On January 12 Google claimed that hackers from China had attempted to break into its infrastructure, in order to access the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists. Because of those hacks , along with other malware attacks on Gmail accounts and ongoing concerns about the Chinese government limiting free speech on the Web, Google said in its blog that it was "no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn" and that it would discuss with the Chinese government operating "an unfiltered search engine." If unsuccessful, Google said that it might close down or cut back its operations in China. It’s now over 6 weeks since Google’s original blog post, but there are no signs that the company has stopped censoring its search results in China – let alone shut down Google.cn. Sponsor Chinese Government Blamed Immediately after Google’s post, reports circulated that the Chinese government was behind the attacks on Google and over 30 other companies. Security company Verisign iDefense claimed that the attacks came from either agents of the Chinese state, or those acting on their behalf.
In a recent meeting with officials from The Wall Street Journal to pitch the Apple iPad, Steve Jobs allegedly and unsurprisingly had harsh words for Adobe Flash, calling it “old technology.”
Filed under: Hardware , Retail Looks like they might. That’s the opinion of a note out last night from Credit Suisse quoting meetings with Apple executives. The Wall Street Journal this morning quotes Senior Analyst Bill Shope as saying “While it remains to be seen how much traction the iPad gets initially, management noted that it will remain nimble (pricing could change if the company is not attracting as many customers as anticipated).” This is a similar situation to the original iPhone launch in 2007, where the original price quickly dropped US $200 from the original $599 retail. Agitated early adopters got a $100 Apple store credit from Apple. Apple will be watching sales of the device carefully in the early days, and the company appears to have enough margin built into the iPad to take some hits if it is slow moving.
Everyone is creating app stores ever since the success of Apple’s AppStore, which has generated 3 billion downloads in a couple of years. It’s only natural to think the app phenomenon will spread. So Google is developing its own app store aimed at selling business software, according to a stories citing unnamed sources in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal . Google already has a solutions marketplace where users of Google Apps can find add-on software and support. It also operates the Android Marketplace for mobile phone apps for its Android-based cell phones.
Yesterday afternoon, just before President Obama’s first State of the Union address, the websites of the House of Representatives and those of multiple congressional members were defaced with anti-Obama messages. Among the defaced sites were those of Charles Gonzalez (20th District of Texas), Spencer Bachus (Alabama’s 8th District) and Joe Wilson (South Carolina’s 2nd District). These sites are currently down for maintenance. Sponsor Here is the messages that greeted visitors to house.gov yesterday afternoon: FUCK OBAMA!! Red Eye CREW !!!!! O RESTO E HACKER !!! by m4V3RiCk ; HADES ; T4ph0d4 — FROM BRASIL All the affected sites used the Joomla content management system, but it’s important to note that not every Joomla site hosted on the House’s servers was affected by this attack. According to the Wall Street Journal , all of these sites are managed by GovTrends , a private vendor.
Rambus , a company that has been in a long, drawn out legal battle with Nvidia over five patents for what seems like ages now, had some good news delivered to it late last week. A judge at the U.S. International Trade Commission issued a preliminary determination finding that Nvidia had indeed violated three of the five patents — ruling that the other two had not been violated. Now, Nvidia says that the whole patent mystery continues to be a subject ripe for rexamination by the Patent and Trademark Office — which has consistently found the claims of infringement to be invalid. Nvidia says it will take the claims to a full commission for a final decision.
Filed under: Hardware , Software , Apple In all the years I have spent as an Apple fan, following various rumor sources and keeping my own mental list of who had the most credibility on various types of Apple theories, I never thought in all my days I would ever read, let alone write, the following sentence: The Wall Street Journal has just announced that Apple is releasing a tablet computer . All of their information is centered on the alleged mystery device that will allegedly be announced at a now official event next week. Here are some of the juicier tidbits they passed on from those mysterious people “familiar with” what’s happening on Inifinite Loop: Always partial to the education market, one thing this device might be used for is e-textbooks, presumably including the sort of multimedia content that goes beyond the printed page. Textbook publishers aren’t the only publishers Apple has been talking to. They’re chatting up Conde Nast, Harper Collins, The New York Times, and even CBS, Walt Disney Co, and Electronic Arts (for games).
Filed under: Apple Corporate , Hardware , Multimedia , Rumors The Wall Street Journal is reporting this morning that Apple is in talks with Harper Collins regarding ebooks for the new tablet. They suggest that the publisher will set the prices of the books with Apple taking a cut, in similar fashion to the 30/70 split currently in place for the App Store (but percentages not determined). The most interesting line notes that the ebooks “…will have added features.” Back in December, HarperCollins CEO Brian Murray noted that “…e-books enhanced with video, author interviews and social-networking applications” were a possibility. Just watch this demo from Sports Illustrated to get an idea of the potential. While consumers love the über-cheap prices being offered on the Kindle and the Nook, publishers would undoubtedly like to bump them up a little.
Amazing what a little success will do to a company, isn’t it? The Wall Street Journal is reporting today that Motorola has put the brakes on its search for a buyer for its Home and Networks Mobility division that’s responsible for the company’s set-top boxes and network infrastructure equipment. It’s easy to see why this might be a good time for Moto to pause and take stock of its situation — while no one’s even close to calling the Mobile Devices division’s turnaround complete, the focus on Android appears to have injected fresh interest (and commercial success) in a lineup plagued with countless duds just a year ago. Apparently the company is also discouraged by the fact that suitors have lowballed Motorola’s expected sale price by a billion or two, but make no mistake, the split isn’t off altogether — the executive board is expected to convene in the next few days to figure this all out before the next round of bidding is due in February. Stay tuned — by the end of the year, we could realistically be looking at one, two, or even three Motos depending on how this goes down.
The Wall Street Journal and Reuters are reporting that Google has hired Jill Hazelbaker to replace Matt Furman as head of corporate communications. Most recently Hazelbaker worked for New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg during his successful re-election campaign. Google has historically hired people with Washington experience, but bringing on Hazelbaker may anticipate a somewhat more ….
Last year was just miserable for private equity fund-raising in the United States. Hitting its lowest point since 2003, private equity (including venture capital) fell 68 percent to $95.8 billion across 331 funds, down from $300 billion across 508 funds in 2008, according to Dow Jones LP Source . No category of funds escaped the slowdown, except for secondary funds — a major outlier that saw a more than 50 percent increase in fund-raising. Here’s a summary of the other findings: 133 buyout funds raised $53.7 billion in 2009, down 72.5 percent from the $195.5 billion raised by 204 funds in 2008. Of the buyout funds, the largest were the hardest hit, with only six funds larger than $6 billion raising $14 billion between them.
What to read on your soon-to-come tablet computer? USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times are among the hundred or so American publications available for free reading in an ad-free, newspaper-style format on gadgets that run either Android or iPhone operating systems through PressReader.com . PressReader carries more than 1,400 publications from around the world. There are conspicuous holes — no New York Times, no Wall Street Journal U.S. editions — but you can get WSJ Asia and WSJ Europe, plus the global version of the New York Times, the International Herald Tribune .
We’d been hearing that Philip K. Dick’s estate wasn’t too pleased about Google’s riff on the Nexus-6 name from Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep and Blade Runner for the Nexus One, and now it looks like they’re doing something about it — Phil’s daughter Isa told the Wall Street Journal that the name is a “clear infringement of our intellectual-property rights” and that their lawyers are “dealing head-to-head” with the situation. We’re not exactly sure what that means: unlike George Lucas and the Droid trademark, Dick’s estate doesn’t have a trademark on the Nexus name — and even if it did, we’re not sure consumers would somehow be confused into thinking there was some association between Dick and Google. That said, we’re pretty sure the smart move for Google is to just cut a check and earn some feel-good PR here, but we’ll see what happens. Philip K.
Filed under: Hardware , Portables , Other Events , Apple Things are beginning to firm up on the specs of the rumored tablet device. According to the Wall Street Journal , who interviewed people who were apparently briefed today on the subject by Apple, “Apple plans to unveil a new multimedia tablet device later this month, but doesn’t plan on shipping the product until March. While the shipping time hasn’t been finalized and could change, people briefed on the matter said the new tablet device will come with a 10- to 11-inch touch screen.” Apple is apparently also working on two different material finishes for the device. Unknown is whether or not there will be two versions or if Apple is selecting one finish over another for the final device. This overlaps with a few predictions on the topic naming 10″ as the proposed size of the device, and adds yet another example where rumor has risen above the tech/Apple blogosphere to more general news sources.
Take-Two, best known for its Grand Theft Auto series, reported a $22 million loss for the quarter ending October 31. That compares with $15 million last year. Corporate raider Carl Icahn has also taken an 11.3% stake in the company. Read More: GameSpot , Wall Street Journal What is an “etc post?”
