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Atari Online News, Etc. Volume 09 Issue 16
Volume 9, Issue 16 Atari Online News, Etc. April 20, 2007
Published and Copyright (c) 1999 - 2007
All Rights Reserved
Atari Online News, Etc.
A-ONE Online Magazine
Dana P. Jacobson, Publisher/Managing Editor
Joseph Mirando, Managing Editor
Rob Mahlert, Associate Editor
Atari Online News, Etc. Staff
Dana P. Jacobson -- Editor
Joe Mirando -- "People Are Talking"
Michael Burkley -- "Unabashed Atariophile"
Albert Dayes -- "CC: Classic Chips"
Rob Mahlert -- Web site
Thomas J. Andrews -- "Keeper of the Flame"
With Contributions by:
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=~=~=~=
A-ONE #0916 04/20/07
~ More Fees For Domains! ~ People Are Talking! ~ Apple II Turns 30!
~ Google To Face Scrutiny ~ Cybersecurity Grilling ~ Anti-Spyware Bill!
~ Yahoo Introduces Paypal ~ Google Dumps 'Froogle' ~ OLPC Laptop Delay!
~ "Barcade" Renaissance! ~ Feds Got Mail, Hacked! ~ Thunderbird 2.0!
-* Cookies A Bad Web Indicator? *-
-* Virginia Tech and A Web of Grief! *-
-* Trojan Horse Uses Virginia Tragedy As Bait *-
=~=~=~=
->From the Editor's Keyboard "Saying it like it is!"
""""""""""""""""""""""""""
Over the years, I've taken a lot of various headlines from the news, and
focused my commentaries on them. Or, I've reflected about more mundane
things, some within my personal life. Yes, the focus of this magazine
and its editorials should be more Atari-specific. But, we all know,
there's not enough new material in a month, much less weekly, to fill
these pages and make it a truly Atari magazine. And to be perfectly
honest, many of us have either moved on or supplemented our Atari
experience with different platforms or interests. So, we've taken a
more logical course and cover news that might be pertinent to the average
computer user out there, with Atari roots, past and present.
So yes, my editorial this week will be unrelated to Atari interests. But
it will be something different, or at least some thoughts the likes we
haven't seen here since around 9/11. Yes, the Virginia Tech tragedy. I
realize that most of you, at least in the States, have probably seen quite
a bit more of this news that you'd prefer. But, I feel that not to
mention it this week would almost be akin to denying that it happened.
There is no way to comprehend what has occurred on that Virginia campus.
It's unfathomable that something like this could happen, but there's no
denying it's possible, and did. It's such a horrific event.
There has been a lot of coverage of this tragedy, and it deserves to be
widely covered. This was a massacre - 32 students, faculty, and staff
were needlessly and senselessly murdered. There are two things that I
don't like about the coverage, however. First, it's unfortunate that
this killer succeeded in getting the notoriety that he may have desired.
I realize that this cannot be helped; and it's "satisfying" to know that
he's not around to "enjoy" the coverage. The second thing is the attempt,
intentional or not, to desensitize the news. I've watched numerous local
and national coverage. During a lot of the coverage, I've heard some
reporters and news anchors refer to this guy as "the gunman" or "the
shooter". How about "the murderer"? That's what he is. There will be
countless attempts for the "experts" to attempt to figure out why he did
this - all speculation, so why bother? Does it matter if he wanted some
kind of imagined revenge for some wrong he felt befell him? Does it
matter that he may have felt the need to invoke some sort of fantasy
power? Who knows truly why he did this. He was a nut case. No
psycho-babble by attaching some fancy name to his behavior. 32 people
were mercilessly killed. Speculation and rationalizing his motives or
frame of mind is pointless. Will this perceived and speculative
knowledge stop potential future tragedies? No. Focus on the victims,
their friends and families, and the student population at Virginia Tech.
They are the ones who need to be remembered and memorialized.
Okay, I got that off my chest. I was tempted to mention other "motives"
such as comments made about peer pressure, violence on TV, video game
"influences" and other speculative ideas, but those would have opened
up far too many more soapboxes to climb.
So, on to more lighter and mundane comments. What an incredible batch
of bad weather across the country this past week! Mid-April and people
are still getting hit hard with massive snow. Here in the Northeast,
we didn't get much snow, but did get hit with a Nor'Easter. Plenty of
wind and rain to cause more massive flooding similar to what we got hit
with last year at this time. Nothing too bad around here, but plenty
of tree branches down. We had some minor water damage due to the way
the winds blew the rain around. Some water managed to make its way into
our house and cause some ceiling damage in our bathroom. The sun has
finally decided to reappear for a change; and the temperatures are
finally going to get to or above normal in the next few days. It's
starting to look more like Spring. So, I'm beginning to feel a little
bit more motivated, and get back to the many projects I still have
remaining on my list of things to do. And, it will nice to get back out
in the yard or on the golf course without the worry of slogging through
the soggy and muddy ground!
So, while you enjoy the nice weather that's fast approaching, remember
to take a moment or so to consider what has happened in Virginia and
send a prayer to the victims and their loved ones.
Until next time...
=~=~=~=
PEOPLE ARE TALKING
compiled by Joe Mirando
joe@atarinews.org
Hidi ho friends and neighbors. Well, another week has come and gone and
we've gone from one nationwide event to another.
There simply aren't enough messages in the NewsGroup for a column this
week, so I'm just going to make a few comments about current events...
Gawd, 'current events'. It seems woefully inadequate to call the carnage
at Virginia Tech 'current events', doesn't it? I lost a dear friend
during my first semester at college; a suicide. That event left its
mark on me, and to this day it pains me that I wasn't there when he
could possibly have benefited from my presence. Had someone termed my
friend's demise a 'current event', I don't know how I would have felt
about it. We all go through that "Holden Caulfield" phase. Some of us
spend longer there than others, and some never leave it. I firmly
believe that what makes the biggest difference is our friends and
family.
Last week's "Imus Affair" is now a memory for most of us, and the
terrible horror at Virginia Tech has taken its place. In hindsight,
Imus and Rutgers are small potatoes compared to the loss of 33 lives in
such a horrible way.
I'm not going to debate whether or not NBC should have released the
pictures and video provided by the perpetrator of this heinous act, but
taking into account that I'm a journalist at heart, you can probably
guess at which opinion I hold.
I do, however, want to mention something that I find troubling; This
'news on demand' thing that we are now presented with. It's disturbing
to me for some reason that we can watch things unfold as they happen.
Of course, it's been that way, to at least some extent, since the dawn
of the age of radio. Television added another layer, so that we don't
even have to imagine how things look "on the scene". But today we're
inundated with data before we even know what's really happening. Cell
phone video and internet feeds provide us with the ultimate voyeur's
vantage point. We can be safe and sound in our homes or offices and
still have the feeling that we're really there. Forget about violent
video games. We can get that adrenaline rush from MSNBC and CNN. We
don't need to buy a video game anymore.
Of course, our hearts go out to the survivors of the massacre and the
families of those who did not survive. That goes without saying, but
still it must be said. In dark times it's often the support of those
around us that see us through, and right now we're all one big
community.
And yet (and there's always an "and yet" these days, ain't there?) there
are those who cannot help but interject their own agendas into the
situation. Some have taken the opportunity to mention that, had there
been stronger gun laws in the state of Virginia, this terrible act
might not have occurred. Yet others self-assuredly intone that, had
more people on the campus had guns, the massacre might have been
minimized, or even averted. Yet others have taken the opportunity to
wave the banner for expanded social services and such. There has been
no shortage of opinions this past week.
It's probably not a popular point of view right now, but I'm of the
opinion that something bad was going to happen no matter what, and a
disturbed mind will find a way to wreak havoc with what's around it, no
matter what. Predestination? Not at all. It's simply an observation.
I'm also wondering... had this disturbed young man had an Arabic or
Persian last name, if the government would have sat up and taken notice
long ago. Perhaps if he'd been a Quaker...
To sink into 'Arlo mode'... But that's not what I came to tell ya about.
We all know what a terrible event this was. There's no debating it,
there's no argument. It was a terrible, terrible thing. A waste of our
most precious resource... our youth. Who knows what genius might have
arisen from within the ranks of those who perished, what insights, what
advancements. Even the perpetrator might have, had he chosen a
different path, become a beneficial resource, someone who could have
provided an advancement that would benefit us all. What a waste. A
heartbreaking waste.
Having said that, I need to say that I don't buy into the idea that, had
he received the proper counseling, he could have gotten 'back on
track'. There are now stories reaching back for years about attempts to
help this individual and get him "well" again. To a large extent, he'd
chosen his own destiny well before he bought that Glock 9mm.
To quote an old Okie friend of mine, "Some folks is just what they are.
Ain't nuthin' else they can be."
If you pray, pray for these families and friends who lost a part of
their lives last week. They will heal, slowly to be sure, and perhaps
not completely, perhaps scarred, but they will heal. Today, we are all
one community, and its important that they know that.
Okay, on to another subject.... Last week's column. I was taken aback by
Dana's mention of my column last week. It's true that our editorial
comments often complement one another, but I find it amusing that he
considers me one of those people who... oh, how did he put it... "who
can speak their mind without going off in ten different directions at
once"?
For my part, I've always admired the way Dana can cut through all the
superfluous verbiage and get right to the heart of a discussion. Me? It
seems that I have to wrangle around and around a subject before I
finally get to the point. Dana, on the other hand, goes right to the
heart of the matter and holds it up for all to see. The way I see it,
anyone can verbally wander around and around until they stumble onto
something that sounds profound. It takes both talent and intelligence
to dig right in and get to the meat of a matter right off the bat. I
have to wallow around a while until something smacks me in the head
once or twice. [grin]
Perhaps that's why we complement each other so well. Whatever the
reason, it seems to work!
[Editor's note: I just knew that my comments last week, that pertained
to Joe's writing style, was not going to come across clearly! As I wrote
last week:
** But, I will go off on a related tangent beforehand - freedom of speech. I
like people who are not afraid to speak their mind. It means more if they
can do some in an eloquent fashion, rather than just spouting off in ten
different directions at once. I don't know a lot of people who can write
this way, and manage to pull it off well. Joe is one of those people who
does it well. I do it pretty well, most of the time (he said, patting
himself lightly on the back), but not always as fluidly as I'd like. **
My sentence placement was a bit off! I meant to include Joe with those
who speak their mind in an eloquent fashion, rather than those who go off
in many different directions at once. Sorry for the confusion! While I
realize that we both may ramble at times, when we have our "teeth" on a
subject, we manage to do well and stay on track. So much for my own
eloquence!]
Well folks, that's it for this week. Thanks again for indulging me. Tune
in again next week, same time, same station, and be ready to listen to
what they are saying when...
PEOPLE ARE TALKING
=~=~=~=
->In This Week's Gaming Section - A PS3 With More HD Capacity?
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" PS3 Graphics Showcased!
"Exhilarating Escapism"
And much more!
=~=~=~=
->A-ONE's Game Console Industry News - The Latest Gaming News!
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
Sony May Launch PS3 With Larger Hard Disk Capacity
Sony Corp. said on Tuesday it is considering launching PlayStation 3 (PS3)
game consoles with larger hard disk drive capacity, in a bid to cater to
the needs of hardcore gamers and other heavy users.
Sony currently offers the basic version of the PS3 with a 20-gigabyte hard
disk drive and an advanced model with a 60-gigabyte drive in North America
and Japan, but it plans to discontinue the lower-capacity PS3 in North
America.
"For users who vigorously store (games and other entertainment content) in
the PS3, 20-giga is probably going to be too small, and even 60-giga may
not be big enough eventually," Sony Computer Entertainment spokesman
Satoshi Fukuoka said.
Sony Computer Entertainment is the video game unit of Sony.
Fukuoka said, however, that potential changes to the PS3 are not limited
to its hard disk drive capacity.
"We are not likely to change its core components and functions such as
the Cell, RSX, Blu-ray drive and network capability. But outside that
realm, addition and deletion is quite possible," he said.
Sony packs the PS3 with its cutting-edge technology including the Cell
microchip, dubbed "supercomputer on a chip," RSX graphic processor, and
Blu-ray high-definition DVD player.
The advanced functions have driven up PS3's manufacturing costs, and
Sony's game unit is estimated to have made a loss of more than 200 billion
yen ($1.7 billion) for the year ended March 31, making the game console
the biggest risk factor for Sony's earnings growth.
'MotorStorm' Showcases PS3 Graphics
Still wondering just how powerful that pricey PlayStation 3 is? The
off-road racing video game "MotorStorm" is a mud-caked showcase of the
system's excellent graphics.
This T-rated, $59.99 title approaches the CGI in movies at times. The
first time I viewed the game on my high-definition television was one of
those "wow" moments as a gamer.
From the photorealistic environments to the impeccable details - like the
grit and grime that slowly builds up on the motorcycles, trucks and other
vehicles - "MotorStorm" is truly a marvel of the latest in video-game
graphics.
My initial few hours of racing were a disaster because I was so enthralled
with my surroundings that I wasn't paying much attention to actual
driving.
The vehicles become crumpled heaps of dirty scrap metal after crashes, and
the track conditions gradually worsen with muddy ruts that glisten in the
sunlight. Clouds of dust and clumps of dirt will sometimes obscure your
view.
There's a price to pay for this hyper-realism: sluggish load times between
different tracks and when choosing vehicles.
The racing itself is simple: you have controls to accelerate, brake and
steer. Pressing the "x" button provides a short speed boost that'll send
you hurtling forward at nearly uncontrollable velocities.
That's especially useful after driving off a cliff or smashing into a
boulder, which I did quite often until I adjusted to the very sensitive
controls. The game will magically give you a new vehicle to resume the
race from the crash site, and the boost is a quick way to get back in the
race.
As good as it looks, "MotorStorm," feels incomplete.
Like the tracks you'll compete on, the game is a mix of exhilarating
soaring jumps and frustrating mud-bogged crashes.
The racing is pretty simple once you memorize the limited selection of
tracks.
There's no option to save movie clips of you best - or worst - races, the
tracks themselves aren't too different from one another, and there's no
sort of performance shop, for example, where you can customize your
vehicle with better parts.
"MotorStorm" also has an interesting premise that's never explored.
You play as a contestant in the "MotorStorm Festival" in Monument Valley,
Arizona.
This mix of Burning Man and motor oil kept me wondering: Who are all these
people dancing in the desert? What's with the giant carnival rides on the
horizon?
There's no way to know. The vehicles and their anonymous, nameless drivers
are all we're supposed to care about.
"MotorStorm" is a visual knockout that I still can't stop staring at with
awe. But look deeper and you might see what this game really is: a series
of mindless races with no real point.
Two and a half stars out of four.
Violent Video Games "Exhilarating Escapism"
Players of violent video games believe they are just "exhilarating"
escapism which does not desensitize them to real-life mayhem, according to
a new survey of one of the entertainment industry's fastest growing
sectors.
However, gamers do concede that people "who are already unhinged in some
way" may be pushed over the edge if they play violent games obsessively.
Responding to public and political concern about video games, the British
Board of Film Classification (BBFC) commissioned the survey, interviewing
gamers, parents and industry figures about their effect.
The Board, which classifies up to 300 games a year, concluded that for
gamers "The violence helps make the play exhilaratingly out of reach of
ordinary life."
But it added "Gamers seem not to lose awareness that they are playing a
game and do not mistake the game for real life."
Video games tend to polarize opinions like no other entertainment media
with some games demonized for their graphic portrayals of violence.
But one survey participant insisted they were not all living in a fantasy
world that tempted them to turn violent: "I no more feel that I have
actually scored a goal than I do that I have actually killed someone. I
know it's not real."
Another gamer said "Sometimes when I get really angry, I go upstairs and
play some games and it calms me down."
But some young gamers under the age of 15 said they found some of the
violence upsetting. Uncomfortable about the level of gore portrayed in the
graphics, they admitted to having nightmares.
That prompted BBFC Director David Cooke to urge parents to be vigilant. He
said it was vital to ensure children were protected from games with adult
content.
The survey canvassed reaction to a wide range of popular games from
Manhunt and Grand Theft Auto to World of Warcraft.
One Manhunt fan admitted "I was quite addicted to it."
"You really were sticking an axe in someone and taking a couple of chops
to their neck until their head fell off."
As for the attractions of Grand Theft Auto games, the survey concluded;
"The sex makes a contribution to the exhilarating sense of trashing the
tedious constraints of everyday life."
But with fast developing technology, today's "cool" game soon becomes
outdated.
"It is like when you have a puppy everyone wanted to know you. When it
grows a year older, they don't want to know," one gamer concluded.
Video Game Newcomers Eye More Emotional Range
Jenova Chen and Kellee Santiago, two of video gaming's hottest independent
developers, are tapping new emotions with their games in a bid to give
their industry the range to rival Hollywood films.
The duo is off to a strong start. They sold their student game "flOw" - a
soothing title where players guide an aquatic creature as it eats and
evolves to the beat of ethereal background music - to console giant Sony
Corp., which also has the first crack at their next two projects.
"Right now video games are focused on releasing anger and stress...that's
really limited. If you want a deeper understanding of life, you aren't
going to get it from a video game," said Chen, 25.
He and Santiago, 28, arrived on the scene in time to ride a wave of
technological change that's made it easier for hobbyists to create games
and share them via the Web.
Not long ago, "it was more prohibitive to make a game than a film," said
Jamil Moledina, the executive director of the Game Developers Conference,
a trade event.
He noted that independent game makers now have an opportunity to leave
their mark without being part of a $20 million team.
Moledina described "flOw" as engrossing and calming and said the game is
an example of how the video game business is expanding beyond the genres
of shooters, racers and puzzle games.
"They are part of a growing breed of independent developers who are
challenging what games are supposed to look like," Moledina said.
The industry's biggest players are supporting such efforts, giving
independents a way to showcase their work.
Sony offers "flOw" on the PlayStation 3's new online service, which rivals
Microsoft Corp.'s Xbox Live gaming platform and Valve's Steam online
download service.
While "flOw" and its predecessor "Cloud" are focused on the Zen end of the
emotional spectrum, Chen thinks games should probe the light and dark
sides of human emotion.
Knocking the widely held, but scientifically unproven, theory that violent
games create violent children, Chen said games give players an emotional
outlet not available in day-to-day life by letting them laugh, experience
an adrenaline rush, or work out aggressive and violent feelings.
Earlier this year, Chen's team and other finalists pulled out of the
Slamdance Guerrilla Gamemaker Competition to protest organizers' decision
to cut "Super Columbine Massacre Role Playing Game" from the list of
finalists.
Players of that downloadable game, which uses simple graphics reminiscent
of the early arcade era, adopt the roles of the teens who killed 13 people
and then themselves at Columbine High School nearly eight years to the day
of this week's shooting rampage at Virginia Tech.
Chen said the game is "disturbing," but wondered whether it would have
faced the same hurdles if it had been a film.
"It's like a new style of documentary," he added.
Danny Ledonne, creator of "Super Columbine Massacre," predicted that
artists will tackle the Virginia shootings in a variety of ways.
"I do not believe the medium of interactive electronic media should be
excluded from exploring the sorrows and challenges of the human
experience," Ledonne wrote on his site.
Old-School Games In "Barcade" Renaissance
In Brooklyn's warehouse-turned-artist district of Williamsburg, young
hipsters flock to Barcade to sample its roster of microbrews and mingle
with the likes of Pac-Man, the Mario brothers and Frogger.
Walls of the bar, which runs on wind power and has its own MySpace
profile, are lined with dozens of bulky, old-school arcade games that
decades ago lured coin-clutching teens to crowded, dark rooms with
deceptively addicting game play.
Barcade's popularity among Williamsburg's 20- and 30-somethings reflects
a wider trend in the video game industry - "retro" games are back as
parents introduce their offspring to the beloved games of their youth.
Few segments of the $30 billion global video game market needed it more
than the U.S. arcade business, which has shrunk to about a quarter of its
peak size.
In the heyday of the mid-1980s there were more than 10,000 arcades in the
United States and about 1.4 million games placed in myriad locations from
teen-mobbed mall arcades to convenience stores, said Michael Rudowicz,
president of the American Amusement Machine Association.
The number of arcades shriveled to about 2,500 during the industry's nadir
roughly four years ago on the heels of skyrocketing shopping mall rents
and competition from console gaming.
The count of U.S. arcades now stands at about 3,500 as "Pac-Man,"
"Asteroids," "Tron," "Centipede" and other stars of the golden age of
arcade gaming ride a comeback wave unseen since the start of Sony's
PlayStation home console era.
"It's quite a resurgence," said Rudowicz.
Nostalgia is not alone in fueling the rebound, which is also getting a
lift from corporate layoffs that forced some middle managers to reinvent
themselves as operators of family entertainment centers.
Talented game makers, who were wooed by big-budget console game studios,
are also returning to their roots - having grown weary of hulking,
high-risk projects and assembly-line specialization.
Among them is former Midway Games Inc. designer Eugene Jarvis, who founded
game maker Raw Thrills in 2001 and has since turned out coin-operated hits
like "The Fast and the Furious" driving game and "Big Buck Hunter Pro" -
a game that introduced trendy urbanites to hunting.
"Big Buck" was last year's top arcade game, selling 7,000 units, said Ryan
Cravens, marketing manager for Betson Enterprises, which distributes
arcade games and has a partnership with Raw Thrills.
National chains like AMC Theaters, child-focused U.S. restaurant franchise
Chuck E. Cheese and bowling alley operator Brunswick offer a steady
rotation of arcade games, including Japan's popular import "Dance Dance
Revolution."
Nolan Bushnell, founder of the original Atari game company and Chuck E.
Cheese, last year opened a swanky restaurant with video-game equipped
tables in a suburban Los Angeles shopping mall. His new target audience is
the adult dating set.
Bushnell and other seasoned arcade industry players say Generation Y,
which includes individuals as old as their late 20s, is discovering arcade
gaming's mix and mingle mode.
"The Y generation communicates by word of mouse," said Rudowicz said.
"It's cool to get out to play with your peers."
=~=~=~=
A-ONE's Headline News
The Latest in Computer Technology News
Compiled by: Dana P. Jacobson
Apple II Turns 30
The news out of Cupertino, California, was mostly dour last week, as Apple
Inc. announced that it was delaying the delivery of the next version of
its OS X operating system by four months so that it could complete work on
the iPhone cell phone.
That news elicited groans from the legions of Apple and Mac fan sites. They
have been eager fans of early Leopard test builds, especially as the OS is
still reportedly plagued by a number of high profile bugs in applications
such as QuickTime and Safari, and because rumored "big features" have yet
to see the light of day, making Leopard a modest improvement over the
previous OS X release, dubbed "Tiger," which came out in 2005.
The delay will also mean that Apple misses the opportunity to debut the
update at its annual Worldwide Developers Conference in June.
Apple's uncharacteristic stumbling over OS X might seem even more awkward
come Monday as the world's thoughts turn back 30 years to a long-distant
computer conference and a triumphant moment in the life of a company that
has seen big wins and big losses: the introduction of the Apple II
computer at the first ever West Coast Computer Faire in San Francisco.
Born 30 years ago, the Apple II was not created in a garage as myth would
have it. Apple II was a follow-up to a market flop, the Apple I. The
failure of that first effort was a blessing. The added time, plus new
semiconductor technology that became available in the interim between
Apple I and Apple II, made it possible for co-founder and resident
engineering genius Steve Wozniak to rework the machine's design. Apple II
stood out with a color display, eight expansion slots, a documented and
user-accessible logic board, sound, and game controller ports. Apple II
had more in common with commercial arcade games than with competing home
computers of the day. That's no coincidence; Wozniak and Jobs worked
together on Atari's Breakout game, and Breakout was one of Apple II's
signature games.
Apple II's aesthetics showed the first evidence of Steve Jobs' influence.
Like competitors' systems at the time of its release, the initial Apple II
used a cassette recorder for storage and sometimes called for the use of
arcane debugger-like commands for simple tasks. But Jobs' notion that an
unimposing enclosure and high-quality documentation would make the product
accessible to ordinary consumers clicked. Apple II almost immediately
became the box to beat in the home market, and it maintained that status
even after IBM mixed its starched shirt attitude, office equipment
background, and revered name to create the very impersonal but very
successful PC in 1981.
Apple continues to make systems that make new and seasoned users, kernel
hackers, and commercial artists feel at home while they're working. Apple
is the constant brunt of derision for its adherence to the original Apple
tenet that is the reason for its success: Technology should be equal parts
leading edge and enjoyable to use. Some things are sadly lost to time;
Intel-based Apple computers are no longer supreme inventions in the
tradition of Apple II. And, following the success of the iPod, Apple's
attentions are now spread across devices, software, and services. But who
knows? If Apple is willing to take the big risks that helped shape
technology as we know it, we may wake one morning to find that it's 1977
all over again.
Yahoo Introduces PayPal
Yahoo Inc. has expanded its recently upgraded Web search advertising
system overseas and added an online payments service as part of its
partnership with eBay, Chairman Terry Semel said on Tuesday.
Speaking to investors on a conference call following first-quarter
results, Semel said Yahoo had offered its recently upgraded Panama Web
search advertising system to key Japanese customers, expanding on the
initial U.S. debut of Panama in February.
He said fuller international expansion of Panama would occur over the
next several months, including European and South Korean markets by the
end of the current quarter.
"While we're still in the early days, we've already seen significant
increases in the relevance of our most prominent sponsor search ads and
have heard from our advertisers that they are seeing meaningful
improvements in ad performance," Semel said.
He said Yahoo also expanded the U.S.-focused partnership it struck with
online auction leader eBay Inc. nearly a year ago by offering a "PayPal
checkout program" - taking aim at rival Google Inc.'s Google Checkout.
The PayPal checkout program is aimed providing merchants and advertisers
a streamlined transaction checkout process and improved conversion of
window shoppers into buyers among active Yahoo shoppers, Semel added.
Virginia Tech and a Web of Grief
Every culture has its rituals for grieving: Jews sit shiva, the Irish
throw a wake, and in New Orleans, the funeral procession is often led by
an uplifting jazz band. For the members of the iGen, the infinitely
connected teens and twenty-somethings who cannot remember a time when the
World Wide Web didn't exist, the ritual of mourning is now a
social-networking phenomenon. Welcome to Grief 2.0.
Within minutes of the news of the shootings at Virginia Tech University on
Monday, students on the campus turned to sites like Facebook and MySpace
to reassure friends and family that they were unharmed, and to share their
feelings about the tragic event. As of Thursday morning, a search on
Facebook for "Virginia Tech" groups turned up more than 500, the majority
expressing condolences and offering prayers for the victims and survivors
of the shootings.
The most active group, "A tribute to those who passed at the Virginia Tech
shooting," has nearly 290,000 members; the group's "wall," where members
can post brief messages, has nearly 16,000 entries from all over the
world.
And there were still more expressions of grief posted to the group:
thousands of images depicting the Virginia Tech logo with those of
colleges around the country, set against the backdrop of a maroon
remembrance ribbon; and a discussion board with over a thousand different
topics, many listing hundreds of different entries.
The wall posting of group member Angie Platt reflected the sentiments of
many others: "My thoughts and prayers are with all of those who lost
someone they love at Virginia Tech. The whole nation and people across
the world are crying and mourning with you." High school student Emily Ann
Ferguson agreed: "im feel so sorry for the families of those who
died....... its so sad :("
Others chose to express their sorrow through video clips that they posted
on YouTube. The site lists more than 6,000 video clips related to
"Virginia Tech" -- a number that rose by several hundred while this story
was being written. A significant number are segments from news broadcasts
about the shootings, but there are also many original contributions.
A 26-year-old Britain named Enk�, for instance, composed a song, "God
Bless Your Family (A Song For Virginia Tech)," and posted his performance
of it to YouTube. "I wrote this song today," he said, "whilst watching
coverage of the devastating events that took place on Virginia Tech
Campus. God Bless the families of those lost on April 16th, 2007 at
Virginia Tech." His performance has been viewed nearly 120,000 times.
Others, like the 19-year-old Tony and the 15-year-old Leon, took the
opportunity to post video blog entries talking about the event and their
reaction. Another popular type of posting are video mashups or "retunes"
of various songs in tribute to Virginia Tech and its students.
In looking at some of the video postings and even some of the Facebook
entries, it is clear that the relative anonymity of the Web also permits
the expression of sentiments that would never be spoken in a funeral
parlor.
In the Facebook group "A tribute...," for instance, there are threads
with the heading "Enough with the Racism!," "The Terrorist A-Hole," and a
discussion of the "Death threats to the man who sold Cho the gun," among
many, many others.
In relatively short time, the conversations in the threads veered from the
tragedy itself into the long-standing and divisive public-policy debates
about immigration, gun control, and mental health. Sadly, despite the
evident shared grief for what happened, some posters showed little
reluctance to criticize or even insult their fellow students.
Trojan Horse Uses Virginia Tragedy as Bait
Spammers and hackers are using the slayings at Virginia Tech as a gory
lure to infect computers with malicious software, security experts noted
Thursday.
While the video made by gunman Cho Seung-hui prior to the killing of 33
people on Monday was widely posted on news Web sites and YouTube.com,
spam e-mails were intercepted Wednesday night purporting to link to the
footage on a Brazilian Web site, said Graham Cluley, senior technology
consultant, at security vendor Sophos PLC.
If clicked, the link caused a computer to automatically download a
malicious screensaver, called TERROR_EM_VIRGINIA.scr by Sophos, which
installs a Trojan horse program that collects banking details, Cluley
said.
It's unclear yet what banks the Trojan is engineered to exploit, Cluley
said. Sophos has posted a screenshot of the spam.
The e-mails are unlikely to mean much to English speakers since they're
written in Portuguese, Cluley said. But hackers have repeatedly used
breaking news events to try to trick users into opening malicious
programs.
"We might see other hackers jump on the coattails of this," Cluley said.
After emergencies and disasters, fraudulent Web sites purporting to
collect charity money also tend to emerge. So far, more than 450 domain
names related to the Virginia Tech shooting have been registered that
look questionable, wrote Johannes Ullrich, chief technical officer for
the Internet Storm Center, part of the SANS Institute, which monitors the
health of the Internet.
The registrations have occurred at a faster pace than ones after Hurricane
Katrina struck New Orleans in August 2005, Ullrich wrote on Monday.
SANS has posted a list of suspicious domains and their status. Virginia
Tech has has set up an official site with information on a memorial fund.
The U.S. Computer Emergency Response Team warned on Tuesday it's likely
some of those domains could turn into phishing sites.
Earlier in the week, eBay Inc. canceled auctions trying to sell domains
related to the Virginia Tech shootings, with one listed at US$49,930.
OLPC Laptop Shipments Delayed
Shipments of the XO notebook PC for the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project
will likely be delayed until the third quarter, the manufacturer said
Friday.
Quanta Computer Inc., the world's largest contract laptop PC manufacturer,
had earlier predicted shipments could start as early as July, but software
adjustments by the OLPC group have pushed the schedule back to the third
quarter.
"The hardware is pretty much in place," a company representative said.
The company has already said it has confirmed orders for 1 million of the
laptops. Several nations have already signed up for the project, including
Argentina, Brazil, Libya, Nigeria, Rwanda, and Uruguay.
The OLPC project is aimed at ensuring children around the world don't miss
out on learning how to use computers. The fear is that the high cost of
computers is keeping too many people in developing countries from learning
how the software, Internet and communications benefits of computing can
improve their economies, job prospects and lives, a conundrum commonly
referred to as the digital divide.
The group has worked on building a laptop PC, the XO, that costs just
US$100, including hardware and software, and comes with a battery recharger
and wireless network interface. In many countries where OLPC hopes to
distribute the XO, electricity and Internet access are bigger problems than
the lack of PCs.
The laptop is also built to last under rough conditions. It's resistant to
water, and there are as few moving parts as possible. Instead of a hard
disc drive, for example, which has moving parts, the XO uses flash memory.
It's also designed with a tougher outer shell than most laptop PCs, and
drop tests have been performed to ensure the device can survive a few
falls. A full list of the hardware specifications shows it also has a
Secure Digital memory card slot, three USB ports, and an onboard camera.
There are critics of the program. Fair International, a Norwegian
nonprofit organization also working to provide PCs to schools in
developing countries, complains that the OLPC model of ensuring every
schoolchild receives their own laptop is simply too costly. In addition,
some companies argue that the PC should be equipped with the most widely
used software, because that way, kids in developing countries would learn
a job-related skill through the machines. Instead, the XO is equipped with
a newly developed user interface running on a stripped-down version of Red
Hat Inc.'s Fedora Core Linux OS.
Still, the OLPC project has found a large number of supporters from
different walks of life. Many top members of the group are from academia
and work at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). The project
is led by Nicholas Negroponte, a co-founder of MIT's Media Laboratory. And
from industry, Advanced Micro Devices Inc., Red Hat and Google Inc. are
just a few of the companies that have joined the initiative.
Mozilla Releases Thunderbird 2.0
Over the past year, Mozilla's open-source Firefox browser has been slowly
but steadily nibbling away at the overwhelming dominance of Microsoft's
Internet Explorer. According to the Web analyst firm Net Applications,
Firefox had 15 percent of the browser market in March 2007, five
percentage points more than a year ago. All of the increase has come at
the expense of Internet Explorer.
Now Mozilla is hoping that its e-mail client will make similar inroads
into the market share of Microsoft Outlook. On Thursday, the company
released Thunderbird 2.0, the updated version of its popular open-source
e-mail client.
In a press release announcing the new version, Scott MacGregor,
Thunderbird's lead engineer, said that "Thunderbird 2 has powerful new
features and proven security, delivering an improved e-mail experience to
users worldwide."
The program's security enhancements focus on three specific types of
problems: phishing, privacy, and spam. The e-mail program will pop up a
warning when a message requests personal information, and also will warn
users if they are being redirected to a domain other than the one that
sent the message.
Thunderbird automatically blocks remote images in messages, which can be
used to harvest e-mail address, and uses multiple filters to help
eliminate spam.
One of the most highly touted new features of Thunderbird 2.0 is the
ability to apply tags to individual messages to make them easier to find
and organize.
"In Thunderbird 2, we incorporated the proven benefits of tagging to
email," McGreggor said. "Tagging initially gained popularity on blogs,
photo, and link-sharing sites as an intuitive way to organize online
information so users could easily find desired content."
The program comes with several default tags (Important, Personal, To Do,
Later), but users can create their own. Multiple tags can be applied to
each message, making it easy to sort information in several ways.
Even without tags, Mozilla is trying to make it easier for users to sift
through their growing volumes of e-mail by offering improved search
capability. As soon as users start typing in the program's search bar,
results begin appearing in the message pane. Users can save their searches
in a special folder to speed the process even more.
In addition to adding tagging and improved searching, Mozilla has
implemented a "message history navigation" feature that gives users the
ability to click "forward" and "back," much like users do in surfing Web
pages.
Thunderbird's target is clearly Microsoft's Outlook e-mail program, much
as Firefox has taken aim at Internet Explorer. In the business community,
Thunderbird's ability to make inroads on Outlook has been hampered by
Outlook's integration with Microsoft's enterprise-level Exchange server,
but Thunderbird has had more success in the personal e-mail market.
According to published reports, Thunderbird has been downloaded over 40
million times, even before the most recent upgrade.
One new feature of Thunderbird that is likely to be popular is its ability
to integrate with Google's Gmail program. With the appropriate user ID and
password, Thunderbird can seamlessly retrieve messages from Gmail and use
the online service to send e-mail directly from the Thunderbird client.
As some commentators have pointed out, linking Thunderbird 2.0 to Gmail is
a convenient way to maintain a backup of messages stored in Gmail's
servers. However, while any message sent from Gmail can be synchronized in
Thunderbird, the reverse is not true; a message sent from the Thunderbird
client, even using a Gmail account, will not show up later online in Gmail.
Fee For '.org,' '.info' Names To Jump
Wholesale prices for Internet addresses ending in ".org" and ".info" are
going up 2.5 percent in mid-October, about the same time fees for ".com"
and ".net" are increasing.
Public Interest Registry, which runs ".org," announced the increase in a
letter Wednesday to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and
Numbers, the Internet's key oversight agency. Afilias Ltd., which runs
".info," disclosed its plans last week.
The per-name fee is what PIR and Afilias collect annually from registrars,
the companies that sell domain names on their behalf. Such charges are
generally incorporated in the prices companies, groups and individuals
pay to register names, and they apply to new registrations, transfers and
renewals.
An increase of up to 10 percent a year was authorized under ICANN's latest
contracts with PIR and Afilias, both dated Dec. 8. PIR and Afilias chose
to increase fees by 15 cents, or 2.5 percent, to $6.15.
The ".org" increase takes effect Oct. 18, and ".info" on Oct. 15.
Earlier this month, VeriSign Inc. announced it would increase the annual
fee for ".com" by 7 percent to $6.42, and the ".net" fee by 10 percent to
$3.85. VeriSign said the fee increases, coming Oct. 15, stem from a need
to keep up with growing online use as well as threats from hackers.
PIR and Afilias did not cite a reason in their letters to ICANN.
The ".org" suffix is the world's fourth most popular domain name, and
".info" ranks No. 6, but both pale in registrations compared with ".com."
The ".info" suffix was one of seven ICANN approved in 2000 in the first
major expansion of Internet addresses since the system was created in the
1980s.
Google Dumps 'Froogle' Brand Name
Google trashed efforts at clever word play this week by changing the name
of its shopping search engine from "Froogle" to the more corporately
inclined Google Product Search.
The name was originally intended as a play on the word "frugal", Marissa
Mayer, vice president of search and user experience, and Jeff Bartelma,
product manager for "the product formally known as Froogle", wrote in a
blog post to the Google Web site.
But it appears that the Froogle moniker puzzled even the most tech savvy
Internet user. "The name caused confusion for some because it doesn't
clearly describe what the product does," Mayer and Bartelma wrote.
So lest the online masses think Froogle was a new breakfast cereal, a
"Fraggle Rock" spin-off or the latest video game, Froogle was sacrificed
to the re-branding gods and has emerged as Google Product Search.
The revamp now also makes it easier to purchase items via Google Checkout,
according to the executives. At this point, however, there are no plans
to change what is actually offered on the site.
Cookie Crunching May Be Pumping Up Web Traffic
Internet cookies might not be as reliable an indicator of distinct Web
site visitors as previously thought, according to a Monday report from
Internet research company comScore.
A growing number of Internet users have taken to erasing their computer's
cookies, which are unique identifiers inserted on a user's computer that
reveal what Web sites someone has visited. While this might not seem like
a catastrophic event, the deletion of these cookies could lead to
inflated traffic reports for a particular Web site, according to the
report.
Each time a user visits a Web site for the first time that Web site
deposits a virtual checkmark, or cookie, onto the user's computer. That
cookie prevents the Web site from cataloging repeat visits from the same
user, thereby creating a more accurate count of new visitors to a
particular online venue. If a user's cookies have been erased, however,
that person's computer is registered as a new user when they visit a Web
site, even if they have been there hundreds of times before.
ComScore evaluated a first-party Web site and a third party ad server that
each receives more than 100 million hits each month.
Researchers found that 31 percent of U.S. Internet users erased their
first-party cookies over the course of the month. As a result, Web sites
could be inflating their web traffic by as much as 150 percent, according
to comScore.
"These 'serial resetters' have the potential to wildly inflate a site's
internal unique visitor tally, because just one set of 'eyeballs' at the
site may be counted as 10 or more unique visitors over the course of a
month," said Magid Abraham, president and chief executive of comScore, in
a statement. "The result is a highly inflated estimate of unique visitors
for sites that rely on cookies to count their audience."
Report authors found similar totals on the third-party ad server, with
approximately 27 percent of users clearing their cookies at least once a
month.
Many people think third-party cookies are deleted more often than
first-party cookies because "many PC users reset or delete their cookies
using security protection programs," Abraham said. "But these findings
suggest that selective cookie management is not prevalent."
State Department Got Mail - And Hackers
A break-in targeting State Department computers worldwide last summer
occurred after a department employee in Asia opened a mysterious e-mail
that quietly allowed hackers inside the U.S. government's network.
In the first public account revealing details about the intrusion and the
government's hurried behind-the-scenes response, a senior State Department
official described an elaborate ploy by sophisticated international
hackers. They used a secret break-in technique that exploited a design
flaw in Microsoft software.
Consumers using the same software remained vulnerable until months
afterward.
Donald R. Reid, the senior security coordinator for the Bureau of
Diplomatic Security, also confirmed that a limited amount of U.S.
government data was stolen by the hackers until tripwires severed all the
State Department's Internet connections throughout eastern Asia. The
shut-off left U.S. government offices without Internet access in the tense
weeks preceding missile tests by North Korea.
Reid was scheduled to testify Thursday at a cybersecurity hearing for a
House Homeland Security subcommittee. He was expected to tell lawmakers an
employee in the State Department's Bureau of East Asian and Pacific
Affairs, which coordinates diplomacy in countries including China, the
Koreas and Japan, opened a rigged e-mail message in late May giving
hackers access to the government's network.
The chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, Rep. Bennie Thompson,
D-Miss., said hackers are no longer considered harmless, bored teenagers.
"These are experienced, sophisticated people who are trying to exploit
our vulnerabilities and gain access to our information," Thompson said.
Reid was not expected to disclose the identities or nationalities of the
hackers believed to be responsible for the break-ins or to disclose
whether U.S. authorities believe a foreign government was responsible.
The department struggled with the break-ins between May and early July.
The panel's chairman, Rep. James R. Langevin, D-R.I., called cybersecurity
an often-overlooked line of defense. "Since much of our critical
infrastructure is dependent on computers and networks and is
interconnected and interdependent, a cyberattack could disrupt major
services and cripple economic activity," Langevin said.
The mysterious State Department e-mail appeared to be legitimate and
included a Microsoft Word document with material from a congressional
speech related to Asian diplomacy, Reid said. By opening the document, the
employee activated hidden software commands establishing what Reid
described as backdoor communications with the hackers.
The technique exploited a previously unknown design flaw in Microsoft's
Office software, Reid said. State Department officials worked with the
Homeland Security Department and even the FBI to urge Microsoft to develop
quickly a protective software patch, but the company did not offer the
patch until Aug. 8, roughly eight weeks after the break-in.
Microsoft said it works as quickly as possible to provide customers with
security updates.
"If we release a security update that is not adequately tested, we could
potentially put customers at risk, especially as the release of an update
can lead to reverse-engineering the fix and lead to broader attacks,"
said Microsoft's senior security strategist, Phil Reitinger. "Updates
must be able to be deployed by customers with confidence."
At the time, Microsoft described the software flaw as "a newly
discovered, privately reported vulnerability" but did not suggest any
connection to the U.S. government break-in. It urged consumers to apply
the update immediately. It also recommended that consumers not open or
save Microsoft Office files they receive from sources they don't trust or
files they receive unexpectedly from trusted sources.
The State Department detected its first break-in immediately, Reid said,
and worked to block suspected communications with the hackers. But during
its investigation, it discovered new break-ins at its Washington
headquarters and other offices in eastern Asia, Reid said.
At first, the hackers did not immediately appear to try stealing any U.S.
government data. Authorities quietly monitored the hackers' activity, then
tripwires severed Internet connections in the region after a limited
amount of data was detected being stolen, Reid said.
Reid also complained the State Department's efforts to deal quietly with
the break-in were disrupted by news reports. The Associated Press was
first to reveal the intrusions.
"We were successful here until a newspaper article telegraphed what we
were dealing with," Reid said.
House Panel Approves Anti-Spyware Bill
Legislation that would help protect consumers from harmful spyware that can
harvest personal data from a user's computer was approved on Thursday by a
U.S. House Energy and Commerce subcommittee.
Spyware invades computers as users browse certain Web sites, resulting in
repeated intrusive and aggressive advertisements. Some spyware programs can
also steal addresses, telephone numbers or credit card information without
the knowledge of the computer user.
"Protecting Internet users from dangerous programs that steal consumers'
identities, invade their software or just plain harass them is a top
priority," said Democrat John Dingell of Michigan, chairman of the full
committee.
The bill would require software distributors and advertisers to clearly
notify and obtain consent from consumers before their programs can be
loaded onto a computer. Violators could be fined up to $3 million for
each unfair or deceptive act.
The Energy and Commerce Committee's panel on commerce, trade and consumer
protection approved the bill on a voice vote. It plans to hold a May
hearing on computer data breaches at retailer TJX Cos. Inc., which
recently reported information was stolen on more than 45 million credit
and debit cards.
The legislation next moves to the full committee for consideration.
Lawmakers Grill US Agencies on Cyberattacks
Lawmakers expressed concern Thursday that multiple U.S. agencies whose
networks were hacked recently can't be sure they've fixed their
vulnerabilities because of poor cybersecurity practices.
Several agencies haven't completed inventories of their IT equipment, and
can't know how badly they've been compromised, said Representative James
Langevin, a Rhode Island Democrat, during a hearing of the House of
Representatives Subcommittee on Emerging Threats, Cybersecurity, and
Science and Technology.
"We don't know the scope of our networks," said Langevin, chairman of the
subcommittee. "We don't know who's inside our networks. We don't know what
information has been stolen. We need to get serious about this threat to
our national security."
Cybersecurity officials from the U.S. Department of State and Department
of Commerce assured lawmakers that they fixed the holes that led to
network intrusions in 2006. "We felt pretty confident we had a good plan
in place," said Donald Reid, senior coordinator for security
infrastructure in the State Department's Bureau of Diplomatic Security.
Reid described an attack on the State Department's unclassified network in
May 2006. An agency employee in the Far East opened an e-mail containing a
Microsoft Word attachment with an exploit code hidden inside it, he said.
At the time, there was no patch available, Reid said.
The malicious code established backdoor communications outside the
agency's network, using a Trojan horse, he said. But the State
Department's intrusion detection system immediately detected the problem,
and the agency's incident response team used a temporary wrapper to
protect systems against the vulnerability, Reid said.
The attackers took advantage of a "zero-day" exploit, Reid said. "We're in
new territory," he said. "We're trying to learn as we go along."
Although Reid assured the subcommittee that the State Department's
unclassified and classified networks are separate, Langevin said neither
the State nor the Commerce department have completed an inventory of their
networks. Both agencies received F grades in cybersecurity in scores
released by Congress last week, he noted.
The inspector general's office at the State Department said in 2006 the
agency had inventories less than 50 percent of its IT systems, Langevin
said. If the agencies haven't completed an inventory, "then they can't know
for certain these incidents don't involve the classified networks,"
Langevin said.
But Reid said the State Department has now completed an inventory on "far
more than 50 percent" of the agency's IT equipment. The classified and
unclassified networks are separate, he said. "We're very confident there's
no bleed over," he added.
Subcommittee members also questioned how the Commerce Department could not
pinpoint the date of an attack the agency discovered in July 2006. The
agency wasn't able to recover the firewall logs earlier than eight months
before it discovered three agency computers attempting to access
unauthorized resources, said David Jarrell, manager of the critical
infrastructure protection program in the agency's office of chief
information officer.
The agency "cannot clearly define the amount of time the perpetrators were
inside its... computers before their presence was discovered," Jarrell
said.
The agency "has no evidence to show that data was lost," he added.
Representative Bob Etheridge, a North Carolina Democrat, called Jarrell's
testimony "troubling on many levels to me."
The hearing is a good first step toward recognizing that many U.S.
agencies have been victims of cyberattacks, said Alan Paller, director of
research at the SANS Institute, a security research and training company
in Maryland. The U.S. government and key defense contractors are under
"continuous and increasingly sophisticated attacks" from other nations,
Paller said.
"The attacks work," he added. "Penetrations are deep and broad. Terabytes
of highly sensitive information have been stolen and systems are under the
control of the attackers. Many agencies do not even know how many of their
computers are under the control of foreign nation-states."
With the federal budget tight, the best option is for the federal
government to pressure IT vendors to bake security in to products, Paller
said.
Google Rivals Urge Antitrust Scrutiny of Deal
Internet and media rivals to Google Inc., fearing an unprecedented
consolidation of power in the online advertising market, are expected to
urge regulators to closely scrutinize the Web search leader's $3.1 billion
deal to buy DoubleClick Inc.
Google on Friday beat out Microsoft Corp. and Yahoo Inc. to buy Web ad
supplier DoubleClick, securing a leadership position as the Internet's
top advertising business.
Microsoft, the world's largest software maker, said the deal would allow
Google to corner the online advertising market and provide them access to
a huge amount of information on consumer behavior on the Internet.
"This proposed acquisition raises serious competition and privacy
concerns," said Brad Smith, Microsoft senior vice president and general
counsel in an e-mail statement.
"We think this merger deserves close scrutiny from regulatory authorities
to ensure a competitive online advertising market."
AT&T senior executive vice president of external and legislative affairs
Jim Cicconi said on Sunday that Google would be in a position to pick
winners and losers in the industry.
"If Google becomes the dominant force in terms of Web advertising and
becomes the broker, that would be clear evidence of market power and
dominant position."
Cicconi said.
Industry analysts said the deal would let Google focus more attention on
extending its advertising forces offline - into the print, television
and radio advertising arena.
Google said on Sunday it landed a deal to sell a portion of the
advertising inventory for top U.S. radio conglomerate Clear Channel
Communications Inc.'s radio division.
Earlier, it landed a similar deal to sell TV ads for No. 2 U.S. satellite
television provider EchoStar Communications Corp.
Shortly after announcing the deal on Friday, Google Chief Executive Eric
Schmidt said in a news conference he expected the deal to be approved by
regulators.
"This is a very, very competitive market in terms of the number of
choices," Schmidt said to reporters and analysts on Friday in a conference
call.
Time Warner Inc. is also seen urging regulators to scrutinize the deal,
according to a report on the Wall Street Journal Web site. Time Warner
was not immediately reachable.
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