Steve Woda's blog

links for 2010-02-07

2010-02-07T09:01:17-05:00

Historic snowstorm in D.C. leaves a mess to be reckoned with - washingtonpost.com

The Washington region was paralyzed by a blizzard that dumped more than two feet of heavy snow on the area by late Saturday, knocking out power for hundreds of thousands of people, toppling trees and reducing many streets to pedestrian pathways. Almost 218,000 homes and business were without power at the outages' peak, and many had no heat midday Saturday at the height of the storm. By late last night, about 140,000 were still in the dark. Pepco advised customers to seek other lodging, saying it could take days to restore power to everyone. Some residents abandoned their cold, dark houses and checked into hotels. Others were trapped on side streets as snowplows concentrated on keeping major arteries clear.

(tags: snow)
Acacia: The Company Tech Loves to Hate - BusinessWeek

For a company that makes no products, Acacia Research (ACTG) spends a lot of time fighting over patents in court. Acacia has filed at least 337 patent-related lawsuits in its 18 years. To make money—sales are expected to rise to $68.8 million this year, from $34.8 million in 2006—Acacia acquires patents from inventors and then seeks fees from companies that it says infringe on those patents. Because Acacia licenses technologies it doesn't design or distribute, it is known as a "nonpracticing entity." Executives at many tech companies—and their investors—call Acacia and its peers a different name: "patent trolls."

(tags: patent trolls ip acacia)

Debunking the 'Patent Troll' Myth - BusinessWeek

Utter the term "patent troll" in tech circles and you're likely to elicit a visceral reaction. Said trolls are companies that acquire patents and seek payment from companies they claim are infringing on those patents. They're viewed by many as blights on the tech landscape, looking to make money from patents that shouldn't have been granted in the first place, thereby forcing companies to spend billions of dollars in legal fees and slowing innovation. Even the more polite equivalent—nonpracticing entity (NPE)—suggests a company that fails to produce something of lasting value. Both phrases are [Karl] Rovian in their ability to use emotional appeal to distract from the underlying issues, specifically the reasons why nonpracticing entities exist and may be vital to providing access to innovation.

(tags: patent trolls ip)
AFP: US House passes bill to bolster cybersecurity

The US House of Representatives on Thursday overwhelmingly approved a bill aimed at protecting the Internet and vulnerable computer networks by funding cybersecurity research and training. "Securing cyberspace is vitally important to both our safety and our national economy," Representative David Wu, a Democrat from Oregon, said following passage of the Cybersecurity Enhancement Act. "We cannot stand by and let the most powerful tool for connecting Americans with each other and the world remain the Wild West of technology," he added. The cybersecurity legislation, which was approved by a vote of 422 to five, allocates funding to improve cybersecurity in the federal government and the public and private sectors.

(tags: Federal cybersecurity funding)

links for 2010-02-06

2010-02-06T09:01:19-05:00

Google Is Now Selling Signature $300 Designer Scarves - washingtonpost.com

We all know Marissa Mayer is a tech nerd turned fashionista, and it looks like her taste for designer clothes is rubbing off on the search giant. But unlike the media or mobile industries, the fashion industry appears safe from Google. Google is selling "Google-inspired" scarves and other clothing to the public that were designed by emerging designers. Last year, designers who participated in a Vogue and Council of Fashion Designer program were asked to create a one-of-a-kind item inspired by Google in some way that reflected Google's aura. Google transformed the finalists creations into iGoogle Artists themes but selected three of the designers to produce and sell their Google-inspired couture.

(tags: google design)
Google Apps Enterprise Users Get Remote Device Management -- InformationWeek

Google on Thursday began offering administrators of its paid productivity applications the ability to manage iPhones, Nokia E series and Windows Mobile devices remotely, a feature that may appeal both to business users and consumers. Google charges $50 per year for Google Apps Premier Edition accounts, which are designed for corporate needs. Google Apps Premier includes Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Docs, Google Sites, Google Video, and Google Groups, and comes with 25GB of e-mail storage per employee. The service is interoperable with BlackBerry and Microsoft Outlook and includes business controls like password strength checks, forced SSL connections, and a 99.9% uptime guarantee SLA.

(tags: google apps mobile)

Women, Teens, and Seniors Help Fuel 34% Mobile Web Spike | Nielsen Wire

Web visitors using a mobile device increased 34 percent year-over-year, from 42.5 million mobile Web visitors in July 2008 to 56.9 million in July 2009 according to The Nielsen Company. Overall, year-over-year growth among the 13-17 and 65+ age groups outpaced the growth of the total mobile Web audience, with a youth increase of 45 percent and seniors surging upwards 67 percent in July. While men continue to make up a larger portion of mobile Web users versus women, comprising 53 percent of the audience in July, the growth of female visitors outpaced the growth of male visitors during the month, with women increasing 43 percent YOY as compared to a 26 percent growth among men.

(tags: mobile web teens kidsafe stats nielsen)
Under-aged Texting: Usage and Actual Cost | Nielsen Wire

The anecdotes documenting the love affair between teenagers and texting are countless. Many parents can attest that their offspring text rather than talk, even when they sit next to each other in the back of the car. Their children text in the morning before they brush their teeth and continue late into the night with the last text messages, also called SMS, sneaked in under the covers right before they close their eyes to sleep. Until now, there has been very little firm data available about how pervasive texting has actually become among the under-aged.

(tags: texting nielsen stats kidsafe)
Twitter not all that popular among teenagers, report finds

This just in: Most American teenagers could not tweet less. According to a new report released Wednesday, only 8 percent of online teens have embraced Twitter, a notable low for a generation so passionate about technology. Think of the millions of text messages that teens send. Think of their endless hours on Facebook. Twitter has not caught on in nearly the same way -- and experts suggest the difference is that most teens want to socialize with their friends and peers, not broadcast to the larger world. "Most teens are not interested in being truly public," says Danah Boyd, a researcher with Microsoft Research and a fellow at Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet and Society. Even though Twitter allows users to limit their circle of friends, it is "fundamentally a public system," she says, and teens "look at this and say, 'Is this the best tool for doing what I want?' "

(tags: twitter teens kidsafe)

links for 2010-02-04

2010-02-04T09:01:09-05:00

Acacia Awarded $12.4 Million In Patent Infringement Case Against Yahoo - washingtonpost.com

Nice timing, Acacia Research Corporation. The mother of all patent trolls patent acquisition, development and licensing company, which was profiled in depth by BusinessWeek just two days ago, this morning announced that it has been awarded a total of $12.4 million in a patent infringement case against Yahoo.
On May 15th, 2009, a federal court jury decided that Yahoo's messenger program with IMVironments ¿ which revolves around interactive backgrounds that users can add to IM conversations ¿ infringes US Patent Number 6,205,432, filed by a trio of inventors and published back in 2001.

(tags: acacia ip patent)

links for 2010-02-02

2010-02-02T09:01:25-05:00

On eBay, Twitter Followers Are Worth Less Than A Penny Each - washingtonpost.com

It used to be that Twitter followers were worth something, or at least people thought they were worth something, which is the same thing. It was only about a year ago when Jason Calacanis was offering $250,000 to buy a spot on Twitter's Suggested User List, which would have guaranteed him perhaps a million followers before Twitter ended up revamping the SUL to be less monolithic. He never got on the list, but if his offer would have come to roughly $0.25 per follower. Today, you can "buy" followers on eBay for less than a penny each. Some of the Buy-It-Now listings include 5,000 followers for $20 (which comes to 0.4 penny/follower), $5,500 for $40 (0.7 penny/follower), $1,100 for $10 (0.9 penny/follower). You are not actually buying followers outright (Twitter doesn't allow people to transfer their followers), but rather services which "guarantee" getting your account up to the promised number of followers through "proven and safe methods."

(tags: twitter)
IPhone users can now make Internet-based calls - latimes.com

Users of Apple Inc.'s popular iPhone may now be able to save money by making Internet-based phone calls over AT&T Inc.'s cellular network. Apple this week allowed new versions of several Voice over Internet Protocol services to begin working on the iPhone, according to those services. Previously, iPhone users needed a wireless Internet connection to make such calls, but the change will allow calls from anywhere that receives a strong enough 3G cellular signal. By using VoIP applications to sidestep the phone's normal calling software, iPhone owners could avoid using up their monthly allocation of minutes from AT&T, potentially allowing them to choose cheaper plans.

(tags: iphone voip apps)

AFP: China, US, Russia in cyber arms race: net security chief

China, the United States and Russia are among 20 countries locked in a cyberspace arms race and gearing up for possible Internet hostilities, according to the head of web security firm McAfee. Dave DeWalt, chief executive and president of the US firm said the traditional defensive stance of government computer infrastructures has shifted in recent years. "This movement from a defensive posture to a more offensive posture is just very obvious," he said on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. McAfee said it has identified at least five countries with cyber weapons, including the United States, China, Russia, Israel and France. "We're now seeing 20 plus countries, governments arm themselves for cyber warfare, cyber espionage, cyber offensive capabilities," said DeWalt. "There's an arms race going on in cyberspace," he told AFP.

(tags: security war)
Smartphone competition to bite in 2010 after Q4 boom - washingtonpost.com

Booming demand for new, cheaper smartphones helped fuel a recovery in the overall handset market late last year, but rivalry for a piece of this lucrative business will turn fierce in 2010 as many new vendors enter the market. "The smartphone market will become ultra-competitive in 2010," said analyst Neil Mawston from research firm Strategy Analytics (SA). "The smartphone wars will be good news for consumers, but the fierce competition will inevitably place downward pressure on vendors' pricing and margins," he said.

(tags: mobile smartphones stats)

links for 2010-01-29

2010-01-29T09:01:26-05:00

Bin Laden blasts US for climate change - washingtonpost.com

Al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden has called for the world to boycott American goods and the U.S. dollar, blaming the United States and other industrialized countries for global warming, according to a new audiotape released Friday. In the tape, broadcast in part on Al-Jazeera television, bin Laden warned of the dangers of climate change and says that the way to stop it is to bring "the wheels of the American economy" to a halt.
How to Design Web Forms That Don’t Suck — eCommerce-Guide.com

As an online retailer, Web forms are your bread and butter. There’s no use putting effort into designing great product pages and getting your customers to the checkout with bulging shopping carts only to have them bail out because your checkout process sucks. All businesses lose a percentage of customers during the checkout process; what percentage you lose depends on how badly your forms perform. Here are several ill-conceived practices that create bad checkout experiences — and how to avoid them.

(tags: Website forms design)

Book examines how U.S. mobsters, Russian gangsters have rampaged across the Internet

Fatal System Error is a true-life tale of how U.S. mobsters and Russian gangsters have exploited the Internet and the Web over the past decade to rake in the money. Author Joseph Menn of the Financial Times shows how cybercrime, techies and law enforcement get tangled up from Florida to Costa Rica and from Russia's Moscow and St. Petersburg on out to Kazakhstan. The first half of the book tells the story of Barrett Lyon, who as founder of Prolexic Technologies seven years ago applied his skills to protecting customers, a number being in the online gambling industry, against denial-of-service (DDoS) attack from extortionists who were bringing down their sites and demanding tens of thousands of dollars to go away. Lyon's technical expertise pinpointed the young Russian cybercriminal Ivan Maksakov, helping a multi-national team of investigators bring Maksakov and others involved in the DDoS extortion racket to justice in a Russian court three years ago.

(tags: security crime russia)

links for 2010-01-27

2010-01-27T09:01:18-05:00

Will Google's Nexus One Change the Wireless Industry? - Knowledge@Wharton

On January 5, Google launched the Nexus One -- the company's new "superphone" -- with a good deal of fanfare. At a press event, Google executives showed off the sleek device, based on the search firm's own Android operating system with integrated services such as Google Earth, an online map and satellite image tool. Google's software, combined with a speedy processor, represent a new category of phones "as powerful as your laptop computer of three to four years ago," said Andy Rubin, Google's vice president of engineering, in a statement. The phone also includes voice recognition technology for speaking text messages and emails, and touts a 3-D interface, among other features that had the tech world buzzing before the launch event.

(tags: google android nexus mobile)
The Tourists Have Gone Home: Venture Capital, 2010

Early-stage investing in 2009 mirrored the rocky overall economy with fewer deals, lower valuations of companies, and almost no exits. By October there had only been eight IPOs of venture-backed companies in the U.S. This was only a slight increase over 2008 in which there were six IPOs during the entire year.
The last time such a phenomenon with IPOs occurred, according to Wharton Prof. Raffi Amit, was 1975. "VCs don't see a light at the end of the tunnel, which means they can't go out and raise new money. They have to be very careful with what new investments they make because they don't see how they can get out of the investments they are in right now," he says.

Further, Amit notes there has been a sharp decline in fundraising. "Seed investments in particular, which traditionally have come from angels, have all but dried up," he says. "Angels lost a lot of capital in the last decline in the stock market and a lot of them have disappeared."

(tags: vc Entrepreneurship wharton)

links for 2010-01-24

2010-01-24T09:01:12-05:00

Washington Post - Obama's bank reform misses point entirely

One of my go-to guys here on Economy Watch is Miller Tabak equity strategist Peter Boockvar, because he's smart, fast and pithy. His morning note today is no exception.
Boockvar had a take on President Obama's attempt to rein in the nation's big banks, a plan he announced Thursday. Under the subject line, "Have we learned nothing?," Boockvar writes:...

(tags: obama economy politics)

links for 2010-01-23

2010-01-23T09:01:31-05:00

Technology use up in kids, parents losing ground - washingtonpost.com

Like many working parents, Beverly Flaxington armed her daughter with a cell phone in fifth grade, when the time came for her to venture out alone. At first, it was a great way to stay in touch. That was then. Now 13, Samantha's grades have slipped drastically and she's obsessed with texting, Facebook and her laptop, sometimes falling asleep in her clothes clutching her phone. When her texting exceeded 2,000 messages a day, her parents shut off the function from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. on school nights, and Sam "just went nuts."

(tags: technology kids children safety security kidsafe)

links for 2010-01-22

2010-01-22T09:01:22-05:00

"For Dems, the only good thing about the Senate election loss in MA is this: It could wipe the grin off Robert Gibbs's face." - washingtonpost.com

For Democrats, the only good thing to come from Tuesday's loss of the Senate election in Massachusetts is this: It could wipe the grin off Robert Gibbs's face. The Democrats' failed struggle to hold onto Ted Kennedy's seat in the liberal state showed how badly the party's brand had been damaged over the past year. But as the White House press corps challenged President Obama's press secretary on Tuesday afternoon about the anticipated loss, Gibbs answered with his usual mix of wisecracks and insults. "Broadly speaking, can you talk about the difference between 59 and 60 votes in the Senate and what that means for the president's agenda this year?" "Broadly, it's one," Gibbs answered.

(tags: polictics gibbs obama)
Technology Review: Blogs: Scott Brown, Voter Databases, and Social Media

One of the great supposed achievements of the 2008 presidential race was that President Obama and the Democratic Party gained a formidable political weapon: the most detailed databases ever amassed on the views and voting habits of registered U.S. voters. Obama had deployed social technologies on a grand scale. And Democrats were said to be ahead of Republicans in deploying distributed volunteers to make Web-enabled phone-bank calls. During such calls, volunteers could fill out online forms, building files on each John and Jane Doe--who they said they voted for, what issues moved them. In the two months before the 2008 elections, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) added 223 million new pieces of data on voters, giving the DNC ten times the amount of data they'd had in the 2004 campaign. (That's what Voter Activation Network, a company based in Somerville, MA that builds front-end software for DNC database, told me after Obama won.)

(tags: politics)

"Climate Change Authority Admits Mistake"... Are these guys for real?

One of the most alarming conclusions from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a widely respected organization established by the United Nations, is that glaciers in the Himalayas could be gone 25 years from now, eliminating a primary source of water for hundreds of millions of people. But a number of glaciologists have argued that this conclusion is wrong, and now the IPCC admits that the conclusion is largely unsubstantiated, based on news reports rather than published, peer-reviewed scientific studies.

(tags: climate)

links for 2010-01-19

2010-01-19T09:01:49-05:00

Chinese Internet search firm Baidu looks forward to life after Google - washingtonpost.com

In 2000, a 31-year-old software engineer named Li Yanhong, a.k.a. Robin Li, left his job in Silicon Valley and returned home to China to start an Internet search engine. He raised $26.2 million in venture capital, including a modest investment by Google. Ten years later, Li's company, Baidu, has become the dominant search engine in China, a goliath with 7,000 employees and a market value of $16.2 billion on the Nasdaq Stock Market. Google, which sold its stake in 2006 when it launched its own Chinese site, has lagged far behind, capturing less than half of the market share Baidu has here.

(tags: google baidu search china)
Scott Ritter, former UN Weapons inspector and prominent Bush critic, faces Internet sex charges - PoconoRecord.com

Prosecutors and police said on Wednesday that Scott Ritter, a former chief United Nations weapons inspector, will face trial in Monroe County Court in March after police accused him of innapropriate contact over the Internet with what he thought was a 15-year-old girl. Ritter, 48, turned himself in to Barrett Township Police in November after he was charged with having a sexual conversation with a police officer posing as a 15-year-old girl and masturbating on a Web camera on Feb. 7, 2009. Ritter was not charged until November after police went through the time-consuming process of obtaining court orders for computer and cell phone records. "We actually were not aware who he was until just prior to the actual arrest," said Barrett Township Police Chief Steven R. Williams. "We treated it like all of the other cases that we handle."

(tags: kidsafe child safety security UN)