Wireless networks crushed with traffic

	John Podesta, president of the the Center for American Progress, left, and Howard Dean, outgoing Democratic National Committee chairman, right, managed to get service as they arrived at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, for the swearing-in ceremony for President-elect Barack Obama.

Don’t Twitter via cell phone। Don’t send photos or videos using your mobile. And don’t hold your breath waiting to make or receive a call if you’re in the D.C. area. You’re going to be frustrated. And you may have to wait.

As anticipated, wireless networks, despite preparation, are getting crushed with traffic from an estimated 2 million people who have come to the nation’s capital for the inauguration of Barack Obama.

“The general consensus is that cell phones aren’t working। Text messages are working; it’s just the calls that aren’t working out so well,” said Matthew Schlesinger, 22, a D.C. resident who was in the Mall crowd this morning.

Schlesinger, a Verizon Wireless customer, said he was able to make calls, but a friend of his from American University, on AT&T’s network, has not been able to use his phone at all.

Representatives for the nation’s largest wireless carriers, AT&T and Verizon Wireless, said customers’ delays in making and receiving phone calls is what they had projected, even with a boost in network capacity.

“Things are holding up well so far,” said Mark Siegel, AT&T Mobility spokesman. “There is minor congestion here and there, but nothing unexpected.”

Exacerbating the problem is the number of inauguration-goers who are jubilantly sending photos and videos using their cell phones, as well as to post them on the Internet, and to Twitter, sending short-form messages.

Mobile Web, e-mail and Twittering “use bandwidth as well,” said Verizon Wireless spokeswoman Debra Lewis.

She said the carrier’s network in the D.C. area is “handling three to five times the normal call volume,” but that “even in the most crowded spectator areas nearest the Inauguration stands at the U.S. Capitol, the vast majority of calls are going through on the first attempt.”

CTIA, the wireless trade industry association, has asked phone users to minimize that kind of activity, and wait until later to send or e-mail images, because of the network capacity it essentially hogs।

Text-messaging is recommended as an alternative to phone calls, to ease network traffic as well.

But enthusiasm and joy are overtaking the moment for some, including Schlesinger.

“I’ve been sending picture e-mails pretty much non-stop — I may wait to send some photos later. But honestly, if I get a nice picture of Obama giving his speech, I may want to send it to my family. So, I may be a little selfish,” he said.

Others, he said, who are having problems “are trying to find somebody who gets good service. But to honest, a lot of people are just caught up in the moment, and forgetting about calling people and being focused on what is going on around them.”

IBM to buy Chinese e-mail company

Computing giant IBM has announced its intention to acquire a Chinese e-mail and messaging company.

Hong Kong-based firm Outblaze sells hosted multilingual e-mail and messaging services for other service providers, telecommunications companies, and corporations to operate under their own brands.

Outblaze will become part of IBM Lotus' Bluehouse project, IBM's online-business and social-networking and collaboration service, IBM announced on Thursday. Bluehouse is currently in open beta testing.

"The acquisition of these Outblaze assets further demonstrates Lotus' commitment to delivering secure, scalable online solutions, and will help accelerate delivery of collaborative services, with little to no IT involvement," Bob Picciano, the general manager of IBM Lotus Software, said in a statement.

Security experts warned that companies considering moving to hosted e-mail services in developing countries should think about where their data will reside, and choose their provider carefully. A report last week warned that emerging markets such as China are at greater risk of cybercrime, while the U.S. government warned in November that the Chinese government was using advanced cyberespionage techniques.

"With any hosted service, you have to do due diligence, look at the system and how it's being managed," said Andy Buss, a senior analyst at Canalys.

Buss recommended that businesses either use a trusted local company or one of the trusted larger providers, such as IBM, for hosted messaging services. The analyst added that as more workers start to rely on online tools, companies have to work out how to integrate tools and work flows.

New phone features 'baffle users'

Setting up a new mobile phone is no longer child's play.

Some 61% of those interviewed in the UK and US said setting up a new handset is as challenging as moving bank accounts.

Compiled by mobile firm Mformation, the survey found 85% of users reporting they were frustrated by the difficulty of getting a new phone up and working.

Of the 4,000 people questioned, 95% said they would try more new services if phones were easier to set up.

Web browsing

Mformation spokesman Matthew Bancroft said users were frustrated by having to call an operator or look online for help.

"There is an enormous range of things modern phones are capable of doing but the paradox is that many people are not using these capabilities," he said.

Mr Bancroft said bad experiences turned people off trying to get more from their phone.

"If an application does not work once or twice, they just will not use it or try again," he said.

Some 61% of those questioned said they stopped using an application if they could not get it working straight away.

Mr Bancroft said setting up a new phone should take only 15 minutes but many people were spending an hour or more to get the handset to do what they wanted.

He added that most people wanted to do such tasks as browsing the web, reading e-mail, or sending picture messages, but the complexity of modern handsets was leaving them foxed.

Industry work on standards for basic handset operations could help the situation, said Mr Bancroft.

As phones packed in more processing power, he said, that computational ability could be used to anticipate what users were doing and help them find their way around the handset.

Geoff Blaber, director of devices, software and platforms at mobile analysts CCS Insight, said the problem of phone configuration was one operators were trying to tackle.

Many, he said, had invested in staff training and in-store help desks to get customers using more of the features on their phones.

Touch screen interfaces as seen on Apple's iPhone were showing how this could be done, he said.

Having icons for all a phone's available services at hand was better than burying them in a sub-menu, said Mr Blaber.

Some operators were also working hard to ensure that phones were configured before purchase so services switched on with the phone.

There were good business reasons for helping phone owners do more with their handset, he said.

"Operators are trying to move revenues away from a reliance on voice and text which are declining," he said.

"To make that transition they need to be sure that the services are identifiable and easy to configure and use," he added.

Clock ticking on worm attack code

The worm can also spread via USB flash drives.

The worm is spreading through low security networks, memory sticks, and PCs without current security updates.

The malicious program - also known as Downadup or Kido - was first discovered in October 2008.

Although the spread of the worm appears to be levelling off, there are fears someone could easily take control of any and all of the 9.5m infected PCs.

Speaking to the BBC, F-Secure's chief research officer, Mikko Hypponen, said there was still a real risk to users.

"Total infections appear to be peaking. That said, a full count is hard, because we also don't know how many machines are being cleaned. But we estimate there are still more than 9m infected PCs world wide.

"It is scary thinking about how much control they [a hacker] could have over all these computers. They would have access to millions of machines with full administrator rights.

"But they haven't done that yet, maybe they're scared. That's good news. But there is also the scenario that someone else figures out how to activate this worm. That is a worrying prospect."

Experts say users should have up-to-date anti-virus software and install Microsoft's MS08-067 patch। The patch is known as KB958644.

Speaking to the BBC, Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant with anti-virus firm Sophos, said the outbreak was of a scale they had not seen for some time.

"Microsoft did a good job of updating people's home computers, but the virus continues to infect business who have ignored the patch update.

"A shortage of IT staff during the holiday break didn't help and rolling out a patch over a large number of computers isn't easy.

"What's more, if your users are using weak passwords - 12345, QWERTY, etc - then the virus can crack them in short order," he added.

"But as the virus can be spread with USB memory sticks, even having the Windows patch won't keep you safe. You need anti-virus software for that."

Method

According to Microsoft, the worm works by searching for a Windows executable file called "services.exe" and then becomes part of that code.

It then copies itself into the Windows system folder as a random file of a type known as a "dll". It gives itself a 5-8 character name, such as piftoc.dll, and then modifies the Registry, which lists key Windows settings, to run the infected dll file as a service.

Once the worm is up and running, it creates an HTTP server, resets a machine's System Restore point (making it far harder to recover the infected system) and then downloads files from the hacker's web site.

Most malware uses one of a handful of sites to download files from, making them fairly easy to locate, target, and shut down.

But Conficker does things differently।

Anti-virus firm F-Secure says that the worm uses a complicated algorithm to generate hundreds of different domain names every day, such as mphtfrxs.net, imctaef.cc, and hcweu.org. Only one of these will actually be the site used to download the hackers' files. On the face of it, tracing this one site is almost impossible.

Variant

Speaking to the BBC, Kaspersky Lab's security analyst Eddy Willems said that a new strain of the worm was complicating matters.

"There was a new variant released less than two weeks ago and that's the one causing most of the problems," said Mr Willems

"The replication methods are quite good. It's using multiple mechanisms, including USB sticks, so if someone got an infection from one company and then takes his USB stick to another firm, it could infect that network too. It also downloads lots of content and creating new variants though this mechanism.

"Of course, the real problem is that people haven't patched their software," he added.

Microsoft says that the malware has infected computers in many different parts of the world, with machines in China, Brazil, Russia, and India having the highest number of victims.

The flip phone takes a dip in popularity

The venerable flip phone remains the most popular shape for a cell in the United States, but its lead is being eroded by a newer generation of phones with slide-out keyboards as well as “slate” phones like the iPhone.

And “black is the new black” when it comes to color preference for phones, according to Strategy Analytics, which surveyed more than 2,800 wireless device users in the United States, as well as in Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Sweden, about what color and “form factor” they want their next phones to be.

The findings mirror the marketplace, which has been moving to a series of largely look-alike black phones, many of which have both touch screens and QWERTY keyboards for e-mail and Web surfing, and are dubbed “smartphones।”

The research firm’s 2008 survey, released this month, compared results from a poll done a year before Apple’s iPhone went on the market in 2007. The iPhone’s “slate,” or “slab” style, with almost the entire entire front of the device as a touch screen, was fairly rare at the time, and resulted in a slew of imitators.

“Two years ago, the slate phone didn’t exist as a category,” said Chris Schreiner, senior analyst for Strategy Analytics.

In 2006 in the United States, 80 percent of respondents said they would consider buying a flip, or clamshell device, compared to 64 percent in 2008.

“The decline comes in part from an interest in some of the new phone form factors, like the slider phone, with a slide-out QWERTY keyboard, and the slate, which is basically the iPhone form factor,” he said.

Candy bar style less favored
While the iPhone and similar touch screen phones have been popular, there are many consumers who are reluctant to go the touch screen route. In the United States, nearly a quarter of those polled said “they would definitely not choose” a slate-style phone for their next device, according to the report.

But the least popular shape is the one-piece, candy-bar style phone, which has a small display on the top half of the phone, with a 12-key dial pad on the bottom half. Only a “frosty” 17 percent said that they would consider a candy-bar phone for their next device, compared to 29 percent in 2006, Strategy Analytics said.

Most phone manufacturers make every kind of device shape in order to appeal to as many customers as possible. Research In Motion, maker of the BlackBerry, the leading smartphone, last year added its first flip phone, as well as its first all-touch screen device, the BlackBerry Storm, to its lineup.

Clamshell phones remain popular with two-thirds of consumers 35 and older because it’s a “basic, voice-centric, just-use-the-phone type of device,” said Schreiner. “They also tend to like it more than a phone with an outer display, or touch screen, because they feel it’s not going to break as easily.”

Fifty percent of those under age 25 favor flips, compared to 84 percent in 2006, Strategy Analytics found.

The clamshell-style phone was extremely popular in the 1990s, when cell phones became more mainstream. Motorola’s StarTAC flip phone, released in the mid-1990s, was an enormous success, as was the company’s sleeker subsequent flip phone, the RAZR.

It remains one of the best-selling phones, although it is losing ground to slab-style phones like the iPhone.

Appeal of basic black
When it comes to cell color, consumers are moving from silver to basic black, both in the U.S. and in Western Europe.

“It used to be that black and silver were pretty equal, but now in the United States, 43 percent of consumers want their next device to be black,” said Schreiner. “The next highest color was silver, favored by 15 percent.”

Schreiner doesn’t attribute black’s popularity to the iPhone. “I’d say it’s a very bold color that people just seem to be more attracted to. Silver was more so when devices like (Motorola’s) RAZR were popular.”

Third on the color wheel: blue, favored by 11 percent, he said, compared to 16 percent in 2006.

Pink, purple, red, green, gold and white were also popular, especially among survey respondents under age 25, with only half of them saying they’d go for black or silver in their next device.

In Search of a Good Doctor

By PAULINE W. CHEN, M.D.

Published: January 8, 2009

In response to my recent column on patients trusting doctors too much, several readers wrote in about the difficulty of finding or sifting through information on doctors and diseases. Many asked for suggestions, so a couple of weeks ago I contacted several nationally respected leaders in family medicine, pediatrics, internal medicine, oncology, surgery and anesthesia and asked them to share their advice on researching doctors and diseases.

Many of the doctors I spoke to or exchanged e-mail with made commonsense suggestions that were not unexpected. They urged patients to find out which doctors their closest friends really like, to ask a prospective doctor questions like how much experience he or she has with a specific condition or operation, and to make sure that as a patient you feel part of a shared decision-making process and comfortable saying how you feel, or that you don’t understand or that you respectfully disagree.

But many of the physicians also shared links to valuable Web sites, several of which I was unfamiliar with. All the sites are free to the public and accessible to anyone with an Internet connection. When I looked at these sites while writing this column, I became really excited as a patient about the amount of information available. For example, one site from the Department of Health and Human Services called Hospital Compare (www.hospitalcompare.hhs.gov) allows you to select three hospitals within a 25-mile radius of your home. It also lets you compare a wide variety of quality indicators, like the percentage of heart failure patients who were given discharge instructions, the percentage of surgery patients given prophylactic antibiotics at the right time, or the percentage of hospitalized patients who felt that doctors or nurses “always” communicated well (the differences among hospitals surprised me).

And according to several of the doctors I spoke with, the amount of information available to patients will only increase in the future.

Throughout our conversations and e-mail exchanges, every one of the doctors stressed the importance of patients doing research and becoming an active part of the medical team. “This is a shared responsibility between the physician and the patient for the patient’s health,” said Dr. Ted Epperly, president of the American Academy of Family Physicians.

Dr. Lisa V. Rubinstein, president of the Society of General Internal Medicine, said that sharing in decision-making “will help raise the quality of care given by any clinician, because it will sharpen the focus on the key decision points and help the clinician put a plan in place that the patient understands and agrees with.”

Here is a summary of these experts’ advice and the Web sites they use themselves and recommend to patients, friends and family.

Choosing a Doctor

All the doctors I contacted stressed the invaluable contribution of a good primary care doctor in helping patients identify specialists or other physicians. “I cannot emphasize enough how important it is for every patient to have a trustworthy primary care physician who can help them navigate our challenging, but potentially excellent, health care system,” said Dr. David T. Tayloe Jr., president of the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Primary care doctors can identify qualified subspecialists through local and national networks or professional organizations. “Even for a patient in a distant city,” Dr. Rubinstein said, “I can usually find a local respected colleague who knows someone in the general area.”

When a primary care doctor does not have a recommendation or when the patient does not have a primary care physician to turn to, Dr. Rubinstein advised identifying high quality medical groups or hospitals that “carefully monitor the quality of the clinicians affiliated with them” and that provide “decision support, continuous quality improvement and continuing education to keep their clinicians functioning well.”

Data on hospital and medical group quality is more readily available to the public than information on individual physicians, and Dr. Rubinstein offered several Web sites (see below) that patients can use.

One way to help assess the quality of individual physicians is to establish that a doctor is board certified, Dr. Epperly said. To become board certified, doctors must complete a full residency at an accredited training program, pass written and, depending on the specialty, oral examinations, and provide proof that she or he has experience with a defined set of clinical problems and technical procedures. However, cautioned Dr. Roger A. Moore, president of the American Society of Anesthesiologists, “board certification is one indication, but it’s certainly no guarantee.”

Another way to get a sense of physician quality is to contact the national professional society for that doctor’s specialty.

“There is lots of good information at professional societies compared to years past,” said Dr. Thomas R. Russell, executive director of the American College of Surgeons. “On our Web site, for example, you can go look at a surgeon’s profile and see what they do.”

A breast cancer patient can, for example, find out if a recommended surgeon has a practice devoted exclusively to breast disease versus a more general practice. Or a patient with a colon mass can choose a surgeon who is not only board certified in colorectal surgery but also has a special interest in laparoscopy, or minimally invasive surgery.

Aptera Postpones Launch of Three-Wheel Electric Car

Aptera postpones launch and asks buyers how serious they are.

Aptera, which had planned to deliver its three-wheeled electric car to customers last month, has now postponed the production launch for almost a year.

Production models of the Aptera 2e (formerly known as Type-1), an all-electric vehicle with a range of 100 miles, were to have been delivered by the end of 2008. The company now says the first production 2e will be completed January 16, but won’t go to a retail customer. Instead, Aptera will build “a small test fleet of…enhanced vehicles,” and now expects to launch volume production in October 2009.

Aptera 2e

In a recent letter to “Aptera Family Members,” the company cited “a notable disconnect between our product plan and realistic expectations” by its customers. To resolve these issues, it “recruited a team of seasoned professionals from the automotive industry and the California tech sector.”

“We are prudently trying to plan our volume and capacity to assure we do not introduce waste … that could lead us down the unenviable path of some of our industry predecessors.”

Letter from Aptera to potential customers.

The buyer expectations came to light in a survey done a few months earlier, when the company asked its depositors how they actually expected to use the car. One of several issues: Drivers wanted to be able to use drive-through windows at fast-food outlets, which may require adding a window or hatch that opens—even at the cost of a slightly higher drag coefficient. Imagine!

Equally important, Aptera needs to know whether its fans will actually pony up the cash for the ultra-aerodynamic three-wheeler। It has offered pre-launch customers a (voluntary) “Lock-In” proposition: They agree to convert their refundable $500 deposits to firm, non-refundable commitments, in exchange for a new $250 discount. Aptera explains that it needs to forecast first year production volumes accurately—especially “in the face of this challenged economy.”

Funded by Google and IdeaLab, Aptera and the 2e have attracted favorable press and a strong online fan base. But the size of the market for an all-electric three-wheeled car with a 100-mile range—let alone one that looks like a Cessna cabin on wheels—was always debatable.

Like any car company, Aptera is now listening to its customers, and working to project actual paying demand so it knows what to order and what kind of assembly plant it needs. As the letter says, “We are prudently trying to plan our volume and capacity to assure we do not introduce waste … that could lead us down the unenviable path of some of our industry predecessors.”

Financial Scandal at Outsourcing Company Rattles a Developing Country

In an emotionally charged four-and-a-half page letter, Mr. Raju, the chairman and co-founder of one of India’s largest outsourcing companies, described to his board on Wednesday how a small discrepancy had mushroomed into one of the biggest scandals in Indian corporate history.

“What started as a marginal gap between actual operating profit and the one reflected in the books of accounts continued to grow over the years. It has attained unmanageable proportions as the size of company operations grew,” he wrote. “It was like riding a tiger, not knowing how to get off without being eaten.”

In the end, the scandal threatened to gobble up not just Mr. Raju, who resigned, but his company, Satyam Computer Services. Far beyond Satyam, it raised fears that similar problems might lurk in other Indian companies, particularly in its vaunted outsourcing industry.

“One only hopes that with the kind of scrutiny and the kind of focus this brings, everybody doesn’t end up being painted with the same brush,” said Lakshminarayana, the chief strategy officer for Wipro Technologies, which competes with Satyam.

The long-running fraud, which is being called India’s Enron, also raised questions about the vigilance of regulators in India and the United States.

Satyam serves as the back office for one-third of the Fortune 500, including some of the largest banks, manufacturers, health care and media companies in the world — handling things like computer systems and customer service for companies that include General Electric, Nestlé, Ford Motor, Cisco and the United States government.

In some cases, Satyam even acted as clients’ outsourced finance and accounting departments.

The fraud will make “people even more nervous about investing” in India and other developing markets, said Jacob Rees-Mogg, the lead manager with Somerset Capital Management, a fund that specializes in emerging markets.

India needs foreign investment more than ever. Though it has enjoyed 9 percent growth a year recently, that is expected to slow to 7 percent, at best, as the global economy cools. Housing prices are down, the country’s major stock index, the Sensex, is half what it was a year ago. And India’s government has little financial leeway for giant stimulus packages like those in China and the United States.

Outsourcing and information technology are crucial parts of the Indian economy. They provided local companies with $64 billion in revenues in 2008 and employed more than two million people directly, and millions more indirectly.

Mr. Raju said he had regularly falsified Satyam’s accounts as the company expanded from a small family-run firm into a back office giant with 53,000 workers in 66 countries.

Some of India’s biggest conglomerates started out as family-run companies, and analysts fear the taint of corruption from Satyam — poor governance, lax accounting controls and a lack of transparency — could sully any of those big companies for investors and customers.

Relatives often hold crucial management positions and sizable stakes in the companies. Foreign investors have begun to push for more outside representation on boards, and for families to give up controlling stakes they hold.

A huge piece of Satyam’s finances was a fantasy. Of the 53.6 billion rupees in cash and bank balances the company listed as assets at the end of its second quarter, 50.4 billion rupees ($1 billion), were nonexistent, according to Mr. Raju’s letter. Revenues for the quarter ended Sept. 30 were actually 20 percent lower than the 27 billion rupees reported, and the company’s profit for the quarter was just 10 percent of what it reported at the time.

Many analysts said it was unthinkable that Mr. Raju had acted without accomplices, and regulators in India, Europe and the United States were likely to take action against Satyam for false accounting. In addition to being listed in India, its shares have traded on the New York Stock Exchange since May 2001, and on Euronext since January 2008.

Satyam’s auditor, PricewaterhouseCoopers, which has audited the company since its NYSE listing, said it was “examining” Mr. Raju’s statement and could not comment further.

Many Satyam clients said they were studying the situation. Cisco said it did not expect any “material impact.”

The revelations could lead to a major shake-up in India’s outsourcing industry, as a nearly cashless Satyam struggles to meet payroll and other expenses. Satyam may be shut down, sold off in its entirety or broken into pieces, they say.

John C. McCarthy, an analyst with Forrester Research in New York, said Satyam’s clients were scrambling to find out “whether the fraud is intermingled” with their operations, and what their liabilities are.

“This happens like clockwork in the high-tech business,” he said. “Every three to four years there’s some financial scandal. It is because high-tech has traditionally been viewed by the financial analysts as a growth industry. There are huge pressures to maintain that growth, and not all companies have the management wherewithal to survive under those pressures.” In the short term, many Satyam clients will migrate to competition like Infosys and TCS, said analysts with Religare Hichens Harrison.

News of the scandal sent the Sensex index down 7 percent on Wednesday. Shares in Satyam fell about 78 percent. Trading in Satyam on the NYSE was suspended until further notice.

Though Mr. Raju’s announcement shocked most of the world, there had been signs for months that something was wrong at the top of Satyam.

The company came under close scrutiny after an October report on Fox News that it had been banned from World Bank contracts when spy software was installed on some computers. Satyam denied the accusation, but in December the World Bank confirmed it had been banned for giving improper benefits to bank staff, and for not accounting for all its fees.

In December, Satyam investors revolted after the company proposed buying two firms with ties to Mr. Raju’s sons.

On Dec. 30, analysts with Forrester Research warned that corporations that relied on Satyam might ultimately need to stop doing business with the company.

“Firms should take the initial steps of reviewing the exit clauses in their current Satyam contracts,” in case management or direction of the company changes, Forrester said.

Four of the company’s directors resigned recently and the company hired Merrill Lynch for strategic advice, a move that is generally a precursor to a sale.

On Wednesday, Merrill Lynch sent a letter to India’s stock exchanges, saying it had terminated its relationship with Satyam after the bank “came to understand that there were material accounting irregularities” at the company. Merrill Lynch officials declined to comment further.

Mr. Raju wrote in his confessional letter that neither he nor the managing director (his brother B. Rama Raju) had “taken one rupee/dollar from the company.” He said the board, his brother and their families had no knowledge of the situation, seeming to leave open the possibility that someone else did.

SEBI, India’s securities regulator, said it would investigate trading in Satyam’s shares. Mr. Raju could face up to 10 years in jail and fines of $5 million in India for the accounting fraud.

JVC rolls out second-gen iPod-friendly TVs

The JVC LT-46P300

(Credit: JVC)

In 2008, JVC became the first company to offer TVs with built-in iPod docks. For 2009, Panasonic is joining the fray with its own line of iPod-friendly TVs, but JVC is looking to defend its turf with a second generation of models. Among the array of purported feature improvements in the so-called TeleDock line for 2009. These TVs offer better iPod integration (multiple aspect ratios for iPod video playback; iPod charges whether TV is on or off; song and artist info displayed on TV during song playback; photo slide shows from iPod or USB drive can be displayed during music playback) as well as better integration with connected PCs (sync iTunes with a docked iPod via USB; powering up the PC will automatically activate the TV).

As for the TVs themselves, all are LCD models that support 1080p native resolution and control of the iPod from the TV remote. The line includes five models ranging in screen sizes from 32 to 46 inches: the LT-32P300 (32-inch screen); LT-42P300 (42 inches); LT-46P300 (46 inches); LT-42P500 (42 inches); and LT-46P500 (46 inches). The latter two P500 step-up models include "Clear Motion Drive III," JVC's iteration of 120Hz dejudder technology. The TeleDock TVs are scheduled to hit stores in April 2009, but pricing was not disclosed.

If the idea of having your iTunes content on your TV is appealing, just remember that you can achieve the same result on any TV for under $250 by connecting something like a DLO HomeDock HD or an Apple TV.

Samsung slims PN-B850 plasma TV series to an inch

LED-backlit LCDs are certainly winning the hype war at CES 2009, but home theater buffs know that plasma TVs often offer better performance for your dollar. Samsung's new top-of-the-line plasmas, the PN-B850 series, feature a superslim, inch-thick design and offer the new Internet widgets available via the Internet@TV platform. Here are the important details.

Key features of the Samsung PN-B850 series:

• Slim design, about an inch thick
• Ultra FilterBright Plus antiglare screen
• Real Movie (24 frames per second) mode
• Wide color Enhancer Pro
• Built-in Ethernet
• Wi-Fi-ready, with purchase of additional adapter
• Energy Star 3.0 compatible
• 50- and 58-inch models
• Available in first half of 2009

While we usually see manufacturers print misleading, inflated contrast ratios, Samsung instead only claims "mega dynamic contrast ratio" for these plasmas. The Ultra FilterBright Plus screen is the latest iteration of Samsung's glare reduction coatings, with these sets adding black stripes into the panel to absorb more room light and create deeper blacks. We're anxious to see this in action, as screen glare is still often a problem with plasmas. Wide Color Enhancer Pro is a feature that supposedly matches a source's color space to the HD color space--we haven't seen a feature like this yet, so it will be interesting to test in the labs.

A built-in Ethernet connection enables access to Samsung's new Internet@TV platform, which lets users access Yahoo widgets capable of delivering content from services such as Flickr, Yahoo News, Yahoo Weather, USA Today, YouTube, Showtime, and others. The PN-B850 series is also Wi-Fi-ready, but you'll need to purchase an additional adapter. Finally, the sets are compliant with the new Energy Star 3.0 specification, although it seems like almost all 2009 HDTVs are.

Mitsubishi iMiEV

anuary 8, 2009 - According to unconfirmed reports from Japanese news sources, Mitsubishi Motors will begin supplying electric cars to PSA/Peugeot-Citroen Group as early as next year. Japan's fifth-largest carmaker could supply as many as 10,000 Mitsubishi i-MiEV passenger electric cars a year to the French automaker by 2011 on an original equipment manufacturer (OEM) basis.

But is the i-MiEV ready for the prime-time mass market? Pretty darn close, based on our recent test-drive in a prototype of the company's battery-powered subcompact. Its clever design, attention to detail, and a solid powertrain could make electric driving as routine as picking up the kids.

Photos by John Voelcker/HybridCars.com. All rights reserved.

Interior

The car was the i-MiEV, a “production intent” prototype of the car Mitsubishi plans to sell in Japan later this year. The company let journalists drive the car a few weeks ago during the Electric Drive Transportation Association’s annual conference in Washington, D.C. It is adapted from a Japanese kei car, a special class of cars largely restricted to Japan with limited dimensions (3.4 m long, 2 m high, 1.5 m wide), engine size (0.66 liter), and power (63 horsepower), in exchange for local parking and tax benefits.

Though tiny by US standards, the i-MiEV’s egg-shaped five-door body makes it appear larger than it is. The “i” model on which it’s based gets kudos for the interior room it manages to pack into the standard kei dimensions. The gasoline car’s “rear midship” engine sits on its side under the rear seat, giving the “i” the longest cabin in its class, with space freed up at the front for passengers.

Four decent-sized adults fit adequately—if not extravagantly—into the i-MiEV, and a 6-foot-tall passenger in the rear seat had easily 3 or 4 inches of headroom above him. Though few of us wanted to drive cross-country in it, the i-MiEV seemed almost as spacious as a Honda Fit—and carried four people far better than a Mini Cooper. The most noticeable constraint, in fact, was the tight shoulder room—the i-MiEV is more than a foot narrower than the Mini.

Performance

The electric version replaces the “i” engine, transmission, and fuel tank with a 16-kilowatt-hour lithium ion battery pack, a 47-kilowatt motor producing 133 foot-pounds of torque, an inverter, and the car’s power electronics. Claimed maximum speed is 81 mph, with a range of roughly 100 miles on the Japanese test cycle, and 75 miles on the US cycle.

On the road, carrying four adults, the car hardly leapt off the line when the light changed. But it kept up with traffic, and like any EV, power delivery was smooth and linear. The tiny car rode well, though firmly, crashing somewhat over cracks and joints in the streets. With a very short turning circle and a center of gravity lower than the gas equivalent—due to the low-mounted battery pack—the i-MiEV handled perfectly for quick urban cut-and-thrust driving.

The car offers three driving modes: Standard, Eco, and “B”. The Eco mode limits the engine’s output to 18 kilowatts (one third of peak power), to increase the range of a single charge—and the decline in performance was substantial. “B” mode added more regenerative braking on downhill stretches and when the car is coasting, to recharge the pack more aggressively. In that mode, the regeneration felt “grabby,” and far less smooth than, for example, the highly praised new system in the 2009 Ford Escape Hybrid. Unfortunately, the infotainment screen wasn’t activated, so no power-flow diagrams or numeric data were available.

Availability & Timeline for Mitsubishi i-MiEV

Mitsubishi plans to sell roughly 2,000 i-MiEVs in Japan this year, with fleet sales taking priority. Several i-MiEVs have been delivered to California utility fleets, including those of Southern California Edison and Pacific Gas & Electric, for evaluation. But the right-hand-drive i-MiEV test vehicles were never designed to meet US safety or equipment standards, so they must ultimately be returned to Japan—or be crushed—because they cannot legally be sold in North America.

David Patterson, senior manager of regulatory affairs and certification, Mitsubishi Research and Design America, said the company is looking seriously at whether to certify the “i” car for sale in North American markets. Among other changes, the company would likely widen the track by 3 or 4 inches for stability at speed. Roughly 200 of the first year’s i-MiEVs will be sold in the United Kingdom, however, where its right-hand-drive is not a problem.

Price is not a question Mitsubishi discusses. Patterson noted that the Japanese government offers incentives of almost $16,000 off the retail price, as well as reductions in road tax and registration fees. Last month, he suggested to trade publication Ward’s Auto that the US government should offer at least $10,000 in incentives to buyers of electric vehicles—higher than the $7,500 Federal tax credit authorized last October.

Incentives or not, right now, the i-MiEV is the world’s most polished four-seat, zero-emissions production car. It may not hold that title for long, but after years of primitive, plastic EVs from under-funded startups and importers, it’s nice to see a “real EV” from a genuine automaker at last.

Panasonic makes your Blu-ray discs portable with the DMP-BD15

One of the biggest disadvantages to Blu-ray has been its lack of portability. While DVD players are virtually everywhere and portable DVD players are cheap, when you buy a Blu-ray disc you're typically limited to watching it in your home theater. The Panasonic DMP-BD15 looks to address this, as it's the first portable Blu-ray player, and it's also designed to be used easily around the house with a built-in stand. Here are the details.

Key features of the Panasonic DMP-BD15:

• 8.9-inch WSVGA (1024 x 600) LCD screen
• Three hour rechargeable battery
• Profile 2.0 compatible
• Bitstream output for Dolby TrueHD and DTS-Master Audio
• HDMI output
• SD card slot
• Optional headrest mounting bracket for car use
• Access to Viera Cast internet content, including Amazon Video On-Demand

While the DMP-BD15 includes a lot of cool features (HDMI output, Viera Cast), the three hour battery life seems pretty limiting, especially if the real battery life is closer to 2.5 hours. That means you'll be racing against the clock to finish watching some longer Blu-ray movies and don't even think about pausing. It's also worth pointing out that the image quality advantages of Blu-ray are going to be nearly imperceptible on the 8.9-inch screen, even with it on your lap. That being said, it is the first of its kind and it looks to be a decent solution for those with growing Blu-ray libraries that want to take their movies on the go.

iHome announces iP71 computer speakers with integrated iPhone/iPod dock

The iHome's iP71 iPod/iPhone friendly computer speakers will arrive this spring.

(Credit: iHome)

A few months ago we reviewed a couple of sets of iHome computer speakers that feature a built-in iPod dock. Well, the company's showing off a follow-up to the iH70s we reviewed. This model is called the iP71 and comes in black instead of silver, which is a good thing in our book.

There doesn't appear to be any significant difference between the iH70 and iP71 except for the fact that the newer model will offer GSM-shielding for iPhones. The iP71, likes its sibling, plays and charges iPhones and all docking iPod models and has a USB port for computer connections, so you can sync your iPhone/iPod with your Windows or Mac PC with a touch of a button.

The iP71 computer speakers will be released in the spring. No price has been set, but the iH70s by way of comparison retail for around $130.

MIT Management Pub's New Site to Redefine the "Innovation Conversation" Between Thought Leaders and Managers

CAMBRIDGE, MA - MIT Sloan Management Review today announced the launch of its new website sloanreview.mit.edu. The new site represents a dramatic change from MIT SMR's previous online persona. It shifts MIT SMR's approach from broad coverage of the different management disciplines -- leadership, marketing, operations, technology, strategy -- to a much sharper focus on managing for continuous innovation, the concern most often driving the creation of new organizational models, new competitive strategies, new work processes, and new leadership methods -- new ways to get new things done. It also opens the subject for discussion and comment among a community of managers, academics, researchers, and advisors.

"This isn't about 'inventions' -- you can find news about new gizmos anywhere -- but is instead about how to manage and lead so that inventions happen," says Michael Hopkins, Editor-in-Chief. "So, first of all, we're building on what MIT and MIT Sloan do brilliantly: unearth the most potent insights and then show people how to put them powerfully to work. Second, the focus on managing for innovation enables us to explore solutions to the management challenge that occupies every organizational leader today -- how to survive and prosper during times of economic uncertainty and overwhelmingly rapid change. Third, by hosting and nurturing a community of thinkers and managers who are facing these challenges, we allow for the kind of discussion and reflection that will result in exciting and creative solutions."

A key component of the new site will be a new initiative in the area of sustainability issues for business leaders. Developed in collaboration with The Boston Consulting Group, the new initiative will explore how we will work, live and compete differently in the near future because of concerns about sustainability, and how strategic management practice will be transformed as a result.

Nabbing infections with technology

Sweeping Pa. law aims to reduce illnesses contracted during hospital स्ताय्स

HERSHEY, Pa. - At Hershey Medical Center, a sophisticated computer program serves as a watchdog for infection outbreaks.

With a few mouse clicks on a Web browser, the hospital's infection-control staffers can quickly generate reports with charts and graphs illustrating how many patients within a particular unit are infected, and which lab specimen contained the germs.

"It's more for us to look at the hospital as a whole and look for trends," said Dr। Kathleen Julian, an infection disease physician. "Is there a cluster of problems in this unit?"

Pennsylvania health officials view the nascent technology as a critical tool for helping hospitals reduce health care costs by identifying potential systemic infection-control problems sooner than is possible by reviewing paper records by hand — an approach some health professionals call "shoe-leather epidemiology."

Using traditional investigation methods, infection-control professionals must spend hours poring over patient charts, but limit the scope of their inquiry to areas of the hospital where infection outbreaks are most likely to occur. With electronic monitoring, hospitals can cast a wider net, using software that employs algorithms to do the heavy lifting of sorting through every single laboratory, pharmacy and X-ray report that is entered into the hospital's computer network.

Gov. Ed Rendell's administration is expecting more hospitals to adopt the technology under a sweeping 2007 state law designed to reduce infections contracted by patients during their hospital stays.

"It frees up your infection-control people from trying to find infections ... so they can get out on the floor and put systems in place so they don't happen again," said Ann Torregrossa, policy director for the Governor's Office of Health Care Reform.

Leader of ‘electronic surveillance’
Pennsylvania is the only state in the nation to include "electronic surveillance" — like the Hershey hospital's system — in its infection reporting laws, according to the Association of Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology।

Pennsylvania became one of the first states to mandate infection reporting by hospitals in 2003, and it was the first state to release public reports on infection rates in 2005.

Gov. Ed Rendell's administration championed the 2007 law as part of a broader health care reform agenda that includes reducing the cost of care. The administration has estimated that hospital-acquired infections add more than $3.5 billion annually to hospital bills in the state.

Monitoring infections has taken on greater urgency nationally with the emergence of antibiotic-resistant "superbugs" such as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureas, or MRSA.

Also, in October, the federal government began withholding Medicare reimbursements to hospitals for preventable errors, including urinary tract and vascular infections stemming from the improper use of catheters, as well as certain surgical site infections.

Chumby grows up, dates Samsung

Chumby gets framed by Samsung.

(Credit: Chumby)

The cute little beanbag-encased, open-source Chumby (my review), an internet display device, is growing up through a partnership with Samsung. The original Chumby software makes the device into a good digital photo frame functionally, but the hardware is too small and bulky to compete with other dedicated frames. This partnership will get the Chumby software into more consumer-friendly hardware -- eventually.

The Samsung product is a reference design, not a shipping item. I do hope we see Chumby-powered full-sized photo frames this year. The Chumby architecture makes it easy to upload photos to your device from a photo sharing site like Picasa Web or flicker, as all the work is done on a PC in a browser, and updates go to the display device over a home's WiFi.

The Chumby platform can also deliver other widgets to a display device: Weather forecasts, RSS feeds, and so on.

TomTom reveals its first connected GPS

TomTom GO 740 Live is TomTom's first GPS unit with a GPRS modem.

(Credit: TomTom)

On the first day of CES 2009, GPS manufacturer TomTom introduced its newest portable navigation device, the TomTom GO 740 Live. Like the Dash Express and TeleNav Shotgun, the GO 740 Live is a connected GPS using a built-in SIM card and GPRS modem, so you'll get more up-to-date information delivered to your PND right over the air.

What kind of information? Well, I'm glad you asked. With the purchase of the TomTom GO 740 Live, you'll get a complimentary year subscription to TomTom's Live services, which include Google Local Search, fuel-price information, weather data, and TomTom QuickGPSfix for faster satellite acquisition. The Google search capabilities allow you to look up local businesses and get such information as phone number and user reviews, if available.

Along with the Live services, you also get real-time traffic information, which is updated every two to five minutes. You'll be alerted to any delays via audio prompts, and if there are any incidents along your course, you can choose to continue on the same path with an updated time of arrival or reroute around the problem.To further aid with routing, the GO 740 Live employs TomTom's IQ Routes technology, which calculates directions based on historical traffic data.

The TomTom GO 740 Live comes preloaded with TeleAtlas maps of the United States and Canada and includes text-to-speech functionality, voice recognition and commands, and integrated Bluetooth. The unit features a 4.3-inch touch screen (supports 64,000 colors with a 480x272 pixel resolution) and measures 3.4 inches tall by 5 inches wide by 0.9 inch deep and weighs 7.9 ounces.

The TomTom GO 740 Live is expected to ship in Q2 2009 for $499 and will be available at major retailers.

'G' is for green with Dell's new line of monitors

Dell finally throws their hat into the whole green computer monitor trend and of course by green I mean eco-friendly.

Today, Dell announced their brand new, aptly named G series of displays, which includes the 22-inch G2210 and the 24-inch G2410. Each monitor includes Light Emitting Diode (LED) backlighting and are made from recycled material.

Each display has a purported contrast ratio of 1000:1. Now, Dell states that each display achieves a significantly higher dynamic contrast ratio, but If you know how vendors determine Dynamic Contrast Ratio numbers, then you know how meaningless they can be. So I won't even bother quoting the 1,000,000:1 dynamic contrast ratio...oh, too late.

Here are a few more quick specs:

• Maximum resolution: 1680 x 1050 (G2210) / 1920 x 1080 full HD (G2410)
• Typical power consumption: 18W (G2210) / 20W (G2410)
• Brightness: 250 cd/m2
• Response time: 5ms black-to-white
• VGA , DVI-D with HDCP connections

Each display also includes a number of features that should save it from expending extra power when not necessary. These include a light sensor that responds to ambient light, automatically adjusting its level when appropriate, and a dynamic dimming feature that decreases on screen brightness when the image onscreen consists primarily of white or bright areas.

Some of the eco-friendly features include displays being built free of PVC, BFR, CFR, arsenic and mercury.

Also according to Dell, the displays are up to 20 percent slimmer and up to 28 percent lighter than comparable models.

Both display will be available at Dell।com in late February, with prices starting at $279 for the G2210 and $359 for the G2410.

Sony unveils flexi-video screen, movie glasses

Electronic Arts, MTV Networks to provide 2,000 hours of video content

LAS VEGAS - Sony Corp. on Thursday unveiled a bendable video screen and eyeglasses that allow the wearer to watch a movie from any location, saying the industry must keep innovating in the middle of a severe economic slump.

Chief Executive Howard Stringer demonstrated a range of new devices at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, including the flexible OLED (organic light-emitting diode) screen playing a video of singer Beyonce.

Stringer also showed off prototype eyeglasses with built in video screens, letting users view movies wherever they are।

Sony announced it had enlisted video game publisher Electronic Arts for its fledgling home online PlayStation service, and signed up Viacom Inc's MTV Networks to provide more than 2,000 hours of video content.

Kaz Harai, head of Sony computer entertainment, said the company had signed up 2.1 million new users for the online network in the most recent month.

Sony, which on Wednesday said it had seen sales of some of its core products exceed expectations during the just-ended U.S. holiday season, is hoping to stoke consumer demand in 2009 with new, cutting-edge product.

The Japanese firm, which pioneered the Walkman and once dominated the high-end electronics marketplace, is going through a painful restructuring that will see it shed 16,000 jobs and curb investment to try to save $1 billion. Analysts and media speculate more measures are in the works.

The maker of Bravia flat TVs and PlayStation 3 video game consoles, hoping to breathe life into a loss-making TV arm, on Wednesday trotted out a new line of eco-friendly, ultra-slim TVs.

Palm looks to regain place in smartphone race

When you're running behind The Big Guys, and you once were a Big Guy, you may try harder to regain that standing. Whether Palm, expected to announce a new smartphone operating system and possibly a new device Thursday, can do that, or at least stay in the race, remains to be seen.

The company, in many ways the granddaddy of consumer smartphones, first with its Treos and later Centros, once dominated the market for those who wanted more than a basic cell phone. The Treo offered not only comprehensive calendar and contacts programs, thanks to its successful PalmPilot roots, but also Internet access and e-mail.

Cubicle co-workers would gather in awe around a colleague who had one of these devices and could get to the Internet from the palm of his or her hand, instead of via the company computer।

Now, with a smartphone market starting to get crowded and dominated by Research In Motion's more lifestyle-oriented BlackBerrys and Apple's iPhone, Palm's devices have been eclipsed, even "hit hard," says Paul Carton, director of research for ChangeWave Research.

In June 2006, Palm had 36 percent, and RIM, 30 percent of the smartphone market in the United States, according to ChangeWave. By January 2007, those numbers had pretty much flipped around. RIM led with 37 percent, and Palm had 30 percent, with other brands, such as Motorola and Samsung, making up the difference.

That was before the iPhone launched in mid-2007 and went on to become the No. 2-selling smartphone brand in the country. As of December, RIM had 41 percent, Apple 23 percent and Palm 9 percent of the U.S. smartphone market, ChangeWave says.

Palm, headed by Apple alum Jon Rubenstein, has been as secretive as Rubenstein's former employer about what's in the works for the company's new products.

A hint may have come from Ed Colligan, the company's CEO, who said in a recent BusinessWeek interview that "People's work and personal lives are melding," and that Palm wants to appeal to the "fat middle of the market."

On its Web site, Palm may be telegraphing its intentions with four words: "Really smart. Super simple."

Palm OS for netbooks?
It's believed that Nova, as Palm's new OS has been dubbed, will be based on Linux, an open source system in contrast to Palm's more proprietary OS.

An open source operating system means anyone can create programs for it, without restriction. Linux also is the foundation of Android, the operating system that's generated considerable enthusiasm among technophiles and was developed by Google and the Open Handset Alliance.

The first "Google phone," T-Mobile's G1, went on sale last fall and has been doing well. Just as there's discussion about Android being used in devices like netbooks (smaller laptops for Web browsing and e-mail), e-readers and other mobile Internet devices, Nova may mean Palm plans to expand its reach the same way.

Nova "seems to be Palm's last-ditch efforts in this space," said Kevin Burden ABI Research's mobile devices research director in a recent interview. "We don't know what it will look like. I suspect it will be a platform that is not only for mobile phones, but for Internet devices and netbooks."

Windows Mobile option
Palm has used its own operating system, as well as Windows Mobile, in its Treos, often giving users a choice of which operating system they prefer. The company's Centros run on the Palm OS, with the current version more than five years old. (Msnbc.com is a joint venture of Microsoft and NBC Universal.)

Many Treo users have opted for the Palm OS' icon-friendly screens and menus to those of Windows Mobile.

Certainly, of those migrating to the iPhone from other devices, a good number of them are former Treo users who found Apple's device to be a souped-up, snazzier and even easier-to-use version of the Treo.

Palm has lagged behind in bringing improvements to its operating system. Web-browsing on a Palm, once revolutionary, has been slow and kludgy compared to phones like the BlackBerry, iPhone or G1. The Palm's music player has been barely basic. However, in contrast to the iPhone, the Palm has had a copy-and-paste function, and can also take video.

"One of Palm's best qualities is its simplicity and its personal information management applications," said Avi Greengart, Current Analysis' research director for mobile devices, recently. "The Palm OS is still the easiest operating system to add a calendar appointment to."

It is also still one of the easiest operating systems to maneuver with a stylus in hand, although it also has a physical QWERTY keyboard. Whether the new operating system will be designed for a touchscreen, as well as a physical keyboard and stylus is not known.

Applications store
Apple's App Store, part of its online iTunes Store, has been a huge success, letting iPhone users easily download programs, some free, some paid. The Android Market is also in business, and RIM plans an "application storefront" in March.

Palm, too, is trying to improve and update its offerings. One obvious way to do so would be allowing direct downloads to Palm phones, instead of having to use the computer as an intermediary, then syncing the phone with the computer.

Palm began selling software online to customers in the 1990s, "and there are still more apps for that platform than any other," said Greengart.

Palm spokeswoman Leslie Letts said recently there are "tens of thousands" of software programs for Palm-based devices.

Computer-esque books to lure boys

The books are aimed at school children up to the age of nine

Books illustrated with computer- generated images are the latest attempt to get boys to enjoy reading.

Oxford University Press (OUP) claims the "truly boy-friendly" content and structure of its Project X books will appeal to boys up the age of nine.

The books have been tested in 2,000 schools and can be used interactively through CD-Roms and whiteboards.

But critics dismissed the publications as "ghastly" and a shallow attempt to mimic computer games.

The books centre on the character of Max and his friends Cat, Ant and Tiger, who find their watches have the power to make them shrink, opening up a world of adventures.

The friends end up snowboarding on spoons, exploring inside a sandcastle, white-water rafting on pencils and surfing on lolly sticks.

In later books they encounter Dr X, a villain intent on shrinking the whole world.

The friends shrink to an exciting new size

'Ghastly'

Charlie Higson, author of the Young Bond books, welcomed the OUP's attempt to write fiction for boys, but questioned the books' reliance on computer images.

"They look absolutely ghastly," he said.

"They're trying to look like computer games and they're trying to get them [boys] to interact with them like a computer.

"The point is that books are different to computers - that's the whole point. If kids want to play with computers, they'll play with computers, not read these stories."

Professor Elaine Millard from the National Association for the Teaching of English said the books were a shallow response to the problem of boys not enjoying reading.

"It's counterproductive - we want them to engage with the text so that they enjoy the pleasure of words.

"The culture is such that it is still accepted, in lots of families, that it's okay for boys not to read.

"What we have to do in schools is get that enthusiasm back for words on the page."

'Gripping' story lines

White-water rafting is just one of their adventures

But Elizabeth Blinkhorn from OUP said the books were aimed specifically at getting boys involved.

"We know that boys are very motivated by facts and 3D images and gripping story lines. There are short chapters to keep them motivated.

"And boys really want to be part of the story and in Project X they are part of the story."

Girls also enjoyed the books and benefitted from boys' increased motivation in reading, she added.

Tony Bradman, lead author of the Project X micro-adventure stories, said the books drew boys in with thriller story lines and science-fiction and plenty of action and adventure.

"It's up to us to present books to them [boys] in a way that's attractive," he said.

Apple spoils iPhone forgery plans

There are numerous fake iPhone products on the market

Consumers are being warned to be on the lookout for fake iPhone Nanos, despite the real thing not even being released.

It was rumoured that Apple might be announcing a new, smaller iPhone at this year's Macworld conference.

As a result, counterfeiters in the Far East started producing replica iPhone Nanos, replete with Apple logo.

However, other than a 17" Macbook Pro, there was no other hardware announced during the keynote address, meaning the only iPhone Nano you can buy is fake.

The replicas were based on rumours circulating online about what the phone might look like and do.

Fake iPhone Nanos started appearing in Thailand just after Christmas, replete with "official" Apple logo and iPhone branding and there are reports that they have started to appear in European shops.

Ian Shircore, head of marketing at fraud and counterfeiting specialists Envisional, said that attempts by counterfeiters to pre-empt Apple had backfired spectacularly.

"Our view is that it's unlikely an iPhone Nano is in the works at Apple. You would have to radically reinvent both existing battery and radio technology. What's more, the LCD - currently the killer feature of iPhones - would also be shrunk," Mr Shircore told BBC News.

"If I was Apple, with the fastest selling handset in history, and I currently couldn't make enough units to sell, why would I want to make a smaller one?

"What's actually inside these fake units is anyone's guess. When you're selling fakes, it's the exterior that matters. I suspect the retail value of these fake iPhone Nanos will be much lower now than they were last week."

A Digital Ad Blitz for Cable's Disney XD

Remember the good old days when companies launched a new cable channel or TV show with flashy billboards alongside the interstate? Well, the new place for promoting TV channels, it seems, is the digital highway. At least that's the way Walt Disney (DIS) seems to be marketing its latest offering, Disney XD, a new cable channel that will launch on Feb. 13.

Disney XD, which replaces Disney's cartoon-centric Toon Disney basic cable channel, intends to build interest by seeding shows on such diverse digital outlets as iTunes, the Xbox360 game player, and cell phones, as well as on various Disney-owned outlets such as its Disney Channel. The channel is aimed primarily at guys, aged 6 to 14, and at its launch is expected to be seen in as many as 72 million of the country's more than 105 million TV households. Along with the new cable channel, Disney will launch Disney XD.com, a site that will feature games, including one in which you can create your own 3D avatar.

Daredevils and Teen Crime Fighters

Disney plans to make heavy use of iTunes, the Apple (AAPL) download site that has often been a Disney partner in showing movies and TV shows. (Apple CEO and co-founder Steve Jobs sits on the Disney board and owns a 7.3% stake in the company.) Two weeks before the channel launches, Disney will start rolling out preview episodes of three of its episodes free of charge on the Apple service—a live-action adventure series, Aaron Stone, about a teen crime fighter; an animated comedy series, Kid Knivel, about a daredevil; and an alien comedy series called Kid vs. Kat. A week after its Jan. 20 debut on iTunes, Aaron Stone will also be available free of charge on Microsoft's (MSFT) Xbox 360.

Disney intends to bring in other partners when it officially launches the channel. When the Aaron Stone show premieres on Disney XD, it will be simulcast on the flagship Disney Channel and on the wireless networks Sprint TV and MobiTV. Aaron Stone will also be available as a video-on-demand offering through Comcast and Verizon's FIOS service. Down the road, Disney expects to add some high-profile content, including animated shows featuring Spider-Man and Iron Man from Marvel (MVL) and Batman and Superman from Time Warner's (TWX) DC Comics unit.

The first public trial, or beta, version of Windows 7 has been released.

Microsoft boss Steve Ballmer used his keynote speech at CES to announce that software developers would get at the trial version on 7 January.

On 9 January members of the public will get the chance to download the successor to Windows for themselves.

Mr Ballmer said Windows 7 would be the pivot of a broader Microsoft push to improve the way its separate software and service families work together.

In delivering the opening keynote, Mr Ballmer has taken over from Bill Gates - who in 2008 bowed out of day-to-day involvement with the company he founded.

In a nod to the chilly economic climate, Mr Ballmer said: "We face some really big challenges. We are all feeling it and its impact will likely be with us for some time."

But, he said, the global economic slowdown would not hobble the pace of technological change.

"I believe our digital lives will only continue to get richer," said Mr Ballmer. "There's no turning back from the connected world."

The newest version of the Windows operating system would, he said, be the "linchpin" of an effort to make it easier for customers to do more with the different Microsoft gadgets and services they use।

Although Windows 7 was a trial version it was, said Mr Ballmer, almost "feature complete" and would help to re-define the way people thought of the software.

Instead of it being an operating system mainly associated with a PC, he said, Windows was becoming a "connected platform and experience".

Microsoft is expected to cap the number of copies of the beta version of Windows 7 available to the public. The minimum requirements for running Windows 7 are a PC with a 1 Ghz processor, 1GB of RAM, 16 GB of disk space, 128MB of video memory and support for DX9 graphics.

Connecting all these devices together is the last mile in creating a real breakthrough experience Steve Ballmer

Some of the Windows 7's features help it work with other devices. A "home group" system makes it straightforward to enrol PCs, Xbox consoles, media servers and other gadgets into a local network that can share media and content.

Demonstrations during Mr Ballmer's keynote also showed changes to Windows Live online services that let it act as a co-ordinating centre for many of the things people do on the web.

In connection with this Mr Ballmer announced a deal with Facebook which would mean any changes a member made to their page on the social networking site would be echoed on their Windows Live pages।