Technology

Target Launches Mobile-Coupon Program

Using your cell phone during checkout at Target could soon earn you discounts.

Starting Wednesday, the giant retailer will allow customers to take advantage of special mobile-coupon offers on their handsets.

The coupon is redeemed when the bar code on the phone is scanned at checkout. Offers are good only once and expire on the dates listed. "We believe it's a competitive advantage for us," says Target.com President Steve Eastman.

Target says it will be the first major nationwide retailer to exploit the bar-code technology in all its stores. It almost certainly won't be the last.

For example, J.C. Penney is testing similar scanner-based technology at 16 point-of-sale registers in Houston. But at the rest of its stores, checkout clerks still must manually enter alphanumeric codes tied to discount coupons, rather than using scanners.

Scanning bar codes makes the process faster and easier, says Dan Kihanya, vice president of consumer marketing at Cellfire, the mobile-coupon company working with J.C. Penney on its Houston tests. "Any time you have data entry, you have to worry about errors."

Mobile coupons, while not new, are still in their relative infancy. "It's an area ripe for growth," says ABI Research analyst Neil Strother. Not everyone clips coupons, virtually or otherwise. But most people crave a bargain when the economy is tough. And coupon technology works with more and more cell phones.

U.K.-based Juniper Research recently forecast that more than 1-in-10 mobile subscribers in developed regions around the world will use mobile coupons by 2014, generating nearly $6 billion in redemption value.

Kihanya of Cellfire says mobile coupons are redeemed at a 5% to 20% rate, compared with about 1% for print coupons. Cellfire does much of its business with grocery chains, such as Kroger and Safeway.

Shoppers interested in Target's program must "opt in" by registering at the company's online or mobile Web...
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IBM Develops Earth-Friendly Plastic

When you recycle a plastic bottle, it doesn't necessarily become another plastic bottle.

Because of limitations in recycling technology, a common type of plastic used in water bottles and food containers weakens so much when it's recycled that it can't be used again for the same purpose. Some small amount of the plastic might make it into another bottle, but more often than not, it instead becomes synthetic carpet or clothing and can't easily be recycled a second time. So when those products are used up, they end up in landfills.

Researchers from IBM Corp. and Stanford University believe they have developed a way to significantly improve the quality of recycled plastic and strip away those limitations.

A new recycling method the researchers are announcing Tuesday involves a way to break the plastic down so that it can be reused again and again in the same form. It is an advancement that could intrigue beverage companies and help cut the environmental damage from making plastic from scratch.

The innovation is a new family of catalysts that can reduce polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastic to its basic building blocks, while retaining its original properties and making it "ridiculously economical" to build it back up again, said Bob Allen, senior manager of chemistry and functional materials for IBM's Almaden research center in Silicon Valley.

The project is in the laboratory on a small scale. Researchers are planning a bigger pilot at the King Abdul Aziz City for Science and Technology, home to Saudi Arabia's national laboratories. Allen said the technology could be commercially available within five years if the pilot goes well.

A critical question will be the price of the technology.

Andrew Williamson, a director with the venture capital firm Physic Ventures who has seen IBM's research, said it could help solve one of the biggest challenges facing food...
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As Ballmer Praises Apple, EFF Cites Stiff App Store Rules

With the stakes high in Microsoft's bid to add its search engine to the iPhone, a few words of praise by the software giant's CEO have drawn a considerable amount of attention.

"Apple's done a very nice job that allows people to monetize and commercialize their intellectual property" in the App Store, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer told a University of Washington audience last week.

Playing Bing-o

Although Ballmer was stating the obvious, observers and analysts quickly surmised that he was trying to sweeten the waters in advance of Apple's decision on whether to replace Google with Microsoft's Bing as the default search engine on the iPhone operating system.

Business Week reported in January that the two giants were in negotiations for that deal. Asked by Reuters about the prospects after unveiling the Windows 7 Phone Series last month, Ballmer said, "I hear the same rumors you do."

The App Store has more than 130,000 products for sale or free, fueling the sale of iPods and iPhones and creating a user experience that other smartphone manufacturers have tried to emulate. Microsoft's Windows Marketplace for Mobile has less than 1,000 apps.

No Denying It

"It would appear that Microsoft is no longer in denial about what Apple has accomplished," said Michael Gartenberg of the Altimeter Group, a technology consulting firm. "The question is, will Microsoft be able to drive a wedge between Apple and Google and find a new and unlikely ally in the mobile space?"

As Ballmer praised the App Store, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a San Francisco-based nonprofit, launched a broadside against Apple by publishing the company's 28-page developer licensing agreement on its web site.

Since NASA now has an iPhone app, the group cleverly filed a Freedom of Information Act request for the agreement that the government agency signed with Apple.

'Major Shift'

"The entire family of devices built...
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In College, Is Better Education Just a Click Away?

The students in Michael Dubson's physics class at the University of Colorado fell silent as a multiple choice question flashed on a screen, sending them scrambling for small white devices on their desks.

Within seconds, a monitor on Dubson's desk told him that 92 percent of the class had correctly answered the question on kinetic energy, a sign that they grasped the concept.

Clickers -- not unlike gadgets used on television game shows -- first appeared in college classrooms over a decade ago and have since spread to just about every college and university in the country thanks to cheaper and better technology.

But as clickers have become commonplace, a divide has emerged over just how sophisticated they should be.

Some professors like Dubson endorse simple, straightforward devices that stick to multiple choice questions. Others embrace fancier models or newer applications for smart phones and laptops that allow students to query the professor by text or e-mail during the lecture or conduct discussion with classmates -- without the cost of purchasing a clicker.

Those preferring simplicity say pared-down remotes reduce distractions in a multitasking world, while others say fighting the march to smart phones and digital tablets is a losing battle.

Clickers first gained popularity in large science lecture halls as a way of gauging whether students understood the material. They have since migrated into smaller classrooms and can be found in nursing and other professional schools. Even middle schools and high schools are using them.

Research at the college level has found that students like using the devices and attendance often goes up. But results are mixed when it comes to learning. Some evidence suggests clicker use has led to only modest gains in retention and test scores, while other studies have detected little or no improvement, according to a November article in the North American...
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Sony, Samsung Join Campaign To Push 3-D TV Sets

On the heels of the big 3-D television presence at the Consumer Electronics Show in January, Sony and Samsung are joining Panasonic, LG Electronics, and others in promoting the new technology. On Tuesday, Sony said it is aiming for 10 percent of its TV sales within the next year to be 3-D models, and Samsung announced a range of HDTV sets and Blu-ray players will ship later this month.

At a press conference Tuesday in New York City, Samsung announced what it described as the "world's first available full HD 3D LED TV," as well as a variety of related 3-D home entertainment products.

'World's First HDTV App Store'

Under a new promotion, buyers of a Samsung 3-D TV and 3-D Blu-ray player or home theater system will get a "3-D starter kit" with two pairs of 3-D glasses and a 3-D version of DreamWorks Animation's Monsters vs Aliens. The manufacturer also said it plans to make available a 3-D version of the studio's popular Shrek film series.

Samsung's 3-D offerings include 46- and 55-inch LED TVs being released this month, and others to be rolled out over the next several months. It also touted the 240-Hz refresh rate and Internet connectivity in the new models, as well as access to the "world's first HDTV app store," Samsung Apps.

On Wednesday, Panasonic will start selling its first 3-D TV in the U.S. in a partnership with Best Buy, while Samsung is also launching a 3-D TV and Blu-ray player offer with that retailer. LG said Tuesday it will begin offering its new 3-D sets in India.

Sony's first sales will be in June in Japan, and the company hasn't announced launch plans for the new products in the U.S. It has also said it will be releasing a software update for the PlayStation 3,...
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HP Swipes at iPad as 'Watered Down' as Rivals Line Up

Competitors in the fast-moving tablet-computer category are lining up to take on Apple's iPad. Hewlett-Packard is the latest to preview its upcoming slate product, and other companies like Lenovo, Sony, Dell and Acer are similarly positioning their products.

The HP tablet runs Windows 7, and was first previewed by Microsoft at the Consumer Electronics Show in January. HP published some details on its company blog last month and updated the information with a posting Monday that includes two promotional videos. The videos show a tablet device running Flash and responding to hand gestures.

'Not a Watered-Down Internet'

The positioning by tablet makers comes a few weeks before the iPad goes on sale in early April. On Sunday night, Apple showed its first iPad TV ad during the Academy Awards. It showcased the device's ease of use for e-mails, movies, music, photos, news reading, and web searching.

But the iPad is being criticized for several shortcomings, and the posting on the HP blog by Personal Systems Group Chief Technology Officer Phil McKinney emphasized some of those differences.

The HP slate product, McKinney wrote, gives "a full web browsing experience in the palm of your hand," not a "watered-down Internet." In particular, he noted, it has full support for Adobe's ubiquitous Flash technology.

Not coincidentally, Apple's mobile devices do not support Flash, which is used for most of the animation and much of the video shown on the web. In addition to being Flash-less, the iPad also doesn't have a webcam, HDMI high-definition output, GPS or multitasking.

Tablets from Smartphone Makers?

Ross Rubin, director of industry analysis for consumer technology at the NPD Group, noted that the apparent rush of competition following the iPad announcement in January is really the latest in a "long history of tablet-based computing devices." To date, no tablet product has been particularly successful, so...
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Building Your Own Computer: Not Just for Nerds

Buy a standard off-the-shelf computer and you're probably making compromises. It's rare to find a pre-configured system that meets your needs to a tee.

The simplest way to make sure that every piece of technology in a new desktop PC fits your requirements is to build it yourself. You don't have to be a nerd to manage the task anymore, either. The key thing is to enter into the planning stage by ensuring that the individual pieces -- the components -- are compatible with one another.

The key components of any PC are the case, power supply, motherboard and processor (including fans and heat conductive paste), memory, graphics cards, optical drive, and hard drive.

"Once you have these components, you can create a PC system that would suffice for most users," says Christian Kissinger from German electronics specialists Conrad Elektronik.

Each one of the components listed above is available in hundreds of variants. Deciding which one should grace the inside of your new creation is largely a matter of determining what kind of tasks the computer will be performing. A computer being used just for email messages and surfing the net doesn't require the horsepower under the hood that a gaming PC needs, for example.

Evaluating the individual components is thus a relatively important part of the process, says Josef Reitberger from the computer magazine Chip, but it can also be fun. He suggests checking the top products lists in well-known magazines.

Reitberger feels the challenge of physically constructing the PC itself is often overblown. "Good cases are constructed so that amateur tinkerers just have to tighten a few screws," he notes. And those even usually come included with delivery.

The process is a key part of the PC.

If you've already decided on a specific model, then the next step is finding a suitable motherboard. Once that...
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IT Workers on Leave Amid School Webcam Probe

Two information-technology workers at a suburban Philadelphia school district that secretly activated webcams on students' school-issued laptops are on paid leave amid an FBI wiretap investigation.

Lower Merion School District officials have said the webcams were only activated to locate missing laptops, and not for any rogue purpose.

"Placing them on administrative leave with pay is not a reflection of any wrongdoing on their part. It is a standard, prudent step in an investigation such as this one," the district said in a statement Friday, confirming a Philadelphia Inquirer report.

Technician Michael Perbix and systems coordinator Carol Cafiero went on leave two weeks ago, after a student's lawsuit revealed the district practice of taking webcam photos and screen shots when laptops were reported lost or stolen.

The district remotely activated 42 webcams in the last 14 months, successfully locating 18 of the computers. School officials have declined to describe the resulting photographs, or say if any were taken inside student homes. The district has halted the practice amid the lawsuit and resulting state and federal criminal probes.

In the civil suit, Harriton High School student Blake Robbins accuses school officials of invading his privacy by photographing him in his bedroom without permission. A vice principal later approached him, he said, and warned that school officials -- based on webcam photos -- suspected him of selling drugs.

Robbins, 15, denies the drug allegation. He claims Vice Principal Lindy Matsko mistook Mike & Ike candies for illicit pills.

Lower Merion, a wealthy district on Philadelphia's Main Line, spent $21,600 per student in 2008-2009, the most in the Philadelphia region and nearly twice the $11,426 spent on Philadelphia children. The district issues the $1,000 Macintosh laptops to each of the 2,300 students at two high schools.

Robbins' lawyer hopes to win class-action certification, but nearly 500 district parents have signed on...
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Panasonic and Best Buy Plan To Push 3-D TV Sets

In one of the funnier moments of Sunday's Academy Awards, Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin thought they spotted Avatar director James Cameron in the audience. The hosts whipped out 3-D glasses to scan the audience for the man whose top-grossing film has fueled more interest in 3-D viewing.

Common Sight

While the gag got some laughs, it may not be unusual for more people to carry around 3-D glasses this year. All the top manufacturers are planning 3-D television models.

And on Wednesday, Panasonic and Best Buy will kick off a partnership to put more of the struggling Japanese electronics manufacturer's TV sets in U.S. living rooms.

While neither company had posted a news release about the venture as of Monday afternoon, The Wall Street Journal said Monday that Panasonic hopes to revive flagging sales of its plasma sets with the 3-D push, and will offer a large discount for its 50-inch model at $2,500. The same set sells for about $4,800 in Japan. Best Buy will add more than 1,000 display centers in its stores to highlight the experience, the report said.

Panasonic, which trails Samsung, LG Electronics, and Sony in worldwide TV sales, unveiled its VT25 3-D set at January's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. That set comes with a battery-operated pair of glasses with shutters that create the 3-D effect, unlike previous 3-D technology that relied on color filters and glasses with red and blue lenses.

A Tough Sell?

But with the economy still teetering precipitously, is this a good time for new luxury goods?

"Absolutely," said Avi Greengart, a consumer devices specialist at Current Analysis. "Vendors are always searching for premium features that keep them from competing solely on cost. While it is true that unemployment is high and there is still a stigma attached to extravagant luxuries, a $2,500 price tag hardly...
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Verizon Reports Faster Speeds in 4G LTE Network Tests

Six months after launching trials of its new 4G Long Term Evolution network, Verizon Wireless has reported wireless data speeds faster than its own and competitors' existing networks. The recorded speeds are also faster than any competitors' promised 3G network speeds.

Trials in Boston and Seattle show the LTE network is able to hold peak download speeds of 40 to 50 megabits per second and peak upload speeds of 20 to 25 megabits per second, the New Jersey-based wireless carrier announced Monday.

Verizon's development of LTE began in August in response to consumer demands for more bandwidth and richer applications. Since then, engineers have been testing the LTE network in both cities with voice calls, web browsing, file uploads and downloads, and voice calls using Voice over Internet Protocol.

A Faster, Richer, Experience

The next-generation 4G cellular technology is more than 10 times faster than 3G and has enhanced security.

Verizon said it will be the first to roll out LTE this year, and boasted that the new network will have superior coverage and performance, thanks to its 700-MHz national deployment in 49 states, including Hawaii.

The company has an aggressive rollout plan for its LTE network, according to CTO Tony Melone, who said Verizon plans to deploy the network to approximately 100 million people in 25 to 30 markets by the end of the year.

The company already is in the process of installing LTE equipment at switching centers and cell sites throughout the nation as part of its investment in its voice and data infrastructure.

Analysts expect LTE to grow faster than past mobile standards. LTE is expected to take four years to reach 100 million subscriptions, which is two years less than it took for High Speed Packet Access to reach the same number of subscriptions.

LTE subscriptions worldwide will grow at...
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Apple's Suit Would Block HTC's HD2 Windows 7 Phone

Apple is attempting to put the brakes on potential for one of the first Windows Phone 7 Series smartphones. Apple's suit against HTC would block the company from releasing its HD2 mobile phone equipped with Microsoft's new mobile operating system in the U.S.

Apple's complaint before the U.S. International Trade Commission would stop the Taiwan-based HTC from importing some of its 7 Series phones into the U.S.

HTC has created some buzz recently for its HD2 phone. The device is the first Windows phone equipped with the HTC Sense user interface. It uses a sensor used to prevent false screen touches when the device is picked up to answer or make a phone call. The device also includes a light sensor that adjusts brightness automatically.

The HD2 is a super-thin phone with a high-resolution, 4.3-inch capacitive touch display, and a one-gigahertz Snapdragon processor by Qualcomm, and will use T-Mobile's 3G network.

So, why all the concern? Apparently Apple thinks the HD2 is too similar to its iPhone, observers say.

Core of Complaint

At the core of Apple's complaint is a claim that HTC has infringed on 20 patents covering various technologies that Apple said relate to the iPhone's interface, architecture and hardware.

Although HTC is based in Taiwan, it has U.S. headquarters in Bellevue, Wash. And some of the patents questioned in the lawsuit were likely developed in HTC's Seattle research and development lab.

"We can sit by and watch competitors steal our patented inventions, or we can do something about it," said Apple CEO Steve Jobs. "We've decided to do something about it. We think competition is healthy, but competitors should create their own original technology, not steal ours."

The lawsuit could affect not only the manufacturers and software providers, but carriers, too. T-Mobile USA could be hurt by the lawsuit, as...
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Mobile Cameras Help Police Find Stolen Cars

A growing number of police departments are turning to mobile camera systems to fight motor vehicle theft and identify unregistered cars.

The cameras read license plates of parked and moving cars -- hundreds per minute -- and check them against vehicle databases, said Lance Clem, a spokesman for the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, which purchased several systems for its police vehicles last fall.

Departments in Denver and Colorado Springs; South Portland, Maine; Gwinnett, Douglas and Cherokee counties in Georgia; and Clinton, Conn., are planning to deploy or have already added License Plate Recognition (LPR) systems this year, officials from those agencies said.

Also, about 40 law enforcement agencies in the Washington, D.C., metro area are deploying LPRs this year, according to Nate Maloney, a spokesman for their supplier, ELSAG of Brewster, N.Y. The district has had them since 2005, he said.

Newark, Albany County, N.Y., and Ann Arbor, Mich., added them in 2009 using federal stimulus funds, according to recovery.gov.

Last October, Lt. Scott Burke of the Portsmouth, Va., Police Department said he took one of their new systems out for a test, and in 33 minutes got a "hit" on a sedan reported stolen in a carjacking.

"We called in the troops, made an arrest, and the vehicle was returned to the owner," Burke said. "That was way cool."

Mark Windover, CEO of ELSAG, one of several companies selling the camera systems, said they can also help in AMBER Alert child searches.

Elsewhere:

*Norwalk, Conn. Police Lt. David Wrinn said the department deployed three LPRs in September and recovered seven stolen cars, found six stolen plates being used illegally and tracked down four missing or suicidal people by November.

*Louisville. Metro Police have used the technology since early 2007, said Lt. James Mueller, especially during big events such as the Kentucky Derby, when large crowds increase the potential for...
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YouTube Rolls Out Auto-Captioning for Hearing Impaired

To improve accessibility for the hearing impaired, YouTube on Thursday rolled out auto-captioning for all users. The video site initiated the project in 2008 and opened it up to a small group of users last November.

Auto-captioning combines some of the speech-to-text algorithms found in Google's Voice Search to automatically generate video captions. The video owner can also download the auto-generated captions, improve them, and upload the new version. Viewers will soon be able to choose an option to translate those captions into any one of 50 different languages, explained YouTube Product Manager Hiroto Tokusei.

"Tens of millions of people in the U.S. experience some kind of hearing impairment and recent studies have predicted that over 700 million people worldwide will suffer from hearing impairment by 2015," Tokusei said. "To address a clear need, the broadcast industry began running captions on regular video programming in the early 1970s. Today, closed captions on video are more prevalent than ever. But generating captions today can be a time-consuming and complicated process."

Technology Multitasking

YouTube is working to remove the barriers with auto-captions. If the video owner doesn't initially choose to auto-generate the captions, YouTube is making it possible for viewers to request caption processing with a button next to uncaptioned videos. Any video owner can click the button if they want to speed up the availability of auto-captions.

"This is of course a great thing for the deaf and hearing impaired. But it also illustrates how Google often uses its technology for multiple goals or products," said Greg Sterling, principal analyst at Sterling Market Intelligence. "Speech recognition was first rolled out in Goog 411. Over time that effort helped Google refine the product to do voice search and other voice functions on the iPhone and Android devices. This is yet another product of that same technology,...
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Management Shakeup: Infinity Ward Execs Exit Activision

Activision Blizzard Inc. said Tuesday that Jason West and Vince Zampella, executives at "Call of Duty" developer Infinity Ward, are no longer with the company.

Zampella had served as CEO at Infinity Ward, and West as chief technology officer, among other titles.

Activision also said it plans to form a new business unit around the "Call of Duty" franchise, focusing on online content and expanding the brand.

The shake-up comes a day after Activision said it was looking into breaches of contract and insubordination by two senior employees at its Infinity Ward studio.

Activision did not name West and Zampella in Monday's regulatory filing. But the filing said the company expected the "departure of key personnel" as a result.

Infinity Ward did not make every "Call of Duty" title. But it was behind the original game and the latest installment, "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2," which broke entertainment records last year when it made $550 million in worldwide sales during its first five days. By January, it crossed the $1 billion mark.

Activision said Tuesday it plans to release a "Call of Duty" game developed by Treyarch this fall. That studio had been behind less successful games in the franchise.

The company also plans a new "Call of Duty" for 2011 from another studio.

Philip Earl, who currently runs Activision Publishing's Asia Pacific region, will head the Call of Duty business unit.

Activision Publishing executives Steve Pearce, chief technology officer and Steve Ackrich, head of production, will lead Infinity Ward on an interim basis, the company added.

Shawn Milne, an analyst with Janney Capital Markets, said while having the top developers leave the company is "a new risk."

"A greater risk would be whether or not the two heads end up taking more talent away from (Activision), or the whole team leaves," he said in a note to investors.

Still, he...
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McAfee: System Security Is Weak Despite Locked Doors

Evidence from the recent Aurora hack attacks on major American corporations suggest that many may have tightly locked virtual front doors, but no cybersecurity inside their systems, a McAfee expert warned on Wednesday. In a Security Insights blog post, Paul Kurtz, McAfee's chief technology officer, discussed his study of the December-through-February attacks on Google, Intel, Adobe Systems, and other large firms.

He concluded that "Many organizations have tight security around financial systems and other mission-critical systems, but leave their intellectual-property repositories broadly accessible. The company might have strong perimeter security, but once you're in, the [source code] is readily available."

Protecting 'Crown Jewels'

The Aurora attack, named for what is assumed to be the hackers' internal reference to the operation based on malware findings, is believed to have originated in China. The incident has strained relations between the U.S. and Chinese governments and caused Google to reconsider its presence there. The Wall Street Journal reported that as many as 100 companies may have been targeted.

Kurtz said the hackers "went after the crown jewels of the targeted companies, their intellectual property." To do so, they likely tried to gain access to source-code management systems used internally to manage projects. Once they cracked the systems, they would be free to steal the code or implant malicious code.

Kurtz and McAfee's Stuart McClure discussed their findings at the RSA Conference in San Francisco this week, but didn't say whether Google or other companies lost their source code in the attack, according to the Journal. The two have published a white paper on their research available to companies on McAfee's web site.

Stepping Up Security

Data security is one of the fastest-growing technology sectors, with a 53 percent rise in open security positions in the second half of 2009, according to Barclay Simpson's annual market report.

"This is one of...
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Homeland Chief Outlines U.S. Cybersecurity Strategy

U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano outlined the steps DHS is taking to secure cyberspace at the RSA Conference 2010 in San Francisco on Wednesday. The former governor of Arizona also called upon experts and the public to contribute ideas to improve the nation's cybersecurity.

"All Americans have an important role to play in securing our computer systems and cyber networks," Napolitano said. "We are challenging our nation's best and brightest to utilize their expertise and creativity to devise new ways to engage the public in the shared responsibility of safeguarding our cyber resources and information."

Boosting Infrastructure Security

In her keynote address, Napolitano stressed DHS's dedication to recruiting and retaining the cybersecurity employees needed to confront terrorist and criminal threats. Moreover, she emphasized the department's commitment to supporting innovations such as EINSTEIN -- an intrusion detection program originally developed by US-CERT, the department's computer emergency readiness team.

"In the past year we've deployed the second phase of EINSTEIN to 11 federal agencies, and we will be growing to 21 this year," Napolitano noted. "And now we are testing the technology for the third phase of EINSTEIN," which will give DHS "the ability to detect malicious activity and disable attempted intrusions before harm is done to our critical systems."

Ensuring U.S. government continuity as well as private-sector services and information -- even as it protects privacy -- are among the important tasks DHS now faces, Napolitano said. To meet these challenges, DHS has developed "a national cybersecurity incident response plan in full collaboration with the private sector" that will be tested during an exercise in September.

What's more, DHS efforts continue to focus on "providing the ability to bounce back even more quickly should a large-scale attack -- or really an attack of any size -- occur," Napolitano said. To this end,...
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Court Upholds TiVo's DVR Patent Against Satellite Rivals

TiVo on Thursday won a U.S. Court of Appeals ruling against major satellite operators in a long-standing intellectual-property battle. The court ruled that Dish Network and EchoStar still infringe on TiVo's patent and should stop offering DVR services.

The appeals court upheld a lower court's ruling that the satellite broadcasters are violating TiVo's patent despite their claims that they had altered their technology sufficiently. In a 2-1 decision, the court said changes made after Dish lost the first trial were "not a major redesign of the software."

$300 Million in Damages

TiVo said it was pleased that the appeals court affirmed the district court's finding of contempt against EchoStar, including both the disablement and infringement provisions.

"This ruling paves the way for TiVo to receive the approximately $300 million in damages and contempt sanctions awarded to us for EchoStar's continued infringement through July 1, 2009," TiVo said. "We will also seek further damages and contempt sanctions for the period of continued infringement thereafter. We will continue our efforts to protect our intellectual property from further infringement."

Defending TiVo's IP in court is vital to the company, according to Rob Enderle, principal analyst at the Enderle Group. "This ruling reaffirms TiVo's market position and assures its technology, which is important for any company," he said. "Given how widespread this DVR capability is, it's particularly important to TiVo."

"Given EchoStar's refusal to disable the DVR functionality in its existing devices and the fact that its original attempts to design around TiVo's patent were wholly unsuccessful, the district court had ample justification for its determination that court preapproval of any new design-around effort was necessary to prevent future infringing activity," the appeals court said.

Another Appeal Looms

Dish and EchoStar aren't going down without a fight. The companies said they plan to ask the 12-member appeals court to rehear...
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Despite Denial, iPad Production Numbers Look Low

Despite an analyst's report that Apple is experiencing production delays on the iPad, which is supposed to hit stores at the end of March, Apple's Taiwanese supplier insists production is on track to deliver 600,000 to 700,000 iPads and another million in April.

Canaccord Adams analyst Peter Misek said earlier this week that iPad production could be limited to 300,000 in March and 800,000 in April. He also suggested Apple could limit the initial launch to the United States and even delay the product launch a month because of the production delays.

Technology site DigiTimes, however, reported that Foxconn Electronics, the Taiwanese manufacturer of the iPad, and its component manufacturers are on schedule to meet the targets for March and April, and said the launch will not be delayed.

On the other hand, analyst Vijay Rakesh of ThinkEquity said in a research note that checks indicate production is running slower than expected. "The manufacturing of the iPads was supposed to pick up in February, but volumes in March are still low," Rakesh wrote. "But checks are indicating iPad volumes will pick back up to the 800,000-1 million units/month [range] into April-May from the current 200-250K. We believe this is just a minor hiccup in a longer-term entirely new revenue stream and product road map for AAPL."

March 26 'Likely' Launch Date

Those numbers align with Misek's estimate of 300,000 in the late March time frame and 800,000 in April. Rakesh said the delays are not related to glass or manufacturing processes. Tim Bajarin, principal analyst for Creative Strategies, said the analysts' numbers are "reasonable."

Shortage or not, there is "already strong pent-up demand for this product from early adopters," Bajarin said. "This will drive the first wave of sales. Our estimate is that Apple will sell at least two million iPads in 2010, with the...
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Hollywood Wins as Real Drops DVD-Copying Software

Score one for Hollywood. RealNetworks agreed this week to settle lawsuits with major movie and TV studios for its RealDVD product, which allows users to copy DVDs onto hard drives.

As part of the settlement, RealNetworks will pay the studios $4.5 million to cover legal costs. In its announcement, RealNetworks said all parties have agreed to the "terms of a permanent injunction that will prohibit RealNetworks from distributing or supporting RealDVD or any other technology that enables the duplication of copyrighted content protected by the Content Scramble System, ArccOS or RipGuard."

'Litigation Behind Us'

Bob Kimball, RealNetworks president and acting CEO, said that, "until this dispute," his company had enjoyed a good relationship with Hollywood. He added that Real was "pleased to put this litigation behind us."

The agreement involves six major Hollywood movie studios, Viacom and the DVD Copy Control Association, as well as the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA). In addition to the payment for legal expenses and abandoning RealDVD or any similar product, RealNetworks agreed to abandon its claims against the studios.

Daniel Manil, General Counsel for MPAA, told news media that the settlement affirms that "it is illegal to bypass the copyright protections built into DVDs designed to protect movies against theft."

In August, Judge Marilyn Hall Patel issued a preliminary injunction against RealDVD. She declared at the time that the product would likely be found to violate the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and the Content Scramble System (CSS) license.

The MPAA said the Millennium act prohibits any technology that could be used to "circumvent measures" protecting copyrighted content. The CSS license, issued by the DVD Copy Control Association, bars companies from making technology to copy DVDs.

Slow Effort for 'Managed Copying'

Ross Rubin, director of industry analysis for consumer technology at the NPD Group, wasn't surprised that RealNetworks settled. He noted that Judge...
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Too Sick for the Office? Get To Work Anyway -- at Home!

Jeremy Lesniak owns a small Web design firm in Randolph, Vt. He has 10 employees and hundreds of clients. Sick isn't an option.

"I have two cell phones and a pager" he said. "I have taken partial sick days or just worked from home, but I haven't had a real one in over six years."

The swine flu epidemic had employers desperately trying to keep sick workers at bay, calling into question companies that didn't. But the economic meltdown has stepped up pressure on worker bees and bosses alike to produce from home rather than heal in bed, said Dave Couper, a career coach and corporate human resources consultant in Los Angeles.

"There's an implicit requirement to be at work -- partly because of the fear of losing your job if you're not there," he said. "Before, companies were OK about people being out sick. Now I don't see that as much. I've known people who have e-mailed from their hospital room or been on conference calls where they can hardly speak they're so sick. The recession has made it worse."

The self-employed -- those with access to technology and connectivity anyway -- and employees in small companies with fewer prospective subs really feel the squeeze with the sneeze.

Ashleigh Harris gives her San Francisco startup, which makes a new type of training wheel for kid bicycles, high marks for flex time. But with only three full-time positions, herself and the CEO included, calling in sick means work languishes.

"Things need to get done when they need to get done when it comes to building a successful startup," said Harris, the marketing director. "So if that means hopping on a conference call from my cell when I'm in bed, or sending a few key e-mails to hit deadlines, I'm more than happy to do it."

Some workers...
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