thu coi

http://www.get-online-job.com/

Strong Office sales boost Microsoft

By Stacy Cowley @CNNMoneyTech October 20, 2011: 6:36 PM ET

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer is trying to recharge his four-decade-old company.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Windows sales have softened, but strong demand for Microsoft's business software drove the company's revenue to a record seasonal high in the just-ended quarter.

Sales for the three-month stretch that ended Sept. 30 were $17.4 billion, up 7% compared to last year and slightly ahead of analyst expectations. Microsoft's net income for the quarter was $5.7 billion, or 68 cents per share, in line with forecasts.

Shares of Microsoft (MSFT, Fortune 500) dipped slightly in after-hours trading following the report, dropping less than 1%.

Microsoft's strongest division right now is its business software group, which includes Microsoft Office. Revenue in that division rose 8% to $5.6 billion, driven predominantly by Office. But steady sales of business integration and messaging software, including SharePoint and Exchange, helped too.

Microsoft's Windows division eked out 2% sales growth as the company heads toward the end of its Windows 7 product cycle and begins laying the groundwork for Windows 8, which is expected to launch in the next year.

Microsoft is battling headwinds in the PC market from smartphone and tablets, which have cut into the demand for laptops and desktop PCs.

Microsoft's online services division, the home of its Bing search engine, continues to be a cash sinkhole. The division lost $494 million last quarter, a decline from the $558 million it lost in the same quarter last year.

"In search, monetization of our ad platform remains below our expectations," Peter Klein, Microsoft's chief financial officer, said in a call with analysts Thursday afternoon. The company recently extended a search-and-advertising deal wth Yahoo and continues working to generate better results from that partnership, Klein said.

Microsoft analysts treated the results as fairly routine. "I'm used to a little more controversy," Nomura Securities analyst Rick Sherlund quipped. "It seems pretty clean."

Microsoft's core business lines continue generating plenty of money, but the 36-year-old company is on hunt for new growth engines. It's got a big cash stash to fuel any shopping it wants to do: Microsoft ended the quarter with $57 billion on hand.

Last week, Microsoft completed its $8.5 billion acquisition of Skype, a popular Internet-based calling system with more than 170 million monthly users worldwide.

Microsoft plans to operate Skype as a quasi-independent business division, though its sales will roll up into Microsoft's "entertainment and devices" unit.

"We're really thinking deeply about ways that we can bridge the consumer, voice and video world with the rest of our products, especially on the business side," Todd Setcavage, Microsoft's director of investor relations, said in an interview after the company's earnings release. He added that Skype's leadership will report directly to Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer.

Microsoft is also rumored to be kicking the tires on Yahoo (YHOO, Fortune 500), whose board is considering buyout options. Yahoo spurned an unsolicited $47.5 billion takeover bid three years ago from Microsoft. Yahoo is now valued at less than half that.

Asked at a tech conference this week about getting turned down by Yahoo, Ballmer quipped: "Sometimes, you're lucky."

Microsoft will need another shot of luck to regain its vanguard position in the tech industry. The company's archrival, Apple (AAPL, Fortune 500), is now blowing past it in sales. Earlier this week, Apple reported quarterly sales of $28.3 billion, up almost 40% from a year ago.

Google (GOOG, Fortune 500) is also on a growth tear, with sales that rose 33% in its last quarter to $9.7 billion. Its planned acquisition of Motorola Mobility (MMI) will make it an especially formidable rival in the smartphone market, where Microsoft is trying to make headway with its Windows Phone 7 platform.

But there are glimmers of hope. Chip maker Intel (INTC, Fortune 500), Microsoft's longtime partner, reported record quarterly revenue this week and said semiconductor sales in its PC division rose 22% compared to last year.

While U.S. PC demand is waning, thanks in part to the tablet and smartphone boom, global demand is rising in hot spots such as China, India and Indonesia.

Robotic sailboats built to clean up oil spills

By Sean Yeaton, Motherboard.tv deputy editor October 20, 2011 -- Updated 1907 GMT (0307 HKT) | Filed under: Innovations

Engineer builds oil spill-cleaning robot

Editor's note: The staff at CNN.com has been intrigued by the journalism of Vice, an independent media company and Web site based in Brooklyn, New York. Motherboard.tv is Vice's site devoted to the overlap between culture and technology. The reports, which are being produced solely by Vice, reflect a very transparent approach to journalism, where viewers are taken along on every step of the reporting process. We believe this unique approach is worthy of sharing with our CNN.com readers.

Brooklyn, New York (Motherboard.tv) -- In April of last year the Deepwater Horizon semi-submersible Mobile Offshore Drilling Unit exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, killing 11 men, injuring 17 others and triggering what is generally recognized as one of the greatest human errors ever made and officially the largest unforeseen marine oil catastrophe since people started drilling for oil. By the time the leak was capped in July 2010, enough oil to fill 4.9 million barrels covered the Gulf in a toxic slick.

See the rest of "Sailing Drone" at Motherboard.tv.

Enter Cesar Harada. After visiting the oil spill in June 2010, the young engineer decided to leave MIT in Boston to develop an open source oil spill cleaning robot, Protei. Our current array of oil spill skimming technologies — mostly private boats retrofitted with skimming equipment and skimmers maintained by the U.S. Coast Guard — are only able to collect three percent of the oil in the Gulf of Mexico and carry health risks to humans and heavy economic costs. Protei is unmanned, autonomous, relatively inexpensive and open hardware (anybody can use, modify and distribute its designs), making it a potentially powerful weapon in the battle to clean up the Gulf of Mexico while preserving the safety of the workers who would otherwise be exposed to the toxic mess. Already Harada imagines other uses for the sailboat drone, like oceanography and surveillance.

In the first episode of our "Upgrade" series, Motherboard goes to Rotterdam to watch Harada's ragtag team of scientists and engineers as they hustle to assemble the first Protei prototype and dodge the Dutch harbor patrol for their first water test.

MC Hammer launching his own search engine

By Doug Gross, CNN October 20, 2011 -- Updated 1555 GMT (2355 HKT) | Filed under: Web

MC Hammer, pictured at a party sponsored by Motorola Xoom, has a team developing a search engine called WireDoo.

(CNN) -- You can't Google this.

OK, maybe you can. But MC Hammer doesn't want you to.

The venerable rapper, who helped usher hip-hop into the pop mainstream in the early '90s, has rolled out a search engine he hopes will outperform Google, Bing and other established tools.

The project, called WireDoo, has been two years in the making, said Hammer (real name Stanley Burrell) Wednesday at the Web 2.0 summit in San Francisco.

At the conference, he said what will make his search tool better than Google (or, too legit to quit, if you will) will be its "deep search" ability.

"It's about relationships beyond just the keywords," he said, according to Mashable, a CNN.com content partner.

The rapper-turned-entrepreneur (after some late-90s difficulties) said a search would render not just direct results, but also information on possibly related topics. Its tagline is: "Search once and see what's related."

Other details about the product were scarce.

WireDoo, which Hammer said he has a team developing, is still in pre-beta. Its website is currently letting people sign up to test the search engine when a beta release is ready.

AT&T's Android sales are catching up to iPhone

By Stacy Cowley @CNNMoneyTech October 20, 2011: 10:40 AM ET

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- AT&T's wireless customer base topped 100 million for the first time this quarter, even as iPhone sales slowed while customers waited for the new model.

AT&T (T, Fortune 500) activated 2.7 million iPhones in the quarter that ended Sept. 30, a decline from the 3.6 million iPhones it activated in the previous quarter. That trend should reverse in the current quarter: The new iPhone 4S hit stores Oct. 14, and Apple said it sold a record 4 million iPhones in the first three days it was available.

AT&T activated 1 million new iPhones in the first few days after the launch, AT&T Mobility CEO Ralph de la Vega said Thursday on a conference call with analysts.

"It's been our most successful launch in history," he said.

But Google's (GOOG, Fortune 500) Android is chipping away at the iPhone's lead. Sales of Android devices doubled compared to last year, and almost half of the 4.8 million smartphones AT&T sold this quarter were Android devices, the company said.

AT&T plans to release its first 4G LTE-capable smartphones this quarter. That plus the iPhone should make for "blockbuster" sales, de la Vega told analysts.

"We expect to have the best fourth-quarter smartphones sales we've ever had," he said.

AT&T's revenue for the third quarter was $31.5 billion, down very slightly compared to last year, but its sales from its two growth engines -- data and wireless services -- rose 5%, to $21.7 billion. The amount of money AT&T makes monthly off each of its core "postpaid" subscribers (those who take out long-term contracts) also rose for the 11th quarter in a row, reaching an average of $63.69. AT&T's net income for the quarter was $3.6 billion.

Smartphones aren't the only devices AT&T customers are snapping up: Data-only gadgets including tablets, aircards, MiFi hotspots and data-tethering plans are proliferating. AT&T added 505,000 data-only device connections to its network this quarter, for a total of 4.5 million.

AT&T archrival Verizon (VZ, Fortune 500), the nation's largest wireless carrier, will offer its third-quarter financial results on Friday.

Why Google doesn't (and shouldn't) care about tablets yet

By Tim Carmody, WIRED October 20, 2011 -- Updated 1156 GMT (1956 HKT) | Filed under: Gaming and Gadgets

Google's Android 3.0 Honeycomb OS is demonstrated on a Motorola Xoon tablet.

(WIRED) -- Google held two big events within 24 hours: one with its subsidiary Motorola in New York, and another with its partner Samsung in Hong Kong.

While there was some loose speculation around the web that maybe we'd see a new Xoom tablet or a preview of the next Galaxy Tab running Android's new Ice Cream Sandwich operating system, the focus was rightly on what Google, Motorola and Samsung do best: making really great Android smartphones.

Ice Cream Sandwich is billed as Google's unified mobile OS, working the same way on both tablets and smartphones. So far, though, what that means (as Google's Hugo Berra wrote after Google I/O this summer) is that "Ice Cream Sandwich will bring everything you love about Honeycomb on your tablet to your phone."

It's about making the phone experience bigger, more interactive, more capable. It's about making the phone literally bigger -- the Galaxy Nexus has a 4.65″, 1280 by 720 pixel screen, which while not unprecedented, is still really big for a smartphone, and way bigger than the 3.7″ Nexus One screen.

Motorola, too, continues to treat the smartphone as the center, not periphery, of a new computing economy. It builds out its Droid RAZR with the Motoactv media player, dedicated cloud syncing and backup, and a range of docks and peripherals that all communicate with and augment the computing power of the handset.

The PC used to be the command center of your digital life; now, it's the phone. Anything with a hardware keyboard is again relegated to the role of a specialized workstation.

But wait; what about tablets? Tablets are supposed to be the devices that bridge phones and PCs. They're all anyone can talk about. Everybody loves tablets now:

-- Apple sold eleven million iPads last quarter;

-- Manufacturers tripped over themselves to pump out tablets before a tablet-optimized version of Android was even ready (and continue to do so, even though Google hemmed and hawed about making Honeycomb's source code available);

-- Amazon's coming out with one (you probably heard about it);

-- HP incited tablet fever when it slashed prices to clear Touchpad stock;

-- Even global e-reading company Kobo has a brand-new Android tablet, the Vox, that will probably ship before Amazon's Kindle Fire.

So what's going on here? Why isn't Google embracing this, racing to get out ahead of the tablet market, pushing the envelope on pricing and capabilities, and generally looking to disrupt the whole show?

Ultimately, tablets just aren't that big a part of Google's business, nor are they likely to be. Google-approved Honeycomb tablets have only sold an estimated 3.4 million devices total.

Nor have tablets been a top priority within Google for very long. Android's head of user experience Matias Duarte told This Is My Next's Joshua Topolsky that Honeycomb was an "emergency landing," a crash-the-plane-in-a-cornfield attempt to stop manufacturers from shipping Android tablets with artificially up-sized smartphone builds: "Any corner we could cut to get that thing out the door, we had to." He explains, "That's the sole reason we haven't open sourced it."

Ice Cream Sandwich finally opens up pieces of the new platform to everyone, but the focus is decidedly not on tablets, at least for Duarte: "Ice Cream Sandwich is where we say 'huh, okay, how are those changes [first introduced in Honeycomb] going to work on phones?'" It may not be until Android Jelly Bean that we see Google's full attention turn to tablets, if then.

It may seem like I'm being harshly critical of Google or Android. Actually, I'm not. So I'll spell it out: Google moving slowly into tablets while it focuses on smartphones makes perfect sense. It's smart. It's good strategy. It fits perfectly with where Google is today and how it needs to position itself tomorrow.

Tablets are overwhelmingly consumer media devices. They can do many other things, and there's some room for very specialized devices for the enterprise market. At their broadest base, though, tablets are best for sitting on the couch and reading books or magazines, browsing the web, playing games and watching video. This is why Apple, the quintessential consumer electronics and media company, has been very successful with them. It makes money from selling the shiny package, and it makes money again from filling it up with apps and media.

It's possible to outsource the electronics bit, but not the media bit or the consumer focus. This is why Barnes & Noble has been fairly successful with the Nook Color, and Amazon will probably be quite successful with the Kindle Fire. These companies can tailor Android for their own purposes and use them as remote digital retail outposts.

Until very recently, Google was neither a consumer electronics nor a media company. It's a search, communications, advertising, software and services company. If you look at their existing line of applications, only a few, like Gmail, Maps or YouTube, make a lot of sense for tablets. The vast majority of their apps, from search to document editing, make much more sense on either a traditional PC, a smartphone or something like a Chromebook.

Real media companies -- that is, content companies -- haven't been able to figure Google out. That, at least, is what Android chief Andy Rubin told Walt Mossberg Wednesday at the AsiaD conference.

"Google is in the very, very early phases of adding consumer products to our portfolio," Rubin said. "The media industry didn't see us as that. They saw us as a search company."

Over time, that could change. The landmark Google Books agreement, now at a lawsuit-imposed standstill, could be retooled and resurrected. YouTube and Google TV may become vehicles for original or licensed content to compete with Hulu or Netflix. Google's nascent efforts in music could really take off. And Google could continue to treat all its Android handset makers equally while continuing to use Motorola as its officially sanctioned tablet manufacturer, bringing something unique and distinctive to those devices.

Until then, Android tablets will be a solid value proposition for media retailers like Amazon, Barnes & Noble or Kobo, and a much less attractive one for Google itself than smartphones or even Chromebooks.

So stick with phones, Google, at least for now. You're getting really good at this.

LinkedIn founder: Facebook isn't competition

By Julianne Pepitone @CNNMoneyTech October 20, 2011: 7:37 AM ET

"Not everything is social," says Reid Hoffman, the creator of the leading professional networking site LinkedIn.

SAN FRANCISCO (CNNMoney) -- Professional networking site LinkedIn has stayed "incredibly steady to its original vision," says co-founder Reid Hoffman, by focusing on its specific niche -- and Facebook isn't a competitor to that strategy.

Hoffman seemed keen to focus on the power of data during his talk at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco on Wednesday, but conference moderator John Battelle coaxed him into talking about whether LinkedIn considers Facebook a rival.

"I want to ask you to pretend we're not in front of hundreds of people and pretend we're at an intimate dinner party," Battelle started, prompting laughter from the audience. "And I say to you, 'Reid, what's your real opinion of Facebook?'"

"Has anyone ever responded to these hypotheticals?" Hoffman replied, laughing.

"Well, I remember when [Mark] Zuckerberg was saying every vertical is going to be socialized, even your work profile," Battelle said. "But LinkedIn has obviously grown in its way. Do you feel that Facebook is a competitor to LinkedIn?

"No," Hoffman said. "Facebook is obviously an amazing product that's gotten big. But I'm not sure everything is social."

Hoffman said he's acutely aware that people have "different aspects" to their lives -- a persona at work, one with friends, and so on.

He later elaborated on the theme, saying that "LinkedIn has remained incredibly steady to its original vision" both in terms of focus on professional networking and its business model.

"My general view is [Facebook is] great, it's amazing, but I think we'll see many things that are important to bring the people coefficient in," Hoffman said. "Some of that will be LinkedIn, some of that will be Facebook, some of that will be Twitter."

What exactly "the people coefficient" will look like as it evolves is an open question, Hoffman said.

"None of us know right now. And that's why I love being an investor," he said, referring to his status as a partner at venture capital firm Greylock Partners. Hoffman joined the firm in 2009.

Battelle then asked about another area of uncertainty: the IPO market for startups. The Web 2.0 conference included several grumblings about the slow and often rocky process of going public. But Hoffman took a rosier view -- not surprising considering that LinkedIn (LNKD) went public in May.

"I think that long-term-focused companies can get out," Hoffman said. "I mean, it is a painful process. You go through a lot of turbulence."

The public market for tech companies "is relevant for someone to think about," he added, "but I don't spend too much time thinking about that because it is what it is."

He closed his thoughts on the topic with a sentiment often echoed by others in the tech field: "I'd like an nation decided by engineers, not a nation decided by lawmakers."

Google exec says Facebook overshares

By Julianne Pepitone @CNNMoneyTech October 19, 2011: 6:57 PM ET

SAN FRANCISCO (CNNMoney) -- Google's head of social had some sharp words for Facebook while speaking Wednesday at a tech conference, where Google co-founder Sergey Brin also showed up as a surprise guest.

Vic Gundotra, Google's top executive for social products, and Brin talked mostly about the company's Google+ social network during a discussion at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco on Wednesday.

"We want to do social in a way that is more like real life," Gundotra said. "So I think you're going to see us taking a very privacy-centered approach."

Conference moderator John Battelle asked Gundotra what he thought of "the open social graph" -- that is, Facebook.

"There is a reason why every thought in your head doesn't come out of your mouth," Gundotra replied. "We do not believe in oversharing. We think curation matters."

Brin called himself "not a very social person," but -- shocker! -- "Google+ I instantly found compelling."

Brin talked up Google+'s "Circles" feature, in which the network's 40 million users can put their connections into different groups and choose with whom they'll share their activity.

"At first I found Circles complicated, but now I love them," Brin said.

But not everyone loves Google+. Battelle asked about a leaked memo, posted in Google+ itself, in which company engineer Steve Yegge accidentally posted public complaints about the social network and how it was launched -- and Google's management style.

"I mean, we never like to see that," Gundotra said. "But it gave people a view of what we do internally. Within the Google family, we are very honest. And critical about our efforts."

Google (GOOG, Fortune 500) didn't fire Yegge, Gundotra said, adding that the company took the attitude that "the outside world got a peek at what it's like to work at Google."

Brin stayed mostly quiet on the subject. "I didn't make it past the first 1,000 pages myself," he laughed.

Brin's new role: Brin, who stepped down from his role as Google president in January and is now simply "co-founder," said he's been happy in his new spot and enjoys the chance to explore "more technical work."

Brin acknowledged that some of Google's "products and services can seem scattered brandwise. But we've always run the company as 'let a thousand flowers bloom.' But once [they] do bloom, you want to put together a coherent bouquet."

An audience member asked whether Google's strategy will change if and when the Motorola Mobility (MMI) acquisition goes through, but Brin ducked the question, deckling to comment while regulatory approval of the deal is still pending.

With facial recognition, Google pins hopes on Galaxy Nexus

By Doug Gross, CNN October 19, 2011 -- Updated 1807 GMT (0207 HKT) | Filed under: Mobile

The new Samsung Galaxy Nexus runs on Google's newest Android operating system, called Ice Cream Sandwich.

(CNN) -- Apple gave you FaceTime. Now Google is countering with Face Unlock.

Google teamed up with Samsung this week to unveil the Galaxy Nexus, an ambitious smartphone they hope will make a run at the iPhone while serving up Ice Cream Sandwich, a new version of Google's Android mobile operating system.

Released Wednesday in the wake of the iPhone 4S's big splash, the Galaxy Nexus is the first phone designed specifically to run Android 4.0. It's scheduled to go on sale in November, although pricing hasn't been announced. In Google fashion, the phone's software has its own tasty-treat nickname.

Read: Why does Google name its Android products after desserts?

And while Google keeps maintaining that all phone makers get equal access to its Android releases, it's clear that the company has a special place in its heart for the Galaxy Nexus, and possibly even hopes of a flagship phone to challenge the crowd from Cupertino.

"Galaxy Nexus isn't just a smartphone -- it's beyond smart," Google Senior Vice President Andy Rubin wrote on the company's blog. "Ice Cream Sandwich gives you complete control over the amount of mobile data you use by helping you better understand and manage it."

One of the new system's fanciest features, shown off at an unveiling Wednesday in Hong Kong, is Face Unlock. Thanks to facial recognition software, the feature lets users unlock the phone by showing it their face instead of tapping out a password.

(It's worth noting that, in awkward fashion, it took two or three tries to get Face Unlock to work during a demo at the Hong Kong event. Until that happens in the real world, we'll give them the same opening-day pass that Steve Jobs got for iPhone 4 connection glitches).

It also has what's being called Google Beam, an app that lets users share contacts, apps, websites and other data between two Android phones by simply holding them near each other.

And while there's nothing as sexy as Siri, the iPhone 4S's voice-activated "personal assistant," the phone does feature "voice typing," which allows users to speak to create text messages, e-mails and the like.

The Galaxy Nexus features a big, 4.65-inch display screen (the new iPhone 4S's is 3.5 inches), 32 GB of storage and a dual-core 1.24 GHz processor.

It has a 5-megapixel camera, which is on par with the iPhone 4 but lags behind the 4S's 8-megapixel version. Google and Samsung counter with claims of zero shutter lag (a frequent iPhone complaint), autofocus and panoramic photo capabilities.

Early response to the phone, and the operating system, has been positive.

"While hardware junkies like myself may have spent the past few weeks drooling over the Galaxy Nexus, the onstage demo of Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich proves that the software powering the device is just as impressive," Chris Velazco wrote for TechCrunch.

Google says that Ice Cream Sandwich is the first operating system optimized for both smartphones and tablets. They say it has dramatically improved the touchscreen keyboard, made notifications more interactive and created resizable widgets, among other upgrades.

All of which is well and good, of course. But the question remains: Is this the phone to go head-to-head with the market's 800-pound gorilla, the iPhone?

The Android system as a whole has come on like gangbusters. Phones running the system make up about 43% of the multibillion-dollar smartphone market, compared with the iPhone's 18%. But that's spread out over dozens of phones from multiple manufacturers and ranges from top-of-the-line offerings to cheap, slapped-together handhelds.

Google basically takes bids each year for a manufacturer to make its Nexus phone. That's after the company's attempt to produce its own, the Nexus One, fizzled and died in remarkably short order.

No single Android phone has captured the public's imagination like the iPhone, a fact that Google would love to change.

"Ice Cream Sandwich could provide the critical push in the race to catch Apple," Mark Newman, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein & Co., who is based in Hong Kong, told Bloomberg Businessweek. "Apple's software is still on the cutting edge."

Microsoft CEO on not buying Yahoo: "Sometimes you're lucky"

By Julianne Pepitone @CNNMoneyTech October 19, 2011: 11:10 AM ET

SAN FRANCISCO (CNNMoney) -- Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer famously doesn't hold back, and a tech conference on Tuesday proved to be no exception.

Ballmer expressed relief that Microsoft failed to buy Yahoo a few years ago -- and added that "you need to be a computer scientist" to use Android. He made the comments while speaking at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco.

Moderator John Battelle asked Ballmer point-blank: "Are you glad you didn't buy Yahoo?" He was referring to Microsoft's unsolicited $47.5 billion offer back in 2008, which Yahoo (YHOO, Fortune 500) snubbed -- a move that sparked Yahoo shareholder anger and led to co-founder Jerry Yang stepping down from the CEO post.

Ballmer laughed at the question and said: "You know, times change. When you ask any CEO [that type of question] after the market has fallen apart, it's 'hallelujah.'"

With some prodding from Battelle, Ballmer added: "Sometimes, you're lucky."

Still, Ballmer was quick to say Yahoo "still has a lot going for them," including its search deal with Microsoft's Bing. Microsoft's technology underpins Yahoo's search site, in return for a sizable chunk of the site's advertising sales.

Ballmer was less kind to Microsoft's rivals in the smartphone business.

"Why should I buy a Windows phone instead of an iPhone?" Battelle asked.

Ballmer said the Windows Phone 7 difference lies in the user interface: "The notion of putting your own information front and center....it's not a sea of icons."

He acknowledged some of Apple's (AAPL, Fortune 500) strengths, saying "there's certainly some nice things Apple's done with [speech-activated virtual assistant] Siri, but we've been doing the same kinds of things for years."

Google's Android didn't fare as well.

"You don't need to be a computer scientist to use a Windows phone. I think you do to use an Android phone," Ballmer said.

But he stopped short of confirming that Microsoft will develop its own smartphone hardware to go head-to-head with Apple -- and, soon, with Google (GOOG, Fortune 500), if it completes its planned Motorola Mobility purchase.

"We are working very well and very hard with manufacturers to make sure there is a wide range of Windows 8 products," Ballmer said, trying to dodge the question.

Battelle hammered back, asking again if Microsoft (MSFT, Fortune 500) would build its own phone.

"We've been focused on building hardware innovation, and we will continue to do so," Ballmer repeated, laughing. "But thank you for your suggestion."

The 5 biggest gripes so far about the iPhone 4S
Doug Gross, CNN

By Doug Gross, CNN



(CNN) -- Nobody's perfect. And despite generally strong reviews and record early sales, the iPhone 4S is no exception.

Apple's new phone went on sale Friday in the U.S. and six other countries, and maybe no rollout this massive (Apple reported selling 4 million of the new phones over the weekend) could be expected to be without problems.

So far, there's been no 4S equivalent to the iPhone 4's "Antennagate." But as folks put their new gadget through its paces, some early complaints have appeared on online message boards.
Taking iPhone's Siri for a spin

Some of these may be early-run blips (that's how we're going to categorize the problems that some customers had activating their phones over the weekend). Whether they become enduring causes of headaches remains to be seen. (Apple did not immediately respond to our request for comment.)

But here are five of the most frequent complaints we've heard about the iPhone 4S:

1. Slow service on Sprint

The big news on the carrier front for the iPhone 4S was that Sprint would be added as an approved mobile carrier, joining AT&T and Verizon.

But some Sprint customers didn't get off to a very good start. Many users were reporting slow data speed for the first couple of days.

A thread on the Sprint community forum has 23 pages of people talking about slow data speed.

"Sprint, we need some answer. Are you guys doing iPhone specific throttling?" one person posted. "You will lose your customer if the customer finding their iPhone unusable ... "

This isn't the first time Sprint's speed has come into question. In PCMag's June survey of the fastest mobile networks, Sprint trailed Verizon and AT&T in most regions of the country.

A Sprint news release said Friday was the biggest sales day of a mobile device in its history, surpassing expectations.

"As always, Sprint is carefully monitoring the performance of the 3G network," Sprint spokesman Scott Sloat said in a written statement to CNN. "We are looking into a small number of reports of slow data speeds when using the iPhone 4S, however there are also reports showing that Sprint's network is the fastest, such as the Gizmodo report that came out earlier today."

2. Weak battery

At the October 4 presentation unveiling the iPhone 4S, Phil Schiller , Apple vice president for product management, praised its "fantastic battery life" that would allow people to talk for eight hours before needing to charge the device again.

But that's not the experience everyone is reporting.

Apple review site iLounge published a review of the phone, including battery-life comparisons.

"After three days of non-stop testing, we had a clear answer: The iPhone 4S is generally more power hungry than the iPhone 4, and Apple has only made the slightest capacity improvement to the iPhone 4S's battery," the review reads. "Moreover, whereas Apple underpromised with the iPhone 4's battery estimates, it comes closer to overpromising with the iPhone 4S."

The review says that using Wi-Fi consistently and using the phone mainly for calls and Web browsing wears the battery out at roughly the same speed as the iPhone 4, while playing videos and music or using a 3G connection will drain it faster.

3. Siri outside the United States

Demand for the iPhone 4S was clearly global. But one of its biggest selling-points, the built-in voice assistant Siri, only works fully stateside.

While many of its built-in features work anywhere, location based actions don't. So, using Siri to, say, find a local business or get driving directions, doesn't work elsewhere.

Even queries asking for the time of day weren't working in Canada, according to some reports.

Compounding that problem (for some folks both inside and outside the U.S.) is the fact that Siri has trouble understanding heavy accents.

It currently works with English, French and German (with more languages coming). But non-native English speakers have reported lots of trouble.

We can only imagine how Siri's doing in Scotland.

4. Camera problems

Another big selling point for the 4S is its 8-megapixel camera, which is a pretty significant jump from the 5 megapixels on the iPhone 4 and 3 megapixels on the iPhone 3GS.

Reviews of the images the phone renders have been overwhelmingly positive, with users reporting a major difference in clarity.

But the same "shutter speed" issues users have complained about on previous iPhones appear to be back again.

In a forum discussion on Apple's site, some reported that when they'd take a photo, the camera got stuck with the shutter closed or moved really slowly. Others said the camera wasn't working at all, although it looks like they were largely able to fix that by turning the phone off and restarting.

5. Screen appearance

At least it looks like there's an easy answer for this one.

Some buyers are reporting a yellowish tint or spots on the screen of their phones, making the resolution fuzzier than older phones.

This is an issue that previous iPhones had as well. While Apple has never officially explained it (presumably because it hasn't impacted enough people), technicians have reportedly said it's residue from the manufacturing process.

The tint tends to fade after a couple of days.

Sony PlayStation Vita's U.S. debut set for February 2012

By Mark Milian, CNN October 19, 2011 -- Updated 1213 GMT (2013 HKT) | Filed under: Gaming and Gadgets

The PlayStation Vita will be available in two versions: with or without 3G data.

San Francisco (CNN) -- Sony plans to release the PlayStation Vita, a portable video game player, on February 22, 2012, in the United States, Canada and Europe, the company announced at a technology conference on Tuesday.

The Vita will succeed the PlayStation Portable, or PSP, and PlayStation Go, a smaller version of the hand-held device. The Vita has a touchscreen and a touch-sensitive pad on the back of the device, along with the buttons and control sticks gamers expect to see on controllers.

Sony Computer Entertainment CEO Jack Tretton and a Sony spokesman demonstrated a sequel to a popular PlayStation 3 game called "Uncharted: Golden Abyss." Players can use the standard controller or manipulate the character using touch controls, as the spokesman showed onstage at the Web 2.0 Summit. The game looks very attractive -- but when shown on the big screen, not as sharp as a console game.

Sony previously announced pricing for the Vita, with a version that connects to the Web via Wi-Fi costing $250 and another that has 3G wireless data connectivity for $300.

Nintendo made deep price cuts to its portable 3DS system just five months after a strong launch when sales began to slow.

Analysts expect Sony will struggle to sell consumers a dedicated hand-held game machine now that smartphones and tablets have become powerful enough to handle powerful games.

"The advent of smartphone gaming is quite additive to what we're trying to accomplish," Tretton said. People may look to the Vita when they want to graduate from more simplistic games sold on phones, he said.

The Vita will first hit stores on December 17 in Japan, where Sony's portable systems have fared better.

Google unveils new Nexus phone, redesigned Android

By David Goldman @CNNMoneyTech October 19, 2011: 7:12 AM ET

Google unveils new Nexus phone with redesigned Android 4.0

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Google has revealed the Samsung Galaxy Nexus, the latest "Google phone" that serves as the bench-setter for Android devices.

The Galaxy Nexus smartphone features some impressive hardware, including a larger-than-usual 4.65-inch screen, an ultra-thin design and a camera with virtually no shutter lag. But the most crucial new feature is Android 4.0 -- the latest update to Google's mobile operating system, code named Ice Cream Sandwich.

The new version of Android delivers a host of improvements to the world's leading -- if not beloved -- smartphone operating system.

"While people like and need Android, they don't love Android," said Matias Duarte, Google's director of Android user interface, at an event co-hosted by Google and Samsung in Hong Kong. "Android should be enchanting, seductive, and something you can fall in love with."

Google (GOOG, Fortune 500) believes it delivers on that notion by giving Android a total makeover with Ice Cream Sandwich. The latest version of Android offers a distinctly more tablet-like experience, with interactive and resizable widgets, large thumbnail images, and a button-free interface.

Ice Cream Sandwich also comes with some groundbreaking features such as facial recognition technology, which will scan your face to unlock your phone. The demo failed at Tuesday night's event, but Google maintained that the feature works.

And the new Android Beam technology allows users to share just about any kind of content, application or contact by placing the phones back to back.

Google doesn't get gadgets

Android 4.0 also features dozens of other useful improvements, like instant talk-to-type, displaying the words you say into the phone in real time rather than after you finish talking.

Users can also pinch to zoom into calendar appointments, create folders by dropping apps or contacts on top of one another, and save webpages for offline viewing.

The camera app got perhaps the biggest update. In Ice Cream Sandwich, users can take panorama photos with their cameras, and snap photos in rapid succession. The front-facing camera can also track eye movement and rotate a 3-D image based on where a user looks.

If two or more people are sitting next to one another in a video chat, the camera application can track who is talking and will automatically focus in on the person who is chatting.

Though many features were unique to Android, several Ice Cream Sandwich improvements seemed to take a page from the competition.

For instance, gone are the four buttons at the bottom of the phone, replaced by on-screen navigation keys and an Apple (AAPL, Fortune 500) iPhone-like "action bar" at the bottom of each screen. The action bar replaces the menu button, providing users with commonly used features and the ability to change an app's settings.

Like Microsoft's (MSFT, Fortune 500) Windows Phone, Ice Cream Sandwich offers in-line spell check; large, interactive "people" tiles; and a stream of friends' social network updates in a new "people" app.

And like the Research In Motion's (RIMM) BlackBerry Playbook and Hewlett-Packard's (HPQ, Fortune 500) now-defunct webOS, Android 4.0 introduces a consistent "flick-based" gestural user interface -- when a user is done with something, they can just flick it away.

With Google's new mobile OS, the same software will be simultaneously available for smartphones and tablets for the first time. Currently, smartphones and tablets run two different operating systems -- Gingerbread and Honeycomb.

The Galaxy Nexus, which will launch in November, is the third flagship Android smartphone. Google receives bids and proposals from various handset manufacturers to make the device, which comes out annually during the winter holiday season.

Samsung has made the Nexus device for the second straight year. The first Google phone, the Nexus One, was made by HTC.

Subsequent flagship devices will be closely scrutinized, if Google's $12.5 billion bid for Motorola Mobility (MMI) goes through. Google said Motorola would not automatically win the rights to make the next Nexus phone, and it would have to bid alongside other handset manufacturers to build next year's flagship device.

No specific date or carriers were announced for the Galaxy Nexus.

CHAT XO !

http://www.dinhduong.com.vn/menutintuc/1/2/9/71

BlackBerry's outage caused by huge e-mail backup

By Lance Ulanoff, Mashable October 12, 2011 -- Updated 2233 GMT (0633 HKT) | Filed under: Mobile

BlackBerry customers today started complaining on Twitter of mail delays and inaccessibly on their BlackBerry devices.

(Mashable) -- In a brief press conference Wednesday, Research in Motion CTO for Software David Yach said a backlog of messages to Europe has created a cascading outage effect for BlackBerry users around the world.

The company has determined the root cause of the initial European BlackBerry e-mail service outage, which started three days ago, and said there's no evidence that a hack or security breach was involved.

RIM customers in Europe have been suffering from major outages for days, but it wasn't until today that the Americas caught the bug and BlackBerry customers started complaining on Twitter of mail delays and inaccessibly on their BlackBerry devices.

Yach described the initial outage as a failure of one of RIM's core switches. However, the real trouble began when RIM's redundant systems failed, as well. "The failover did not function as expected," Yach said, "despite the fact that we regularly test failover systems." This led to a significant backup of mail.

RIM responded by throttling service in the impacted area to stabilize service, which apparently resulted in backup of mail in other regions trying to reach RIM's European customers. The Canadian-based company would not reveal the exact number of RIM customers affected, saying only that many customers are impacted in a variety of ways. "Some see delays, some service interruption," Yach said.

For now, RIM says it is working "around the clock" and "globally" to try and restore service. It has not throttled service in regions outside Europe. RIM's Yach said they're focusing on clearing out the backlog of e-mail, much of it in Europe and for anyone trying to deliver email to Europe.

When asked if RIM might try and wipe the slate clean and clear out the backlog without delivering messages, Yach answered swiftly: "All email will be delivered. We will not be dropping any email messages."

While Yach said RIM knows the root cause of the initial failure, it wasn't willing to share it — at least until it finishes its own thorough investigation. That won't come until after all service is stabilized and restored.

PC viruses are mostly your fault, Microsoft says

By David Goldman @CNNMoneyTech October 12, 2011: 3:45 PM ET

If your PC is riddled with infections, they probably came in through files you installed yourself.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- If your computer is infected, it's probably because of something you did, according to a Microsoft study released this week.

In its semi-annual Security Intelligence Report, the software giant found that the largest group of malware attacks on its Windows operating systems -- 44.8% -- occurred because of some kind of action taken by the computer's operator. It may have been as simple as clicking a link or downloading an infected file, but a human was the culprit.

But let's not be too hard on ourselves -- we were most likely duped into doing it. According to Microsoft's (MSFT, Fortune 500) report, one of malicious software's primary entry mechanisms is through phishing schemes.

Phishing schemes come in many forms. Often they are spam e-mails sent to thousands and sometimes millions of recipients, typically with the intention of getting the user to click on and open an infected file. They can be very rudimentary or incredibly sophisticated, depending on the skill of the attacker.

They're also hard to escape: Most of the e-mail messages sent over the Internet are unwanted, Microsoft said. It can also be difficult to discern phishing scams from wanted e-mails. Overall, 47.8% of phishing attacks sent in the first half of this year posed as legitimate e-mails from social networks like Facebook, according to the report. Banks and other financial institutions were also popular camouflage for bait e-mails.

When malware, or malicious code, is installed as a result of a clicked-on link or downloaded file, it can give hackers any number of capabilities, including complete control of an infected computer. If a computer infected with malware is connected to a network, attackers can often access other connected systems and servers.

Since humans are behind such a large chunk of computer infections, Microsoft suggested that security professionals rethink the way they approach security.

"IT professionals are accustomed to thinking about the technical aspects of security; however, as this report has shown, the human element has become just as important for attackers as the technical element, if not more so," the report's authors wrote.

"By implementing effective technical safeguards, programs, and processes designed to defend against social engineering, you can help your users avoid being taken advantage of by attackers," they continued.

How they hack you

Of course, the technical side of security remains important. Microsoft reported that 43.2% of PC attacks were automatically installed by taking advantage of Microsoft Windows' AutoRun function in the XP and Vista versions of the operating system, which automatically executes certain files and programs. As a result, Microsoft in February released an update to make the AutoRun feature more secure. Windows 7 already had the more secure AutoRun feature set up as its default option.

About 6% of attacks on Windows PCs were attributed to other kinds of exploits -- malicious codes that attempt to take advantage of known vulnerabilities in applications or operating systems.

Exploits of Oracle's (ORCL, Fortune 500) Java software, which runs rich applications on the Web, was responsible for between 33% and 50% of all exploits during each of the past four quarters, Microsoft said. Nearly all document exploits this year targeted Adobe (ADBE) Acrobat and Reader.

Despite alarm bells and widespread coverage in the media, only about 0.1% of successful attacks were from so-called "zero-day" exploits. Zero-day exploits are attacks on a newly discovered security problem in an application or software, which the vendor had not had time to patch before the attack.

Those attacks, while extremely rare, capture a lot of attention because they're theoretically impossible to defend against, leaving consumers and security professionals at the mercy of attackers.

Though zero-day exploits "continue to capture the imagination," Microsoft found that those fears are mostly misplaced. The vast majority of zero-day vulnerabilities are immediately patched once discovered and are never exploited.

Newer protections baked into the Windows operating system can also help mitigate attacks.

The newer the version of Windows you have, the less likely it is to get infected. About 1% of computers running Windows XP were found to have infections, according to Microsoft. That dropped off to roughly 0.5% with the latest Windows Vista software and just 0.15% of machines running the latest Windows 7 version.

Google is boring. That's a problem because?

By Paul R. La Monica @CNNMoneyTech October 12, 2011: 1:02 PM ET

Despite strong sales and earnings growth, Google's stock has fallen along with the rest of the market in 2011. Click chart for more on GOOG.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Google may be the new IBM. It's stable, steady and predictable. Heck, you could even call it boring. Online search? Yawn.

But when you look at how dysfunctional many other tech "leaders" are these days, being "interesting" is overrated.

Google (GOOG, Fortune 500) isn't irritating its core customers with an enormous price hike and New Coke-esque branding debacle like Netflix (NFLX). It isn't firing CEOs and searching for its identity like Yahoo (YHOO, Fortune 500). Or Hewlett-Packard (HPQ, Fortune 500). It isn't stubbornly clinging to a product that's rapidly losing market share like Research in Motion (RIMM).

If you want to be critical of Google, you could say that Google circa 2011 isn't posting the boffo type earnings and sales growth numbers that investors got used to seeing from Google back in 2006 and 2007.

But other than Apple (AAPL, Fortune 500), name a tech company that has successfully defied the law of large numbers? It was inevitable that Google's momentum would slow. It's a company that's expected to report revenue of nearly $30 billion this year.

And for all the talk about how Google is losing ground to Facebook -- despite the launch of the Google+ social network-- one look at Google's fundamentals show that there are worse things in the world than being the undisputed leader in search.

Google will report its third-quarter results after the closing bell Thursday. Analysts are expecting year-over-year earnings growth of 14% and an annual sales increase of 30%.

"Google's business has strong momentum. When you talk about Facebook, you have to look at its other businesses," said Clayton Moran, an analyst with The Benchmark Company in Delray Beach, Fla. "Google still is gaining share in search. Its advertising exchange is growing in a rapid and aggressive manner. And it has Android in mobile. Google has not lost its mojo."

Google's 10 biggest acquisitions (so far)

Put aside all the silly Wall Street reindeer games of beating consensus targets and relative expectations for a second and focus on the absolutes. Mid-teens earnings growth is pretty impressive at a time when the U.S. economy is slowing and Europe is in financial tatters.

Yes, Google's average annual earnings growth rate for the past five years is closer to 25%. But many of the complaints about Google's slowing earnings growth are silly and myopic.

Google's sales increases have outpaced profit growth for a while because Google is constantly investing in research and development. The company wisely realizes that you may have to sacrifice some percentage points of profit margin in the short term in order to stay healthy and relevant over the long haul.

Google is actually adding lots of new workers, an amazing feat considering that so many big companies are blaming the federal government, Europe and sluggish consumer spending for their lack of hiring.

In the second quarter alone, Google's net headcount rose by about 2,000. Google added another 450 employees via the acquisition of travel software firm ITA.

Google's headcount could take another huge leap forward once the company closes on its purchase of Motorola Mobility (MMI). That deal is another example of the company's willingness to take calculated risks that may not make sense for the next few quarters.

Buying struggling Motorola for a lavish premium (while apparently bidding only against itself) is not likely to help Google sell that many more Android-based phones. If anything, some other major Android suppliers, such as Samsung and HTC, may bristle at the fact that Google is now in the hardware business.

But the Motorola deal had more to do with locking up patents than selling Droid handsets and Xoom tablets. It's a savvy move in what's shaping up to be an intellectual property war featuring the likes of Apple and Microsoft (MSFT, Fortune 500).

Trip Chowdhry, an analyst with Global Equities Research in Redwood Shores, Calif., wrote in a report Wednesday that 2011 is the "year of investments" for Google and that 2012 will show the fruit of these investments. He thinks earnings growth next year will be higher than this year.

How Google makes money off YouTube mobile

Don't get me wrong. Google is far from being a perfect company. Co-founder and CEO Larry Page still has a lot to live up to following the successful stint of Eric Schmidt, who gave up the CEO spot earlier this year and is now just chairman.

Google may have overpaid for Motorola. The jury is out on whether Google+ can really make a dent in the Facebook juggernaut. Google has replaced Microsoft as the favorite convenient target of antitrust regulators in the U.S. and Europe.

And it's still unclear just how profitable YouTube, which Google bought for $1.65 billion five years ago, can truly be.

Still, in a broader market that remains risky due to global economic fears, Google seems like a more lucrative safe haven than Treasury bonds.

Google doesn't pay a dividend. But its shares trade for just 13 times 2012 earnings estimates -- even though analysts are forecasting an 18% profit jump next year.

It's also important to remember that Google doesn't do the whole earnings guidance thing. You really have to focus on the long-term. One analyst even offered a variation on Google's famous "Don't be evil" mantra as advice.

"Don't be cute and trade Google based on quarterly numbers," said Martin Pyykkonen, an analyst with Wedge Partners in Denver. "Yes, Google has to do better in social networking. But the fundamentals are solid. It's still at a pretty attractive valuation."

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Paul R. La Monica. Other than Time Warner, the parent of CNNMoney, and Abbott Laboratories, La Monica does not own positions in any individual stocks.

Again? Sony's PlayStation Network hit with another attack

By Doug Gross, CNN October 12, 2011 -- Updated 1606 GMT (0006 HKT) | Filed under: Gaming and Gadgets

Fewer PlayStation Network subscribers were affected than during the spring attack, Sony says

(CNN) -- Sony's PlayStation Network, the gaming and entertainment platform knocked offline for weeks this spring, has been hit again.

In a message to members, Phillip Reitenger, Sony's chief information security officer, said the company detected an attempt to try a massive number of user IDs and passwords on its network.

The PlayStation Network and Sony Online Entertainment were impacted, Reitenger said.

But unlike the spring attack, when virtually every one of the PlayStation Network's 70 million subscribers lost total access, only one-tenth of 1 percent (about 93,000 people divided between PSN and Online Entertainment) had their information accessed and were locked down, the company said.

Only a small percentage of those accounts showed suspicious activity after they were accessed, he said.

"We want to take this opportunity to remind our consumers about the increasingly common threat of fraudulent activity online, as well as the importance of having a strong password and having a username/password combination that is not associated with other online services or sites," Reitenger wrote.

"We encourage you to choose unique, hard-to-guess passwords and always look for unusual activity in your account."

No credit card information was accessed in the hack, according to the letter.

Network customers who were affected received an e-mail from Sony notifying them of the issue. Everyone who is affected is required by Sony to change their passwords on the network.

The PlayStation Network went down on April 20 after a Web attack on the network, which lets people download games and videos and play them with each other online. Most players couldn't use the network for weeks and it wasn't completely restored until the PlayStation Store went back online in early June.

A London 19-year-old allegedly affiliated with the hacker group LulzSec was arrested in late June in connection with the Sony attack. LulzSec, purportedly a spin-off of the bigger hacker collective Anonymous, posted what they claim is proprietary information from Sony Pictures and other Sony properties' websites online.

At June's E3 video-gaming expo, Sony Computer Entertainment of America president Jack Tretton apologized to players for the outages.

He called it the "elephant in the room" and thanked gamers for staying loyal during the down time.

"You are the lifeblood of this company. Without you there is no Playstation," Tretton said. "I want to apologize, both personally and on behalf of the company, for any anxiety we caused you.

Many users had responded angrily in the spring, with many of their complaints centering around the week Sony took between the hack and making it known to players.

This time, comments on Reitenger's online post seemed more positive.

"Thanks for letting everyone know so soon," one user wrote. "It's better to be aware."

"This is good that your letting us know this before everyone goes in another rage," said another.

VI SINH VAT DAI CUONG !

http://199.91.152.161/r87iwwzm9f0g/xu9zwxlplx7/visinhvatdaicuong.pdf

Yahoo and ABC partner for news 'alliance'

By Julianne Pepitone @CNNMoneyTech October 3, 2011: 10:42 AM ET

CNNMoney (NEW YORK) -- Yahoo and ABC News are teaming up to share news content, reporting resources and original videos.

The "alliance," announced Monday on "Good Morning America" and at a press conference in New York City, is expected to reach 100 million people per month. Both GMA anchors and executives at the events called the deal "game-changing" several times.

Much of the partnership revolves around original video, which has gained popularity in the online news space. The new video series "Newsmakers" will air its first online episode at 2:35 p.m., with ABC correspondent George Stephanopoulos interviewing President Obama. The live video will stream on Yahoo.com and ABCNews.com.

Other online series launching Monday are "Around the World with Christiane Amanpour," global reporter and "This Week" and "This Could Be Big" anchored by Bill Weir. More will roll out in 2012.

Beyond video, the deal also changes how each brand gathers some of its news. Walt Disney (DIS, Fortune 500)-owned ABC News will now be the main news provider on Yahoo News, which is the No. 1 online news site. Conversely, Yahoo editorial staff and content will appear on-air on ABC.

Alibaba 'interested' in buying all of Yahoo

Editorial teams for both companies will work together on big projects and major news events.

Bureaus in New York, D.C. and Los Angeles will include staff from both ABC and Yahoo. Still, the companies said each brand will "maintain editorial control" of their respective sites.

Several ABC News anchors attended the small press conference, and a few talked about the advantages of partnering with Yahoo.

Katie Couric discussed the limitations of short-span TV interviews. "This platform provides us with an incredible opportunity to dig a little deeper. We have the luxury of [more] time online."

The ad sales teams will also join forces to sell online video advertising. ABC will lead sales efforts during the busy "upfront" selling season and Yahoo will manage sales the rest of the year.

At the press conference in Manhattan, Yahoo executive vice president Ross Levinsohn said the partnership "came together very quickly."

"We're really focused on premium content," Levinsohn said. "We believe that the value created around original content can't be replicated."

Last month, all 10 of the top 10 most-watched original online video series were Yahoo's.

A journalist asked Levinsohn whether more Yahoo alliances are to come. He ducked the question, saying, "We're running our business. We keep our heads down [and work], and the rest works itself out."

Levinsohn has been named as a likely contender for the CEO position that's been open since Carol Bartz was unceremoniously fired over the phone last month. Yahoo chief financial officer Tim Morse is acting as interim CEO.

But a reporter asked whether Levinsohn's running the event signaled that he is "taking the helm."

"Excuse me?" Levinsohn said, and then laughed. "I'm sitting here in the best job of my life."

Yahoo (YHOO, Fortune 500) shares rose more than 4% Monday morning. However, the spike likely had more to do with the news that the CEO of Chinese Internet firm Alibaba said late Friday that he was "interested" in buying Yahoo.

Since Bartz was fired, there has been rampant speculation that Yahoo may look to sell itself instead of remaining independent and hiring a new CEO to replace Bartz.

AT&T begins sending throttling warnings to top data hogs

By Christina Bonnington, WIRED October 3, 2011 -- Updated 1148 GMT (1948 HKT) | Filed under: Web

AT&T did away with its unlimited data plan last summer, replacing it with a tiered data structure.

(WIRED) -- Following a trend set by other carriers, AT&T has begun sending SMS warning messages to the top 5% of data users on its network. The message alerts consumers that they are among AT&T's top 5% that billing period, and suggests they use Wi-Fi to avoid reduced data speeds in the future.

Although it's a pain to those affected, AT&T is being transparent about the issue, giving subscribers a chance to minimize their usage before getting their data speeds choked. Verizon began throttling users who consume a large amount of data, but didn't initially reveal the policy to the public, describe how it would be implemented or describe if and how users would be notified.

It should be noted, however, that AT&T was the first carrier to introduce the tiered data plan structure to customers, setting the trend for other carriers to follow suit thereafter.

AT&T did away with its unlimited data plan shortly after the iPhone 4 debuted last summer, replacing it with a tiered data structure. Currently, the most robust data option is a $25 per month 2 GB plan that allows you to go over that limit for $10 per extra GB. AT&T confirmed it would throttle the data speeds of the heaviest users on its network in late July.

Verizon has a similar policy. The carrier will reduce data speeds "periodically for the remainder of your then current and immediately following billing cycle" if you fall within the top 5 percent of heavy data users. This is done in order to "ensure high quality network performance" for other users, especially in times and locations where there's peak demand. According to a developer forum, Verizon will call and then send a letter to users who are about to get their data speeds throttled. Verizon eliminated its unlimited data plan in July and now offers 2 GB for $30/month, 5 GB for $50 monthly and 10 GB for $80 monthly.

T-Mobile offers an unlimited data plan that costs $100 per month, but throttles users who exceed 5 GB in a single billing cycle.

That leaves Sprint as the only carrier that still offers an unlimited data plan without any kind of throttling (unlimited data and minutes for $100/month), but the carrier does tack on a $10 "Premium Data" fee for smartphone owners. Sprint is rumored to begin carrying the iPhone this year, which would make it the only carrier to allow users an unlimited data plan with the popular phone.

Business analyst and Redditor Zaied Ali was one of the recipients of AT&T's recent round of SMS alerts. He used between 11 and 12 GB of data this month, but normally averages around 6 GB to 7 GB. Ali thinks that AT&T's throttling policy reduces the utility of his smartphone, since he has to think twice about how he uses his phone.

"What is the point of a Netflix app if we don't have the back-end to fully support it?" Ali says. "The tiered data plan is in the right direction, but then don't throttle your users. Let them use what they pay for at the speeds that they paid for."

Another Redditor, Skelatwork, amassed a similar level of data this billing period and received an SMS warning. Skelatwork said that he reached the 11 GB mark by listening to podcasts and Pandora on his commute to work.

A Wired.com poll of 11,000 data plan subscribers showed that 73% use less than 2 GB of data each month. Consumer Reports similarly found that the average iPhone user only gobbles 273 MB of data each month. So right now, the throttling issue is generally only affecting a small number of users.

As the use of cloud storage and streaming music and video services becomes more widespread, the issue of these data caps and speed throttling is likely to get more heated.