AP - Dell Inc. said Tuesday that the U.S. personal computer market has reached its low point but that the timing of a global turnaround in the technology industry remains anyone's guess.
Thursday, December 31, 2009
DELL SHARES DIVE AS PC MARKET STILL LOOKS ROUGH (AP)
COMCAST ONLINE VIDEO TRIAL GROWS TO 23 NETWORKS (AP)
AP - CBS Corp. and 17 cable networks said Tuesday they are joining an online video trial by Comcast Corp., a move that tacitly acknowledges advertising isn't enough to support shows streamed over the Internet.
AP SOURCE: CHIEFS SIGN QB CASSEL TO LONG-TERM DEAL (AP)
AP - A person close to the negotiations says the Kansas City Chiefs have signed quarterback Matt Cassel to a multiyear deal.
BASEBALL WRITERS VOTE DOWN STEROIDS COMMITTEE (AP)
AP - Baseball writers have turned down a proposal to form a committee for developing guidelines on evaluating players from the steroids era in Hall of Fame voting.
BULLS BUY OUT F TIM THOMAS (AP)
AP - Forward Tim Thomas and the Chicago Bulls have agreed on a contract buyout, ending the veteran's second stint with the Bulls.
FORMER UNLV COACH TARKANIAN HAVING SPINAL SURGERY (AP)
AP - Former UNLV coach Jerry Tarkanian is having spinal surgery in California.
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
PACERS SIGNING G DAHNTAY JONES (AP)
AP - The Indiana Pacers have signed free agent guard Dahntay Jones.
APPLE APP STORE LOGS 1.5 BILLION DOWNLOADS IN FIRST YEAR (AFP)
LONGORIA OUT OF ALL-STAR GAME; REPLACED BY YOUNG (AP)
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Tuesday, December 29, 2009
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Monday, December 28, 2009
BLOCKBUSTER FIRES BACK AT NETFLIX WITH SAMSUNG DEAL (NEWSFACTOR)
NewsFactor - In a move to compete with Netflix, Blockbuster on Tuesday announced a deal with Samsung Electronics to bring on-demand content to home theaters. The companies have joined forces to give consumers access to Blockbuster's library of premium digital entertainment content on select new Samsung HDTVs, home theater systems, and Blu-ray players.
CAVENDISH WINS TECHNOLOGY-FREE TOUR STAGE (AP)
REPORT: BOLSHOI THEATER CONDUCTOR STEPS DOWN (AP)
AP - The conductor of Russia's famed Bolshoi Theater tells news agencies he is resigning because bureaucrats are obstructing his creative work.
MADOFF ARRIVES AT FEDERAL PRISON IN NORTH CAROLINA
The convicted swindler begins to serve a 150-year sentence for his crimes.
STOCKS SEARCH FOR DIRECTION ON WALL STREET
Stocks struggled to find direction amid a handful of better earnings reports and a mixed bag of economic data.
DELL SEES US PC MARKET FINDING ITS LOW POINT (AP)
Sunday, December 27, 2009
FERGUSON DID NOT TRY TO KEEP ME, CLAIMS TEVEZ (AFP)
CONNELLY, BETTANY OPEN FILM FEST WITH DARWIN TALE (AP)
AP - Real-life couple Jennifer Connelly and Paul Bettany will kick off the Toronto International Film Festival with the life story of Charles Darwin.
EC SAYS LCD SCREEN CARTEL IS ACTIVE GLOBALLY (PC WORLD)
PC World - European antitrust investigators believe a cartel in the market for LCD screens extends around the world, a European Commission official said Tuesday.On Monday Philips and its former subsidiary LG Display confirmed that both are among a handful of firms charged by the Commission with running a cartel in the market for LCD screens used in a range of devices including PC monitors, mobile phones and iPods. "We are cooperating with the authorities in Canada, the U.S. and Japan," said Jonathan Todd, the Commission spokesman for competition matters in a telephone interview.The Commission charged Philips and others in May with running a cartel, one of the most serious forms of antitrust abuse under European competition law.Philips denied involvement and said it would "vigorously oppose" the allegation, in its profits statement for the second quarter of the year, released Monday.Most of the LCD screen cartel probes came to light in 2006, when Philips, Samsung and Sharp confirmed they had been approached by antitrust regulators. Last November in the U.S. LG Display, Sharp and Chunghwa Picture Tubes pleaded guilty to cartel involvement and paid a combined US$585 million in fines.Samsung is cooperating with the Commission's cartel investigators but it won't confirm if it received charges, according to reports that also say that Sharp denies having been charged by the Commission. Neither company was immediately available to comment.Cartels are not subject to criminal law in Europe, as they are in the U.S. and other jurisdictions. However under civil law the Commission can fine companies up to 10 percent of their global annual sales.The companies charged in May have two months to submit a written response. They are also entitled to request an oral hearing with the Commission's antitrust division.
JACKSON PROMOTER CONSIDERS UK TRIBUTE SHOW (AP)
Saturday, December 26, 2009
CBS JOINS COMCAST ON DEMAND ONLINE TRIAL (REUTERS)
Reuters - Comcast Corp has signed up CBS Corp as the first broadcast network to participate in the cable company's technical trial of a program to make more television shows available to Internet users.
LONDONER BUYS BEACH THAT INSPIRED VIRGINIA WOOLF (REUTERS)
Reuters - A windswept beach on the Cornish bay that inspired Virginia Woolf's novel "To the Lighthouse" has been sold for 80,000 pounds ($130,100) to a woman in London, the auctioneer said on Tuesday.
GRANDERSON, ALL-STARS READY FOR PRESIDENTIAL PITCH (AP)
BLACKHAWKS OUST GM TALLON (AP)
AP - The Chicago Blackhawks ousted general manager Dale Tallon on Tuesday, less than two months after the team reached the Western Conference finals.
JAPAN'S HASEGAWA RETAINS WBC BANTAMWEIGHT TITLE (AP)
AP - WBC bantamweight champion Hozumi Hasegawa of Japan has kept his title by stopping Nestor Rocha of the United States in the first round.
Friday, December 25, 2009
CHINA BUILDS HIGH WALL TO GUARD ENERGY INDUSTRY
When U.S. energy and commerce officials arrive in Beijing on Tuesday, they will confront policies that protect China?s solar panel and wind farm industries.
SURVEY FINDS ONE IN SIX CONSUMERS ACT ON SPAM (PC WORLD)
PC World - About one in six consumers have at some time acted on a spam message, affirming the economic incentive for spammers to keep churning out millions of obnoxious pitches per day, according to a new survey.
PROPOSED CHANGES TO THE LAW ON CITIZENSHIP
The Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Bill, currently being considered in Parliament, contains
WANT TO PUT ANDROID ON YOUR NETBOOK? TRY THIS (PC MAGAZINE)
PC Magazine - Google-ites and open-source lovers may now have a project to tide them over until the release of the upcoming Chrome OS. The good folks over at the LiveAndroid project have managed to create a bootable CD running the Google Android 1.5 (Cupcake) operating system. It's pretty buggy, though, so be warned.
GRAY AREAS LOOM LARGE IN CHINA?S STEEL INDUSTRY
Long before four employees from Rio Tinto were detained, people in China?s steel industry were complaining about bribery, corruption and a system gone rotten.
OFFICE WEB APPS: FIVE QUESTIONS (PC WORLD)
PC World - Microsoft's upcoming Office 2010 is news alone, but what really excited the tech world was the announcement of a free online version of the software, called Office Web Apps. The company already offers a bundle of cloud software over Windows Live - including mail, storage, and blogging tools - but taking its paid software onto the free, online world is a bold move. That raises some questions:
FORMER GE CEO JACK WELCH HOSPITALIZED (REUTERS)
Reuters - Former General Electric Co Chairman and Chief Executive Jack Welch has been hospitalized in New York with a bacterial infection but is expected to recover, according to his office.
Thursday, December 24, 2009
AN AMAZON-OWNED NETFLIX: GOOD AND BAD (PC WORLD)
PC World - Interest in Amazon (and the company's stock price) leaped yesterday as a rumor circulated about the potential of Amazon.com buying the DVD rental and streaming video service. If true, the partnership would create a behemoth in the movie industry and expand two powerful and reliable businesses. But this deal is not entirely made of gold. Here are the pros and cons.
WITH RIO CASE, CHINA PUTS AUSTRALIA IN A TIGHT SPOT
At home, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd faces calls to do more, but he appears wary of pushing Australia?s largest trade partner too hard too soon.
LOGITECH SPEAKERS OFFER ‘360-DEGREE’ SOUND (MACWORLD.COM)
Macworld.com - Logitech on Tuesday announced four new Mac and PC-compatible speaker systems, each equipped with “360-Degree Sound.” Prices range from $70 to $130, with available expected in July through September.
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Wednesday, December 23, 2009
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(Ranking is updated hourly. Visit the Bestsellers in String list for authoritative information on this product's current rank.)
DEALBOOK: MADOFF IS MOVED TO ATLANTA PRISON
Bernard L. Madoff, convicted last month of orchestrating a massive Ponzi scheme, was moved from his Manhattan jail cell to a prison in Atlanta, the Bureau of Prisons said in the early hours Tuesday.
ROJAS CLAIMS WBC FEATHERWEIGHT TITLE (AP)
DRAWING FIRE, CHINA SEEKS TO DOMINATE IN RENEWABLE ENERGY
When U.S. energy and commerce officials arrive in Beijing on Tuesday, they will confront policies that protect China?s solar panel and wind farm industries.
MICROSOFT TO LET OLDER PHONES USE ITS APP STORE (PC WORLD)
PC World - Microsoft planned to announce on Tuesday that it will start accepting applications for its Windows Marketplace for Mobile on July 27 and confirmed that not all existing applications will be available at the store.
WALL STREET OPENS LITTLE CHANGED
Stocks were little changed despite better-than-expected earnings reports from Johnson & Johnson and Goldman Sachs and an upbeat reading on retail sales.
GOLDMAN SACHS REPORTS BIG PROFIT, BEATING FORECASTS
Goldman Sachs earned second-quarter profits of $3.44 billion, continuing a robust turnaround since it rode out the tumultuous final months of 2008 with the help of a federal rescue.
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
CONDUCTOR DOWNES, WIFE DIE IN SWISS SUICIDE CLINIC (AP)
HOENESS INSISTS RIBERY "BAZAAR" IS OVER (AFP)
VA. DOC PLEADS GUILTY TO PRESCRIPTION WRITING SCAM (AP)
AP - A Virginia doctor has pleaded guilty in Massachusetts to writing tens of thousands of prescriptions for muscle relaxants and other drugs over the Internet to patients he'd never examined.
'BONNIE AND CLYDE' DIRECTOR PENN IN HOSPITAL (AP)
AP - Arthur Penn, who directed the films "Bonnie and Clyde" and "The Miracle Worker," is in a New York hospital with pneumonia and can't attend a Maine film festival as planned.
JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE'S TENN. GOLF COURSE SET TO OPEN (AP)
AP - Justin Timberlake's Mirimichi golf course is set to open July 25 in suburban Memphis after a $16 million renovation aimed at making it environmentally friendly.
EDINBURGH BOOK FESTIVAL DIRECTOR STANDS DOWN (REUTERS)
Reuters - Edinburgh International Book Festival director Catherine Lockerbie said on Tuesday she was resigning after nine years during which she helped make it one of the top literary gatherings of its kind in the world.
Monday, December 21, 2009
SUN MICRO SEES WEAKER THAN EXPECTED REVENUE (REUTERS)
Reuters - Sun Microsystems Inc , the computer server maker being acquired by Oracle Corp , issued a revenue forecast that fell short of Wall Street estimates.
MICROSOFT SCORES AZURE CLOUD WIN (INFOWORLD)
InfoWorld - Scoring a customer win for Microsoft's Windows Azure cloud platform, Volantis Systems on Tuesday is announcing that its Ubik.com online service for building mobile Internet sites will use Azure for storage.
NOCENTINI DEFENDS LEAD IN TOUR'S 10TH STAGE (AP)
SURVEY FINDS SURPRISING DIP IN GERMAN ECONOMIC SENTIMENT
An indicator of economic sentiment for Germany, Europe?s largest economy, declined to 39.5 points this month, falling from 44.8 points in June.
JOHNSON & JOHNSON SEES DIP IN PROFIT
The health care products maker says its second-quarter profit fell 3.5 percent due to lower sales, particularly for its prescription drugs, and the weak dollar.
Sunday, December 20, 2009
PRODUCER PRICES JUMP, LED BY ENERGY
Prices paid at the producer level rose more than expected in June, and a surge in gas prices lifted retail sales.
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WHY MUSLIM WOMEN ARE UNEMPLOYED | ANDREW BROWN
What can be done to help Muslim mothers into the workforce? A study finds that it's not religion keeping them at home
Why don't Muslim women work outside the home? The Pakistani and Bangladeshi Muslim communities in this country contain many of the poorest and least employed women in Britain. Why are they both poor and unemployed? Is it racism, or religion, or some combination of the two?
A report from the Quilliam Foundation dismisses both these simple answers and suggests some complex and worrying ones. The statistic that really jumped out at me was the extent to which marriage has become a means of immigration to this country. A study by Professor Angela Dale, of Manchester University, cited here suggests that 50% of Pakistani and Bangladeshi women and 40% of men in this country married spouses from overseas between 1998 and 2005. It seems reasonable to suppose that most of these women come from poor, rural families, and those are exactly the ones with the highest rates of female exclusion from the job market here.
The Quilliam survey is not entirely representative, but it is pretty impressive, none the less. 634 women from major settlement areas were interviewed over the telephone, in their native languages, for between 10 and 30 minutes. This is a sample large enough to be pretty informative, given that national polls on many subjects are happy to use samples of around a thousand to estimate the opinions of 60m people.
What follows is a summary. Consider everything sourced in the full report, and go there, please, if you think I am distorting it.
The first big finding is that 57% of the women asked would like to have a paid job. Quilliam sees it this way round, rather than that 39% would not like to. Either way, this figure suggests that roughly twice as many women would like to work outside the home as actually do so. Their aspirations are not middle class. Only one in eight want either a professional career or to own their own business and only 0.3% (two women) said they wanted a job in order to have a career.
Most wanted money to support the family or independence for themselves, though a significant proportion wanted jobs to get out of the house and 7% to met people.
So why didn't they work? It wasn't in any obvious sense religion: not one single respondent out of the 616 that answered the question said that working was against their religion, and only 1% that they felt that they would be discriminated against for their religious beliefs and dress
Nor was there any evidence of discrimination in the labour market directly, since only 2% of the women said they were looking for a job but could not find one. No, the overwhelming answer, given by nearly half the respondents, was that they had to bring up their children. Another 20% said that their English wasn't very good, and this is a point that Quilliam takes up, believing that English lessons for immigrant wives are essential to integrate them into society and that it is foolish and short-sighted to cut back on funding for that.
This brings me to the two questions which the report does not answer and didn't ask: how small are the children we are talking about? How many of them are there? This surely has an enormous bearing on how we judge the response that they can't work because their children need them.
It may be that they are more sensitive to the belief that their children need them than the rest of our culture. A Bradford Council survey, cited in this report, found that
among South Asian and other communities in Bradford, placing children with strangers in a formal childcare setting is frowned upon, both by family members and the community in general
Maybe these women just like being around children. Of the women who did want work, more than half wanted jobs that deal with children, either directly, or as teachers and social workers. This is perhaps a practical expression of what it means to come from the other side of the demographic divide to the mainstream culture.
The other large point here is that these attitudes are dissolving very slowly, if at all. The women in the Quilliam survey were not recent immigrants, though very few (16%) were born here. 70% had been here ten years or more, and nearly 40% for more than 20 years, which would make them very likely grandmothers and thus very influential over the younger generations.
VERIZON'S APP STORE PLANS LIKELY TO IRK PHONE MAKERS (PC WORLD)
PC World - Verizon want to use its muscle as a major U.S. carrier to pull smart phone applications into its own online application store. To that end, Verizon is hosting a Verizon Developer Community Conference on July 28 to encourage developers to design software for the carrier's phones.
COLOMBIAN WRITER RESTREPO CAUGHT UP IN POLITICS (REUTERS)
Reuters - Like many Latin American writers, Laura Restrepo has been caught up in the region's turbulent politics and spent much of her time in exile as well as winning literary prizes.
Saturday, December 19, 2009
AIRLINES, ALREADY SUFFERING, BRACE FOR MORE WOES
Cuts in routes and workers may help weather the slump, but if conditions worsen, some carriers may not survive.
POOR IT JOB MARKET MAY FUEL ONLINE CRIME: CISCO (REUTERS)
Reuters - The ever-weakening job market could well lead to an increase in online crime as laid-off workers, especially those with computer skills, turn to scams to support themselves, Cisco Systems Inc said in a mid-year security report to be released on Tuesday.
SINGAPORE?S ECONOMY STAGES COMEBACK IN QUARTER
Gross domestic product grew at an annualized rate of 20.4 percent in the April-June period, prompting an official revision of the full-year growth forecasts.
EARNINGS PREVIEW: BAR SET LOW FOR GOOGLE'S 2Q (AP)
AP - Internet search leader Google Inc. is scheduled to report its second-quarter results after the stock market closes Thursday. The following is a summary of key developments and analyst opinion related to the period.
`DEVIL SURVIVOR' TAKES YOU TO DEMON-HAUNTED TOKYO (AP)
LAUREN CONRAD HAS BOOK ON BEST-SELLER LISTS (AP)
Friday, December 18, 2009
DEALBOOK: MIDNIGHT RUN: MADOFF MOVED FROM MANHATTAN TO ATLANTA
Bernard L. Madoff, convicted last month of orchestrating a massive Ponzi scheme, was moved from his Manhattan jail cell to a prison in Atlanta, the Bureau of Prisons said in the early hours Tuesday.
S.KOREAN POLICE: HACKERS EXTRACTED DATA IN ATTACKS (AP)
MICHAEL JACKSON TOXICOLOGY REPORTS EXPECTED SOON (AP)
CHINA BANS ELECTRO-SHOCK THERAPY FOR INTERNET ADDICTS (REUTERS)
Reuters - China has banned electro-shock therapy as a treatment for Internet addiction, citing uncertainty in the safety and effectiveness of the practice after criticism in the local media.
GEITHNER TELL SAUDIS THAT THE U.S. IS ON THE MEND
Speaking in Saudi Arabia, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said Tuesday that aggressive efforts to counter that global financial crisis were starting to work.
SPURS ANGLING FOR EX-GUNNER VIEIRA (AFP)
Thursday, December 17, 2009
OUR BORDER CONTROLS ARE FIRM BUT FAIR | PHIL WOOLAS
Part of our job is to sift out those who want to break our rules or harm the public ? not 'poets with strange sounding names'
Henry Porter's recent piece on Britain's visa system was at best naive, and at worst designed to deliberately misinform people about our immigration system. To dismiss Britain's border security ? put in place to protect the public from very real threats ? as "a campaign against poets with strange sounding names and of Muslim origin" is quite frankly ludicrous.
The government is acutely aware of how important the flourishing arts sector is to Britain, and we have never been less than supportive. Foreign artists play a major part of this industry's success ? but that does not mean they will be treated any differently from the millions of people who apply to visit the UK each year.
As immigration minister my job is to make sure Britain is safe, our border is secure, and migration works for everyone ? this means ensuring that the right people are able to come here and barring those we don't want.
It is easy for Porter to disregard our restrictions as "nasty and absurd". Thankfully he's not one of the UK Border Agency's frontline officers turning away thousands of fraudulent applicants every year, sifting through piles of dodgy documents and checking would-be passengers against crime, terrorism and immigration watch-lists.
Does he really think these checks are unnecessary? Should the privilege of visiting Britain really be compared to "holding a dinner party and finding there is a bouncer on the door"? The sad fact is, not everyone plays by the rules, and not everyone is trying to come to Britain for honest reasons. Part of our job is to sift out those who want to break our rules or put the public in harm's way.
This does not mean I am blind to the ways these rules affect people. Genuine foreign artists are important to us ? they make a huge contribution to the cultural and of course the economic wealth of this country. The last thing we want to do is trip anyone up or put them off coming here. That is why we worked very closely with representatives of the arts sector in devising the points-based system. We continue to listen to their suggestions through regular meetings of the Arts and Entertainment Taskforce, which includes representatives from the UK Film Council, the Arts Council and the National Campaign for the Arts. And we go to great lengths to make sure everyone ? including foreign artists ? knows how the rules work. This includes a national advertising campaign, detailed guidance on the website, and a dedicated helpline for individual queries.
Similar pleas for special treatment with equally forceful arguments have come from students and academics. Unfortunately not everyone is a good guy. Is Porter suggesting we have a two-tier system?
The new points-based system is flexible ? and where changes can be made to improve it, we have shown that we are not afraid to make them. We tightened up the criteria for highly skilled migrants in response to the difficult economic times and, following the advice of independent labour market experts at the Migration Advisory Committee, we made it easier for companies to bring over skilled contemporary dancers and skilled orchestral musicians. But there are certain principles of the system that should not ? and will not ? be changed. And I think it is important to explain why.
Before anyone can come here under the points-based system ? or indeed get any visa ? they must first give us their fingerprints. This is so that we can run them against "watchlists" which flag people who are wanted by the police or have serious criminal convictions. Lawbreakers are not necessarily going to tell us this kind of information voluntarily and these checks have already flagged thousands of false identities.
Also, under the majority of the points-based system, people can only come here if they have a sponsor ? that is, a company or organisation that will vouch for them while they are here. This has two big advantages: firstly that only people who are genuinely needed can come here; secondly it increases the chances that those who do come play by the rules during their stay. This means being here no longer than their visa allows and going home at the end of that time.
The system needs to be strict if it is to work, but that doesn't mean it is not also speedy and most visas are processed within a week. Having said that, we recommend any artists' applications are made as far as possible in advance, normally one month before intended travel, though we accept applications up to three months ahead.
The rules are designed to be firm but fair. And ? most importantly ? they apply to everyone regardless of race, gender, age or background. I believe in equality and I'm pleased to say that a sense of fair play runs through this system. Foreign artists, like everyone else, have to use the new system and it is right that we treat artists and performers like everyone else.
To work effectively the system has to be transparent, consistent and protect Britain's border. I am proud to say that is what it does.
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Wednesday, December 16, 2009
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