Giant inflatable pig used in recording studios' Washington war with broadcasters -

By Scott M. Fulton, III, Betanews

The danger with waging a populist political war is in potentially boiling down one's message to such a degree that it ends up insulting and patronizing the very people the message is targeting. The case in point could not be made clearer this afternoon in Washington, DC, as The Hill's Kim Hart first discovered: A handful of otherwise unnoticeable protestors outside the headquarters of the National Association of Broadcasters erected an 18-foot inflatable pig, bearing the message, "Fair Pay for Musicians."

The pig has become the mascot of the MusicFirst Coalition, the performers' rights agency that collects and distributes royalties. For the last few years, MusicFirst has campaigned extensively against the decades-old exemption of terrestrial radio broadcasters (as opposed to Internet radio) from paying performers' royalties. Stations continue to pay royalties to rights holders, which in the end, include many of the recording industry institutions also represented by MusicFirst.

Dueling bills stalled on Capitol Hill would continue this exemption indefinitely, or compel radio stations for the first time to pay performers' royalties on a scale comparable to what Internet streamers such as Pandora and Last.fm reluctantly agreed to last year. In an effort to gather momentum to move pro-royalties legislation forward, associations that support MusicFirst have formed the Radio Accountability Project; launched a Web site, PiggyRadio.com; and produced a new 30-second television spot, all of which heavily feature the poor pig.

The tactic appears to be to visually link radio broadcasters with two unpopular groups of citizens: the United States Government, and the executives of banks that accepted federal bailout money in 2008 and 2009 to remain solvent. Whether any substantive link between bankers and broadcasters actually exists is open for debate. Nonetheless, PiggyRadio.com clearly shows the corporate broadcasting pig feeding from an orange barrel marked "Bailout Funds." The theory is that, by not paying royalties, continuing to accept the exemption is virtually almost exactly similar to accepting a government bailout.

However, one tactical error may have emerged today: In its invitation to the pig-out this afternoon (PDF available here), the RAP group estimated the amount of the "bailout" -- by association, the amount of royalties MusicFirst would receive from broadcasters -- as "billions." "These giant radio companies made more than $15 billion in revenues last year without paying musicians a single penny through a performance royalty," the RAP invitation read. "Worse, they have been using the public's airwaves to lobby and intimidate Congress on the issue. Specifically, here is what the broadcast corporations want: A bailout from the federal government in the form of billions for broadcast spectrum that they got for free and don't even use."

Thus the National Association of Broadcasters -- its office windows covered in pink -- found itself today doing two things it never expected to do: explaining that its members actually have never requested federal bailout money, and buying sausage pizza for the handful of protesters (by one estimate, five) who accompanied the giant pig.

NAB Executive Vice President Dennis Wharton issued this statement this afternoon: "It's no surprise that [the Recording Industry Association of America] is now employing silly frat-boy stunts, given its well-documented practice of suing college kids to rescue a bankrupt business model. It also seems appropriate for RIAA to use an inflatable pig as its mascot, since its foreign-owned members would be the biggest beneficiaries of performance tax pork. RIAA is losing this issue on Capitol Hill and in the court of public opinion, and today's demonstration represents a new low in a campaign of utter desperation."

Wharton then went on to suggest that the recording industry at least buy a sausage pizza for "the scores of exploited musicians who have had to sue their record label to recoup allegedly unpaid album royalties."

By Jacqueline Emigh, Betanews

FileMaker Pro 11 left beta testing for general release last Tuesday, adding a host of new capabilities for better productivity in database use, faster database creation, and easy production of eye-catching charts.

Now updated for Microsoft's Windows 7 and Apple's Macintosh native Mac OS X "Cocoa" platform, FileMaker Pro is the only software in its category that runs on both Windows and Mac, noted Ryan Rosenberg, vice president, marketing and services for FileMaker, Inc., in a briefing for Betanews.

"We're number one on Mac, and number two after Microsoft Access on Windows," according to Rosenberg.

With so few rivals for FileMaker Pro on either platform, why is the Apple division adding so many new features this time around? "We want everyone to become a database user," the VP responded.

In contrast to FileMaker's Bento personal database program, a Mac-only product targeted at consumers and very small businesses, the division's flagship FileMaker product is designed mainly for "knowledge workers" at mid- to large-sized businesses.

Rosenberg said that FileMaker, Inc. now eyes expanding the adoption of FileMaker Pro among both advanced database users and novices, who might have been performing tasks such as invoicing using spreadsheets instead.

Like Bento, FileMaker Pro requires no familiarity with programming languages. In recent releases, the product has gained external links to Oracle, MySQL, and Microsoft SQL Server databases.

Rosenberg also contended, though, that FileMaker Pro has long contained a number of features -- such as Web publishing, for example -- still unavailable in the Windows-only Microsoft Access. He then argued that, on the whole, FileMaker's interface is smoother and easier to use.

Key enhancements in FileMaker Pro 11 include:

• FileMaker Charts for quick production of colorful bar, line and pie charts.
• Quick Find, an intuitive, iTunes-like search engine for database information.
• A Quick Start screen for making new databases, managing files, and finding help resources.
• Quick Reports for setting up data in a similar way to the popular pivot charts in spreadsheets.
• Snapshot Links for easy sharing of the most up-to-date database query results with co-workers and business partners.
• Layout Folders allowing advanced users to capture and reapply their favorite layouts across multiple types of reports.
• Inspector, a "master tool palette" for controlling layout objects and properties.
• A new Invoices Starter Solution, one of 31 template-based built-in solutions for performing specific tasks.

Rosenberg also acknowledged a certain amount of "cross-fertilization" between FileMaker and Bento, even though the two database programs are geared to different audiences.

"Features such as Quick Reports have been heavily influenced by Bento. But it really goes both ways, because Bento was originally based on the FileMaker product, anyway," he observed.

The new FileMaker series actually comes in four flavors: FileMaker Pro, FileMaker Pro Advanced, FileMaker Server, and FileMaker Server Advanced. Rosenberg said that FileMaker Server Advanced has been enhanced to remove limits on the numbers of supported users, while adding the ability to set different permission rights for various groups of users.

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

Yesterday, Samsung launched its 2010 line of 3D TVs, which includes LED, LCD, and plasma screens between 46" and 65", with prices that start at $1,999 and go up to $6,999. Today, Panasonic added its products into the mix at a launch event in New York City with partners Best Buy, 20th Century Fox, and DirecTV.

The event marked the debut of a 3D home theater package that will sell exclusively at Best Buy that includes a 50" Panasonic Viera 3D plasma TV (VT20- $2,499), a Panasonic 3D Blu-ray player (BDT-300 - $399) and one pair of active shutter glasses for 3D viewing. It's comparable to the package Samsung announced yesterday, except that it comes with one fewer pair of 3D glasses. The whole package will go for $2,899, starting today.

Panasonic said it will also launch 54", 58", and 65" models later this year.

Unfortunately, there is still no new content available for the 3D systems, and therefore no really compelling reason to rush out and upgrade your HDTV to 3D right now, especially if you're not particularly fond of Pixar-style "family fun" films.

Early adopters will only be able to enjoy the 3D experience on a couple of features, such as Dreamworks' Monsters vs. Aliens which was announced at Samsung's CES press conference this year, and Sony's Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs which was announced at about the same time.

Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment Executive Vice President of Marketing Mary Daily also appeared at the event today, to announce that the studio's first 3D Blu-ray title will be Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs, another animated children's movie.

Panasonic's partner DirecTV appeared at the event today, and it is expected to launch at least three stations in 3D which will include sports and music video content, but those won't be until June at the earliest.

DirecTV says it is working with AEG/AEG Digital Media, CBS, Fox Sports/FSN, Golden Boy Promotions, HDNet, MTV, NBC Universal, and Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. to develop 3D programming that will debut in 2010-2011. All of DirecTV's 3D channels will also carry the Panasonic brand for a year.

More electronics manufacturers will be showing off their 3D TVs in the coming months, but content is still lagging behind, and there has yet to be a mostly live-action 3D movie that takes advantage of the new 3D Blu-ray spec, or even one that is made for adults with a taste for movies a little less lighthearted.

By Joe Wilcox, Betanews

Windows Mobile phones continue to bleed US subscribers, with Android devices picking up most of the lost subscriber share. Can you say free falling? Today, ComScore released standard handset and smartphone data for the three-month period of November 2009 to January 2010. ComScore designates the platforms by vendor. Microsoft smartphone subscriber share fell to 15.7 percent from 19.7 percent three months earlier. Meanwhile, Google rose to 7.1 percent from 2.8 percent during the same time period.

What about iPhone, for which American bloggers and journalists are seemingly obsessed? If Apple is gaining smartphone subscribers, it's not substantially showing in the data. Subscriber share rose from 24.8 percent to 25.1 percent, which is statistically negligible. Meanwhile, Research in Motion slightly climbed -- to 43 percent from 41.3 percent.

There were 234 million mobile subscribers ages 13 or older between November and January, according to ComScore. Nearly 43 million Americans owned smartphones. The number of smartphone owners increased by 18 percent compared to the previous three months.

The data is obviously bad news for Microsoft, which is making a major mobile platform switch to Windows Phone 7 Series. First devices aren't expected until late third quarter at the earliest. Next week, T-Mobile is planning a launch event for the HTC HD2. Unfortunately, the Windows Mobile-powered device, considered one of the hottest smartphones on the market, isn't eligible for Windows Phone 7 Series. Can Microsoft gain lost share despite the HD2's non-upgradability? Future ComScore data will tell.

But the numbers aren't good for Apple, either. Huge growth marked iPhone's first three releases. Questions to ask now about iPhone's stalled subscriber growth:

• Has Verizon Wireless "There's a map for that" counter-AT&T advertising hurt iPhone sales?
• Is Verizon's other marketing campaign -- for Droid -- slowing network churn to AT&T for iPhone?
• Are AT&T's well-publicized network problems (dropped calls and failed connections) hurting iPhone sales?
• Is Android benefitting from the increasing number of handsets, which are available through all US major carriers while iPhone is tethered to AT&T?
• Do smartphone buyers perhaps care about multitasking, which Apple hobbled on iPhone but is available on all other major competing platforms?

My answer is "Yes" to all five questions. Carrier subscriber data is revealing. During fourth quarter, AT&T gained 2.7 million subscribers for a total of 85.1 million. Verizon wireless subscribers grew by only 2.2 million, to 91.2 million, but beat Wall Street consensus of 1.5 million. Three months earlier, Verizon gained 1.2 million subscribers; 1.1 million in second quarter 2009. For third quarter 2009, AT&T gained 2 million subscribers; 1.4 million in second quarter 2009. Late-year AT&T gains are to be expected following release of iPhone 3GS in June last year. But Verizon's fourth-quarter surge is revealing and follows two major marketing campaigns and introduction of several Android-based handsets.

Marketing is a factor often overlooked by iPhone-obsessed bloggers and journalists. Apple spends hundreds of millions of dollars each year marketing iPhone. Verizon is spending $100 million on its Droid marketing campaign, which has helped raise Android smartphones' profile. Meanwhile, Verizon continues to club AT&T with aggressive advertising about network reliability. Verizon's marketing answer to Apple and AT&T is more bite than bark.

Oh and what about Microsoft? When did you last see Windows Mobile smartphone advertising from Microsoft? The company plans to spend big on Windows Phone 7 Series, but that's months away.

In early 2010, Apple changed tactics with iPhone marketing, and it will be interesting to see the affect on consumer perceptions.  Presumably to combat competitor counter-marketing about there being no real multitasking, newer TV commercials insinuate that iPhone users can do many things at once.

Two of three newest iPhone commercials focus on families and feature female narration. That says heaps about where Apple sees the next big market segment for iPhone. Typically, gadget geeks (many of them male) are the first adopters of products like smartphones. Later, manufacturers tailor the products and their marketing for women and, more importantly, families. Timing is right if, as Sylvia Ann Hewlett asserts, "Women are the biggest emerging market."

As for Windows Phone 7 Series marketing, it's too soon to guess Microsoft's approach or its effectiveness. As for Android, its future looks bright.

By Scott M. Fulton, III, Betanews

The European Parliament today overwhelmingly voted in favor of a resolution compelling participants in multi-national negotiations over the proposed Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) to report on the status and substance of those negotiations, first to Parliament and eventually to the general public. This after a groundswell of public concern arose in the wake of documents purporting to be official ACTA material, the latest leaked by Wired last November (PDF available here from Wired), spoke of US negotiators' requests to include terms in the final Agreement that would force Internet service providers to police the content trafficked over their pipelines, or else face penalties.

A statement issued from Parliament this afternoon records the final vote as 633-13-16 in favor of the resolution, the motion for which (DOC available here) was drafted just yesterday on behalf of six of the continent's political parties and alliances, including Greens/EFA. That motion referred to the leaked documents by name, effectively confirming their legitimacy.

The motion warned that those documents referred to the institution of measures among ACTA members, including the EU, of criminal penalties for those accused of violating, or assisting in the violation of, intellectual property rights. The leaked Wired document, dated August 30, 2009, entitled simply "ACTA negotiations," indicated that US negotiators were not in a position to discuss even among other trade negotiators the substance of consultations with "a number of private stakeholders (bound to strict confidentiality clauses)" -- a group which presumably includes publishing and recording associations.

Rather than provide colleagues with written documents, the August 30 document stated, US representatives were free to give an oral summary of their requested proposal, which would be an abbreviated version of the existing US-Korea Free Trade Agreement. Clauses of the ACTA as US representatives proposed would narrow the legal definition of "safe harbor" as it pertains to ISPs, which today are protected from liability for IP violations under laws recognized as high up the chain as the Supreme Court. The ACTA, as discussed at the time, would only provide safe harbor to ISPs that instituted policies and installed technologies to deter IP violations, including the illicit trading of unauthorized files.

Later clauses would clearly classify the stripping of rights management provisions from any software as an IP violation, punishable with both civil and criminal penalties. And in a telling bit of legalese whose economy of phraseology speaks volumes as to its intent, the leaked August 30 document included this provision: "'Fair use' will not be circumscribed."

Last year, in an effort to diffuse growing public criticism (before legislators caught wind of it), the Office of the US Trade Representative issued a brief (PDF available here) discussing what it said could be discussed in public about ACTA negotiations. As to the matter of publicly revealing little things about, say, overriding the Supreme Court, the Office diplomatically gave credence to objections, while at the same time attempting to place them in a little box over to the side somewhere.

"A variety of groups have shown their interest in getting more information on the substance of the negotiations and have requested that the draft text be disclosed," the USTR document reads, referring indirectly to groups including the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Public Knowledge. "However, it is accepted practice during trade negotiations among sovereign states to not share negotiating texts with the public at large, particularly at earlier stages of the negotiation. This allows delegations to exchange views in confidence facilitating the negotiation and compromise that are necessary in order to reach agreement on complex issues. At this point in time, ACTA delegations are still discussing various proposals for the different elements that may ultimately be included in the agreement. A comprehensive set of proposals for the text of the agreement does not yet exist."

The USTR paper went on to mention the need to empower judges to impose stricter penalties for IP violations, though by its authors' own admission, it leaves a gaping hole with respect to the broadening of the definition of what an IP violation is. Trade negotiations throughout history have been, by definition, confidential, and their secrecy has been mutually observed for centuries. However, the EP took issue today with the whole notion not only that certain elements of the negotiation should be kept secret from lawmakers, but that negotiators should continue -- as the leaked August 30 document and the USTR brief indicate -- to keep certain elements secret from themselves.

According to this morning's EP statement, the resolution as adopted takes a strong stand specifically against the adoption of "three strikes" rules against IP violators, such as those being tested now in France; and also against the enablement, perhaps through deliberate imprecision (see "circumscribed"), of restrictions on access to media. Parliament now says the final ACTA "should not affect global access to legitimate, affordable and safe medicinal products, including innovative and generic products," according to the resolution.

The USTR brief also refers to negotiations for a clause that would empower customs agents patrolling borders to seize any material believed to infringe upon intellectual property. Without being specific, "any material" could include a hard disk drive...or the computer or MP3 player containing a hard disk drive.

The EP resolution took a stand against that as well, calling upon trade negotiators to provide "full clarification of any clauses that would allow for warrantless searches and confiscation of information storage devices such as laptops, cell phones, and MP3 players by border and customs authorities."

The problem with today's resolution is that it may not be legally binding. While it takes a very public stand, trade negotiators may very well continue to argue that it's their duty to continue to safeguard the intellectual property of the private stakeholders who developed that IP...to protect the IP of the private stakeholders. While the resolution reminds European representatives of their duty to uphold the terms of the Lisbon Treaty, which include keeping Parliament abreast of negotiations, that treaty was only fully enforced last December 1. Since the ACTA negotiations began earlier, participants could argue that they've been "grandfathered in," for reasons which, to borrow a phrase, may not be circumscribed.

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

Different modes of travel often require different routes to be taken. If you're walking somewhere, for example, you're not likely to take a highway to get there, and you have the distinct advantage of being able to go through certain structures that cars cannot. The same goes for biking. When someone is planning to get somewhere by bike, they're going to demand different routes. This is why the Google Maps team today announced that it has added bicycling directions to Google Maps.

Shannon Guymon, product manager for Google Maps said, "We wanted to include as much bike trail data as possible, provide efficient routes, allow riders to customize their trip, make use of bike lanes, calculate rider-friendly routes that avoid big hills and customize the look of the map for cycling to encourage folks to hop on their bikes. So that's exactly what we've done."

Google has taken more than 12,000 miles of bike trail data from the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy's TrailLink.com database. The Washington, DC nonprofit has been collecting trail data since 2000, and has maps, pictures, descriptions, and listings for more than 30,000 miles of bike trails.

"The demand for trail maps and information has never been higher, especially as more people recognize biking as a viable, inexpensive and healthy alternative to driving," said Rails-to-Trails President Keith Laughlin today.

But simply having the data on hand is completely a different matter from the whole business of machine-suggested routes. Google had to incorporate trail data into its routing algorithm, include metropolitan areas with designated bike lanes, and include roads that have been recommended by other cyclists, all the while taking into consideration the business about certain roads. All that is just to determine the most biker-accommodating paths according to safety. There's also the whole issue of hills.

"Our biking directions are based on a physical model of the amount of power your body has to exert given the slope of the road you're biking on," said Google software engineer John Leen. "Assuming typical values for mass and for wind resistance, we compute the effort you'll require and the speed you'll achieve while going uphill. We take this speed into account when determining the time estimate for your journey, and we also try hard to avoid routes that will require an unreasonable degree of exertion." Likewise, the algorithm avoids routes that have too much downhill travel as well so the ride is balanced.

Today's launch of Google Maps for bikes is sort of the opposite of a development from last year, an Android app called My Tracks which targeted runners, hikers, and cyclists. Instead of suggesting routes, My Tracks collected live GPS statistics from the user's smartphone and mapped out total/moving time, (average) speed, distance, and elevation profile on Google Maps as the trips were being made.

Google Maps for bicycles is live right now.

By Scott M. Fulton, III, Betanews

Tuesday evening, during an event televised over YouTube called Google Campfire One, Google executives lifted the curtain on its cloud-based Apps Marketplace for PC-based applications, with the promise of opening its online store with 50 charter vendors later in the evening. The Marketplace is designed to feature applications that integrate with the company's existing Google Apps, Gmail, and other cloud-based services.

Google Vice President of Engineering Vic Gondotra told attendees at the company's headquarters that the company plans to utilize very simple terms of service. Think of a garden, but more with clearly marked paths as opposed to walls. Extending the concept of the Android Marketplace from handsets to computing devices, the company is inviting developers to build applications using its Studio tool, then deploy those apps by way of the Marketplace. Each developer is asked to pay a $100 sign-up fee, and then give Google a 20% revenue share for sales, at whatever price the developer charges. (We have not seen yet whether there will be a price cap.)

11:10 pm EST March 9, 2010 · "The Google Apps Marketplace...[is] a great way to discover, to find, and install applications into your business. But not just any applications -- applications that are deeply integrated with Google Apps...that enable a single sign-on, that enable different kinds of cloud-based software to share data," explained Vice President of Engineering Vic Gondotra to the Campfire One attendees. "Applications that integrate with the navigation, integrate with the user interface of the tools that your employees already know and love and use every day."

The integration Gondotra spoke of will take place through a relatively simple XML-based manifest, the typical length of which is promised to be not very long. An actual Google Apps manifest (not the abbreviated version used in Google's slides) is pictured below.

Each category in this manifest represents a point of integration with the Google Apps environment -- actually, with any online service that Google Apps is capable of reaching. Gmail is one of these places; tonight, the company's director of engineering, David Glaser, promised a theoretical level of integration with Gmail that would enable business apps developers to create Gmail plug-ins that would appear to match, or maybe rival, the functionality available in Microsoft Outlook.

Glaser demonstrated the creation of an app manifest, which would also contain the "pages" (actually resources identified with URLs) that link to Google Apps' various points of integration. Perhaps the one that will be most often used is single sign-on, which will enable the identity of the Google Apps user to be shared with that of the custom app. Through the OAuth-based authentication protocol Google will use, developers will be able to deploy databases for their cloud apps using their own clouds, if you will, and then let Google's authentication pass through to the developers' clouds to validate users and enable the granting of permissions.

Glaser outlined another point of connection: "If you've ever used Google Apps, you've noticed at the top left of the screen, right above your mail or your calendar, there's a nav bar. That means you're a click or two away from getting at any of the other apps in the Google Apps suite...Well, if you have an application, you probably want it to be a part of the same navigation model, part of the same nav bar, so your users are a click or two away from not only the built-in Google Apps, but also from your app. How do you do that? You put an entry in the manifest -- a few lines of XML, you tell us, 'Here's the string that I want to have show up in the menu, and here's the link that it should go to when somebody clicks on it.'"

The keyword here again from Google is "simple," which is what will distinguish its cloud-based apps ecosystem from Microsoft Windows Azure in almost every respect. An app in Google's environment would appear to be leveraged on an existing Google App or service. As Glaser explained, a custom app will have its own home page, if you will; but as Gondotra explained, what makes the app usable in the first place is its connectivity with the existing hub that Google has in place. So the development studio for such apps (itself a Web application, pictured above running in Firefox on Google's favorite PC operating system, Windows XP) is specifically geared to generate this manifest and plug apps into the existing hub.

That's not to say apps won't or can't stand alone on their own, or even pre-exist, as Gondotra told the audience: "We're not mandating that you have to build on a particular platform. You don't have to use App Engine, although we'd be delighted to see that. You may already have an existing app built on your own infrastructure, your own tools, your own hosting environment...It's very easy to integrate even that existing app into Google Apps."

The ability for apps to stand on their own was exemplified this evening by charter partner Intuit's first entry into the Marketplace. It showed an online payroll application for small business that enables office managers to keep track of employees' payrolls, using tools that are also integrated into Google Calendar. (It's hard not to notice that Google's app development platform runs on Firefox, while it prefers to run the apps themselves on Chrome.)

Among Google's list of 50 charter developers, we noted, was Zoho -- a company whose existing cloud-based apps had actually competed against Google Apps, while using many deployment resources actually created by Google.

The exact terms and conditions that apply to Google's developers' agreement -- a $100 one-time up-front fee to enroll per developer (not per app), and a 20% cut of the revenue -- are not known as of this evening. Vic Gondotra did say, however, that Google will enable online resellers to promote and sell apps from the Marketplace, with 20% of the cut from resold apps also going to Google and the rest to their developers.

"Remember, with that rev share, you not only get to reach the 25 million customers, but you also get to take advantage of over 1,000 resellers who are not only going to be able to resell Google Apps, but may, in fact, be able to drive business directly to you," stated Gondotra. He did not say whether this resale operation would actually take place as part of Google's existing advertising platform, which may be why the early number of resellers (one thousand) is so high.

A few years ago when Google premiered its online apps on a mostly free business model (with some subscription revenue attached for upper-level apps more recently), folks wondered how Google would turn this into a revenue center. Now we know the answer: The company wants to earn its cut not from its core apps, but from a substantial slice of your apps.

By Jacqueline Emigh, Betanews

After showing a prototype of its first electronic reader at CES in January, Samsung on Tuesday officially rolled out the new device, spilling all the details about the final feature set while also unveiling a new partnership with Barnes & Noble.

Unlike other gadgets in the increasingly crowded field, the Samsung eReader lets people make notes in the margins of e-book pages, pointed out Vickie Cullen, a Samsung spokesperson, at a press event in New York City where the company launched a number of CE products including this device, 3D TVs, and a 3D Blu-ray player.

Users of Samsung's eReader can modify the electronic pages by underlining words, for example, and they can use built-in voice recording functionality to produce audio memos and annotations. It's also able to read text aloud, but only with electronic books that support text-to-speech (TTS) technology.

A reader can make notes in the margins through the use of a special electromagnetic resonance (EMR) stylus pen. In a demo at the event, we saw how you can easily make the brushstrokes wider or narrower or even turn the pen into an "eraser" by touching the tip of the pen to icons at the bottom of the screen.

The eReader comes in a slider form factor with a six-inch E-ink screen displaying at 600x800 resolution in eight shades of grey.

Cullen said that you can import drawings and photos in JPEG and BMP formats as well as other files downloaded from the Internet to a PC, using the eReader's mini-USB port. Other supported file formats include e-pub, PDF/a, and TXT.

Slated to ship this spring for $299. Samsung's new device offers 26 GB of internal memory, plus an external Micro SD slot capable of increasing storage by another 16 GB.

The product also comes with built-in speakers and Bluetooth technology for playing back music or TTS translation, she said.

Readers can use the gadget's built-in Wi-Fi, together with Samsung's proprietary EmoLink technology, for sharing content -- including notes jotted in e-book margins, for instance -- between two devices.

Samsung has also joined the growing list of e-reader makers now partnering with Barnes & Noble -- the arch rival of Amazon.com, the pioneer of the field. Through a new deal between Samsung and Barnes & Noble, users of Samsung's new eReader can use either a Wi-Fi or PC connection to browse, sample, and download content from B&N.

By Jacqueline Emigh, Betanews

At a press conference in New York City on Tuesday, Samsung unveiled new 3D products that include six HDTV series, a Shrek 3D movie, and a DVD player designed to handle 3D along with regular Blu-ray and standard DVD disks.

Samsung's initial 3D TV line-up -- which requires 3D glasses for viewing - ranges from the LED 7000/8000/9000 Series to the LCD 750 Series and the Plasma 7000/8000 Series.

Samsung also debuted the 3D-capable BD-C6900 Blu-ray player, a 3D-enabled release of Dreamworks' Monsters vs. Aliens along with the entire Shrek series, and a large set of Internet-downloadable applications for the 3D Blu-ray player and some of Samsung's 3D TVs.

Kicked off by an ad campaign broadcast during Sunday's Academy Awards show, the first two 3D TV models from Samsung -- the 46" and 55" editions of the LED C7000 -- are already available in stores, said Dave R. Das, director, Visual Display Marketing, in an interview with Betanews at the event.

So, too, are the first 12 apps for Samsung's 3D gear, with others slated for completion by the end of March, said Jason Han, senior manager, content partnership, CE Division.

The remaining 3D TVs -- and the 3D Blu-ray drive, priced at $399 -- are expected to roll out over the next few months.

The widget-enabled 3D apps will run not just with the new Blu-ray drive, but also the LED TVs, all of which are IP-capable. The first dozen apps include Rovi TV Listings, Yahoo, and streaming video movie apps from Netflix, Blockbuster, and Vudu, along with several games. One of the applications due out later this month is a Skype video conferencing app that will use a custom camera. The camera is slated to sit on top of a Samsung TV and to be sold by Skype.

Although all of the apps released in March will be offered free of charge, Samsung plans to start selling "premium" apps over this summer, Betanews was told.

Samsung dubbed the press conference "3D Wonder," and the name turned out to be apt for more reasons than one. Many of the journalists did marvel at the quality of the Samsung-supplied 3D experience, particularly during an airing at the event of a 3D Dreamworks' Shrek movie displayed on a huge "cube" of LCD panels.

Yet some also wondered aloud whether, during the current deep recession, all that many consumers will be willing to invest in the 3D ware, which Samsung is pricing at the rate of $150 for a pair of 3D glasses and about $1,599.99 to $6,999.99 for a 3D TV.

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

One month ago, Google put the word out that it was looking to build and test its own fiber-to-the-home networks in a couple of cities. The speeds would be up to 1 Gbps and the reach would initially be about 50,000 homes.

Immediately, hundreds of cities began making pitches to attract Google's attention, some earnest, some outlandish.

Topeka, Kansas unofficially renamed itself "Google" for the month and garnered a considerable amount of attention; Sarasota, Florida quickly followed suit and re-named its City Island "Google Island".

Duluth, Minnesota's mayor Don Ness jumped into a 35 degree Lake Superior as a dual-purpose media event for Google Fiber and the Special Olympics; and 1,000 Morgantown, West Virginia residents last week held up signs saying "We Want a Gig" at the WVU-Georgetown basketball game.

But the majority of the cities interested in getting Google Fiber haven't resorted to cheap publicity stunts, and are hoping that their answers to Google's Request for Information will be much more convincing.

"I think we're going to draw the line at silly stunts," Madison, Wisconsin alderman Mark Clear said today. City officials there are hosting a public meeting to gather ideas for their pitch and show the community's interest in the project.

Juneau, Alaska has made the case that its isolated, mountainous location will serve as an ideal testing ground since it is both environmentally challenging and populous.

Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley reminded us of Baltimore's historical significance as "that place from which our nation's railroads emanated, and the place that was the source of the first telegraph message ever sent."

Kalamazoo, Michigan is using health care as its wager. The Kalamazoo Gazette's Editorial board argues that its modern health care facilities and its major medical corporations Pfizer and Stryker could benefit greatly from the fiber network.

In just under three weeks, we will be able to see which approach worked. March 26 is the last day Google will accept submissions for its fiber optic trial, and it will announce which cities it has chosen shortly after.

By Scott M. Fulton, III, Betanews

With the economic sinkhole of 2008-09 now a figment of many technology companies' past, most PC manufacturers are back on their regularly scheduled growth curve. Last month, Dell had indicated to investors that it was returning to that curve as well, reporting "product shipments...up at double-digit rates year-over-year" during its end-of-fiscal year 2010 earnings report.

According to iSuppli, which tracks worldwide PC unit shipments, that Dell claim -- which not a single analyst even questioned at the time, according to Seeking Alpha's transcript of Dell's February 18 earnings conference -- gives "plus or minus" a whole new meaning. The market analyst firm's statistics on full-year unit shipments, published today, show Dell's numbers declining by 9.946% during calendar year 2009. Dell's fiscal 2010 began in February 2009, so iSuppli's numbers cover most of that period plus January 2010 -- in a quarter where Dell actually recovered slightly.

Dell shipped just under 39 million PCs, which is beneath the psychological benchmark of 10 million units per quarter. In the last quarter, Acer topped Dell for the first time in quarterly units shipped; and this last quarter, put some distance between itself and Dell, gaining 1.5% of worldwide market share in the last quarter of 2009. Acer shipped 11.86 million PCs during that quarter -- almost 29% more units than for the previous year's final quarter -- and 38.48 million for the full year.

What's Acer's secret? According to the breakdown by iSuppli principal analyst Matthew Wilkins, Acer doesn't waste its time selling desktop PCs in markets that don't want them. As a result, four out of every five units Acer ships are notebook PCs, and it can concentrate on selling those notebooks in heavier volume in markets such as North America.

Dell's breakdown is a little fuzzier, with iSuppli only being able to ascertain that its mix of desktop PCs to notebook PCs has declined at a lesser rate than the rest of the industry. (Again, nobody asked.) Last February, Dell executives credited higher shipment rates in the storage systems segment (a non-consumer division) as contributing to the company's generally better revenue numbers. Perhaps that's the double-digit gain Dell was referring to. But the second quarter report credits the Mobility division with 31% of net revenue for fiscal year 2010, versus 25% for desktop PCs. Gross margin for Dell in its last fiscal year slipped to a minuscule 16.6%.

By Scott M. Fulton, III, Betanews

The window of opportunity may be closing for the first test of government mandated fairness and equal choice among Web browsers, with neutral results. There are a number of studies recently that say computer users in general have a tendency to automatically distrust notices that pop up on their screen. More attention was paid to those studies since last March, after Microsoft's deployment of Internet Explorer 8 over Windows Update was followed by a general downtrend in IE usage, interrupted by a brief respite in early October, according to global tracking data from analytics vendor StatCounter.

If what Microsoft's security representatives have said is true -- that the key window for adoption of an update or patch usually comes a few days after Patch Tuesday -- then StatCounter's tracking data for IE usage in Europe could count as sweet revenge. Since Microsoft deployed its browser choice screen for European users, in compliance with European Commission directives, on March 1, StatCounter reports European usage share for all versions of Internet Explorer has stayed steady at about 46.6%, with negligible gains since the beginning of the month.

This while Mozilla Firefox continues an unusual decline of about two points of European usage share since the first of the year, and relative newcomer Google Chrome ticks up at about one point per month.

So far, Internet Explorer 6 usage remains rock solid at 6.37% as of yesterday, tied with Chrome 4 in usage share for Europe. This as the adoption rate of Firefox 3.6 among former users of version 3.5 has tapered off somewhat. Worldwide usage share of IE6 continues to decline at the almost invisible rate of a tenth of a point per week.

Thus far, there's no indication from StatCounter's charts that the browser screen has impacted the usage rate of any browser on the continent, one way or the other. The trends that had been in place, including the tapering off of Firefox 3.6 adoption, appear to be continuing.

Anyone looking for a technical reason for this lack of a trend may not be able to point to faulty algorithms anymore. In recent days, Microsoft implemented a fix to the randomization of browser choices on its browserchoice.eu Web site, in response to a discovery that was validated last week by IBM's Rob Weir, that the JavaScript function Math.random used by IE wasn't shuffling browsers' positions fairly. The revised code now clearly employs a random shuffling algorithm, which creates arrays of pointers that exchange places with one another like shuffling cards -- an alternative that Weir and others had suggested.

As Weir posted on Saturday, Microsoft's revised code is now about as fair as it gets, with each of the top five browsers getting 20% placement, plus or minus only a few thousandths of a point. As a suggestion for the future, Weir pointed out the irony of searching for proper programming methodologies using, ironically, Google Search.

"Several commenters mentioned that if you search Google for 'javascript random array sort,' the first link returned will be a JavaScript tutorial that has the same offending code as Microsoft's algorithm. This is not surprising," Weir wrote. "As I said in my original post, this is a well-known mistake. But it is no less a mistake. If you use Google Code Search for the query "0.5 - Math.random()" lang:javascript you will find 50 or so other instances of the faulty algorithm. So if anyone else is using this same algorithm, they should evaluate whether it is really sufficiently random for their needs. In some case, such as a children's game, it might be fine. But know that there are better and faster algorithms available that are not much more complicated to code."

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

Sales of Sony's PlayStation 3 have lagged behind Nintendo's Wii and Microsoft's Xbox 360 for most of this generation, and the PSP and PSP Go now face a serious threat from Apple's iPhone OS-based handhelds. Despite these factors, though, Sony has managed to set up one of the strongest Web-based storefronts for digital content distribution to its consoles. Offering full downloadable games, add-ons, XMB customizations, game trailers, and HD Hollywood feature films and television episodes for rent or purchase, the PlayStation Network is an attractive and easily navigable repository for media on Sony game machines.

It's a shame that setting up and hosting online games for the PS3 isn't as simple as its store.

Today, Sony announced the "Movies" section of the PlayStation Network has finally been completed, and HD content from all six major US movie studios (20th Century Fox, Walt Disney Pictures, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Universal Pictures, and Warner Bros.) is now available.

"PlayStation Network is the first and only service to deliver high definition home entertainment from all six major studios, directly to consumers for download," said Peter Dille, SCEA senior vice president of marketing and PlayStation Network.

Sony did not give a number today of how many titles are available from these studios, but instead listed 19 releases that hit the US PlayStation store in High Definition today.

The "completed" store will launch next in the UK, France, Germany, and Spain.

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

At CES this year, every major consumer electronics company involved in the HDTV market had floorspace dedicated to 3D TVs. They were convinced that 3D in the home is ready for widespread adoption, and the popularity of James Cameron's Avatar would kickstart adoption.

Samsung today announced its full 2010 3D TV lineup, which shows just how expensive it's going to be to upgrade your home theater to the third dimension.

The 3D TV lineup includes the LED 7000/8000/9000 Series (starting at $1,999.99, about halfway down the chart), the LCD 750 Series, and the Plasma 7000/8000 Series. The 46" and 55" LED C7000 will be available this month, and the rest will roll out at different points during the spring.

But the TV is only one part of the whole setup. You will need at least a 3D-capable Blu-ray player, one pair of active shutter glasses for every viewer, and, of course, the 3D discs. Samsung will be selling its 3D Blu-ray player for $399.99, and its Blu-Ray home theater system for $899.99 this April.

With the immediate point of entry at $2,400, Samsung could at least throw in some stitches to close the wound to your bank account. So the company announced a promotion program where customers who buy a 3D TV and 3D Blu-ray player will get two pairs of active shutter glasses and a 3D Blu-ray copy of Monsters vs. Aliens for free.

Tomorrow, Panasonic is expected to unveil its 3D offerings for the year with a similar promotional tie-in with Best Buy.

By Scott M. Fulton, III, Betanews

12:02 pm EST March 9, 2010 · A spokesperson for Opera Software provided Betanews this morning with a summary of a complete blog post on the alleged exploit of Opera 10.5, published moments ago:

"The original report about the Windows-only malformed Content-length header problem is not a security issue, but a variant of the issue, brought to our attention by Secunia, has a theoretical possibility of allowing arbitrary code to run. We have developed a fix for the problem, which is being tested, and are planning to release an update of Opera soon. Until then, if Opera crashes on an untrusted site, you should avoid visiting that site again."

11:52 am EST March 9, 2010 · Though Opera, like all Web browsers, has never been immune to exploits, the news of the first serious exploit to affect its new and groundbreaking version 10.5 now has the company's representatives taking time away from shoring up the final Mac version of 10.5, to respond to what security firm Secunia is calling a "highly critical" exploit in the new product.

Last Wednesday, purported PHP server-side exploit code for Opera appeared on a "gray-hat" Web site where such exploits are commonly found. The author's name is credited as Marcin Ressel -- who, contrary to blog reports, does not appear to be an engineer either with Secunia or Vupen Security (it could just be a made-up identity, for all anyone knows). In his code listing, Ressel left contact information for an e-mail address using the Polish .PL domain, along with a playlist of favorite music from a Polish streaming site.

In the comments section of the code, Ressel describes the exploit as, "Integer overflow leading to out of bounds array access R/W [read/write]." The overflow is apparently triggered by a maliciously malformed HTTP response header; specifically, the Content-Length property is replaced with a bunch of '9's.

An examination of the code indicates, by the author's own admission, it may not be very sophisticated. For example, the statement that generates the malformed header is capped with the comment, /*Generated by my own fuzzer*/ -- which could mean that he wrote a fuzzer, or that he happens to own an effective fuzzer. The code does appear to try to establish a stealth socket connection with the client, which the code presumes is Opera (it does test for operating system, but does not appear to test for browser brand).

So the question is whether the exploit code, after generating an exception, delivers a malicious payload to the Opera browser. In a statement last Friday, Opera Communications Director Tor Odland told the Norweigian tech news service Digi.no all of one sentence: that Opera had confirmed the exploit was not harmful. And in a follow-up statement this morning on Twitter, Opera engineer Haavard wrote, "Our security guys are working on proper public information on Secunia advisory 38820." This after having tweeted earlier that no one on Opera's development team has been able to actually deliver a malicious payload using the exploit.

The Secunia advisory, published last Thursday, states, "Successful exploitation may allow execution of arbitrary code." The keyword here could be "may," as opposed to "does" or "will."

Ressel's comments indicated that while the exploit affected Opera version 10.5 for sure, he felt confident that it probably affected version 10.1 or earlier. The Secunia advisory made the same claim, effectively that older versions were possibly impacted. And while Vupen's advisory claimed its team had confirmed only that 10.5 was vulnerable, the term "prior" was used under "Affected Products." It might, or may, or will be nice for someone to actually try that out and see.