Internet users in China soars

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Internet use in China is growing by leaps and bounds as more of the country's citizens move into the middle class, results of a large survey indicate. A marked increase in the number of broadband users is generating a great deal of interest from dot-coms and technology firms looking to expand operations in China's burgeoning markets.

The number of Internet users in China increased more than 23 percent in 2006, topping out at 137 million with an estimated 104 million of those having some level of access to a broadband connection.

The China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC), a government agency that has been tracking online usage since 1997, reported the number of Internet users rose by 23.4 percent last year, accounting for 10.5 percent of the country's total population.

Another 17 million Chinese went online via mobile phones, accounting for 12.4 percent of the total Internet population, according to CNNIC.

"With a broadband penetration rate of 76 percent, China has already become one of the most-developed markets in broadband," Wang Enhai, an official with the CNNIC, said in the report.

In fact, China ranks second behind the United States, which has an estimated 210 million Internet users.

Good News for Business

The increase in the number of broadband users is generating a great deal of interest from dot-coms and technology firms looking to expand operations in China's burgeoning markets, according to a recent study by Forrester Research.

"Broadband is a key technology in consumers' uptake of Internet activities like social computing and e-commerce," said Christopher M. Kelley, a Forrester analyst who co-authored the report.

Between now and 2015, Kelly said, consumer spending power in emerging economies like China and India will more than double, from US$4 trillion to $9 trillion -- nearly equivalent to the current spending power of Western Europe.

The increased purchasing power will most likely be fueled by a billion consumers reaching middle-class status in these countries, a trend that is evident in China right now, according to the Forrester report.

Decreased Costs Equal More Users

Although affordability and low speeds were the major factors that slowed down Chinese Internet growth in the past, broadband infrastructure improvements in recent years have helped drive the costs of connections down.

The average connection fee dropped by almost 20 percent to 83.5 Yuan ($10.75) per month at the end of 2006, according to the CNNIC.

With the improved infrastructure has come a better-quality experience. More seamless content delivery has played a crucial role in the rise of users, according to CNNIC.

More than 70 percent of China's Internet users are under 30 years old, and 58.3 percent of the overall users are men, with 41.7 percent women, the CNNIC report noted. The two largest age groups for users are 18 to 24, with 35.2 percent, and 25 to 30, with 19.7 percent.

Service Leaps Forward

Online services like e-mail, search engines, e-commerce, blogs, online news and games saw rapid development, while new technologies brought new opportunities for the development of the Internet, Minister of Information Industry Wang Xudong said in the report.

However, there appears to be a growing disparity between the urban and rural areas, with Internet use in cities 6.5 times more than in the countryside, a situation that needs to be addressed in the near future, Wang said.

A lack of knowledge of computers and inadequate access to equipment and networks remain the main difficulties for Chinese who are not yet online, according to the report.

The statistics are based on telephone surveys of 32,325 Chinese.

Government Is Still Watching

On the same day that China's Internet community cheered the expansion of its members, the country's President, Hu Jintao, called on government officials to promote and better regulate Internet services in China.

At a study session of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of Chinese Communist Party on Tuesday, Hu said officials should "actively and creatively nurture a healthy online culture" that meets public demand, according to a report in China's official news agency, Xinhua.

"The rapid development of the Internet in China has played an important role in spreading information, knowledge and [the] Communist Party's policies, and it has also raised new issues for the country's cultural development," Hu said.

gaming keyboard

Amazon beefs up it's Askville after the shutdown of Google Answers

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Amazon.com is enhancing its user-driven research site Askville.com. Askville has been in testing for a few months and opened to the general public in December. As with leader Yahoo Answers, Askville is free, and participants can earn points based on the quality of answers they provide. Google recently abandoned its 4-year-old online answer site. You can also earn points for quality questions

Askville has been in testing for a few months and opened to the general public in December. As with leader Yahoo Answers, Askville is free, and participants can earn points based on the quality of answers they provide.

Participants will also earn a virtual currency called "Quest Coins," which Amazon says will be redeemed for unspecified prizes on the still-inactive Questville.com.

The new answer service is the latest in a growing portfolio of Web-based services from Amazon, which is best known for selling a vast array of consumer goods.

Another of Amazon.com's Web offerings -- the Mechanical Turk research service, where users collectively solve labor-intensive tasks like identifying specific objects in pictures and translating text -- will play a part in Askville by guaranteeing at least one answer for each question asked, according to Askville's Web journal. computer mouse

France and Germany want iTunes to open their DRM

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Apple is being challenged once again to open up its DRM by consumer groups in Europe. This time, Germany and France have joined the slowly-growing number of countries who are asking Apple to allow the protected songs purchased from the iTunes Store to be played on other music players besides the iPod. Norwegian Consumer Ombudsman Bjoern Erik Thon told the Associated Press that France's consumer lobby group, UFC-Que Choisir, and Germany's Verbraucherzentrale are now part of the European effort to push Apple into an open DRM system, with more countries considering joining the group.

By now, everyone who owns a digital music player of any sort is painfully aware that buying music from a particular online store locks them into that platform. Apple, the current market leader in both online music and digital music player sales, has been particularly stubborn about allowing its protected AAC files to be played on anything but iPods.

However, the company has been under some fire over the last year due to those restrictions, first with France and then Denmark looking to open up restrictive DRM schemes (including, but not limited to iTunes). Neither of those forced Apple to open up their FairPlay DRM, but last June, Norway ruled that the iTunes-iPod tie-in was unreasonable. Norway's Consumer Ombudsman gave Apple a deadline of June 21, 2006 to come up with a solution, but the deadline then got pushed back to August 1, 2006. Norwegian consumer groups were unimpressed by Apple's response.

Norway has now given Apple a new deadline of September of this year to change its policies, and the pressure on Apple will likely grow in the months leading up to the deadline. "This is important because Germany and France are European giants. Germany, in particular, is a big market for digital music," Thon said to the AP. Who will be next to join the group and how will Apple respond to the growing pressure?

Time Warner Runs Out Of HD DVRs

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NewsChannel 9 in Syracuse (New York) posted a story that said Time Warner had no more HD DVR boxes for customers. Apparently, there’s a shortage of HD DVRs because the company that makes the boxes have been “overwhelmed by requests for them”. Time Warner says that new boxes should arrive in two to three weeks.

NewsChannel 9 says that customers can still watch TV shows–like the upcoming Super Bowl–in HD because they have “plenty of regular high-definition boxes, without the DVR capabilities.”

I believe there are four reasons for this: 1) Super Bowl Sunday 2) a deluge of new HDTV sets purchased during the the holiday season, 3) the increasing popularity of DVRs and 4) the high price of the Tivo Series 3 HD DVR.

Customers that have a choice of HD cable boxes, prefer those with a DVR. That makes sense. Why not upgrade to a DVR after shelling out over $1,000 on a fancy new HDTV?

But buying a Tivo Series 3 for $800 (plus additional monthly fees) is out of the question.

So people want a Tivo but settle for their cable or satellite HD DVR. Something’s gotta give!

More layers on the HD drives soon

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To add more capacity to optical formats, stack on more layers

HD DVD’s dual-layer 30GB and Blu-ray’s dual-layer 50GB media is enough space to store crystal-clear 1080p video and uncompressed audio for today's movies, but media manufacturers are continuously looking for ways to increase capacity. Toshiba Corporation quietly announced on the first day of CES that the company has developed a triple-layer HD DVD-ROM (read only) disc with a capacity of 51 gigabytes.

HD DVD discs hold 15GB per layer. In order to reach a dual-layer Blu-ray Disc-besting capacity, an extra 2GB per layer was squeezed in, for a total of 51GB. Toshiba states that continued improvement in disc mastering technology has achieved further minimization in the recording pit, allowing for the boost in capacity to 17GB in single layer and a full 51GB on a single-sided triple-layer disc.

The new disc shares the same disc structure as standard DVD and previously announced HD DVD formats: two 0.6-mm thick discs bonded back-to-back. According to Toshiba, the added cost to produce discs with the third layer is minimal, thanks to the use of the same physical disc structure as DVD. Toshiba aims to secure approval of the new disc by the DVD Forum within this year.

While Toshiba has publicly announced its achievement, Ritek is disclosing behind closed doors at CES its own achievements in multi-layer HD optical media. Ritek claims to not only have been able to produce a three-layer and four-layer HD optical discs, but to have successfully designed HD media with a full 10 layers. The company says that its multi-layer process can be applied to both HD DVD and Blu-ray formats.

At base specifications, 10 layers on an HD DVD would yield 150GB, assuming 15GB per layer. For Blu-ray, the total over 10 layers jumps to 250GB, assuming the base 25GB per layer.

While those numbers do sound impressive, Ritek officials point out that the real barrier to this advancement is the lack of reader and writer laser diode technology to support the additional eight layers above the current standard.

Intel Countersues Transmeta for patents

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Three months after small chipmaker Transmeta sued Intel for patent infringement, Intel has fired back with a countersuit that claims Transmeta is using seven of Intel's patented technologies without permission, including one that covers an "apparatus for controlling power usage." The other patents cover various features of the chips themselves.

Transmeta sued Intel in October, filing an action in U.S. District Court in Delaware that claimed the chip giant was infringing on Transmeta technology covered by 11 different patents.

The patents were infringed by a host of Intel products, including the Pentium III, Pentium 4, Pentium M, Core and Core 2 lines of microprocessors, the company said.

In its first answer to that suit, Intel filed a response along with a countersuit claiming that current Transmeta products include technology covered by seven different Intel-held patents, including one that covers an "apparatus for controlling power usage." The other patents cover various features of the chips themselves.

In the countersuit, Intel claims the infringement was willful and that the firm will seek triple damages. Transmeta made the same claim against Intel in its original action.

In its first answer to that suit, Intel filed a response along with a countersuit claiming that current Transmeta products include technology covered by seven different Intel-held patents, including one that covers an "apparatus for controlling power usage." The other patents cover various features of the chips themselves.

Both companies did not respond immediately to requests to comment on the suits. In the countersuit, Intel claims the infringement was willful and that the firm will seek triple damages. Transmeta made the same claim against Intel in its original action.

The news boosted Intel stock considerably, with investors sending shares up 2 percent in afternoon trading Thursday, to US$21.95. Transmeta stock was up nearly the same percentage, to $1.05 per share.

Very expensive lawsuit

Each company has asked the court for injunctions barring the other from selling the infringing chips until the case is resolved, and both have asked for as-yet unspecified financial damages.

The suits could have significant financial implications. In its original filings, Transmeta said that Intel shipped an estimated $100 billion worth of Pentium chipsets that may contain the infringing technology.

The dispute appears to focus on the issue of power usage, including how chips can be designed to power themselves down when a machine is not being used. Transmeta's chips have gained a reputation for offering high levels of power reduction.

Energy efficiency is becoming an increasingly important consideration for many buyers of information technology, especially in the mobile arena. Several companies have begun to emphasize power efficiency in their equipment, and Transmeta has argued for several years that its chips can run as fast as Intel's, operate the same software and on the same platforms, and use less power to do so.

Though Transmeta originally attempted to compete directly with Intel and others, the small chipmaker now focuses primarily on licensing its technology and on providing design services to other companies.

Transmeta was seen forcing Intel and others to respond to their early success in the power efficiency arena, according to Enderle Group Principal Analyst Rob Enderle. Not long after Transmeta launched its energy-efficient Crusoe chips in 2000, Intel developed the Pentium M line, which has been a smash success and helped drive the popularity of notebook PCs.

Back and Forth

Transmeta's power-efficient chip lines include the Crusoe, Efficeon and Efficeon 2 brands; Intel is claiming that all of those lines may violate at least one of its seven patents.

In addition to countersuing, Intel said in its response that Transmeta patents may be invalid and do not meet all the conditions necessary to be patented, suggesting that Intel could launch a separate challenge aimed at having the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office overturn the original patent grants.

eBay used that approach to call into question patents held by MercExchange, which had sued eBay for violating its patents governing online auctions. Research in Motion also challenged the validity of patents held by NTP, though it later agreed to settle a suit brought by that company.

Whatever the approach, Intel and Transmeta should prepare for a lengthy fight if they intend to let the courts decide the case.

"Patent cases can take years just to get in line for a trial," said David A. Roodman, co-chair of the intellectual property group at Bryan Cave in Washington, D.C. "As we've seen, if the stakes are high, companies can dig in and the cases can take even longer to play themselves out."

Why Apple does not blog

Slashdot It! The first thing this minor controversy highlights is how potentially dangerous it can be for developers to announce anything in advance. Company blogs are the Pandora’s Box of such pre-announcements, even when not intended as such. Once something is stated in an official blog, the proverbial cat is difficult to stuff back into the bag.

The other thing about blogs is that written text fails to capture the full range of rich human communication. It's easy to take more offense than is necessary to the wrong choice of words. Minor and casual criticism can quickly ferment into a difficult stink, and attempts to bury it can often just make it worse.

Blog entries are like emails that cc: to the entire world.

If anyone is still wondering why Apple does not encourage its internal developers to maintain blogs, here's a good example of how the good intentions behind sharing information can result in unpleasant, unintended consequences.

Apple is already assailed for not delivering products it has never even hinted at; if the company automatically assumes responsibility for rumors, imagine its predicament if it were to cast ideas for future products into the permanent record of a blog.

Apple uses secrecy to generate interest and garner publicity right when it will best help sales. In contrast, Microsoft has long used published plans of future products to generate publicity.

By focusing on the future rather than the present, Microsoft can continually position its competitors' products against ones it may choose to sell in the future.

Openoffice can work better in Microsoft Office now

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Novell is participating in an open-source project designed to bridge rival document formats and thus enable its OpenOffice.org customers to work with Microsoft Office documents.

By January, Novell said, users of the OpenOffice word processor will be able to read documents saved in the Office Open XML format, the default setting for Microsoft's recently released Office 2007 suite.

"OpenOffice.org is very important to Novell. And as our customers deploy Linux desktops across their organizations, they're telling us that sharing documents between OpenOffice.org and Microsoft Office is a must-have," Nat Friedman, Novell's chief technology and strategy officer for open source, said in a statement.

The project that Novell has joined was established by Microsoft earlier this year. It is known as the Open XML/ODF Translator project. Novell said it will contribute the code for the translators to the project.

Last month, Microsoft and Novell signed a legal and technical agreement to improve interoperability between their respective products, including their desktop productivity suites.

Corel, the maker of the WordPerfect Office suite, said that it intends to support both ODF and Microsoft's Office Open XML format in future versions.

Apple's iPod is expensive in some places of the world

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Having already stormed world fashion, Apple's hip iPod music player is finally making its presence felt in global currency markets.

One of Australia's biggest banks, the Commonwealth Bank, has used the latest version of Apple's music player--the slimline Nano--to compare global currencies and purchasing power in 26 countries.

iPod prices around the world Here is the CommSec iPod Index, based on January 2007 prices for 2GB iPod Nanos.
1	Brazil	$327.71
2	India	$222.27
3	Sweden	$213.03
4	Denmark	$208.25
5	Belgium	$205.81
6	France	$205.80
7	Finland	$205.80
8	Ireland	$205.79
9	United Kingdom	$195.04
10	Austria	$192.86
11	Netherlands	$192.86
12	Spain	$192.86
13	Italy	$192.86
14	Germany	$192.46
15	China	$179.84
16	South Korea	$176.17
17	Switzerland	$175.59
18	New Zealand	$172.53
19	Australia	$172.36
20	Taiwan	$164.88
21	Singapore	$161.25
22	Mexico	$154.46
23	United States	$149.00
24	Japan	$147.63
25	Hong Kong	$147.35
26	Canada	$144.20
Source: CommSec, Apple

Along the lines of the Big Mac index launched 20 years ago by The Economist magazine, the survey prices the 2GB Nano in U.S. dollars and found that Brazilians pay the most for an iPod, shelling out $327.71, well above second-place India at $222.27.

Canada was the cheapest place to buy a Nano, at $144.20, while Australia ranked 19th at $172.36, cheaper than Germany ($192.46), France ($205.80), South Korea ($176.17) and China, where the machine is manufactured. The United States was fourth-cheapest, at $149.

"Interestingly, especially with freight costs close to zero, China is middle-ranked, in terms of global prices, at $179.84," Craig James, the Chief Equities Economist at Commonwealth Bank, told Reuters.

Purchasing-power parity surveys compare the prices of goods in different countries and at their simplest level can help show whether one currency is undervalued against another.

James said the results suggested that the U.S. currency had scope to rise against a range of major currencies except for the Hong Kong and Canadian dollars, or the Japanese yen.

However, the results could be influenced by different pricing policies that Apple might apply in different parts of the world, James said.

More than 21 million iPods were sold in the last quarter.

Q&A for Windows Vista Content Protection

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A conversation has cropped up since the recent publication of a paper scrutinizing how Windows handles digital rights management, especially for HD video. I've since looped back with Dave Marsh, a Lead Program Manager responsible for Windows' handling of video, to learn from him the implications involved and to learn to what extent the paper's assertions are accurate. The following is an article Dave has put together to address the misconceptions in the paper, followed by answers to what we expect will be the most frequent questions in the minds of our customers. Leave us a comment to let us know what you think. -- Nick

Over the holidays, a paper was distributed that raised questions about the content protection features in Windows Vista. The paper draws sharp conclusions about the implications of those features for our customers. As one of the Lead Program Managers for the technologies in question, I would like to share our views on these questions.

Windows Vista includes content protection infrastructure specifically designed to help ensure that protected commercial audiovisual content, such as newly released HD-DVD or Blu-Ray discs, can be enjoyed on Windows Vista PCs. In many cases this content has policies associated with its use that must be enforced by playback devices. The policies associated with such content are applicable to all types of devices including Windows Vista PCs, computers running non-Windows operating systems, and standalone consumer electronics devices such as DVD players. If the policies required protections that Windows Vista couldn't support, then the content would not be able to play at all on Windows Vista PCs. Clearly that isn't a good scenario for consumers who are looking to enjoy great next generation content experiences on their PCs.

Associating usage policies with commercial content is not new to Windows Vista, or to the industry. In fact, much of the functionality discussed in the paper has been part of previous versions of Windows, and hasn’t resulted in significant consumer problems – as evidenced by the widespread consumer use of digital media in Windows XP. For example:

• Standard definition DVD playback has required selective use of Macrovision ACP on analog television outputs since it was introduced in the 1990s. DVD playback on and in Windows has always supported this.
• The ability to restrict audio outputs (e.g., S/PDIF) for certain types of content has been available since Windows Millennium Edition (ME) and has been available in all subsequent versions of Windows.
• The Certified Output Protection Protocol (COPP) was released over 2 years ago for Windows XP, and provides applications with the ability to detect output types and enable certain protections on video outputs such as HDCP, CGMS-A, and Macrovision ACP.

It's important to emphasize that while Windows Vista has the necessary infrastructure to support commercial content scenarios, this infrastructure is designed to minimize impact on other types of content and other activities on the same PC. For example, if a user were viewing medical imagery concurrently with playback of video which required image constraint, only the commercial video would be constrained -- not the medical image or other things on the user's desktop. Similarly, if someone was listening to commercial audio content while viewing medical imagery, none of the video protection mechanisms would be activated and the displayed images would again be unaffected.

Contrary to claims made in the paper, the content protection mechanisms do not make Windows Vista PCs less reliable than they would be otherwise -- if anything they will have the opposite effect, for example because they will lead to better driver quality control.

The paper implies that Microsoft decides which protections should be active at any given time. This is not the case. The content protection infrastructure in Windows Vista provides a range of à la carte options that allows applications playing back protected content to properly enable the protections required by the policies established for such content by the content owner or service provider. In this way, the PC functions the same as any other consumer electronics device.

With that introduction, here are the top twenty questions, and answers, that aim to address some of the other points raised in the paper.

Dave Marsh - Lead Program Manager for Video

Twenty Questions and Answers

Do these content protection requirements apply equally to the Consumer Electronics industry supplied player devices such as an HD-DVD or Blu-Ray player?

Generally the requirements are equivalent for all devices. For example, an HD-DVD or Blu-Ray disc always requires HDCP protection for DVI/HDMI outputs regardless of the type of device playing the disc. There are some cases, such as DVD-Video, where PCs have slightly different protection requirements than CE devices, but these differences are mainly historical and as dictated by the licenses associated with the systems providing access to the content (e.g., CSS for DVD).

When are Windows Vista's content protection features actually used?

Windows Vista's content protection mechanisms are only used when required by the policy associated with the content being played. For Windows Vista experiences, if the content does not require a particular protection, then that protection mechanism is not used.

Will the playback quality be reduced on some video output types?

Image quality constraints are only active when required by the policy associated with the content being played, and then only apply to that specific content -- not to any other content on the user's desktop. As a practical matter, image constraint will typically result in content being played at no worse than standard definition television resolution. In the case of HD optical media formats such as HD-DVD and Blu-Ray, the constraint requirement is 520K pixels per frame (i.e., roughly 960x540), which is still higher than the native resolution of content distributed in the DVD-Video format. We feel that this is still yields a great user experience, even when using a high definition screen.

Will this affect things like medical imagery applications?

Image constraints only apply to protected content being played and not to the desktop as a whole; therefore, the resolution of other non-protected media, such as medical images, is not affected.

Do things such as HFS (Hardware Functionality Scan) affect the ability of the open-source community to write a driver?

No. HFS uses additional chip characteristics other than those needed to write a driver. HFS requirements should not prevent the disclosure of all the information needed to write drivers.

Will the Windows Vista content protection board robustness recommendations increase the cost of graphics cards and reduce the number of build options?

Everything was moving to be integrated on the one chip anyway and this is independent of content protection recommendations. Given that cost (particularly chip cost) is most heavily influenced by volume, it is actually better to avoid making things optional through the use of external chips. It is a happy side effect that this technology trend also reduces the number of vulnerable tracks on the board.

Will Windows Vista content protection features increase CPU resource consumption?

Yes. However, the use of additional CPU cycles is inevitable, as the PC provides consumers with additional functionality. Windows Vista's content protection features were developed to carefully balance the need to provide robust protection from commercial content while still enabling great new experiences such as HD-DVD or Blu-Ray playback.

Aren't there already output content protection features in Windows XP?

Yes. Output content protections are not new requirements for commercial content. The CSS content protection system for DVD-video discs requires output protections such as Macrovision ACP and limiting the resolution on component video outputs to standard definition. Windows XP has supported these requirements for some time.

Is content protection something that is tied to High Definition video?

While HD content has some unique content protection requirements, many of the requirements apply to commercial content generally, independent of resolution.

What about S/PDIF audio connections?

Windows Vista does not require S/PDIF to be turned off, but Windows Vista continues to support the ability to turn it off for certain content -- a capability that has been present on the Windows platform for many years. Additionally, in order to support the requirements of some types of content, Windows Vista supports the ability to constrain the quality of the audio component of that content. Similar to image constraint for video, this quality constraint only applies to the audio from content whose policy requires the constraint, not to any other audio being played concurrently on the system. As a practical matter, these audio restrictions are not widely used today.

Will Component (YPbPr) video outputs be disabled by Windows Vista's content protection?

Similar to S/PDIF, Windows Vista does not require component video outputs to be disabled, but rather enables the enforcement of the usage policy set by content owners or service providers, including with respect to output restrictions and image constraint.

Will echo cancellation work less well for premium content?

We believe that Windows Vista provides applications with access to sufficient information to successfully build high quality echo cancellation functionality.

Will it mean that there will no longer be unified graphics drivers?

The Windows Vista content protection requirements for graphics drivers will not lead to movement away from unified drivers. In fact, all graphics drivers shipped with Windows Vista are unified drivers.

Will Windows Vista audio content protection mean that HDMI outputs can't be shown as S/PDIF outputs?

It is better if they show as different codec types, as it allows the difference to be reflected in the UI, thus providing the user help with their configuration and creating a better user experience. The user wants to know the difference between HDMI and S/PDIF, as they are different physical connectors.

What is revocation and where is it used?

Renewal and revocation mechanisms are an important part of providing robust protection for commercial audiovisual content. In the rare event that a revocation is required, Microsoft will work with the affected IHV to ensure that a new driver is made available, ideally in advance of the actual revocation. Revocation only impacts a graphics driver's ability to receive certain commercial audiovisual content; otherwise, the revoked driver will continue to function normally.

Does this complicate the process of writing graphics drivers?

Adding new functionality usually introduces new complexity. In this case, additional complexity is added to the graphics driver, but that complexity comes with the direct consumer benefit of new scenarios such as HD-DVD or Blu-Ray playback.

Will the 'tilt bit' mechanism cause problems even when the driver is not under attack from a hacker, e.g., when there are voltage spikes?

It is pure speculation to say that things like voltage fluctuations might cause a driver to think it is under attack from a hacker. It is up to a graphics IHV to determine what they regard as an attack. Even if such an event did cause playback to stop, the user could just press 'play' again and carry on watching the movie (after the driver has re-initialized, which takes about a second). Again, it is important to note that this could only occur in the case of watching the highest-grade premium content, such as HD-DVD or Blu-Ray. In practice I doubt it would ever actually happen.

Does Windows Vista's use of OMAC-authenticated communication impact graphics driver performance?

The authenticated communication mechanisms used for Protected Video Path in Windows Vista are only actively used while commercial content is playing. This means that while there is a performance impact, it is limited to the scenarios where it is required to provide robust protection for commercial content.

Do content protection requirements mean that graphics chips have to provide hardware acceleration for video decode?

No. The Windows Vista content protection requirements do not require that graphics hardware include hardware acceleration for decode for many years, but such support is highly recommended to improve the user experience for HD content.

Will the video and audio content protection mechanisms affect gaming on the PC?

The Windows Vista content protection features were design for commercial audiovisual content and are typically not used in game applications. A game author would have to specifically request these features for them to impact game performance.

Caution! When you play PS3s in shops, they might just freeze up while you are playing

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While what I say is exactly true, people in Gamestop is complaining that the PS3 is crashing while they are playing. Someone explained to me how when the machine would freeze, he would have to unlock the kiosk and hard reset the machine -- every time. It was easier, he said, to just leave it off and let people drool all over the protective plastic that housed what appeared to be an empty shell of a PlayStation 3 -- if you don't know, the actual unit is housed below the kiosk and is not visible. This, to me, was a fine explanation, and not surprising considering reports I've heard of units freezing at trade shows; and hey, the damned thing is cased in metal with little or no ventilation. I'll let it slide.

Intel shows off Penryn chips

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Intel says its 45-nanometer chips are almost ready for prime time.

The company demonstrated PCs and servers running its upcoming Penryn family of chips this week during a briefing for the press and analysts on its new transistor design for the 45-nanometer generation. Penryn is the code name for a family of desktop, notebook and server chips based on Intel's Core microarchitecture, and systems with the chips will be available before the end of this year, said CEO Paul Otellini at the event.

Penryn chips will come with the SSE4 instructions Intel announced at the Intel Developer Forum in September, said Stephen Smith, vice president and director of desktop platform operations. Smith called the new instructions "the biggest change to our instruction set in about five years," and said they improve the performance of multimedia applications and technical computing.

The Penryn chips are the first iteration of the new manufacturing strategy outlined by Otellini earlier this year. Intel wants to introduce new chip microarchitectures and manufacturing technologies on a regular two-year cadence, which the company refers to as the "tick-tock" strategy.

Penryn is essentially a shrink of the Core 2 Duo chips, with a few extras like the SSE4 instructions. It's being introduced along with the new manufacturing technology, the "tick" of Intel's plans. Then next year, when the 45-nanometer manufacturing technology is mature, Intel will introduce a new chip microarchitecture code-named Nehalem--the "tock"--with more significant changes to the chip design.

The rapid cadence is designed to ensure Intel won't get fooled again. Advanced Micro Devices caught Intel off guard earlier this decade, introducing a new chip architecture that represented a significant improvement in performance and power efficiency over Intel's chips at the time. Intel would like to avoid having to scrap years of planning again, so it is making smaller changes to its chip blueprints on a more frequent basis to keep up with the times.

The tide has started to turn back in Intel's favor with the Core 2 Duo chips. But one area where Intel has never fallen behind AMD is chip manufacturing.

Intel has been shipping chips based on its 65-nanometer manufacturing technology since late 2005, while AMD just last month introduced its first 65-nanometer chips. If Intel successfully introduces the Penryn family, it will have 45-nanometer chips out well before AMD's planned 2008 rollout of similar chips.

Smaller transistors have lots of benefits. Chip makers can improve performance by putting more transistors on the same size chip and dial-down power consumption by getting more work done. There's an economic upside as well, in that the chips themselves can be made smaller. This allows Intel and AMD to cut more chips from a single silicon wafer, reducing the cost to build an individual chip and making investors happy with fatter profit margins.

AMD has outlined plans to try to catch up to Intel, vowing to introduce its own 45-nanometer chips 18 months after its 65-nanometer chips, instead of the usual two years. Intel's Penryn demonstration puts additional pressure on that transition.

Apple user watch out in the month of January

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Apple's renowned reputation of having close to zero exploits is coming under the spotlight of many when January comes.

Two individuals, independent security researcher Kevin Finisterre, and a hacker called LMH, say they plan to publish a previously unknown Apple vulnerability every day throughout January. The pair will be scouring Apple OS X and applications that run on top of it.

Finisterre has found a number of bugs in Apple's software in recent years. In early 2006 he wrote a proof-of-concept worm that spread between OS X machines via a Bluetooth vulnerability.

Take-up of Macs is growing, partly due to the success of Apple's iPod, and the recent move to Intel chips could help the company grow its market share further. This, some claim, will inevitably make it a more tempting target for hackers -- if they can find vulnerabilities to exploit.

Thor argued that while Apple users should take security seriously, the Mac platform offered greater security.

"No reasonable user of any computer system, including Mac users, believes their system is bulletproof. Every system has flaws, and everyone needs to be cautious," wrote Thor.

Apple itself said that: "Apple takes security very seriously and has a great track record of addressing potential vulnerabilities before they can affect users. We always welcome feedback on how to improve security on the Mac."

At Least 25 Million Americans Pirate Movies

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Roughly 25 million Americans -- or 18 percent of the U.S. online population -- have illegally downloaded a full-length movie, a study released Wednesday asserts.

In a study of 2,600 Americans polled via telephone and online, Digital Life America, a unit of Solutions Research Group, found that 32 million Americans had downloaded a movie at some point in the past.

Of that number, 80 percent of those users -- or 25.6 million Americans -- exclusively used peer-to-peer file-sharing sites, the vast majority of which have typically been used for exchanging copyrighted files. The number of regular file-sharing users doubled between 2005 and 2006, the study found.

"It's all inclusive but as we note a few lines down, 80 percent of downloaders use only P2P," said Kaan Yigit, the director of the study, in an email Wednesday night. "CinemaNow!, MovieLink, Amazon Unbox are miniscule at this point - iTunes accounts for bulk of whatever legal downloads there is." The study's authors didn't clarify whether "downloaded" implied illegal downloads or participation in legal services such as CinemaNow! Some file-sharing sites, such as BitTorrent.org, have also signed deals with movie houses for legal distribution of licensed films. The authors of the study did not respond to a request for clarification by post time.

The perspective is that users simply don't care, or believe, that that the studios are being hurt by piracy, the self-funded study found. The survey revealed that 78 percent of those surveyed found that physcially stealing a DVD from a store was a serious offense, but only 40 percent believed copying the movie digital also merited a serious offense. The study pointed out that those surveyed described an example of a "serious offense" as parking in a fire lane.

"There is a Robin Hood effect -- most people perceive celebrities and studios to be rich already and as a result don't think of movie downloading as a big deal," Yigit said, in a statement. "The current crop of 'download to own' movie services and the new ones coming into the market will need to offer greater flexibility of use, selection and low prices to convert the current users to their services -- otherwise file-sharing will continue to thrive."

The study also found:

• A typical movie downloader is 29 years of age; 63 percent of all downloaders are male, and 37 percent are female.
• A downloader typically has 16 full-length movies stored on his PC.
• Of those surveyed, 56 percent watched a DVD on a PC at some point, while 29 percent watched a DVD on a PC in the last month. About 25 percent have watched a streaming TV show on their PC.

China's Baidu receives license to provide news

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Chinese Internet search leader Baidu won approval to become an online news portal, government and industry sources said on Tuesday, heating up a rivalry in the world's second-largest Web market.

China's State Council Information Office (SCIO), granted Baidu an Internet news content service license last week, a government source said, allowing Baidu.com--often referred to as "China's Google"--to do its own reporting rather than simply show news search results at present.

"This is definitely competition for Google," said Doug Crets, a Hong Kong-based researcher at Media Partners Asia.

The SCIO is the cabinet spokesman's office, which is responsible for the government news release and jointly regulates Internet content with the culture and information ministries.

Baidu had already started preparing its news department and had been ready to hire news-related staff, said the government source who is familiar with the situation. The company also changed the logo and name of its "Information" channel to "News" channel in Chinese characters on baidu.com early last week.

A rare license

China is relaxing its controls on its media and journalists in the run-up to the 2008 Beijing Olympics, but it still routinely censors news it deems politically sensitive for fear that it could incite social unrest.

China's largest Internet portal, Sina.com, obtained a news service permit a few years ago and carries its own reports. Still, Baidu is the first online search engine in China to win such a license.

"A news license is a rare resource to Internet companies in China. So far only very few Web sites are allowed to report news legally in the country," said the government source.

News and search are the two most popular Internet hobbies among over 120 million Chinese Web users, according to a government research report.

Industry watchers say Baidu's news ambition can help it sell more online advertising as more users are expected to see Baidu as a portal similar to Sina.com.

Google, the world's top search engine, drew criticism a year ago for bowing to Chinese government pressure to block politically sensitive terms on its new Chinese site, in return for access to the world's No. 2 Internet market.

Homegrown players such as Sohu.com, which received a news distribution license in 2000, Baidu, and China sites operated by Yahoo and Microsoft all routinely block searches on politically sensitive terms such as the Falun Gong movement and Taiwan independence.

From January 1, China will temporarily lift most restrictions on where foreign reporters may go in China and whom they can talk to in the run-up to the 2008 Beijing Olympics, although military zones and Tibet are out of bounds.

Google placing ads on online Video Games

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Placing ads within online video games isn't an entirely new idea, but Google's entry into the space may cause it to take flight. The search giant, famous for its success in Internet advertising, reportedly will acquire Adscape Media as a vehicle to enter -- or perhaps take over -- the video game advertising world.

In-game ads include virtual billboards in urban environments, as well as special puzzles or challenges built directly into the game play when the games are connected to the Internet.

A virtual billboard, for example, could change to reflect new advertisements. Over the course of a single summer, the same billboard could show advertisements for different summer blockbuster movies. A player might be able to stop and watch a movie trailer, or even complete an immersive task built into the game itself.

In "True Crime: New York City," Puma and Activision created a mission challenging players to locate a special set of Puma shoes and return them to a particular store.

What does Google's entry mean?

"I think what keeps advertisers from adopting the medium is that it doesn't feel obviously relevant to them. If you're a bank or traditional advertiser, games are not the first thing you think of because they feel so untested," Shar VanBoskirk, an analyst for Forrester Research, told the E-Commerce Times. "I think what Google's entry into the space does is give the whole space credibility."

Microsoft took the first step toward increasing in-game advertising credibility last year when it acquired Massive, another in-game advertising company, reportedly for US$200 million-$400 million.

Even though in-game advertising is relatively young, Yankee Group has projected the in-game advertising market to explode, reaching a market value of $732 million by 2010.

Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Sony's Playstation 3 now make it easier than ever to connect console-based games, rather than PC-only games, to the Internet. In addition, the rapidly growing game industry is a prime place to attract the attention of 18- to 34-year-old males, a highly-valuable demographic for advertisers.

"What makes in-game advertising a viable place is that it's an engaging place for users," VanBoskirk noted.

"We're in an era where consumers are reacting to too much media in a negative way. They are starting to filter out messages, they aren't paying attention, and games are the last bastion where consumers are paying attention to the medium and are actively engaged with it," she explained. "So advertising that's placed in a smart way in the game can actually contribute to the gaming experience while communicating a brand or product message."

Google's Influence

Part of the problem for fledgling in-game advertisers is understanding what, exactly, they're buying in an online game.

"The advertiser craves standard ad formats, and yet it's precisely standard advertising formats that the consumer can tune out so easily," VanBoskirk added. "What the gaming environment needs is some definition of what you're paying for."

Can Google help define standard in-game advertising formats? Mostly likely, yes.

"Google takes a technological approach to a marketplace, meaning that they can develop technology that improves the delivery mechanism for advertising," Yankee Group Senior Analyst Michael Goodman told the E-Commerce Times. "In theory, Google could provide a cross-platform ad buy -- you could buy online, print, radio, and in-game. Since they haven't announced anything yet, it's hypothetical, but if you want to take advantage of it, that's what you want to do."

Google's ability to make ad buying easy, ultimately, is what might make it possible for many new advertisers to get in on in-game advertising.

Wal-Mart uses Microsoft for their Web operations

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Retail giant Wal-Mart Stores is contracting with Microsoft and Novell--Microsoft's preferred Linux partner--to build out the company's Web operations, according to a Wal-Mart executive.

On Tuesday, Microsoft and Novell are expected to announce that Wal-Mart is the latest customer to purchase both Microsoft software and support certificates for Novell's Suse Linux Enterprise Server.

In an interview arranged by both companies, Wal-Mart's senior vice president and chief technology officer, Nancy Stewart, provided some details on the project involving Wal-Mart, Microsoft and Novell.

Stewart said Wal-Mart is in the midst of expanding its Web presence globally. The partnership between Microsoft and Novell, announced last November, provides "a fine support structure" for the project, she said.

Wal-Mart, currently a Red Hat Linux customer, intends to use Windows Server and Suse Linux Enterprise Server in the expansion, she said.

With the partnership, Microsoft is seeking to make Novell its preferred Linux provider and to have both companies' products work well together. Microsoft offers coupons for Suse Enterprise Linux support services as well as legal indemnification for customers who use both Microsoft and Novell's Linux, which is open-source.

Wal-Mart, a global retailing giant with $315 billion in annual revenue, is already a Microsoft customer, and Stewart said the multiyear relationship has been "outstanding."

She said the intellectual property protections in the Novell deal give Wal-Mart more confidence in using Linux more broadly.

Questions over intellectual property are a "huge problem," Stewart said. The company now uses Linux in the data center of its current Web presence but had some trepidation with the idea of expanding it a much larger operation.

Apple cracks down on iPhone copycats

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Although Apple's iPhone won't hit the stores for a few months, some eager fans already have smartphones that look exactly like the user interface CEO Steve Jobs showed the world last week. Apple is taking action against any firm producing iPhone "skins." The company sent a letter to one such firm, MoDaCo, claiming that the iPhone icons and screenshot are copyrighted by Apple. At least one company, MoDaCo, has developed a screen shot of the UI that users can download and install as a "skin" on their PocketPC device. Apple, unsurprisingly, has not looked kindly upon these endeavors and is threatening legal action. The letter continues, "Apple therefore demands that you remove this screen shot from your Web site and refrain from facilitating the further dissemination of Apple's copyrighted material by removing the link to http://forum.xda-developers.com, where said icons and screenshot are being distributed." This is like getting attention for the wrong thing

What MoDaCo did appears to be the equivalent of waving a bright red cape in front of an angry bull. Apple is notoriously protective of its brand and related patents and trademarks; however, its rights to the iPhone name is a matter of dispute as Cisco Systems also claims ownership to the trademark.

In September 2006, for instance, Apple filed the word "pod" for trademark protection with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office -- separate from its use in connection to iPod.

Apple also apparently is seeking to claim rights to the word "podcast" in certain commercial situations. Last year, the company sent a cease-and-desist letter to Podcast Ready, a company that offers downloadable podcasts along with a software application that supports many portable devices, including the iPod.

Patent or Copyright?

"So, if there is an original icon, Apple has copyright protection as of its creation. Apple would have to register the work in the copyright office to file suit but it's their right and can keep others from using that particular icon," Rubin said.

For patent protection, by contrast, Apple has to file for a patent with the Patent and Trademark Office, Rubin continued.

"In the software arts -- and a new UI would be considered software -- such an application could take five years to process because of backlog in the Patent Office," he noted. "If Apple only recently came up with the new UI, it could be years before the patent issues and they can enforce [it]. This is a major problem in industries where the technology is only hot for a few years. The whole relevant time could be spent waiting for a patent to issue."

It's highly likely that the patent application will publish before it issues, Rubin concluded.

"Once an application is published, Apple can inform its competitors of the publication but, unless the patent eventually issues in substantially the same way -- and there is no real guidance on what that language means yet -- Apple has no rights until the patent actually issue," he said.

WGA spots 22% of Windows not genuine

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Microsoft disclosed that over one in five Windows installations were deemed non-genuine through the company's Windows Genuine Advantage program, which requires users to validate their operating system before downloading updates from the company.

Since WGA launched in July 2005, over 512 million users have attempted to validate their copy of Windows, Microsoft said. Of those, the non-genuine rate was 22.3 percent. 56,000 reports have been made by customers of counterfeit software, which grants that user a free replacement copy of Windows.

While high, that number is less than the average software piracy rate around the world, according to the Business Software Alliance. The BSA reports that 35 percent of the world's software is pirated (22 percent in North America specifically), and a Yankee Group study noted that 55 percent of organizations report instances of counterfeit or pirated software.

As it prepares to launch both Windows Vista and Office 2007 to the public next week, Microsoft has kicked off what it calls the "Genuine Fact Files" campaign for educating consumers on the downfall and risks associated with non-genuine software. It hopes to discourage users from downloading illicit software in the process.

Acknowledging that potential customers may be tempted to "try the new products first before they make the decision to buy" through the use of pirated software, Microsoft has posted an online "test drive" of Windows Vista, which joins an existing Web-based preview of Office 2007.

The Vista test drive, which requires Internet Explorer 6 or 7 and runs the operating system in a small Active X based virtual machine, lets visitors explore various new features of the forthcoming operating system, and guides them through common tasks. Meanwhile, a 60-day trial download of Office 2007 is also available.

Windows OneCare to be release with Windows Vista

Starting Jan. 30, consumers in the United States and 16 other countries will be able to purchase a major release of Windows Live™ OneCare™ online or from participating retail stores. Building on versions of Microsoft’s comprehensive PC care service previously available in the United States, the new Windows Live OneCare release will now offer an even simpler consumer experience. The service will feature unified virus and spyware scanning, more flexible file backup options and support for the Windows Vista™ operating system, which will also be available to consumers on Jan. 30. Delivering on the OneCare promise of a simple, evolving service, all active OneCare subscribers will be automatically upgraded to this latest release with new features and enhancements while they’re online.

To thank the consumers worldwide who participated in the Windows Live OneCare beta program for this major release, a special offer will be sent via e-mail to beta users for a significant discount off the annual subscription fee when they sign up at http://onecare.live.com. From Jan. 23 through Feb. 12, Windows Live OneCare beta users who take advantage of this offer will receive a year’s service at approximately 60 percent off the regular price. In addition, many retailers plan to offer rebates and other in-store promotions for Windows Live OneCare in the coming weeks.

“This new release marks our continued commitment to evolving and expanding our all-in-one PC care service around the world — both for Windows XP and now Windows Vista customers,” said Ryan Hamlin, general manager of the Technology Care and Safety Group at Microsoft. “In addition to helping guard against viruses, spyware, phishing scams and other security threats, OneCare also handles a variety of essential PC care practices behind the scenes so our customers can have peace of mind that their PC is being taken care of and will be able to spend their valuable time on other things.”

Windows Live OneCare offers automated protection, maintenance, performance tuning and support for PCs running either Windows^® XP Service Pack 2 or the Windows Vista operating system. Designed to evolve with the changing needs of consumers, Windows Live OneCare continuously delivers new and updated features to subscribers while they’re online.

Support for Windows Vista Operating System

Windows Live OneCare completes the security picture for Windows Vista adopters by providing real-time anti-virus protection and managing firewall policies to address new and evolving threats. The service goes beyond security to help simplify important maintenance tasks such as backing up photos, music and other files to a variety of storage devices and defragmenting the hard drive to help increase the performance of consumers’ PCs.

Pricing and Availability

In the United States, Windows Live OneCare is priced at an annual subscription rate of $49.95 (estimated retail price*) for up to three PCs. As of Jan. 30, the service will also be available at similar pricing and licensing structures in the following markets: Australia, Austria, Belgium (Dutch and French), Canada (English and French), France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Singapore, Spain, Switzerland (French and German), the United Kingdom and the United States. Consumers can download the Windows Live OneCare subscription service at http://onecare.live.com.

Google going for Billboard Advertising?

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Google, the Mountain View, Calif. search marketing giant has filed a patent application for technology that lets local stores tie their stock control computers to a Google-powered ad network, a strong hint that the company is planning to expand expansion beyond Web, print and radio advertising. The patent, filed December 21, 2006 with the USPTO (United States Patent and Trademark Office), covers systems and methods for allocating advertising space in a “network of electronic display devices.” The idea is to tie billboard advertising in local malls to actual products for sale nearby, much like the company’s flagship Google AdWords/AdSense network that handles contextual advertising on the Internet. The patent filing, first reported by New Scientist magazine, describes a way for retailers to put categories of products up for purchase in the vicinity of a display device. “Advertisers may upload advertisement messages to a server specifying information such as budget, price per impression, preferred billboards and/or other constraints. One or more keywords or other descriptors are specified for each advertisement message,” according to the USPTO filing (which can be viewed online here). Google said the system would then generate an advertising campaign specifying where on the display devices the advertisement message will appear. “The output may consist of various forms, including video, audio, printed incentive, interactive data transfers and/or combinations of these,” the company said in the filing. If the filing is a sign of things to come from Google, kiosk-type billboards, ATM machines and other digital displays in malls and hotel lobbies could start hawking products directly from a nearby retailer’s inventory. Nowadays, advertising in these screens are limited to looped, poster-type advertisements of movie promotions and other nearby events but, in Google’s eye, the ads could be pulled directly from a merchant’s stock control system. In the patent application, Google explained that its technology could remove the burden of manually loading looped ads, instead letting merchants create campaigns from available goods and services. The ads can be displayed in rotation and shut off automatically when a product is sold out. Once the product is restocked, the advertisement can be re-added to the display cycle.