapid-fire change, contemplating the future is downright headache-inducing. Investors who plan strategies over multiple years or decades recognize that today's must-have technologies are probably destined for tomorrow's waste bins. But there's no scientific method for identifying their replacements.

That's why this week's column includes input from an assortment of experts who share their views on top contenders to be the technologies of tomorrow.

Next time around, we'll see what future-thinking folks predict about the opposite question: Which heavily touted technologies are destined to flop? For now, let's take a look at the positive trends futurists see on the horizon.

Simplicity: Over the past couple of decades, gadget makers have toiled ceaselessly to add functionality. As a result, your cell phone can now play games, do math and sound off like a barking dog when your ex calls. Your digital camera can shoot extremely poor-quality video. And nearly every device you own with a screen also contains a clock.

The problem, says Ian Pearson, futurist in residence at British Telecommunications, is that most people buy a device for a particular purpose. They neither want nor care about all the extra capabilities.

"We've done 20 years of adding functionality, and 99 percent of that functionality isn't needed," Pearson said. "There will be an enormous market over the next several years for really simple stuff."

For investors, there are few obvious examples of simplicity-minded gadget makers. Apple Computer's iPod is often cited as a model of the simpler-is-better ethos. With shares selling for close to their all-time high, however, Apple (AAPL) is a pricey pick. Royal Philips Electronics (PHG) has an internal strategy effort called "simplicity-led design." But many of the products incorporating the simplicity concept won't be on the market for several years.

Pearson says the simplicity principle can apply to software as well. It's something, he says, that he'd like Microsoft to consider before adding yet another feature to its next version of Word.

Mobile socialization: Already our cell phones and PDAs work well at both contributing to our social lives (i.e., getting in touch with friends) and spoiling them (i.e., meeting friends but ignoring them to answer cell-phone calls).

But according to futurists, we've only scratched the surface of figuring out how our portable communications devices can be of service.

What's in store? How about mapping programs that show us whether anyone we'd like to see is nearby. Or a mobile reference modeled on Wikipedia that can tell us if the restaurant on the corner is any good. Perhaps a few voice-recognition applications that actually work.

While we're at it, why not throw in programs to protect our privacy by limiting who has access to information about where we are?

"Those sorts of things can easily be built into mobile devices," said Pearson.

Speech-recognition technology will be instrumental in enabling new mobile services, said Ronald Gruia, author of the blog Technology Futurist and emerging communications program leader at consulting firm Frost & Sullivan. In recent years, speech software developers, in particular Nuance Communications, which until recently went by the name ScanSoft (SSFT), have gotten much better at what they do. Gruia believes it's only a matter of time before speech-enabled mobile apps for tasks like composing e-mail while driving can be commonplace.

R.I.P. combustion engine?: Gas-guzzling cars and trucks are such an integral part of the modern landscape that we practically take them for granted. When you think about it, that's a pretty amazing feat, considering the noise and smog they generate.

At some point, escalating fuel prices, surging global oil demand and a dwindling supply of easily accessible crude will take their toll, however. That point is closer than ever, says Jennifer Jarratt, a partner at Leading Futurists.

"There's a wide-open space there for disruptive technology in the hybrid car market," she said, noting that established automakers are still reluctant to consider life without the combustion engine.

The World Future Society estimates in its annual list of top predictions for the future that only 40 years' worth of oil is left in the ground, "so action is needed now to plan for a smooth transition to alternatives -- notably hydrogen."

Investing in alternative fuels, however, is a tricky business. Options are limited, and for the most part, quite risky.

Going green: Futurists have been warning about our over-consumptive, pollution- and nonbiodegradable-waste-generating ways for decades. Lately, those warnings are getting more strident.

"I have actually told my own investment adviser: Don't put my money in energy companies that aren't investing in alternatives," said Marsha Rhea, senior futurist at the Institute for Alternative Futures.

Many futurists predict that growth in the market for renewable energy sources will be particularly strong. The World Future Society, for one, forecasts that offshore wind farms will grow into a $3 billion-a-year industry by 2008.

Andy Hines, a lecturer in futures studies at the University of Houston-Clear Lake, also envisions growing demand for information-sensing devices that can reduce energy consumption.

IT revolution of 2006: Even futurists sometimes prefer the short-term horizon. Pearson, for one, expects 2006 will bring one of the more fascinating inflection points in the evolution of digital technology.

"We see the convergence of a whole stack of IT trends," said Pearson, who's gearing up for what he calls "the 2006 IT explosion." Basically, the explosion will consist of a number of technologies: better screens, improved location technology and highly sophisticated gaming consoles that provide a hub for home entertainment.

Pearson expects 2006 to be a good year for gadget sellers. The broad selection of fancy new electronics will provide consumers plenty of temptation. He, however, plans to wait.

"One of the big reasons I don't buy things is because as a futurist I see what they're going to do in the next few years," he said.

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The worst-case scenario used to be that online ads are pesky, memory-draining distractions. But a new batch of banner ads is much more sinister: They hijack personal computers and bully users until they agree to buy antivirus software.

And the ads do their dirty work even if you don't click on them.

The malware-spiked ads have been spotted on various legitimate websites, ranging from the British magazine The Economist to baseball's MLB.com to the Canada.com news portal. Hackers are using deceptive practices and tricky Flash programming to get their ads onto legitimate sites by way of DoubleClick's DART program. Web publishers use the DoubleClick-hosted platform to manage advertising inventory.

If you've seen any of the ads, you may have experienced something like this: You're on a legitimate site. Your browser window closes down. A new browser window comes up, redirecting you to an antivirus site, while a dialog box comes up telling you that your computer is infected and that your hard drive is being scanned. The malware tries to download software to your computer and scans your hard drive again. (Here's a video demonstration of the rogue ads.)

The malware looks like a ordinary Flash file, with its redirect function encrypted, so that when publishers upload it, the malware is not detectable. Once deployed on a site, the Flash file launches the malicious redirects, which appear to be triggered at preset times or at selected Web domains.

John Mark Schofield, a Los Angeles IT director, encountered the ads on Canada.com. He thinks that because he was on a Mac OS computer, the damage wasn't so severe. "My feeling is that it would have caused me a lot more grief if I had been on a Windows computer: It may have installed the malware. Instead, it took over my browser, which I just fixed by exiting Firefox," Schofield says.

DoubleClick acknowledges the malware is out there, and says it has implemented a new security-monitoring system that has thus far captured and disabled a hundred ads.

"This is an industry-wide challenge. Unfortunately, there are bad actors who misrepresent themselves and purchase advertising as an avenue to distribute malware. This has the potential to affect all businesses and consumers in the online environment," says Sean Harvey, senior product manager at DoubleClick DART.

Publishers may be somewhat culpable, too. The distributor of the malware-infected ads is believed to be AdTraff, an online-marketing company with reported ties to the Russian Business Network, a secretive internet service provider that, security firms say, hosts some of the internet's most egregious scams. AdTraff is believed to have posed as a legitimate advertiser, using its partners as references. The ads were almost always paid for with credit cards or wire transfers, according to Alex Eckelberry, CEO of Sunbelt Software, a provider of security software.

"The AdTraff guys probably register at a bunch of sites -- maybe more than 300. They say they're advertisers. They get the sales guys at the end of the quarter when they're anxious to take the deal. (AdTraff) wires the cash, and they buy the inventory on the site," Eckelberry says.

AdTraff could not be reached for comment. The company lists a phone number in Germany which leads to a generic voicemail box.

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After falling months behind schedule, Mozilla released the first official beta of Firefox 3 on Tuesday. While not without a few bugs, the release showcases the substantial improvements to both user interface and performance that are in store for the final release, which is due sometime later this year.

Firefox was once the only real alternative to Microsoft's Internet Explorer. But in a month or so when the final version of Firefox 3 is released, the browser will enter a significantly more mature browser market than its predecessors. Recent versions of the Opera browser, previously a paid download, are available for free. Microsoft's much-improved Internet Explorer 7 is installed by default with Windows Vista. Also, Apple's svelte Safari 3, which the company has made available on both Mac and Windows to fuel web-app development for its iPhone, has also entered the browser fray. In short, Firefox 3 will have its work cut out for it.

The open-source and fully customizable browser remains popular, but has recently had to parry heavy criticism from users complaining of Firefox's bloat, memory leaks and dodgy performance. Mozilla hopes to change that perception with this release, which is indeed slimmer and sleeker than its predecessors. It's an important milestone for Mozilla and shows that, though a bit late, Firefox 3 remains on track both in reducing memory usage and bringing some new, useful features to the table.

Firefox 3 beta 1 is noticeably snappier. Page loads are quicker, and Ajax-heavy sites like GMail refresh almost imperceptibly.

In our testing of beta 1 and its final-release candidate on an Intel Mac running Mac OS X Leopard, the browser never consumed more than 60 MB of memory, and it disappeared from our CPU usage monitor entirely when running in the background, something Firefox 2 has never managed to do. Of course, it was running sans add-ons, a common source of performance problems. (Add-on developers will need to tweak their code to run in the new browser, so for the time being, many are unavailable.) To that end, Mozilla has said it will step up efforts to help add-on creators track and eliminate bugs in popular extensions.

Another tester at Wired News encountered massive memory usage with the beta on Windows XP, and other varying reports will no doubt continue to come in. There's already an add-on for the beta to help patch some memory issues.

While the speed alone is likely to convince many people to upgrade, Firefox 3 has some new features as well. Not everything planned for the final release has made it into beta 1, but there are plenty of enhancements.

Beta 1 features a new bookmark-management system dubbed Places, which aims to help you keep your bookmarks organized and easy to find. Recent alpha builds included Places, but did not implement all the planned features. Even now, Places doesn't look completely baked, but it's close enough to be very useful. Places supports bookmarking tools borrowed from social sites like del.icio.us or Ma.gnolia -- including tags and starring to classify, organize and prioritize your favorites.

On the right side of Firefox's main Location bar, you'll notice a new star icon. Press the icon once, and the page is stored in your bookmarks. Press it again, and a small panel pops up to let you edit your bookmark without having to open the Places panel.

We encountered a bug here: Although clicking the star is supposed to create a bookmark in the folder "All bookmarks," opening up the Places panel showed the bookmark was nowhere to be found.

The new star icon isn't the only change for the Location bar. In fact the Location bar isn't just a window to display the URL anymore -- it's also a full-text-search bar for finding bookmarks or pages stored in your browsing history. Rather than just searching for page titles and URLs, the way Firefox 2 does, the new version looks for keywords within the page text itself. That makes it much easier to find what you're looking for, even when you don't know where you saw it.

Mozilla has also dropped the age-old padlock symbol from the location bar. Because the lock symbol, which denotes an encrypted site, can be evoked falsely by scammers, Firefox 3 beta 1 instead offers a clickable favicon for each site. Clicking on it displays a panel that reports the page's connection status. An additional link will open a panel that displays even more information, like whether or not the site is bookmarked, how often you've visited the page and any saved passwords you might have stored. This would hopefully prevent you from being duped into visiting a fake site for your bank, for example. However, the need to click through to see the extra info is a barrier to the feature's usefulness.

Other changes include many streamlined user-interface elements, like the revamped add-on manager for installing and maintaining third-party plug-ins. The add-on manager now features a tab for managing common plug-ins like the Flash player or Quicktime, including the ability to disable them. You also get links to find any additional add-ons and a handy new "Restart Firefox" button for quickly enabling and disabling add-ons or themed skins. Previously, this button only showed up when you installed new plug-ins.

The downloads panel has also been improved by the addition of a new info icon, which tells you not only where the download is located on your hard drive, but also where you got it. There's also a small search bar at the bottom of the panel for finding those needles in your haystack of many downloads.

Although beta 1 is far from a finished product and some interface changes like platform-specific skins are still in store before the final release, the speed and memory improvements in Firefox 3 beta 1 make it worth the upgrade. That is, of course, if you don't mind losing your add-ons for a while.

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Webmasters who control automated web-crawler access to their sites using 'robots.txt' files have a bias that favours Google over other search engines, according to new research.

The claim was made by researchers at Penn State University based on the results of a study of more than 7,500 websites.

C. Lee Giles, David Reese professor of Information Sciences and Technology at Penn State, who led the research team which developed the BotSeer search engine for the study, described the pro-Google bias as "surprising".

"We expected that 'robots.txt' files would treat all search engines equally, or maybe disfavour certain obnoxious bots," he said.

"So we were surprised to discover a strong correlation between the favoured robots and search engine market share."

'Robots.txt' files are not an official standard but, by informal agreement, regulate web-crawlers, also known as 'spiders' and 'bots', which mine the web continuously.

Web policy makers use the files found in a website's directory to restrict crawler access to non-public information.

'Robots.txt' files also are used to reduce server load which can result in denial of service and force a website to shut down. But some web policy makers and administrators are writing 'robots.txt' files which are not uniformly blocking access.

Instead, those files give access to Google, Yahoo and MSN while restricting other search engines, the researchers found.

While the study does not include explanations for why web policy makers have opted to favour Google, the researchers know that the choice was made consciously. Not using a 'robots.txt' file gives all robots equal access to a website.

"'Robots.txt' files are written by web policy makers and administrators who have to intentionally specify Google as the favoured search engine," said Professor Giles.

Not every site has a 'robots.txt' file, although the number is growing. About four in 10 of the 7,500 sites analysed by the researchers had such a file, up from fewer than one in 10 in 1996.

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If you think Google is content to be the world's favourite search engine, you might be shocked to learn they want to learn much more than just your online surfing habits.

23andMe, a company funded in part by Google Inc., was launched on Monday, offering DNA saliva tests for $999 per person.

The tests will allegedly help users learn more about their genes, inherited traits, family trees and participate in research.

"23andMe was founded to empower individuals and develop new ways of accelerating research. The members of 23andMe have come together because we believe in the combined potential of genetics and the Internet to have a significant, positive impact," a statement on the company's website said.

The company is founded in part by Anne Wojcicki, who is also married to Google co-founder Sergey Brin.

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The AdSense code is generated from within your publisher account. This is the code that you'll need to add to your pages in order to display Google ads or a search box on your webpages. Please follow the steps below to generate your AdSense code:

1. Log in to your account at https://www.google.com/adsense
2. Visit the AdSense Setup tab
3. Choose your product - AdSense for content to place ads on your site, AdSense for search to add a search box to your site.
4. Follow the guided setup to choose a format and colors. You can also choose any additional options that may apply to
   your site, including channels and alternate ads
5. Your code will be generated in the Your ad code window according to your selections.
6. Copy-and-paste the code into the source code of the webpages on which you wish to display Google ads or an AdSense for search box. For tips on adding the code to your page, read How do I add the AdSense code to my site?.
7. If implemented correctly, Google ads or a search box will appear immediately. Initially, the ads that appear may be public service ads, for which you will not receive earnings. Once our crawlers have visited your page, however, targeted ads will begin to appear.

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Here are ten tips that help me with my blog writing.

1. Make your opinion known
2. Link like crazy
3. Write less
4. 250 Words is enough
5. Make Headlines snappy
6. Write with passion
7. Include Bullet point lists
8. Edit your post
9. Make your posts easy to scan
10. Be consistent with your style
11. Litter the post with keywords

1. Make your opinion known
People like blogs, they like blogs because they are written by people and not corporations. People want to know what people think, crazy as it sounds they want to know what you think. Tell them exactly what you think using the least amount of words possible.

2. Link like crazy.
Support your post with links to other web pages that are contextual to your post.

3. Write Less
Give the maximum amount of information with the least amount of words. Time is finite and people are infinitely busy. Blast your knowledge into the reader at the speed of sound.

4. 250 is enough
A long post is easier to forget and harder to get into. A short post is the opposite.

5. Make Headlines snappy
Contain your whole argument in your headline. Check out National newspapers to see how they do it.

6. Include bullet point lists
We all love lists, it structures the info in an easily digestible format.

7. Make your posts easy to scan
Every few paragraphs insert a sub heading. Make sentences and headlines short and to the point.

8. Be consistent with your style
People like to know what to expect, once you have settled on a style for your audience stick to it.

9. Litter the post with Keywords.
Think about what keywords people would use to search for your post and include them in the body text and headers. make sure the keyword placement is natural and does not seem out of place.

10. Edit your post
Good writing is in the editing. Before you hit the submit button, re-read your post and cut out the stuff that you don’t need.

I hope you enjoyed my tips for writing a blog post - feel free to share your own blog writing tips below.

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Seagate has announced availability of its 1 Terabyte (TB) hard drives for its next generation Maxtor Onetouch4 and Barracuda family.

Targeting mobile users, home users, and the corporate segment, the new range of products comprises Maxtor One Touch4 Plus, OneTouch4 Mini, and OneTouch4; and Barracuda 7200.11 and ES.2.



The entire Maxtor family incorporates Maxtor Safety Drill, a solution for disaster recovery, which is compatible with Windows XP, Vista, and the Mac operating system. It packs one-touch synchronization and password encryption.

Meanwhile, the 1TB Barracuda hard drives are the second generation desktop and perpendicular magnetic recording (PMR) hard drives that promise to deliver a combination of capacity, performance, and reliability for a wide range of PC applications.

The Barracuda 7200.11 and ES.2 deliver 7,200 rpm spin speeds, average seek times of 8.5 milliseconds, and caches up to 32 MB. The drives pack 1 TB of data on four disks to provide cool operating temperatures and low power consumption.

The Barracuda ES.2 is a newly designed hard drive featuring the new RVFF (Rotational Vibration Feed Forward) system, designed to sustain performance in densely-packed multi-drive systems. The drive also incorporates the new PowerTrim technology, which manages drive power consumption at all levels of activity.

The 1 TB Barracuda 7200.11 is the 11th generation in the Barracuda 7200 series. The drive offers a continuous transfer rate of 105 MBps, with a low power rating of 8 watts at idle. It also delivers industry-leading acoustics, as low as 2.7 Bels, which is nearly undetectable by the human ear.

The new Maxtor and Barracuda products will be available in mid-November through Supertron computers. The pricing for these products has not been revealed yet. However, the 1 TB Barracuda 7200.11 is expected to be priced close to Rs 16,000.

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Amazon today announced its long-anticipated wireless Kindle e-book reader.

The Kindle,Amazon's first foray into making its own hardware, weighs 10.3 ounces, can contain up to 200 books, has a keyboard, and uses electronic ink display technology. It is on sale today at Amazon.com.

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Kindle isn't the first e-book reader. Sony launched its $350Sony Readerearlier this year (currently, this model is being sold for $280 at SonyStyle.com).Motricitysells e-book reader software for use with Windows Mobile and Palm devices.

At a splashy event here, Jeff Bezos, Amazon's founder and CEO, unveiled the device by starting with a history of printing, from the early days of stones and papyrus onwards. Gutenberg might recognize printed books in their current form today, but he'd be unlikely to recognize Amazon's vision of the future of reading as embodied by the Kindle e-book reader. The device is on sale now atamazon.com.

Three years in the making, the Kindle derives its name from the concept of the device "kindling" people's interest in reading.

In coming up with the device, says Bezos, "We knew we would never out-book the book. We knew we would have to take some of the capabilities of modern technology and do some things that the book can't do."

Kindle operates without ever connecting to a PC. Instead, the device can download books--any of 90,000 at launch--directly via the built-in EvDO radio connection to Amazon's new Whispernet service.

Books take less than a minute to download, and their price varies, but new releases and New York Times bestsellers cost $9.99.

The service runs on the Sprint EvDO network; it carries no service charges or contracts--that's all covered in the background by Amazon.

In addition to books, Kindle can automatically download newspapers and blogs, in a return of "push" technology. The device also has a dictionary and Wikipedia access.

The Kindle service also includes newspapers, magazines, and blogs. Publications that you subscribe to are delivered directly to the device. Choices include The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, the Houston Chronicle, the San Jose Mercury News, Time, Fortune, The Atlantic Monthly, Le Monde, and Slate.

More than 300 of the most popular blogs with their full content also are available. You subscribe to the blogs you want, and they're updated throughout the day.

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Google announced today on the Inside AdSense blog that it has redefined the clickable area of its text ads to make only the ad's title and URL clickable, instead of the whole block of text.

The move is intended to prevent advertisers from paying for accidental clicks on an ad:
"By allowing users to click only on the ad title and URL, we aim to decrease accidental clicks, better aligning visitor behavior with their intent," writes Katie Mandel, AdSense product marketing. "Overall, the decrease in accidental clicks will keep users on your website, interacting your content, until they intend to click on an ad."

The changes began rolling out earlier this week, as noted at Search Engine Roundtable. Google warns advertisers on the Inside AdWords blog that they should not be surprised if they see a decrease in both the number of clicks and the clickthrough rate (CTR) in content network campaigns. It's expected that advertisers will also see an increase in the average return on investment (ROI) of content network traffic.

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Google's new mobile advertising platform, Android, will provide the search giant with more personal information that it can use for more effective online advertising, industry commentators believe.

CCS Insight analyst Ben Wood told the Times: "By getting into mobile, Google can refine the information it has on you - find out who you are calling on the move and what you want to know on the move.

"This means it can then target ads ever more efficiently, which means it can charge advertisers more for the adverts they are placing."

While the privacy lobby may not be happy to hear that analysis, Google's bold strides into mobile internet provision are music to the ears of internet advertisers.

Virtually everyone has a mobile phone, and when mobile internet usage becomes smoother the possibilities for Marketing will be enormous.

Earlier this week Google announced its Android platform, which it says is "more ambitious than any single 'Google Phone' that the press has been speculating about".

It has also emerged that major mobile manufacturer Nokia would not rule out taking part in Google's Android alliance.

Spokesman Kari Tutti told Reuters: "It's not ruled out at all. If we would see this as beneficial we would think about taking part in it. We should never close any doors."

Companies already on board include T-Mobile and Motorola.

Use link building to boost your website's presence in search engines such as Google.

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Google has made a change to its AdSense online advertising, whereby the clickable area has been reduced, Google Blogoscoped reports.

Following a similar change made to the internet ads displayed next to its search results, the AdSense ads that display on third party websites will now only be clickable on the underlined title or the coloured URL underneath the snippet. Before, the entire broad rectangle around the text could be clicked.

The move will reduce the number of unintentional clicks by web users, and will increase the value for advertisers, as a greater proportion of clickers will be quality traffic.

Publishers may not be happy, but the blog notes that it is more ethical and will encourage advertisers to stick with the system in the long run.

Meanwhile it emerged that the European Union is to run an in-depth investigation into Google's planned acquisition of online advertising firm DoubleClick.

The Commission is worried that the tie-up could pose competition concerns in the Internet Advertising marketplace.

Using Google's AdSense programme is a tried and tested search marketing method.

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I am no stranger (nor are you, probably) to how the wider media sometimes depicts bloggers: as closeted wannabees who add to the rise of ‘faux journalism’. Books are currently being published on the subject.

This could understandably contribute to any beginner blogger’s self-consciousness; especially those who are staring at their ad revenue reports, wondering if any money is every going to start showing up.

I used to be bashful when I talked about my blog. Not anymore. Why should I be? I’m proud of it. I’m proud of what it catalogues; thoughts, my goals, even my ambitions.

No doubt you feel the same about yours, too. But any hint of shyness, or pause, when you talk of your blog is hardly going to attract readers. Or advertisers.

Recently, I migrated from Blogger to Wordpress; a rather stressful time for me, for I was deathly afraid that over a year’s worth of work and effort would somehow evaporate into nothingness (luckily, it didn’t). I had several reasons for the change; the main ones being I was a little tired of the limits of Blogger, and I wanted a purer control of my own writing and ‘brand’, for lack of a better word.

When I discussed my plans with non-bloggers, they all asked me “Why?” Why change? Why bother? What’s the difference?

I replied, “I just felt like it was time. It didn’t feel comfortable anymore.”

Granted, this was rather a drastic change. It needn’t be. Standard templates only need to be tweaked slightly to give yourself the opportunity to individualise (and hence ‘validate’) your blogging status. This mightn’t be important to some people; for others it just might be the chance to assert their creative will, and this newly found confidence can lead them on to loftier plans.

And sometimes stamping your own blogging status begins with how you speak about blogging in the first place.

Here’s my challenge:

• Put your blog’s URL as part of your signature in your email (if you haven’t already).
• Mention it in conversations.
• Enter blog carnivals.
• Do what you can (short of spamming, naturally!) to spread the word of your blog.

What are you waiting for?

Help sell your blog to the world. Isn’t it worth it?

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Visitors play at a Playstation exhibition stand at the Games Convention 2007 fair in the eastern German city of Leipzig August 23, 2007. U.S. sales of Sony Corp's PlayStation 3 (PS3) more than doubled in the weeks following a price cut and the launch of a lower-priced version, the company said on Friday, in a sign of changing fortunes for the game console.

U.S. sales of Sony Corp's PlayStation 3 (PS3) more than doubled in the weeks following a price cut and the launch of a lower-priced version, the company said on Friday, in a sign of changing fortunes for the game console.

Sony said it sold about 75,000 PS3 consoles in the week of October 29 in the United States, and more than 100,000 in the following week, compared with weekly sales of 30,000 to 40,000 before.

Sony cut the U.S. price of its PS3 with an 80-gigabyte hard disk drive by 17 percent to $499 in mid-October. It started selling a new model with a 40-GB hard drive on November 2 for $399 in an effort to ignite demand ahead of the crucial holiday season.

Sony, locked in battle with Microsoft Corp and Nintendo Co Ltd in the global videogame market, suffered a slow start for the PS3 after its launch a year ago because of high prices and a scarcity of strong game titles.

Nintendo sold 519,000 units of the Wii in the United States in October, while Microsoft sold 366,000 Xbox 360 consoles and Sony sold 121,000 of its PS3 machines, data from market research firm NPD showed on Thursday.

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Google may make a solo bid for frequencies to run a wireless network, but analysts say it needs a carrier partner.

Peter Sayer, IDG News Service

Google is making the necessary preparations to bid for wireless spectrum in an auction be held in the U.S. in January -- but it will likely need a carrier partner to help build a network to use it, analysts said Friday.

The spectrum, between 698MHz and 806MHz, and collectively called the 700MHz band, is currently used for analog TV broadcasts. It is due to be freed up for other uses, such as operating mobile telecommunications networks, by 2009. The U.S. Federal Communications Commission plans to auction off the right to use that spectrum on Jan. 24, and bidders must declare their intention to participate by Dec. 3.

In July, Google said it would commit a minimum of US$4.6 billion to bid for a license to use the spectrum, if the FCC set certain conditions on the licenses. Those conditions included giving people the freedom to choose what applications and networks they use with the phones they bought, and giving service providers the freedom to connect with those networks and buy wholesale minutes from network owners on reasonable terms.

Google is still making "the necessary preparations" for a bid, a company representative said Friday.

The company is planning to finance that bid alone, without partners, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal.

Laying out that kind of money for spectrum -- and even paying for the construction of a wireless network to use it -- would present no great problem to Google, which, as of Sept. 30, had $13.1 billion in cash and cash equivalents on hand.

But analysts are skeptical of the benefit to Google of going it alone.

"Wireless spectrum and network management are nowhere near Google's core competency. Its competence is in one market, online advertising," said Emma Mohr McClune, principal analyst with Current Analysis.

That sentiment was echoed by Jan Dawson, a vice president at market analyst Ovum Ltd.

"Anything other than search at the minute seems like a move in the wrong direction," said Dawson. With its focus on search-based advertising, Google's financial metrics are "phenomenally better" than those that even the best mobile network operators can achieve, he said. "You have to wonder why a company would diversify into a market like that."

Google's goal may not be to make money from operating the network, though: it could simply be a lever to get its applications into the hands of more mobile phone owners.

It has already taken steps in this direction, offering versions of its Web applications for Apple's iPhone, and launching the Open Handset Alliance to promote its Android open software stack for mobile devices.

"The commonality between all those moves is to get their services running on mobile devices," said Adam Leach of Ovum.

Building a wireless network is too much for Google to attempt alone, say the analysts: the company should seek partners as it has in the handset market.

A carrier partner "is essential to building out and running a network. The core issue is the operations and maintenance of this new network. ... It is not trivial to build and run a telecommunications company," said Bill Ho, senior analyst at Current Analysis.

If Google is to partner with an operator it could choose Sprint, some analysts suggested. The two have already agreed to partner on WiMax services.

Partnering with Google could also be an opportunity for an experienced operator not yet present in the U.S. to enter that market, suggested Dawson. Possible candidates include Orange, a subsidiary of France Tilicom with networks in France, Poland, Spain, and the U.K., or Japan's NTT DoCoMo.

The U.S. is not the only country with plans to auction off analog television spectrum for new uses: The U.K. began withdrawing analog TV service this month, and other European Union countries are set to follow suit.

But the likelihood of this opening the way for a new pan-European service to rival GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) is remote: each country has different licensing rules for the television spectrum, and the frequencies used are not always the same from country to country.

"I can't see all these auctions collectively creating a new single market," said McClune.

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