By Rik Myslewski
5th January 2009 18:44 GMT

Use of Apple's Safari browser grew in December to 7.93 per cent, up from 7.13 per cent in November, suggesting a parallel growth in adoption of Mac OS X, according to browser-usage figures released today by internet-analyst Net Applications.

While use of Apple's browser is growing, Microsoft's Internet Explorer is sinking: down to 68.15 from 69.77, according to an article in Electronista, which also states that IE has been "on a continuous decline since the beginning of 2008."

Before Mac fans get too cocky, however, they should note that Electronista also cautions that "browser use during December was unusually residential", and home usage is where Macs have been gaining most of their market share due to the oft-touted iPod and iPhone "halo effect".

And although IE remains by far the dominant browser for surfing ex-Senator Ted Stevens infamous "series of tubes," Redmond has another competitor nipping - albeit gently - at its heels: Google's Chrome passed the one-per cent threshold, accounting for 1.04 per cent of browser usage in December. Only 67.11 per cent to go, Google.

By Lucas Mearian
January 5, 2009

A decreased demand for NAND flash-related applications has led DRAMeXchange Technology Inc. and other analysts to lower their outlook for 2009 NAND flash chip sales. DRAMeXchange trimmed its forecast for higher chip sales from 108.2% to 81%.

The research firm expects the market to reach 1.16 billion units sold in 2009, a decrease of 5.4% over 2008. While the lowered sales expectations may not appear dramatic, over the past three years NAND flash sales grew 175%, 151% and 121% in 2006, 2007 and 2008, respectively. So 2009 will be the first year in recent memory that the market will likely see only double-digit growth.

Gregory Wong, an analyst at Forward Insights, said NAND flash chip sales were down 20.1% between 2007 and 2008, with 12.4 billion flash chips sold last year, compared with 15.8 billion in 2007. He doesn't expect those figures to improve for 2009. While Jan. 26 marks the beginning of the Chinese Year of the Ox, Wong said Asian workers will have little to be bullish about when it comes to the technology marketplace.

"The layoffs in Asia will occur just before Chinese New Year. This way the companies will avoid paying year-end bonuses," Wong said. "If those rumors are true, there will be a lot of people let go." Wong said widespread layoffs will hit NAND flash chip production and sales negatively.

By Stewart Meagher
5 January 2009, 12:00

ADOBE FLASH technology will soon be seen in a number of new consumer devices including TV's, set top boxes and media players thanks to a collaboration between chip giant Intel and graphics leader Adobe. The Open Screen project will concentrate on porting existing Flash technology to Intel's CE 3100 media processor which will allow the viewing of web-based content and video on consumer electronics.

The two companies are working together to make consistent approach to viewing media across a wide range of gadgets using Adobe's Flash Player and Flash Player Lite. So what you see on your laptop will be exactly the same as the content you see on your portable DVD player, or your TV set... or your internet connected fridge.

by David Morgenstern
January 5th, 2009 @ 2:27 pm

Customers will point to FileMaker’s friendly new interface in Version 10, for good or bad depending on how welcoming a site is to change. However, some significant improvements in the database’s programming support may drive sites to upgrade, according to several FileMaker consultants.

FileMaker is the venerable, cross-platform database for workgroups that started on the Mac and moved over to include Windows way back when. But FileMaker may not get the respect it deserves, first, because it’s going up against Microsoft Access, and second, because of its static interface, which has been frozen in time for more than a decade, reminding me of classmates who haven’t moved on from the haircut and style of high-school days.

FileMaker’s interface was once cutting edge, but that was a long time ago. Still, both of these wrong perceptions should change with the release today of Version 10, which sports a totally rewritten interface, as well as with the realization that the product is used by 70 of the Fortune 100 companies. According to Ryan Rosenberg, FileMaker’s vice president of marketing and services, the database outsells Access in a number of non-Mac market segments.

Ryan said the new “modern” interface would avoid the problems for the installed base when Microsoft introduced Ribbon Bar that replaced many menu commands and buttons in MS Office. Instead, FM10 retains all its menus and keystroke commands. “It’s all compatible. There is no file format change and that was tricky. Compatibility that was a big reason that [the update] took a while]. We had to make sure that we nailed it,” Ryan said.

by Stephen Shankland
January 5, 2009 2:00 PM PST

Google plans to release on Monday a beta version of Picasa for Mac OS X, helping Apple fans catch up to Windows and Linux users already employing the free tool for editing, cataloging, and uploading photos.

The Mac version largely matches the features in Picasa 3 for Windows, said Jason Cook, Picasa's marketing manager. Though the company has been scrambling to include some secondary features such as geotagging and the ability to get photos printed, the core abilities of Picasa are present, he said.

Picasa lets people edit and print photos, create collages and movies, and add labels, star ratings, and tags. More significantly, given Google's cloud-computing focus, it also lets people upload their images to the company's online Picasa Web Albums site where images can be shared. Google acquired Picasa in 2004.

"We have many Mac users," Cook said, though declining to offer any estimates, "and we think they'll be excited about this. It makes the Picasa Web Albums experience better." Online photo sites are great for several reasons, but problems can arise when people manage separate and different set of images. They often upload only a selection of photos on a PC, for example.

By Lester Haines
5th January 2009 13:08 GMT

China has announced a new clampdown on websites accused of "threatening morals by spreading pornography and vulgarity" - including Baidu, Google and Sina.com.

China's Ministry of Public Security and six other government agencies today launched a "nationwide campaign to clean up a vulgar current on the internet and named and exposed a large number of violating public morality and harming the physical and mental health of youth and young people", as state television put it.

The crackdown is specifically targeting 19 'internet operators' and sites which had failed to excise "vulgar" content. TV reports showed "officials hauling digital equipment away from one unidentified office", Reuters explains. Cai Mingzhao, a deputy chief of the State Council Information Office, said:

"Some websites have exploited loopholes in laws and regulations. They have used all kinds of ways to distribute content that is low-class, crude and even vulgar, gravely damaging mores on the internet." Cui Jin, a China-based PR official for Google and Sun Yao, Baidu's PR rep both declined to comment to Reuters, insisting they were "unaware of the announcement".

By Lucas Mearian
January 5, 2009

Seagate is now shipping its densest desktop hard drive, the Barracuda 7200.12, which offers 1TB of capacity on two disks. The drive is a 3.5-in. disk that spins at 7,200 rpm and has an areal density of 329 gigabits per square inch.

Seagate said it expects to add platters using the same technology later this year to achieve even larger total capacity. "Demand for more desktop PC storage capacity is far from letting up, as computer users worldwide generate massive amounts of digital content every day," Tom Major, vice president of Seagate's Personal Compute Business, said in a statement.

The Barracuda 7200.12's serial ATA 3Gbit/sec. interface delivers a sustained data transfer rate of up to 160MB/second and a burst speed of 3Gbit/sec. The drive is also offered in capacities of 750GB and 500GB, with cache options of 32MB and 16MB. Seagate said it achieved the aerial density of the 7200.12 by using perpendicular magnetic recording (PMR) technology.

Seagate's highest density disk prior to the 7200.12 was its Barracuda 7200.11, which offered 1.5TB of capacity on a four-platter, 3.5-in. desktop drive. Seagate has not announced retail prices for the drive as of yet, but a 500GB 7200.12 drive is available at Newegg.com for $64.99.

5 January 2009, 13:24

LENOVO has announced the birth of four new models, three in its Ideapad lkaptop range, and a new all-in-one Ideacentre desktop which the company reckons will be one of the thinnest desktop computers available.

The A600 will have a 21.5-inch frameless screen and will be less than an inch thick "at it's thinnest point" according to Leneovo. Most of the staff here at the Inquirer are less than an inch thick at our thinnest points, and most of us spend our days sat in front of a computer monitor eating pizza and drinking sugary energy drinks... you get the picture.

Regardless of its heft, or lack of it, the A600 will treat your peepers to 1920 x 1080 hi def visuals, comes with a BluRay option and arrives complete with a remote control and a motion sensitive game controller all for a smidgen under $1000. The $1200 Y650 laptop has a 16-inch screen and weighs less than many 15-inchers according to the maker.

The $830 Y550 has a 15.6-inch screen and the as-yet-unpriced Y450 is a 14-incher. The laptops should be with us in March whilst the desktop won't be around until April.

by Adrian Kingsley-Hughes
January 4th, 2009 @ 5:46 am

Having my hands on the beta 1 of Windows 7 over the holidays has been an interesting experience because it’s allowed me to show the OS to people and get feedback from a broad range of users as to how they feel about Microsoft’s upcoming operating system.

First off, let me point out that these reactions aren’t based on some sort of half-assed Mojave Experiment that I carried out. Feedback is based on people having a play with the OS and then being asked what they thought. Overall, reactions from all OS camps (Windows users, Mac users and Linux users) was fairly positive.

In a world where the majority of computer users are happy if they can access the web, check email, sort through a few photos and play games, this isn’t all that surprising. There was, of course, some negative feedback. A few points of concern included:
* The startup screens being too black, giving the impression that something had gone wrong.
* Taskbar too big/clunky/confusing/just too new.
* No classic Start Menu.
* Too many things moved compared to XP/Vista.

What I found interesting was the responses I got to the question of shifting to Windows 7 once it was out. I haven’t yet found a Mac or Linux user who feels tempted back to Windows based on what they’ve seen in Windows 7. Those Mac and Linux users who still make use of Windows in a limited way (for gaming or running specific applications) see themselves sticking with XP or Vista as their secondary OS until they either can break ties with Windows completely or until forced to switch.

by Josh Lowensohn
January 5, 2009 11:21 AM PST

Despite the addition of Microsoft Exchange and the App Store with version 2.0 of the iPhone's firmware, the device is still a long way from competing with Windows Mobile handsets when it comes to the native editing of several popular file formats.

Mobile-productivity software company Quickoffice is trying to change that with a new iPhone application that lets users edit their Microsoft Office Excel spreadsheets. Called MobileFiles Pro, this $9.99 application can pull in Excel workbooks from any of your computers (over Wi-Fi) or on the Web through MobileMe's iDisk sharing.

It supports editing over multiple pages in a workbook, row and column resizing and insertion, and manages to do it all with a good deal of simplicity. To edit a cell, you simply tap it with your thumb and type in a new value. There are also options to format what's inside it, run formulas, and add new pages.

The option to edit files joins the functionality to view other file types, including movies, music, images, Microsoft Word documents, PDFs, and iWork documents (akin to Quickoffice's QuickAccess sister product). QuickOffice says it will continue to push out editing for other file formats, such as Microsoft Word, in future releases.

By Egan Orion
5 January 2009, 12:04

SALES OF low-end PCs that were labeled as 'Vista Capable' but couldn't run the premium editions of Vista earned Microsoft more than $1.5 billion, according to a plaintiffs' witness estimate in the 'Vista Capable' consumer class action lawsuit.

Consumers are suing the Vole because they claim it misled them into buying PCs that were capable of running only the Home Basic version of Windows Vista rather than the more full featured editions that included the eye-candy Aero grapical user interface. The plaintiffs argue that Microsoft "unjustly enriched" itself by deceptively inflating demand for less powerful PCs, increasing their price. This court filing claims to put a price tag on that.

Expert witness Keith Leffler stated, "I have been asked by Plaintiffs' counsel to estimate the amount of revenue earned by Microsoft from the licensing of Windows XP on Vista Capable but not Vista Premium Ready PCs sold to Plaintiffs." After reviewing the Vole's [redacted] sales figures on Windows XP licences for PCs labeled as 'Vista Capable' during the period from April 2006 through January 2007, when Windows Vista became generally available, Leffler concluded:

"From these figures, I have reached the opinion that Microsoft revenue from the Windows XP licensing on Vista Capable but not Vista Premium Ready PCs sold to Plaintiffs was $1.505 billion." So that is the base amount at stake in this lawsuit, $1.5 billion. Should the trial jury be persuaded that Microsoft harmed the plaintiffs by its action, it might decide to assess actual damages commensurate to this amount.

by Dan Kusnetzky
January 5th, 2009 @ 3:00 am

Many knowledge workers could be virtual, that is working from home, from a hotel, from an airport or from a customer’s offices. The technology making this possible has been available for a long time. The benefits are obvious.

Staff could be hired wherever the talent was rather than where the organization’s offices are. The reduction in travel time and consumption of fuel would rate pretty high on the list as well. Why isn’t this a more common mode of working? I hear many reasons presented by managers. Only a few of them really make sense to me.

* Security - managers are concerned that proprietary applications and data could fall into the wrong hands. The folks at suppliers such as Citrix, Microsoft, and others could knock that objection down in a moment.
* Productivity - some managers simply want to see the workers working. This folks are convinced that if they can’t see working being done, it isn’t being done. All of the studies showing the contrary are obviously wrong.
* Others? - it seems that every time I speak with a manager who is concerned about allowing virtualization of their workforce, the list of reasons it can’t be done changes. No amount of information showing that this approach would save time and money is convincing.

I’ve been part of remote working environments for over 10 years and have found it to be a great way to work. I can be available when and where I need to be without having to work in an expensive (floor space, electricity, communications) office. I don’t have to waste hours of my time enjoying the benefits of heavy traffic. Bad weather usually isn’t an impediment. (Hurricanes, on the other hand, can chase Mr. Ready Kilowatt away and make it difficutl to work.)

by Steven Musil
January 4, 2009 10:20 AM PST

Did we turn to Facebook for Christmas cheer, or to cheer up Christmas? The social-networking site, which has been experiencing explosive growth in membership, saw record traffic on Christmas Eve. Facebook achieved its highest-ever traffic level, accounting for 2.18 percent compared with a 1.42 percent average for November, according to numbers gathered by Hitwise.

That's a 54 percent increase compared with the November average and a 53 percent increase year over year. That pattern was mirrored in the U.K., where visits to the social networking site had a market share of 4.65 percent, accounting for one in every 22 Internet visits. So, in this season when faithful friends gather near to us, are we substituting Facebook for face time with our loved ones? Hitwise's Heather Hopkins offers some theories in a blog post on what might have caused the holiday traffic spike.

Facebook's top markets of New York, Chicago, Washington, Boston, and Philadelphia were all hard hit last week by severe weather, which may have prevented many people from getting out and visiting in person, Hopkins notes. Noting that Christmas Day was Facebook's busiest traffic day in 2007 (one day later than 2008), Hopkins suggests that boredom--when coupled with the weather--may have contributed to the increase.

"I received 5 friend requests last week and many holiday wishes," Hopkins writes. "Maybe people were simply bored while stuck home with family and so escaped to computers to catch up with friends." Perhaps the best explanation is that more people were using the site to send their late holiday greetings. Hitwise also saw increases in traffic at Yahoo Mail and e-greetings Web sites, Hopkins said.

By John Timmer
January 04, 2009 - 05:00PM CT

This week's edition of Science contains a series of perspectives on how computer technology is changing the education system. Some of them focus on the purely hypothetical, such as the use of MMOs for educational purposes or the development of immersive artificial environments for education purposes.

Two of the papers, however, review a real trend in education: the growing access to everything from educational materials to entire degree programs via the Internet. The trend showed up throughout the articles. For example, the need to get educational material online was highlighted in the MMO article, which pointed out that the World of Warcraft subscriber base was over 20 times larger than the number of science, technology, engineering, and math degrees awarded annually in the US; even Lineage, which was released in 1999, still has a subscriber base that's more than twice as large.

Formal online education - If everyone's online anyway, it's no surprise that education is moving there as well. Many aspects of education are moving there formally, as a variety of online degree-granting programs have developed over the last decade. Some of these are commercial, online-only ventures, but those have been joined by programs developed by universities with a traditional, physical campus.

For the most part, the online programs remain a fraction of the size of traditional student bodies, although, in some rare cases, schools are maintaining equal mixes of online and on-ground students. The perspective that focuses on this topic suggests that the majority of those enrolled in online-only classes are doing so at the community college level, and that most take this route because they already have significant time commitments, like jobs.

By Ted Dziuba
2nd January 2009 17:02 GMT

I have never expected much out of a Silicon Valley startup with a name that sounds like a baby word, but Swoopo is a rare exception. It's an online auction site with a dastardly twist. When you bid on products at Swoopo, you don't specify a price.

You pay 75 cents for the bid, and that bid increases the price of the item by 15 cents, while extending the auction for around 20 seconds. When the clock runs out, the auction is over. By this mechanism, the winning bidder can buy, for example, a brand new Nintendo DS game system for around $30, when the item is valued at well over $100. And Swoopo cashes in on all of the losing bidders who drop 75 cents every time they fail to win.

If you don't want to spend your time giving this company your money, you can activate their automatic Bid Butler, as lightening your wallet is a task best left to machines (a fundamental law of the internet first proven by Google). Most of the items up for bidding are real products like TVs, computers, and iPods. But to make things interesting, Swoopo has some specialty auctions, such as “FreeBids,” where bidders bid on bids.

Since they're valued at 75 cents a piece, Swoopo can sell bids like real products. Even better than that, they run auctions for cash – where users spend their money trying to win a couple hundred dollars. This is very close to gambling, but the nondeterminism comes directly from the actions of other users, not the randomness of a dice roll or a deck of cards, so while Swoopo hasn't quite crossed the line, they can see it from where they stand.