No longer an oasis: Even Chinese search engine Baidu falters
Until this week, China was widely considered immune to the economic woes surrounding the rest of the globe. But now, the nation's Baidu search engine is experiencing some similar sounding financial strains.
Historically successful Chinese Internet search company Baidu.com Inc. shocked NASDAQ investors this week by slashing its fourth-quarter revenue outlook by $20 million (USD). Aside from the economic slowdown impacting just about every other corner of the globe, the Chinese search engine is now up against its own set of antitrust and other legal concerns.
Google Chrome, now minus the 'beta' part
Download Google Chrome for Windows XP and Vista from FileForum now.
Perhaps in response to a wave of blog posts commenting about how many Google products have remained officially in "beta" for so long, its Chrome browser release no longer has that moniker attached.
Sprint's debt rating drops to 'junk' status
The nation's third largest mobile provider took a hit on its stock price Thursday after Moody's Investors Service downgraded Sprint Nextel's senior unsecured debt rating to Ba2, known more commonly as the "junk" rating.
Sprint's stock has dropped 84 percent since the beginning of 2008. It traded at a low of $1.35 in late November, though it's currently back up to the low $2 range. (At press time, shares were trading on the New York Stock Exchange at $2.09, down $0.33 on the day.
Foreign language hate group slides under Facebook's radar
Facebook has been translated into dozens of foreign languages, but a hate group on the site in Serbian was left completely unmoderated, despite a tremendous user outcry against it.
The group "NOŽ ŽICA SREBRENICA!!" is a "Just for fun - Fan Club" of fugitive war criminal General Ratko Mladic, who was accused of genocide and crimes against humanity by an International Criminal Tribunal in 2004. Mladic commanded the Army of the Srpska Republic in the 1995 Srebrenica Massacre of over 8,000 Bosnian Muslims.
Does the MPAA want net neutrality after all?
A memo submitted to the Obama-Biden transition team by the Motion Picture Association of America outlines the MPAA's hopes for the next administration's list of international trade priorities.
Intellectual property concerns are paramount, as one might expect from the MPAA. Topping the list of the group's issues is "camcording," or the process whereby inaudible, shaky pirate copies of semi-current films are made. Mexico in particular is on the group's mind; describing the incidence of camcording there as "growing to crisis proportions," the group is working to secure legislation there, and they could use some help.
Palm eyes a rebound at CES, maybe with Linux
Seeming to take a cue from Apple, Palm Inc. this week sent out vaguely phrased invitations promising "Palm New-Ness" to journalists at CES. Will Palm launch a new Linux OS at the show? Or will it even resurrect Foleo?
Just when Palm, Inc. seemed to be utterly wilting away, the portable device maker has suddenly pulled an Apple-esque move, issuing a mysteriously worded invitation to a CES press conference.
Sony Ericsson, Samsung could be readying high-end Android phones
Could higher-end Android phones -- complete with 8 megapixel cameras -- finally be on their way to the US? Possibilities seem to be unfolding from manufacturers that include Sony Ericsson and Samsung.
When Sony Ericsson joined the Open Handset Alliance earlier this week, a Europe-based company spokesperson was quoted in Swedish-based IDG.se as saying that Sony Ericsson's first Android phone is expected to hit the market this summer, and that the joint venture will initially focus on the higher end.
Is there a new remote data execution exploit for IE7?
All that anyone knows for certain as of today is that there are some browsers that appear to be the victim of new attacks using a very old profile: embedded binary code for graphic objects appearing in IE7 Web pages.
In a security advisory issued yesterday, Microsoft acknowledged that its security team is investigating reports of a new data execution prevention exploit in Internet Explorer 7 that was not addressed during the previous Patch Tuesday cycle, though it stopped short of explicitly saying such an exploit actually exists.
Yahoo's CEO: So sad to see you go, in all lower-case
Citing a need to "better align costs with revenues," the Chief Yahoo couldn't sound less cheerful, as he told 10% of his workforce that their exit would have a greater positive impact on the company than a negative impact on them.
It hasn't been a week for cheerleading at Yahoo in quite some time, but this week, CEO Jerry Yang -- for whom "outgoing" now has new meaning -- finds himself in the painful position of seeing hundreds of his colleagues out the door for the last time, prior to his own exit.
Google thumbs through a few magazines
The Book Search has gone softcover, and how -- Google Book Search has begun to include scanned and searchable magazines alongside more traditional print forms.
For magazine junkies, in other words, your holiday gift was delivered early this year; yes indeed, baby's got back issues. It's unclear how many titles are currently in the system. Google's not telling, but among the treats we saw as we compulsively hit Refresh on the main Book Search page were New York magazine (and several for other US cities), Popular Mechanics, Popular Science, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Ebony, Jet, Vegetarian Times, Baseball Digest, Factsheet Five, Maximum PC, and American Cowboy.
The great crimeware boom of 2008, plus happy blowback
Looking for a recession-proof career that's booming? No one's recommending that you actually go into the malware business, of course, but the numbers for 2008 are perversely upbeat. There's even some genuinely good news for you.
The Anti-Phishing Working Group reports, for instance, that phishing-related malware (or "crimeware," as they call the stuff) had an absolute boom in the second quarter of 2008 (PDF available here). The group's analysis found a remarkable 9,529 URLs spreading phishing warez by the end of June; that's 258% higher than the number recorded during the same period last year.
HP debuts a cheaper process for flexible displays
HP, in cooperation with the Flexible Display Center (FDC) at Arizona State University showed off a prototype display this week that is paper-thin, flexible, and extremely energy efficient.
The technology for a full-color "e-paper" display, the consortium said, is approximately three years away from even being field tested.
Sun gives a cloudier picture of its cloud platform
This week, the company that at one time led the way in developing grid computing -- purchasing processing time remotely from a massive system -- made it seem its people were very excited to have the opportunity to take it all down.
Yesterday was supposed to be a day when many prospective Sun Microsystems customers were expecting to hear a major announcement about the company's next step in the field of cloud computing. But on the same day that engineers and company representatives on yesterday's webcast told attendees there actually were no major announcements, and spent 90 minutes telling them essentially to "stay tuned," the company disengaged its marketing and some of its support pages for Network.com, Sun's front-end for its Grid Compute Utility that premiered in early 2005.
Sun's JavaFX: Is it Java? JavaScript? Or something new?
Download JavaFX for Windows (all versions) from FileForum now.
We're told that the future of applications relies on app servers and rich, graphical clients. But will market share or common sense determine which method of building RIAs that developers choose most?
Android's Open Handset Alliance adds Sony-Ericsson, 13 others
The Open Handset Alliance (OHA), the industry group behind Android, this week gained 14 new members, including smartphone makers Sony Ericsson and Huawei, Eee maker Asustek; and Toshiba, another netbook producer.
With this week's addition of 14 new players, the Google-spearheaded OHA now has membership totaling 47 companies. In the smartphone category, Sony Ericsson and Chinese manufacturer Huawei now join HTC, the maker of the G1 Android phone; Motorola, a vendor that's acknowledged plans for an Android device in 2009; LG Electronics; and Samsung.
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