Showing posts with label Technology Zone. Show all posts
Update: Bell Canada and TELUS (formerly owned by Verizon) employees officially confirm that by 2012 ISP's all over the globe will reduce Internet access to a TV-like subscription model, only offering access to a small standard amount of commercial sites and require extra fees for every other site you visit. These 'other' sites would then lose all their exposure and eventually shut down, resulting in what could be seen as the end of the Internet.
Dylan Pattyn *, who is currently writing an article for Time Magazine on the issue, has official confirmation from sources within Bell Canada and is interviewing a marketing representative from TELUS who confirms the story and states that TELUS has already started blocking all websites that aren't in the subscription package for mobile Internet access. They could not confirm whether it would happen in 2012 because both stated it may actually happen sooner (as early as 2010). Interviews with these sources, more confirmation from other sources and more in-depth information on the issue is set to be published in Time Magazine soon.
http://ipower.ning.com/netneutrality2
Join the Movement to Save the Internet.
What Google has to say on Net Neutrality?
An Open Letter from Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google Inc
Dylan Pattyn *, who is currently writing an article for Time Magazine on the issue, has official confirmation from sources within Bell Canada and is interviewing a marketing representative from TELUS who confirms the story and states that TELUS has already started blocking all websites that aren't in the subscription package for mobile Internet access. They could not confirm whether it would happen in 2012 because both stated it may actually happen sooner (as early as 2010). Interviews with these sources, more confirmation from other sources and more in-depth information on the issue is set to be published in Time Magazine soon.
http://ipower.ning.com/netneutrality2
What can we do?
The reason why we're releasing this information is because we believe we can stop it. More awareness means more mainstream media shedding light on it, more political interest and more pressure on the ISP's to keep the Internet an open free space. We started this social network as a platform for Internet activism where we can join forces, share ideas and organize any form of protest that may have an impact. If we want to make a difference in this, we have to join together and stand united as one powerful voice against it.Join the Movement to Save the Internet.
What Google has to say on Net Neutrality?
An Open Letter from Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google Inc
Three groups including Georgetown University teamed up Wednesday to develop a new way to measure the glucose levels of diabetes patients without a finger prick to draw their blood.
The technique involves the use of disposable skin patches (embedded with a wireless sensor chip) that can monitor glucose levels, and then transmit that information to a cell phone. With the data, the mobile phone could conceivably control an insulin pump remotely, according to the researchers.
The organizations involved in the project are Georgetown, Gentag, and Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), a technology development company. Also a tech research firm, Gentag has developed an RFID-sensor reader platform for cell phones. And with funding from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, researchers from Georgetown and SAIC created the skin patch technology, initially to monitor soldiers on the battlefield.
As part of their agreement, the groups will combine their respective intellectual property to develop the new application for diabetes patients. The patches will be able to monitor patients' blood every hour for a 24-hour period, and transmit that data to a device that's already familiar to many diabetes patients. The phones also include geolocation technology in the case of an emergency.
"We expect that this new, painless, disposable, wireless glucose sensor technology will significantly improve diabetes monitoring worldwide," Gentag President John Peeters said in a statement.
The organizations did not set a specific launch time for the technology.
From cnet.com
Now here's the latest on the Mars exploration courtesy of Google News
NASA probe sends first pictures from Martian arctic
1 day ago (as of May 26, 11:03PM CST)
WASHINGTON (AFP) — A NASA probe sent back never-before-seen pictures of Mars' north pole Monday, in the most ambitious mission to date to find life-sustaining minerals on the Red Planet.
After NASA's Phoenix Mars probe made a near perfect landing at the Martian polar region late Sunday, scientists pored over images revealing a desolate frozen tundra.
"We can see cracks in the troughs that make us think the ice is still modifying the surface," said Peter Smith, a lead scientist on the project. "We see fresh cracks. Cracks can't be old. They would fill in," he said.
Scientists said they were also excited about the images taken by the probe during its descent late Sunday into the atmosphere of the Red Planet.
Read More...
Click Here for Related Articles
NASA probe sends first pictures from Martian arctic
1 day ago (as of May 26, 11:03PM CST)
WASHINGTON (AFP) — A NASA probe sent back never-before-seen pictures of Mars' north pole Monday, in the most ambitious mission to date to find life-sustaining minerals on the Red Planet.
After NASA's Phoenix Mars probe made a near perfect landing at the Martian polar region late Sunday, scientists pored over images revealing a desolate frozen tundra.
"We can see cracks in the troughs that make us think the ice is still modifying the surface," said Peter Smith, a lead scientist on the project. "We see fresh cracks. Cracks can't be old. They would fill in," he said.
Scientists said they were also excited about the images taken by the probe during its descent late Sunday into the atmosphere of the Red Planet.
Read More...
Click Here for Related Articles
If you wish to have a professional shared hosting quality in a free hosting package, come and host with 000webhost.com and experience the best service you can get absolutely free.
Founded in December 2006, 000webhost.com has a trusted free hosting members base of over 60,000 members and still counting! Offering professional quality hosting, support, uptime and reliability, we have a great community of webmasters, you'd love to be a part of!
Register now and get it all free:
*** 250 MB of disk space
*** 100 GB of data transfer
*** PHP and MySQL support with no restrictions
*** cPanel control panel
*** Absolutely no advertising!
Check full details here: www.000webhost.com
Founded in December 2006, 000webhost.com has a trusted free hosting members base of over 60,000 members and still counting! Offering professional quality hosting, support, uptime and reliability, we have a great community of webmasters, you'd love to be a part of!
Register now and get it all free:
*** 250 MB of disk space
*** 100 GB of data transfer
*** PHP and MySQL support with no restrictions
*** cPanel control panel
*** Absolutely no advertising!
Check full details here: www.000webhost.com
By MICHAEL LIEDTKE
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Microsoft Corp. withdrew its $42.3 billion bid to buy Yahoo Inc. on Saturday, scrapping an attempt to snap up the tarnished Internet icon in hopes of toppling online search and advertising leader Google Inc.
The decision to walk away from the deal came after last-ditch efforts to negotiate a mutually acceptable sale price proved unsuccessful.
The talks reached a breaking point after Jerry Yang and David Filo, the co-founders of Sunnyvale-based Yahoo, flew to Seattle in the morning to meet personally with Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer and Kevin Johnson, who runs the software maker's unprofitable online services division, according to someone familiar with the talks. The person was not authorized to speak publicly and asked not to be identified.
"Clearly a deal is not to be," Ballmer wrote to Yang in a letter sent late Saturday.
Microsoft was willing to pay $47.5 billion, or $33 per share, up from the bid's current value of $29.40 per share, according to Ballmer's letter.
But Yahoo's board demanded at least $53 billion, or $37 per share, according to Ballmer. That would have been nearly double Yahoo's stock price of $19.18 at the time Microsoft first made its bid a little over three months ago.
And Yang, who became Yahoo's CEO 11 months ago, wanted $38 per share in a Wednesday meeting, according to the person familiar with the discussions. That meeting was held the day after Yang and Yahoo Chairman Roy Bostock called to ask Microsoft not to withdraw its bid, the person said.
In a statement Saturday, Bostock reiterated that Microsoft had undervalued his company's assets since the takeover tug-of-war began more than three months ago.
"We remain focused on maximizing shareholder value and pursuing strategic opportunities that position Yahoo for success and leadership in its markets," Bostock said.
The anticlimactic ending came as a surprise, given that many analysts believed Microsoft wanted to close the deal badly enough to pursue a hostile takeover — a risky maneuver that would have required an attempt to replace the Yahoo board that spurned rejected the bid.
Although he had threatened a hostile takeover attempt last month, Ballmer said he concluded that waging a so-called proxy battle was "not sensible."
"Our discussions with you have led us to conclude that, in the interim, you would take steps that would make Yahoo undesirable as an acquisition," Ballmer wrote to Yang.
But Yahoo hasn't necessarily faded from Microsoft's cross hairs.
The software maker conceivably could renew its bid later this year if Yahoo can't bounce back from more than two years of financial lethargy.
Should Yahoo's turnaround efforts flop, many analysts believe the company's stock would sink into the mid-teens and open the door for another takeover offer that would be more difficult to rebuff.
For now, at least, Microsoft appears to believe it has enough internal weapons to chip away at Google's dominance of the booming Internet ad market.
"We have a talented team in place and a compelling plan to grow our business through innovative new services and strategic transactions with other business partners," Ballmer said. "While Yahoo would have accelerated our strategy, I am confident that we can continue to move forward toward our goals."
Microsoft's move intensifies the pressure on Yang to reverse the lackluster growth that has eroded Yahoo's profits and depressed its stock price since 2005, making it vulnerable to an unwanted takeover.
Yang has projected that Yahoo's revenue will rise by 25 percent in 2009 and 2010, propelled by an expanded Internet advertising network that's using more sophisticated tools to target consumers.
But analysts haven't raised their forecasts to anywhere near Yang's predictions, reflecting doubts that may trigger a rebellion among Yahoo's restive shareholders if it looks as if management isn't delivering on its promises.
Yang, who started Yahoo with Filo in 1994 while they were graduate students at Stanford University, embraced the challenge in a Saturday statement.
"With the distraction of Microsoft's unsolicited proposal now behind us, we will be able to focus all of our energies on executing the most important transition in our history," he said.
As part of its efforts to fend off Microsoft, Yahoo had been exploring a possible advertising partnership with Google and a merger with the Internet operations of Time Warner Inc. It's unclear whether Yahoo will still pursue those deals now that Microsoft has backed off.
In his letter, Ballmer said Yahoo's talks with Google were one of the main reasons he decided to not to pursue a hostile takeover. He described the alliance as "unwise from a business perspective" because Yahoo would cede too much power to Google in the lucrative search advertising market.
Analysts are divided on just how much Microsoft needs Yahoo.
One school of thought is that a Yahoo takeover could have turned into an expensive headache that probably wouldn't start delivering dividends for two or three years. While Microsoft grappled with a Yahoo acquisition, Google theoretically could have benefited from the distractions and grown even stronger.
Without the Yahoo takeover on its plate, Microsoft can focus more on core software business with plenty of money available to buy more nimble Internet startups that could bolster its online operations.
But other analysts believe Yahoo — with 500 million users, a prized brand and the second largest ad network behind Google's — represented Microsoft's best chance to remain a powerhouse as the Internet increasingly defines how and why people interact with computers.
AP Technology Writer Jessica Mintz in Seattle contributed to this report.
-it was 4 hrs ago when this news was posted
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Microsoft Corp. withdrew its $42.3 billion bid to buy Yahoo Inc. on Saturday, scrapping an attempt to snap up the tarnished Internet icon in hopes of toppling online search and advertising leader Google Inc.
The decision to walk away from the deal came after last-ditch efforts to negotiate a mutually acceptable sale price proved unsuccessful.
The talks reached a breaking point after Jerry Yang and David Filo, the co-founders of Sunnyvale-based Yahoo, flew to Seattle in the morning to meet personally with Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer and Kevin Johnson, who runs the software maker's unprofitable online services division, according to someone familiar with the talks. The person was not authorized to speak publicly and asked not to be identified.
"Clearly a deal is not to be," Ballmer wrote to Yang in a letter sent late Saturday.
Microsoft was willing to pay $47.5 billion, or $33 per share, up from the bid's current value of $29.40 per share, according to Ballmer's letter.
But Yahoo's board demanded at least $53 billion, or $37 per share, according to Ballmer. That would have been nearly double Yahoo's stock price of $19.18 at the time Microsoft first made its bid a little over three months ago.
And Yang, who became Yahoo's CEO 11 months ago, wanted $38 per share in a Wednesday meeting, according to the person familiar with the discussions. That meeting was held the day after Yang and Yahoo Chairman Roy Bostock called to ask Microsoft not to withdraw its bid, the person said.
In a statement Saturday, Bostock reiterated that Microsoft had undervalued his company's assets since the takeover tug-of-war began more than three months ago.
"We remain focused on maximizing shareholder value and pursuing strategic opportunities that position Yahoo for success and leadership in its markets," Bostock said.
The anticlimactic ending came as a surprise, given that many analysts believed Microsoft wanted to close the deal badly enough to pursue a hostile takeover — a risky maneuver that would have required an attempt to replace the Yahoo board that spurned rejected the bid.
Although he had threatened a hostile takeover attempt last month, Ballmer said he concluded that waging a so-called proxy battle was "not sensible."
"Our discussions with you have led us to conclude that, in the interim, you would take steps that would make Yahoo undesirable as an acquisition," Ballmer wrote to Yang.
But Yahoo hasn't necessarily faded from Microsoft's cross hairs.
The software maker conceivably could renew its bid later this year if Yahoo can't bounce back from more than two years of financial lethargy.
Should Yahoo's turnaround efforts flop, many analysts believe the company's stock would sink into the mid-teens and open the door for another takeover offer that would be more difficult to rebuff.
For now, at least, Microsoft appears to believe it has enough internal weapons to chip away at Google's dominance of the booming Internet ad market.
"We have a talented team in place and a compelling plan to grow our business through innovative new services and strategic transactions with other business partners," Ballmer said. "While Yahoo would have accelerated our strategy, I am confident that we can continue to move forward toward our goals."
Microsoft's move intensifies the pressure on Yang to reverse the lackluster growth that has eroded Yahoo's profits and depressed its stock price since 2005, making it vulnerable to an unwanted takeover.
Yang has projected that Yahoo's revenue will rise by 25 percent in 2009 and 2010, propelled by an expanded Internet advertising network that's using more sophisticated tools to target consumers.
But analysts haven't raised their forecasts to anywhere near Yang's predictions, reflecting doubts that may trigger a rebellion among Yahoo's restive shareholders if it looks as if management isn't delivering on its promises.
Yang, who started Yahoo with Filo in 1994 while they were graduate students at Stanford University, embraced the challenge in a Saturday statement.
"With the distraction of Microsoft's unsolicited proposal now behind us, we will be able to focus all of our energies on executing the most important transition in our history," he said.
As part of its efforts to fend off Microsoft, Yahoo had been exploring a possible advertising partnership with Google and a merger with the Internet operations of Time Warner Inc. It's unclear whether Yahoo will still pursue those deals now that Microsoft has backed off.
In his letter, Ballmer said Yahoo's talks with Google were one of the main reasons he decided to not to pursue a hostile takeover. He described the alliance as "unwise from a business perspective" because Yahoo would cede too much power to Google in the lucrative search advertising market.
Analysts are divided on just how much Microsoft needs Yahoo.
One school of thought is that a Yahoo takeover could have turned into an expensive headache that probably wouldn't start delivering dividends for two or three years. While Microsoft grappled with a Yahoo acquisition, Google theoretically could have benefited from the distractions and grown even stronger.
Without the Yahoo takeover on its plate, Microsoft can focus more on core software business with plenty of money available to buy more nimble Internet startups that could bolster its online operations.
But other analysts believe Yahoo — with 500 million users, a prized brand and the second largest ad network behind Google's — represented Microsoft's best chance to remain a powerhouse as the Internet increasingly defines how and why people interact with computers.
AP Technology Writer Jessica Mintz in Seattle contributed to this report.
-it was 4 hrs ago when this news was posted
