Bing, launched on June 3 but available to some users a few days earlier, took 8.23 percent of U.S. Web searches in June, up from 7.81 percent for Microsoft search just prior to its rollout and 7.21 percent in April, said Internet data firm StatCounter.

Google lost share slightly, dipping to 78.48 percent from 78.72 percent before Bing. Yahoo Inc, the perennial No. 2 in the market, rose to 11.04 percent from 10.99 percent.

Bing’s share peaked in the first week of June at 9.21 percent, falling away in the middle two weeks before coming back at 8.45 percent in the last week of June.

The results may give heart to Microsoft, which is investing heavily in its loss-making online services business and is refusing to cede the market to Google.

“At first sight, a 1 percent increase in market share does not appear to be a huge return on the investment Microsoft has made in Bing but the underlying trend appears positive,” StatCounter Chief Executive Adohan Cullen said in a statement.

The world’s largest software company may yet strike an online search partnership with Yahoo to make itself a credible competitor, but talk of such a deal has quietened down.

StatCounter, based in Dublin, says its data are based on 4 billion pageloads per month monitored through a network of websites. Other data research firms such as comScore are not expected to release figures on Bing’s share until mid-July.

Reuters

Global Gaming Factory X AB, which operates Internet cafes and provides software, said Tuesday that it had agreed to buy Pirate Bay for 60 million Swedish crowns ($7.7 million).

The website made world headlines in April when the three Swedish founders and a financial backer were each sentenced to one year in jail and ordered to pay a combined $3.6 million in damages for breaching copyright law with the free downloading site, which was one of the biggest sites of its kind on the Internet.

Swedish News Agency TT cited one of the founders, Peter Sunde, as saying that the money would not go directly to him or any of the others sentenced in April.

Sunde told TT that the money would be placed in a company outside Swedish borders and it would be used for Internet projects other than downloading sites.

Pirate Bay could not be immediately reached for comment.

Global Gaming said it believed the website was a viable business with its plans for a new, legal business model.

“We would like to introduce (business) models which entail that content providers and copyright owners get paid for content that is downloaded via the site,” the company said in a statement.

USERS AS EARNERS

Global Gaming Chief Executive Hans Pandeya told a news conference that the revamped website would generate money via advertising, supplying storage space and helping telecom operators optimize Internet traffic.

He also said users would be able to earn money by supplying storage space, which would encourage people to use the site.

“That’s what is interesting. If you can earn money by file-sharing, it’s no big deal to pay for what you download,” Pandeya said.

Analysts were unimpressed by the move, comparing it to Napster, an online file-sharing site that quickly lost popularity after it started to charge its users.

“It looks like they are going to Napsterize it,” said Leigh Ellis, intellectual property partner at Gillhams Solicitors.

Mark Mulligan, vice president at research firm Forrester, said that many of Pirate Bay’s around 20 million users would move on to other free downloading options.

“The bottom line is that most people who use file-sharing networks use it because it’s free. They are not likely to start paying just because the owners have a new business model,” he said.

“There has not yet been a single example of a legal file-sharing network which has made a successful transition to a legal business.”

Reuters

The gadget would run on Google’s Android software, the people told the paper.

According to the paper, two people who saw early prototypes described the device as slightly larger than Apple’s iPod Touch, which is similar to the iPhone but does not have cellphone capabilities.

Another person who was briefed on the company’s plans told the paper that Dell may begin selling the device later this year, though this person said the plan could be delayed or scrapped entirely.

A Dell spokesman declined to comment to the paper on any plans for the product category.

Dell may use chips based on designed licensed from ARM Holdings, people familiar with the company’s plans told the paper.

Dell could not be immediately reached for a comment by Reuters.

Reuters

Pictured at the 2009 SA Imagine Cup awards are (l-r) University of the Western Cape representative Paul Ogeda, Microsoft ’s David Ives and Kaya FM presenter Steven Bacher, flanked by Team I-Sign’s Nathan Naidoo and Mehrdad Ghaziasgar

Two Cape Town students are jetting off to Egypt in early July to pit their wits against the best computer programming students in the world in a global technology competition.

Nathan Naidoo and Mehrdad Ghaziasgar will be representing South Africa at the finals of the Imagine Cup 2009, a Microsoft-sponsored technology competition, after winning the regional finals in December 2008. They will be competing against young programmers from more than 124 countries.

Naidoo and Ghaziasgar, who are both Masters’ students at the University of the Western Cape (UWC), will be showcasing their iSign application, that allows deaf people to translate English into sign language – and vice versa – using cell phones and other devices.

Now in its seventh year, Imagine Cup challenges students to develop innovative projects that offer real-world solutions to the challenges articulated by the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals. These range from halving extreme poverty and halting the spread of HIV/AIDS to providing universal primary education.

With iSign, a hearing person can speak into a microphone attached to a computer, which translates it into sign language on the screen and displays it via a lifelike three-dimensional avatar. By the same token, a hearing person can record sign language using a commercially available camera, and have it translated into English or into the same avatar.

Naidoo and Ghaziasgar are currently researching the applicability of implementing the system on standard cell phones enabled with cameras. iSign is part of a bigger project at the UWC called SA Sign Language (SASL), which will ultimately be a full translation system for South African sign language – much of which is unique to this country.

The head of Microsoft’s developer and platform team, Dave Ives, says judges were “blown away” by the high calibre and innovation displayed in the 2009 entries, promising a wave of real-world impact from South African shores.

“It is inspiring how these students are utilising the power of software and technology innovation to create entrepreneurial businesses that can greatly improve the world we live in,” says Ives.

“The Imagine Cup is a great opportunity for young developers to explore the entrepreneurial possibilities of their software solutions. We’ll be looking at various ways of helping them bring their ideas to fruition.”

At the worldwide finals, students’ work will reflect valuable solutions that give a helping hand to the world’s sustainable environmental issues while giving them the opportunity to compete for cash prizes.

South Africa’s 2008 winners, University of Cape Town students Devin de Vries, Christopher King, Nabeel Nazeer and Nadeem Isaacs, won global recognition for their their “WhereIsMyShuttle?“ application, which uses satellite navigation devices to provide bus information directly to commuters by SMS.

To see who Team South Africa will be up against in Cairo, visit the Imagine Cup 2009 website.

Based on the design of the new Samsung LED range of TVs, the T260 combines full high definition visuals with a 20,000:1 dynamic contrast ratio and ultra-fast refresh rate for crystal clear images. It also consumes up to 30W less than standard monitors.

To stand a chance of winning, answer the question about LED TVs below - check out the Environmentally Friendly section of this post for the answer.

Problems entering the competition? Tell us about it.

“At Google we seek to serve a broad base of people — not only those who can afford to access the Internet from the convenience of their workplace or with a computer at home,” the Mountain View, California, company said in a blog post.

“It’s important to reach users wherever they are, with the information they need, in areas with the greatest information poverty,” Google said.

The Internet search and advertising giant noted that Africa has the world’s highest mobile phone growth rate and that mobile use on the continent is six times higher than Internet penetration.

“Most mobile devices in Africa only have voice and SMS capabilities, and so we are focusing our technological efforts in that continent on SMS,” it said.

Google said Google SMS, which will be available first in Uganda, would provide information, via SMS, on a number of topics including health and agriculture tips, news, local weather and sports.

Google also said that it is also launching a service called Google Trader, an SMS-based application that helps bring together buyers and sellers of product or services, from used cars to livestock to jobs.

Google said another service, Google SMS Tips, enables a mobile phone user to have a Web search-like experience. A user enters a text query and Google returns relevant answers after searching a database.

Google said Google SMS Tips and Google Trader were developed in partnership with several organisations, including the Grameen Foundation, an offshoot of the pioneering Grameen bank founded by Nobel peace laureate Muhammad Yunus.

AFP

Lisa Severens, a clinical trials manager from Worcester, Massachusetts, learned the hard way. A virus took control of her laptop and started sending pornographic photos to colleagues.

“I was mortified about having to deal with it at work,” said Severens, whose employer had to replace her computer because the malicious software could not be removed.

Cybercrime, which costs US companies and individuals billions of dollars a year, is spreading fast on Facebook because such scams target and exploit those naive to the dark side of social networking, security experts say.

While News Corp’s MySpace was the most-popular hangout for cyber criminals two years ago, experts say hackers are now entrenched on Facebook, whose membership has soared from 120 million in December to more than 200 million today.

“Facebook is the social network du jour. Attackers go where the people go. Always,” said Mary Landesman, a senior researcher at Web security company ScanSafe.

Scammers break into accounts posing as friends of users, sending spam that directs them to websites that steal personal information and spread viruses. Hackers tend to take control of infected PCs for identity theft, spamming and other mischief.

Facebook manages security from its central headquarters in Palo Alto, California, screening out much of the spam and malicious software targeting its users. That should make it a safer place to surf than the broader Internet, but criminals are relentless and some break through Facebook’s considerable filter.

The rise in attacks reflects Facebook’s massive growth.

Company spokesman Simon Axten said that as the number of users has increased, the percentage of successful attacks has stayed about the same, remaining at less than 1% of members over the past five years.

By comparison, he said, FBI data show that about 3% of US households were burglarised in 2005.

“Security is an arms race, and we’re always updating these systems and building new ones to respond to new and evolving threats,” Axten said.

When criminal activity is detected on one account, the site quickly looks for similar patterns in others and either deletes bad emails or resets passwords to compromised accounts, he said. Facebook is hiring a fraud investigator and a fraud analyst, according to the careers section of its website.

Cannot guarantee web safety

But ultimately Facebook says its members are responsible for their own security.

“We do our best to keep Facebook safe, but we cannot guarantee it,” Facebook says in a warning in a section of the site on the terms and conditions of use, which members might not bother to read.

“People implicitly trust social networking sites because they don’t understand the real threats and dangers. It’s like walking down the street and trusting everybody you meet,” said Randy Abrams, a researcher with security software maker ESET.

Amy Benoit, a human resources manager in Oceanside, California, said she may stop using Facebook altogether after she became entangled in a popular scam: A fraudster sent instant messages to a friend saying that Benoit had been attacked in London and needed $600 to get home.

Yale University last week warned its business school students to be careful when using Facebook after several of them turned in infected laptops.

One of the most insidious threats is Koobface, a virus that takes over PCs when users click on links in spam messages. The virus turned up on MySpace about a year ago, but its unknown authors now focus on spreading it through Facebook, which is struggling to wipe it out.

“Machines that are compromised are at the whim of the attacker,” said McAfee researcher Craig Schmugar.

McAfee, the world’s No. 2 security software maker, says Koobface variants almost quadrupled last month to 4000.

“Because Facebook is a closed system, we have a tremendous advantage over e-mail. Once we detect a spam message, we can delete that message in all inboxes across the site,” said Schmugar.

Facebook’s Axten said the site does not know how many users have been infected by Koobface.

A new website that follows Facebook news, www.fbhive.com, recently identified a vulnerability that made it possible to access any user’s private information using a simple hack. The loophole has since been closed.

“We don’t have any evidence to suggest that it was ever exploited for malicious purposes,” Axten said.

Hackers even find ways to get into accounts of savvy users like Sandeep Junnarkar, a journalism professor at City University of New York and former tech reporter. Last month he learned his account was hacked as he waited for a flight for Paris. He quickly changed his password before boarding.

“Am I surprised that it happened? Not really,” he said.

Reuters

The official word of his return followed months of speculation about the health of Jobs, a pancreatic cancer survivor and his future with the company he co-founded more than 30 years ago.

Jobs, 54, underwent a liver transplant in Memphis, Tennessee, while on leave. He has remained involved in strategic decisions at Apple while away, according to the company and he has been seen in recent weeks at Apple’s headquarters in Cupertino, California.

“Steve is back to work,” a company spokesman said. “He’s currently at Apple a few days a week and working from home the remaining days. We are very glad to have him back.”

Collins Stewart analyst Ashok Kumar said investors will be reassured that Jobs is back at the helm of the company he helped resuscitate over the past decade, with category-defining products such as the iPod and, more recently, the iPhone.

Kumar noted that some investors had feared Jobs would never return. “In many ways he’s irreplaceable,” he said. “Having him back brings the halo back to the company.”

Apple shares were flat in late trading on the Nasdaq. The stock used to sink and surge with every twist in Jobs’ health, but has proved to be less volatile of late as investors got used to the idea of other executives running the company in his absence.

STOCK LESS VOLATILE

Oppenheimer & Co analyst Yair Reiner said that, given the lack of information about Apple’s CEO over the past six months, investors were forced to remove him from the equation.

“It really wasn’t possible for someone to make an investment decision in Apple under the assumption that Steve Jobs was going to come back,” Reiner said.

Jobs was treated for a rare form of pancreatic cancer in 2004. His gaunt appearance at an Apple event last summer spurred worries the cancer had returned.

In January, after initially blaming his noticeable weight loss on a hormone imbalance, Jobs announced he was taking medical leave until the end of June, saying his health-related issues were “more complex” than originally thought.

While Jobs was on leave, Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook handled Apple’s day-to-day operations. Some analysts think Jobs may transition into an advisory role, focusing on products and strategy and Cook would formally become CEO.

The hospital in Memphis that performed Jobs’ liver transplant said he “is now recovering well and has an excellent prognosis,” but has not provided further details.

Pacific Crest Securities analyst Andy Hargreaves said questions remain and added that Apple has not shown itself very forthcoming on the subject of Jobs’ health.

“The question is whether or not he’s going to be there for the next several years and I don’t think they’ve added any clarity on that,” he added.

Reuters

Three percent of U.S. centenarians questioned in a new survey said they use the service that allows users to send short text messages, or tweets, of up to 140 characters at least once a week to keep in touch with their friends and family.

Another 10 percent sent emails to stay connected, 12 percent shared photos on the Internet and 4 percent downloaded music from the web.

“These centenarians are really inspiring because they are starting to embrace newer trends and newer technologies,” said Sherri Snelling, senior director at Evercare, one of the nation’s largest care coordination programs, which commissioned the survey.

“We know that technology has definitely given us new avenues to stay connected to family and friends, and that is one of the key themes we see in terms of living longer,” Snelling said in an interview. “People that are living to 100 and beyond and staying alert and vital are staying socially connected.”

The link to new technology is multigenerational with the centenarians’ grandchildren and great-grandchildren introducing them to the latest gadgets.

The results of the survey of 100 centenarians challenge the stereotypes of aging and show that getting older does not have to be a barrier to keeping up with the newest trends.

Forget passing the day in a rocking chair. Fifty percent of centenarians keep fit by walking or hiking, 8 percent prefer cycling and 3 percent break into a jog or run. One percent said they have tried Nintendo’s Wii Fit.

More than a quarter said they chatted on a cell phone at least once a week.

To keep their minds as agile as their bodies, 19 percent played a musical instrument or turned to a musical video game for entertainment or a mental workout.

Nearly 65 percent would dine with comedian Bill Cosby if given the opportunity to invite a celebrity to dinner.

If stranded on a desert island, 2 percent said they would want an iPod with them.

Snelling said the findings are changing perceptions about getting older.

“Being older doesn’t mean that you are not going to stay in tune with these new technologies,” she explained. “It definitely is a lesson to all of us that keeping your brain engaged by doing Twitter or going online, or whatever, is going to be helpful to living longer.

Evercare said it believes the results support the belief that longevity is based primarily on lifestyle rather than genetics.

More than 84,000 centenarians are living in the United States today. The number is expected to increase to 580,000 by 2040, according to figures from the U.S. Census Bureau.

Reuters

Until now, phone makers have included a charger with every new handset, often with each charger only working on one type of device. From next year, everything from the iPhone and the BlackBerry, to phones made by Nokia and Sony Ericsson, will be made to work with a single charger that will work across many different brands of phone.

Ten companies, including Apple, Motorola and Samsung, have pledged to start making phones that can be charged using a single charger from next year. For phones sold in Europe, the manufacturers will adopt the micro USB connector across all their devices, already the standard on handsets such as the BlackBerry.

“It’s a small thing, but a big issue for the consumer,” said Ernest Doku, an analyst for mobile phone comparison site, Omio.com. “It was simply a foolish situation. But phone makers wanted to have their own technology for each phone to be stay a step ahead. It’s good for the manufacturers to swallow their pride, as this will be for the end user’s benefit.”

Though the universal charger will be welcomed by consumers as more convenient, the urgency behind the agreement came from the belief that it will also have a positive impact on the environment.

“People will not have to throw away their charger whenever they buy a new phone,” said EU Industry Commissioner Guenter Verheugen, estimating that unwanted phone accessories accounted for thousands of tonnes of waste in Europe each year.

The mobile phone industry has long been attacked by environmental campaigners for being one of the least green areas of technology. The GSMA, the trade organisation that represents the mobile phone industry, said that the new universal chargers will consume half as much energy when on “standby” - or plugged into the socket, but not actually charging a phone - as current charging cables. The GSMA hopes that most mobile phones by 2012 will operate using the universal charger.

The new standard charger will replace the more than 30 different kinds of charger that are currently in use across European member states. The deal followed threats by the European Commission to introduce legislation if a voluntary solution could not be found.

The commission said the it will work on “data-enabled” mobiles that hit the high street in 2010. These are phones that can be plugged into a computer to exchange data such as pictures and files. Most phones should be able to charge in about two hours.

There are an estimated 400 million mobile phones in Europe, with 185 million bought each year. The ten companies involved control around 90 per cent of the mobile phone market.

Though the standardised chargers will only be compatible with European phones, the commission said it hoped the rest of the world would eventually follow its lead.

“We’re assuming this new European initiative will have a knock-on effect globally and manufacturers won’t just be doing this on the European market,” Mr Verheugen said.

Mobile numbers

1973 The year of the first mobile telephone call

400 million active mobile phones in Europe

72 million active mobile phones in Britain

40 million pay-as-you-go phones in Britain

90 million estimated handsets unused in British homes

1,712 phones are replaced every minute

Source: Regeneris, Vodafone, Times research

Murad Ahmed, TimesOnline

It’s over the top and cheesy, and at first, I didn’t know what to make of this one. The story alone is completely ridiculous. Playing as ex-US Marine and elite rescue team member Ray Bryce, it’s up to you to survive a non-stop script of terrorists, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, nuclear weapons, fires, flash floods and hurricanes that would have Michael Bay and Roland Emmerich licking their lips. And of course, there’s a hot seismologist involved — textbook. Still, somewhere along the line, I got into it.

The gameplay’s a mixture of first-person shooter, rail shooter and clunky third-person survival action — like Resident Evil meets Virtua Cop, 24 and The Day After Tomorrow on steroids. But that’s not what sucks you in. It’s the story (clichéd as it is), the cinematic scope and the straightforward, honest attempt at a “Hollywood blockbuster with feeling”. You see, years ago, when Ray was still into being a hero, he and his partner Steve were performing a routine rescue over a dormant volcano. Only the volcano wasn’t so dormant.

The plot is classic Japan does US (I’m surprised Ray’s not called Jack Phoenix, or Cliff Hawk) and the intro scene is straight out of Cliffhanger. To cut a long story short, Steve dies, Ray blames himself and drops out. On his deathbed, Steve gives Ray an antique compass and asks him to pass it on to his sister, Lisa, the hot seismologist. A year later, still wracked with guilt over Steve’s death and unable to face Lisa, Ray is called in by the FBI for that proverbial last mission. Ex-military organisation SURGE have stolen nuclear weapons and kidnapped seismologist Dr Davis and his assistant (Lisa). Drawn back in by Lisa’s involvement, it’s up to Ray to sort it all out.

In short, it’s the kind of role Steven Segal would have killed for in his prime. The graphics aren’t amazing, the engine isn’t great and it’s often scream-out-loud frustrating. But at the same time, it’s ambitious, unrelenting and a surprisingly fun mixture of action, drama, gameplay and arcade Wii controls.

The Japanese electronics and entertainment conglomerate launched its first Walkman three decades ago, dominating the portable music player market, but it has been running far behind the iPod and iPhone in recent years.

Sony plans to set up a project team as early as July to develop a new product that combines functions of its portable game player, the PSP, and Sony Ericsson’s mobile phones, the Nikkei said.

Sony Ericsson is a cellphone joint venture between Sony and Sweden’s Ericsson.

A growing number of game-makers including Capcom and Square Enix are now offering software for the iPod and iPhone to take advantage of the Apple products’ popularity, posing a threat to Sony’s PlayStation Portable and Nintendo’s DS.

A Sony spokesman declined to comment on the report.

Reuters

“I don’t know what you are, but I know I’m going to kill you…”

For a game so free and liberating — you can go anywhere, climb anything — Prototype doesn’t waste any time showing off. That’s the best thing about it : its straight-to-the-action, nitrous-oxide-injected, over-the-top arcade attitude.

It’s like Devil May Cry meets Grand Theft Auto, Assassins Creed and the best parts of the Superman game (being able to fly). You can pick the tallest building on the horizon, climb it, leap off and either fall to the ground unscathed or glide and bounce your way to the next tallest building. You see, our hero, Alex Mercer, is infected.

As far as gameplay goes, Prototype just starts so: “Three weeks ago, someone released a lethal virus. I woke up in the morgue. Now I hunt, I kill, I consume, I become … I’m gonna find out who did this to me and I’m gonna make ’em pay,” is all Mercer’s voiceover will reveal. Then it’s all systems go, gliding, clawing, climbing, hammering and destroying your way through New York City (because things only ever happen in New York).

“For stage one, this character seems pretty badass,” I thought. With my arm as a blade, I was chopping through tanks with one slice, hurling myself across the screen with hammers for hands and summoning giant spikes from the ground to impale my feeble adversaries. Then I realised it was just a taste of things to come, as time swapped back to an “18 days later” type of scenario and Mercer was stripped of his God-like powers.

Prototype’s controls are fluid and easy to manipulate. Without even trying, you can leap up buildings, consume souls, maim innocent bystanders and basically, Hancock the hell out of the city.

The missions use a GTA-like format, and once completed, it’s up to you how long you take to get to the next marker, which leaves you with plenty of time to free roam and destroy.

Also similar to GTA, there’s too much carnage and you’ll have an inbound strike team on your ass. But unlike GTA, all you’ve got to do is sprint, climb and jump, and you’re in the next state. And did I mention, you can also hijack armoured vehicles?

Another one of Mercer’s handy mutant abilities is that he can transform. Once you’ve “consumed” someone, pressing the left arrow changes you into them. That helps when you need to keep a low profile, infiltrate a military base, or you just want to fly around the city as an old lady.

One of the most impressive things about the game is the fluidity. Jumping off skyscrapers makes you feel weird, like you’re on a rollercoaster and something bad’s about to happen. Climbing walls, shape-shifting and dodging zombies in the street feels fast and dangerous.

With such an ambitious engine, you’d usually expect mood-ruining glitches and sketchy moments.

But Protoype is surprisingly smooth, which — combined with its arcade nature — adds to the intensity and makes it feel like you’re actually in control of this incredibly powerful being. And the more you play, the more extreme and radical Mercer’s powers become, until you’re that almighty God from the opening scene. Highly recommended.

Screens

Trailer

The Apple iPhone forever altered the mobile phone market when it launched in 2007, achieving massive commercial and cultural success across the globe through only two generations of handsets.

Such is the command Apple has over the current cultural zeitgeist that the iPhone’s obvious flaws were largely ignored in favour of gorgeous design and a tactile touch interface, leaving the competition to contemplate why their lists of high-end functionality were useless in securing a following. But increased competition in the smartphone market from Palm and BlackBerry in particular has forced Apple to take some note of their competitors.

For this reason, anticipation was at fever pitch ahead of the annual Apple World Wide Developers Conference (WWDC) in San Francisco last month. The conference is like Christmas in the middle of the year for Apple fanatics, all hoping for the tech-messiah figure of Steve Jobs to grace the stage with more lifestyle-shifting products. The blogging community wrote hopefully about possible announcements, but with the sickly Jobs a no-show, the conference was a reasonably low-key affair, and as expected, centred around upgrades to the iPhone.

iPhone 3G S

One can only imagine the muted response when Apple execs excitedly unveiled a new handset that looks exactly like the current iPhone 3G — but for the simple addition of the letter “S”.

As Apple vice president of marketing Phil Schiller announced: “The ‘S’ stands for speed because this is the most powerful iPhone we’ve ever made.” Featuring an ARM 600MHz processor, computing speed on the device has emerged as the new development frontier. Tests show applications load twice as fast on the iPhone 3G S, while the rendering of Web pages is greatly improved at up to three times faster than the iPhone 3G. And for those who enjoy fast-food with the their fast iPhone, the screen has an added fingerprint resistant oleophobic coating.

The other main hardware upgrade concerns the camera. Upgraded to three megapixels, the camera now features tap-to-focus functionality, auto exposure and white balance adjustment, as well as improved low-light imaging and the ability to geo-tag images. The camera is now also fully accessible by third party applications, which opens the door for a slew of new applications along the lines of E-mail ’N Walk, which uses the camera to make the e-mail interface transparent, displaying the environment in front of you while walking and writing e-mails — infinitely useful for aggressive multi-taskers.

A first for the iPhone, one can now shoot video at 30 frames per second, with the ability to edit clips on the device and upload directly to YouTube or send via e-mail or MMS.

New uses

iPhone gamers were blessed with two massive upgrades at the WWDC; the iPhone 3G S supports 3D graphics, which will make for richer, more involved games, and the new 3.0 operating system (OS) includes support for P2P networking, meaning gamers can play against each other wirelessly, a standard feature on Sony’s popular PlayStation Portable (PSP). These developments make the iPhone a serious contender as a mobile gaming platform and with the right games, could take on the PSP and Nintendo’s DS.

The hardware upgrade that has most excited developers, though, is the addition of magnetometer, or digital compass, which will enable the development of new location-based technologies for the iPhone. Together with the GPS, the digital compass allows for fully augmented reality — the layering of information over geographic locations in real time. Applications such as Layar (currently available on Android) take GPS data like the location of restaurants, hospitals or properties for sale and displays them overlaid on the environment as viewed through the camera lens. This can be extended to locate people in real time as well.

iPhone OS 3.0

The funny thing about the upgraded operating system for the iPhone is that it essentially puts it on a par with other smartphones in terms of its basic functionality. iPhone OS 3.0 adds the ability to cut and paste text, shoot video, issue voice commands and send MMS messages — none of which are revolutionary features on current generation smartphones.

Rather, the developments seem to be designed to appease current iPhone owners and retain their loyalty. Usability tweaks such as a landscape keyboard for messaging, auto-fill functionality in the Safari Browser and shake controls for undoing actions simplify interactions with the device, while the addition of native Microsoft Exchange support and Internet tethering — the ability to use the phone as a modem — enhances the iPhone’s allure as a business tool, a perceived area of weakness with the iPhone.

One-device future

What is becoming clear is Apple’s unstated goal for the iPhone to be the one indispensable device of the future. Combining a phone and media player was the first stage; the iPhone 3G S and OS 3.0 represent the next evolution by adding gaming, business and imaging functionality to the iPhone’s repertoire.

Some fans are disappointed with the upgraded iPhone, though, arguing the new hardware doesn’t offer a significant enough incentive to upgrade when the cool new functionality will be available for free with OS 3.0 update. But with the iPhone 3G now selling for less than 100 (about R800) in the US, Apple will no doubt still convert a new legion of fans to their following.

The concept was ludicrously simple — get on your bike, head right, hit the jumps and watch out for oil — but, man, it was addictive. And for a modern day update/spiritual successor, at first, swapping highflying bikes for chunky off-road trucks seemed like an odd choice.

Excite Truck blends Mario Kart’s cute, simple and addictive family-friendliness, MotorStorm 2: Pacific Rift’s grittier, multi-layered, weather-affected terrains, loose grasp on reality and that original, big air, Excitebike flavour. Earning stars for drifts, hardcore crashes, turbo jumps and not ending up like Sonny Bono, the gameplay’s smooth, fast and highly responsive. You can even slip your remote into the Wii Wheel to maximise those hard lean turns — it’s a placebo effect, but it works.

With the Wii remote on its side, the controls work a lot like Mario Kart 2’s accelerate, tilting the control steers your truck, and just like the original game (and 2001’s Excitebike 64), too much boosting overheats your engine.

Excite Truck looks good too. The graphics are some of the best I’ve seen from a Wii racer, and at times, staring at little touches, like the detail of the reflection on the back of your truck, you almost forget what console you’re on.

The biggest disappointments are not being able to design your own tracks and the game’s weak multiplayer component. But if you’re looking for a fun, adrenaline-packed, single-player racer that’s simple and doesn’t ask that much of you, Excite Truck is a pretty solid option. Then again, recently released follow-up, Excitebots: Trick Racing, allows for up to six players online.

Since his 1981 appearance in the arcade version of Donkey Kong, Nintendo have been conjuring up new ways to repackage their hero for your easy re-consumption. From Mario Tennis, Mario Golf, Mario Superstar Baseball, Super Mario Strikers, Mario Kart, Mario Excitebike (yep) and Mario & Sonic at the Olympics, to Dr Mario, Mario Teaches Typing and spinoffs like Luigi’s Mansion, Yoshi’s Island, Super Princess Peach and Wario Land … He’s the Mickey Mouse of video games — just don’t mention the 1993 film starring Bob Hoskins and John Leguizamo.

The Paper Mario series is billed as a role-playing take on the regular Mario adventure. Developed by Squaresoft (Final Fantasy) in 1996, Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars is considered the first Mario RPG, followed by Intelligent Systems’ 2000, N64 release, Paper Mario, their 2004 Gamecube follow-up, Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door and now, the third instalment, Super Paper Mario on Wii. That’s the craziest thing, even the games you think are fresh, new spin-offs have been going for 10 years.

If you’re an unquestioning, never-tiring consumer of everything Mario, you’ll probably love playing your way through this one because, combining platform gaming, role-playing and puzzle-solving elements, despite the tired content, they’re actually trying new things. And it would be unfair not to mention how cool Mario’s new ability to swap between 3D and 2D is.

But these days, I find it a lot easier to get into collaborative efforts like Super Smash Bros. Brawl and Mario Strikers Charged than straight up Mario games. If I was Mario, I’d let Princess Peach go and find a girl who’s less drama, pronto. But Mario’s a sucker for punishment, and the big one’s still coming: Super Mario Galaxy 2, due out in 2010.

The world’s largest software company, whose recent ads champion low-priced PCs against more expensive Apple computers, said the new system will be available at even lower prices for a short time, as it looks to tempt buyers ahead of the holiday shopping season.

The new operating system, which Microsoft hopes will be a bigger hit than the poorly received Vista, will be generally released on October 22. It will be available on pre-order from U.S. stores such as Best Buy, online retailer Amazon.com and the company’s own website from Friday.

Microsoft did not detail how much it would charge PC makers such as Hewlett-Packard, Dell I and Acer for preloading Windows 7 on their machines, which is how most customers will come to use the operating system.

The price Microsoft charges manufacturers is becoming a thorny point, as both sides look to maximize their share of profits as PC sales dip and prices are driven down.

The software giant said it would sell the Home Premium upgrade version of Windows 7 - which most non-business customers already using Windows will want - for $49.99 from Friday until July 11 in the United States. The discs would be shipped after general release.

After July 11, the pre-order price will be $119.99, 8 percent less than the current $129.99 price tag for the comparable version of Vista, which cost $159.99 at launch in early 2007.

The Professional upgrade version of Windows 7 - aimed at small companies using multiple computers - will be on sale until July 11 at $99.99, then at $199.99 afterward. The comparable Vista version is the same price.

Prices for the full retail versions of the software - for customers who want to install the system from scratch rather than upgrade their existing Windows system - are also being reduced or held.

Microsoft will sell the full Home Premium version of Windows 7 for $199.99, 17 percent less than the comparable Vista version. Full versions of the more advanced Professional and Ultimate editions will be unchanged at $299.99 and $319.99, respectively.

To further tempt buyers, Microsoft said it was making a free upgrade option available to computer makers, meaning that customers who buy a PC or laptop with all but the most basic Vista versions from Friday should be able to get a free upgrade to the equivalent Windows 7 version.

How that offer is made available to customers is up to the individual PC makers. Both Microsoft and the manufacturers are hoping such an offer will avoid a sudden drop-off in already falling PC sales by persuading customers not to hold off on purchases until Windows 7 is launched.

Because the upgrade option means Microsoft is essentially selling two operating systems for the price of one, the company is deferring half the revenue from Vista sales over the next several months.

As a result, it said it would defer about $200 million to $300 million revenue from its fiscal fourth quarter, ending June 30, to later quarters, recognizing it either when a customer takes advantage of the upgrade, or at the end of the program on January 31, 2010. The move has no effect on cash flow.

In contrast to the Vista operating system, which was released in different language versions over several months, Microsoft said Windows 7 would be available in 14 languages on October 22 and a further 21 on October 31.

Versions for sale in Europe will not have Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 8 web browser included, due to the company’s recent decision to detach it in the face of a pending European Commission antitrust ruling on charges that Microsoft does not allow fair competition among browsers by including its own on its operating systems.

However, Microsoft said it will make IE8 available as a separate package for no extra charge. Customers can also install a competing browser.

Microsoft said on Thursday it will only offer full versions of Windows 7 in Europe rather than both full and upgrade versions. For a short time it is offering the Home Premium version for 49 euros ($68) and the Professional version for 99 euros ($138).

Microsoft also said the packaging of discs for the operating system was being reduced and would use recyclable plastic.

Reuters

TMZ.com, the celebrity news website that broke the story, went down several times through the day as visitors flooded the site. Other sites, such as Perez Hilton’s popular gossip blog, also failed as people rushed to try to confirm the news.

The microblogging service Twitter also shut down temporarily, with the site receiving hundreds of thousands of tweets shortly after the King of Pop’s death was first reported.

Twitter struggled to deal with the deluge of messages, with its founder Biz Stone saying: “This particular news about the passing of such a global icon is the biggest jump in tweets per second since the U.S. presidential election.

Internet analysts said that at its peak, roughly 15 per cent of all posts on Twitter mentioned Michael Jackson, while Iran’s disputed presidential elections or the swine flu pandemic never reached over 5 per cent.

Google said that there had been a “volcanic” surge in interest in Michael Jackson, with most of the top 100 searches on the site related to the singer. All Facebook, which tracks Facebook usage, reported that Jackson’s page appears to be attracting around 20 fans a second, predicting that it could fast become one of the top pages in all of Facebook.

Since the news aggregation site Drudge Report broke news of President Bill Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky almost a decade ago, blogs and social media sites have increasingly shown their power in reporting major news stories. Last night, the gossip website, TMZ.com, broke the story of Michael Jackson’s death.

Traditional news outlets such as Sky News, the BBC and CNN were cautious in following the lead of TMZ.com, but told audiences that the website had a history of correctly reporting stories of the magnitude of Michael Jackson’s death. The AOL-owned site was first to reveal that the actor Heath Ledger had died, but Michael Jackson’s death is the biggest scoop in the 4-year site’s history.

In America, Michael Jackson’s Thriller album has climbed to number one on iTunes, while in the UK Michael Jackson’s “Number Ones” album was racing up the charts, breaking back into the UK Top 10 selling albums this morning.

TimesOnline

Palm’s shares rose more than 14 percent in after-hours trading.

Executives said early signs were promising for the Pre, which will compete head-to-head with Apple’s iPhone and Research in Motion’s BlackBerry and which Palm hopes will lead the company out of persistent losses.

Palm said demand for the Pre was exceeding its expectations. The device is expected to enhance margins at the company, which in past years has steadily relinquished market share to rivals.

Avian Securities’ Matthew Thornton estimated Palm booked revenue for 70,000 Pre units in the May quarter, which ended May 29. He said that, along with a more favourable tax rate and lower-than-expected operating expenses, helped the company blow by Wall Street estimates.

“We’re successfully ramping supply to meet demand that is strong and growing,” Chief Executive Officer Jon Rubinstein told analysts on a conference call, referring to the Pre.

The device, which went on sale at the beginning of June, has garnered generally favourable reviews. Analysts estimate Palm has shipped about 150,000 units so far.

The Pre’s impact will be more fully reflected in the current quarter, because of its June launch date. Sprint Nextel is the exclusive U.S. carrier for the device.

Palm said it could turn cash-flow positive in the second-half of fiscal 2010 and reassured analysts that its capital position was sufficient, which Thornton called the “most interesting takeaways.”

The company posted a net loss applicable to common shareholders of $105 million, or 78 cents a share in the fiscal fourth-quarter ended May 29, compared with a loss of $43.4 million, or 40 cents a share, in the year-ago period.

Excluding items, Palm’s loss was 40 cents a share, compared with an average analyst estimate for a loss of 65 cents a share, according to Reuters Estimates.

Revenue fell 71 percent to $86.8 million. The Wall Street estimate was for revenue of $80.3 million.

Palm pioneered the market for handheld devices in the 1990s, but it has fallen behind competitors like Apple and Research in Motion, which were quicker to roll out models with popular applications.

The Pre, featuring Palm’s new WebOS, is now entering a market chock-full of other competitors from Nokia to HTC. A new iPhone 3GS launched last Friday and sold more than 1 million units in the first three days.

Rubinstein, appointed chief executive days after the Pre was launched to the public, pointed to a rapid shift to smartphones from standard mobile phones, creating a market big enough for all.

“Such significant growth means there is room for three to five players to win in this space. We don’t have to beat each other to prosper.”

Palm’s App Catalog has seen 1 million downloads, he added.

The company shipped 351,000 smartphone units in the quarter, up 6 percent from the previous quarter but down 62 percent from a year ago.

Its adjusted gross margin stood at 26.8 percent. The company said it expects its adjusted gross margin “over time” to rise above 30 percent.

Cash and short-term investments totaled $255.1 million.

The company’s shares closed at $14.02 on the Nasdaq and were up to $16.07 in extended trading. The company’s shares have more than quadrupled this year.

“There’s hope that with Rubinstein, who’s an ex-Apple guy…, Palm will go back and focus on what it’s really good at which is innovation and execution, which is where Palm lost some of its edge” said Frost & Sullivan analyst Ronald Gruia.

Reuters

The growing friction over control of online content threatens to become another irritant in ties at a time the world is looking for the United States and China to cooperate in helping to pull the global economy out of its slump.

China’s Foreign Ministry on Thursday accused Google’s English language search engine of spreading obscene images that violated the nation’s laws, less than 24 hours after disruptions to the company’s search engines and other services within China.

Spokesman Qin Gang did not directly say whether official action was behind the disruptions, but he made plain the government’s anger and said “punishment measures” taken against Google were lawful.

“Google’s English language search engine has spread large amounts of vulgar content that is lascivious and pornographic, seriously violating China’s relevant laws and regulations,” he told a regular news conference.

A spokesman for Google in China declined to comment.

Separately, U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke and U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk on Wednesday voiced concerns over the “Green Dam” software in a letter to Chinese officials.

“China is putting companies in an untenable position by requiring them, with virtually no public notice, to pre-install software that appears to have broad-based censorship implications and network security issues,” Locke said in a statement.

China says the “Green Dam” filtering software is to protect children from illegal images and insists the deadline of July 1 for new computers to be sold with the software will not change.

An official at the Chinese Ministry of Commerce, which handles trade rows, said the ministry had no immediate response to the U.S. criticism and referred questions to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, which also had no comment.

Critics have said the program, sold by Jinhui Computer System Engineering Co, is technically flawed and could be used to spy on users and block sites Beijing considers politically offensive.

The proposed new rules raised fundamental questions regarding the transparency of China’s regulatory practices and concerns about compliance with WTO rules, the U.S. officials said.

GOOGLE DISRUPTED

The software plan coincides with criticisms of Google by China’s Internet watchdog and access disruptions in China to the U.S. company’s websites.

The watchdog last week ordered the world’s biggest search engine to block overseas websites with “pornographic and vulgar” content from being accessed through its Chinese-language version.

Late on Wednesday evening, Internet users in China were unable to open several Google sites for around an hour, and some reported disruptions throughout Thursday.

A company spokeswoman at Google in the United States said the firm was checking reports of problems with access in China.

The disruption - coming soon after Google was criticized by China - “seems beyond mere coincidence,” said Mark Natkin, Managing Director of Marbridge Consulting, a Beijing-based company that advises on telecommunications and IT.

Google’s problems reflect the difficulties of foreign Internet firms competing in the world’s biggest online market while facing controversy over censorship.

Chinese officials have said their Internet moves are driven by worries about exposing children to disturbing online images, but an official newspaper reported on Thursday that a plan to recruit volunteers to scour the Internet for banned content and report to officials also has a political element.

The Legal Daily reported that 10,000 volunteers sought by Beijing would also search for “harmful content” that includes “threats to state security,” “subverting state power,” and “spreading rumours and disturbing social order.”

Natkin, the consultant, said the official pressure was most unlikely to deter Google and other Internet companies from continuing to operate in China.

“Google has to be looking at China as a long-term play,” he said. “The allure of the Chinese market, not just for Google and not just for Internet companies, is so compelling, so alluring.”

Reuters