News For Saturday Oct 11, 2008 News For Saturday Oct 11, 2008

Science  & Technology Science  & Technology

Japan to start overseas cell phone technology push - Added 7 weeks ago

Japan will start an aggressive push to market abroad its mobile technology, especially the nation's popular "wallet phone," a government official said Tuesday. Although Japan boasts some of the most sophisticated cell...

Nokia provides Lonely Planet maps on cell phones - Added 7 weeks ago

Nokia and travel information company Lonely Planet said Tuesday they are joining forces to sell maps and city guides that can be accessed on mobile phones. The world's largest handset maker said users of Nokia Maps can...

Australian PM urges more US climate change action - Added 7 weeks ago

Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd urged the United States on Tuesday to take more action on climate change and become more involved in the global debate on the issue. As the only developed nation not to sign the...

Electronic Arts won't extend Take-Two deadline - Added 7 weeks ago

Video game publisher Electronic Arts Inc. is retracting its hostile bid for smaller rival Take-Two Interactive Software Inc., but a deal _ and a friendly one at that _ is likelier than ever. Take-Two, best known for...

Researchers say numbers aren't needed to count - Added 7 weeks ago

Answer this without counting: Are there more X's here XXXXXX, or here XXXXX? That's a problem facing people whose languages don't include words for more than one or two. Yet researchers say children who speak those...

Poorest countries growing fastest - Added 7 weeks ago

The world's poorest countries have one thing in ever greater abundance _ people. "Nearly all of world population growth is now concentrated in the world's poorer countries," said Bill Butz, president of the Population...

Analog TV shutdown kills free cell-phone TV - Added 7 weeks ago

!!-- pobj:NYR101-0701081047 -->Picture whipping out your cell phone and catching up with "Lost" or "Jeopardy," or watching the local 11 o'clock news, all for free. You can do this with an imported Chinese phone, but you...

Forget HD DVD: Toshiba focuses on plain old DVD - Added 7 weeks ago

After losing out in the battle to define the high-definition successor of the DVD, Toshiba Corp. has turned its attention to the next best thing: the DVD. On Monday, the Japanese electronics company is releasing a new...

Forget HD DVD: Toshiba focuses on plain old DVD - Added 7 weeks ago

After losing out in the battle to define the high-definition successor of the DVD, Toshiba Corp. has turned its attention to the next best thing: the DVD. On Monday, the Japanese electronics company is releasing a new...

Analog TV shutdown kills free cell-phone TV - Added 7 weeks ago

!!-- pobj:NYR101-0701081047 -->Picture whipping out your cell phone and catching up with "Lost" or "Jeopardy," or watching the local 11 o'clock news, all for free. You can do this with an imported Chinese phone, but...

In Germany, wandering whale creates wonderment - Added 8 weeks ago

Germans have been treated to the rare sight of a lone and wayward humpback whale swimming in the Baltic Sea, but marine biologists said it may be doomed because the waterway lacks the conditions such mammals need to...

Guess what? Military funds mind-reading science - Added 8 weeks ago

Here's a mind-bending idea: The U.S. military is paying scientists to study ways to read people's thoughts. The hope is that the research could someday lead to a gadget capable of translating the thoughts of soldiers...

NASA halts space suit contract with Texas firm - Added 8 weeks ago

NASA said Friday it terminated its contract with a Houston company selected in June to supply the space agency's next-generation space suit. NASA said it determined that an unspecified compliance issue required it to...

Microsoft file format approved as ISO standard - Added 8 weeks ago

The format used by Microsoft Corp.'s Office 2007 programs to save documents will become an international standard after appeals against the move failed to gather sufficient support, the International Organization for...

Cablevision will pay 10-cent quarterly dividend - Added 8 weeks ago

Cablevision Systems Corp. said Friday it will pay its first-ever regular dividend in September, a conciliatory move toward shareholders as the company seeks to boost its stock price. The decision by the diversified...

Airlines push for homegrown jet fuel - Added 8 weeks ago

With the price of oil still above $100 a barrel, everything from wood chips to chicken fat is being scrutinized as an alternative to traditional fuel. But when it comes to airplanes, finding the right mix poses a...

Netflix resumes normal shipping after 3-day glitch - Added 8 weeks ago

Online DVD rental leader Netflix Inc. resumed normal shipments Friday after its distribution centers were crippled by three days of severe technical problems, a spokesman said. The Los Gatos-based company also offered...

New magazine-sharing site may violate copyrights - Added 8 weeks ago

The magazine industry, already facing a decline in newsstand sales and falling ad revenue, is being besieged by a new foe: digital piracy. A fledgling Web site called Mygazines.com encourages people to copy and upload...

Qwest union contract expires Saturday - Added 8 weeks ago

The labor contract with the largest union at Qwest Communications International Inc. expires Saturday, little more than a week before the company is to provide phone and Internet service for the Democratic National...

Yahoo selects Biondi, Chapple as new board members - Added 8 weeks ago

Yahoo Inc. said Thursday it will add the former chief executives of Viacom and Nextel Partners to its board of directors as part of the company's deal to ward off a proxy fight with billionaire investor Carl Icahn. The...

Worrying invasive snail found in Lake Michigan - Added 8 weeks ago

Scientists worry that a rapidly reproducing, tiny invasive snail recently found in Lake Michigan could hurt the lake's ecosystem. The New Zealand mud snail joins a long and growing list of nonnative species moving into...

Court says copyrights apply even for free software - Added 8 weeks ago

In a crucial win for the free software movement, a federal appeals court has ruled that even software developers who give away the programming code for their works can sue for copyright infringement if someone...

Remains of cemetery found in Sahara - Added 8 weeks ago

A tiny woman and two children were laid to rest on a bed of flowers 5,000 years ago in what is now the barren Sahara Desert. The slender arms of the youngsters were still extended to the woman in perpetual embrace when...

Netflix shipping centers slammed by problems - Added 8 weeks ago

Netflix Inc. said Thursday that major technical problems over the past three days have severely limited the number of DVDs it could send out. The unspecified problems affected all of the Los Gatos-based company's 55...

Xbox to sell Warner Music videos for $1.99 - Added 8 weeks ago

Gamers with a hankering to watch music videos will have more choices after Warner Music Group Corp. announced Thursday it is adding its library of videos to Microsoft Corp.'s Xbox 360 game console. Videos from Sony...

Ex-Apple top attorney settles with SEC for $2.2M - Added 8 weeks ago

The former top attorney at Apple Inc. on Thursday agreed to pay $2.2 million to settle federal regulators' charges that she altered company records to conceal improper backdating of stock options for senior executives...

July video game sales jump 28 percent - Added 8 weeks ago

Even in a seasonally slow month and with the economy in the doldrums, U.S. sales of video game hardware and software soared 28 percent in July, hitting $1.19 billion. According to data from market researcher NPD Group,...

Yahoo selects Biondi, Chapple as new board members - Added 8 weeks ago

Yahoo Inc. said Thursday it will add the former chief executives of Viacom and Nextel Partners to its board of directors as part of the company's deal to ward off a proxy fight with billionaire investor Carl Icahn. The...

Court says copyrights apply even for free software - Added 8 weeks ago

In a crucial win for the free software movement, a federal appeals court has ruled that even software developers who give away the programming code for their works can sue for copyright infringement if someone...

New BlackBerry expected within month in N. America - Added 8 weeks ago

The new BlackBerry model should be coming to North America within a month now that Research In Motion Ltd. has started selling it in Germany and Chile. The first major new BlackBerry model in more than a year, the Bold...

Judge keeps gag order in subway hacking case - Added 8 weeks ago

Three college students who discovered a way to hack into the Boston subway system's payment cards and add hundreds of dollars in value to them were ordered again Thursday to keep details of their findings secret. A...

Autodesk sees FY '09 profit of $1.72-$1.78 a share - Added 8 weeks ago

Autodesk Inc. said it expects to report earnings of $1.72 to $1.78 per share _ or $2.24 to $2.30 excluding items _ on $2.5 billion to $2.53 billion in revenue for fiscal 2009, ending in January. The San Rafael,...

Autodesk beats Wall Street estimates for fiscal 2Q - Added 8 weeks ago

Autodesk Inc., a maker of computer-aided design software, posted fiscal second-quarter results late Thursday that handily beat Wall Street's expectations. The San Rafael, Calif.-based company reported earnings of $89.8...

Symmetricom says will post 4Q impairment charge - Added 8 weeks ago

Symmetricom Inc. said Thursday that its fourth-quarter earnings will include a $14.4 million, non-cash impairment charge. The provider of synchronization hardware, software and services said the 21-cent-per-share...

Biographical information on John Chapple - Added 8 weeks ago

NAME _ John H. Chapple AGE _ 55 EDUCATION _ Syracuse University; completed Harvard University's Advanced Management Program CAREER _ Served as CEO of Nextel Partners and chief operating officer of Orca Bay Sports and...

Biographical information on Frank Biondi Jr. - Added 8 weeks ago

NAME _ Frank J. Biondi Jr. AGE _ 63 EDUCATION _ Princeton; master of business administration from Harvard Business School CAREER _ Has served as CEO of Time Warner Inc.'s HBO, The Coca-Cola Co.'s television unit,...

NASA delays robotic moon mission until 2009 - Added 8 weeks ago

NASA has delayed the launch of an unmanned spacecraft to the moon to scout for potential landing sites for astronauts. The moon craft is the first step in NASA's program to send astronauts back to the moon and beyond....

Ocean dead zones become a worldwide problem - Added 8 weeks ago

Like a chronic disease spreading through the body, "dead zones" with too little oxygen for life are expanding in the world's oceans. "We have to realize that hypoxia is not a local problem," said Robert J. Diaz of the...

US concerned about Hezbollah TV in Indonesia - Added 8 weeks ago

The U.S. government is concerned that a television channel backed by the Hezbollah militant group is using an Indonesian satellite to broadcast to the Asia-Pacific region, an American Embassy spokesman said Thursday. ...

Italy blocks Swedish file-sharing site - Added 8 weeks ago

An Italian judge has ordered the country's Internet service providers to block access to The Pirate Bay, a Swedish file-sharing Web site, as part of a probe into copyright law violation, officials said Thursday. Since...

New PCs can wake up when they get phone calls - Added 8 weeks ago

Intel Corp. is unveiling new technology that will let computers wake up from their power-saving sleep state when they receive a phone call over the Internet. Current computers have to be fully on to receive a call,...

Gates Foundation honors Mexican library service - Added 8 weeks ago

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is giving its $1 million "access to learning award" to an organization in Mexico's Veracruz state. The Vasconcelos (vass-con-seh-lohs) Program brings computers to remote villages...

NBC sees new media habits form with Olympic games - Added 8 weeks ago

About half of the people who are using mobile phones to pull down video or information about the Olympics have been trying out that technology for the first time, NBC said on Wednesday. NBC Universal, a unit of General...

NetApp's board OKs $1B in stock repurchases - Added 8 weeks ago

NetApp Inc. said Wednesday its board has approved the purchase of up to $1 billion of its common stock. The company said it will pay for the stock purchases with working capital, and that the timing and amount of the...

TechTarget 3Q outlook in line with Wall Street - Added 8 weeks ago

TechTarget Inc. on Wednesday forecast third-quarter revenue will rise in a range between about 7 percent and 12 percent compared with the same period a year ago, a projection in line with Wall Street expectations. The...

MedAssets narrows 2008 outlook - Added 8 weeks ago

Hospital software maker MedAssets Inc. said Wednesday it was narrowing its 2008 earnings-per-share outlook and raising revenue projections to include the impact of a recently acquired private software company. The...

Insight Enterprises: SEC closes options probe - Added 8 weeks ago

Computer hardware and software distributor Insight Enterprises Inc. said Wednesday the Securities and Exchange Commission has completed an investigation into its stock options granting practices and does not recommend...

Spreadtrum 2Q misses projections, trims forecast - Added 8 weeks ago

Spreadtrum Communications Inc., a Chinese technology company that has shares listed in the U.S., reported second-quarter profit Wednesday that narrowly missed projections. The company reported net income of $2.6...

Swedish magazine blames iPhone 3G woes on hardware - Added 8 weeks ago

Spotty wireless broadband connectivity for some of Apple Inc.'s new iPhones most likely results from a hardware problem introduced during mass production, a Swedish technical magazine reported Wednesday. Ny Teknik,...

Loss narrows at hospital software maker MedAssets - Added 8 weeks ago

Hospital software provider MedAssets Inc. said Wednesday that it lessened its second-quarter loss as an acquisition of a privately held software company helped boost sales. The maker of financial software for hospitals...