Quantcast Bowing to political reality, Senate Democrats drop broad energy bill

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, flanked by Sen. John F. Kerry and White House energy czar Carol Browner, blamed the GOP for the impasse.

Washington —Senate Democratic leaders shelved plans for major energy and climate legislation on Thursday, bowing to political reality and probably ending hopes for action this year to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, boost alternative energy production and wean the nation from carbon fuels.

Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada — who had promised to bring a sweeping energy bill with an emissions cap to the Senate floor by the August recess — said he would instead offer a scaled-back bill focused largely on responding to the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

Obama endorses plan to boost wireless broadband

U.S. President Barack Obama speaks to participants of the Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month event in the East Room at the White House in Washington

U.S. President Barack Obama endorsed on Monday plans by regulators to nearly double the spectrum now available for wireless devices.

The White House announced a plan modeled after proposals by the Federal Communications Commission to free up 500 megahertz of spectrum over the next 10 years to meet the demand for laptop computers and smartphones such as Apple Inc's (AAPL.O) popular iPhone.

Some estimates suggest the next five years will see an increase in wireless data of between 20 to 45 times 2009 levels, reflecting the burgeoning use of wireless devices.

The Federal Communications Commission, which manages commercial spectrum licenses, and the Department of Commerce, which oversees government spectrum, have been working together to locate unused spectrum.

Officials said they hope they can identify some spectrum by Oct. 1 that can be made available within five years.

Paul Gallant, a telecommunications analyst with Concept Capital, said Obama's announcement is a plosive development for wireless infrastructure companies such as Alcatel-Lucent SA (ALUA.PA), American Tower Corp (AMT.N), Ciena Corp (CIEN.O), and Tellabs Inc, among others.

The "White House's endorsement bolsters the outlook for spectrum goals" laid out by FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski in the recent National Broadband Plan, Gallant said.

Freeing up airwaves to meet the growing demands of the wireless industry is a major component of the FCC's National Broadband Plan to increase Internet subscribers and provide affordable access to rural and low-income families.

Obama says taking the fight to the Taliban is paying off

Barack Obama warned today that coalition forces in Afghanistan faced months of hard fighting, but said they had started to "reverse the momentum of the insurgency" by taking the fight to the Taliban.

Speaking after a meeting at the White House with the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, Obama said the deployment of thousands more troops was paying off.

"There are many difficult days ahead in Afghanistan. We face a determined and ruthless enemy but we go forward with confidence," he said.

Obama said the Afghan government and its allies could not hope to win through military means alone but that keeping up the fight against what he called a brutal insurgency was essential as part of a strategy to encourage Taliban supporters to abandon the conflict.

"The incentives for the Taliban to lay down arms and make peace with the Afghan government in part depends on our effectiveness in breaking their momentum militarily, and that's why we put in the additional US troops," he said.

The two leaders papered over the bitter public differences of recent months, in which the Americans made it clear they considered corruption under the Karzai government was alienating much of the population and undermining the fight against the Taliban. The Afghan leader accused the west of wanting a puppet government in Kabul.

Following on from the tone of Karzai's meeting with the US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, on Tuesday, Obama sought to underplay the divisions.

"A lot of them were simply overstated," said Obama "Obviously there are going to be tensions in such a complicated, difficult environment, in a situation in which on the ground both Afghans and Americans are making enormous sacrifices. "We've had very frank discussions, and President Karzai agrees with me that we can't win through a military strategy alone. That we're going to have to make sure that we have effective governance, capacity building, economic development, in order for us to succeed."

Karzai responded that there had been differences and would continue to be so but that the relationship was strong.

Microsoft releases Exchange 2010, acquires Teamprise

Microsoft made two enterprise moves on Monday, one expected and the other a bit of a surprise.

As promised, the company used its TechEd event in Berlin to release Exchange 2010, the latest version of its e-mail and calendar server software. Microsoft finalized the code for the product last month and had said it would launch at TechEd.

Microsoft VP Tami Reller talks about enterprise adoption of Windows 7 as part of a Webcast held after the first day of TechEd Europe.

Meanwhile, the company also announced it is buying the Teamprise technology from SourceGear. Teamprise allows developers using Eclipse and those working on non-Windows operating systems to build applications using Microsoft's Visual Studio product.

"We know our customers face daily challenges with management, collaboration and development in heterogeneous environments. The industry must take steps to make interoperability a stronger business asset for our customers," senior vice president and developer unit head S. Somasegar said in a statement. "With the acquisition of the Teamprise assets, we're taking a step forward on this journey, providing customers with a viable cross-platform development solution that will help produce business results more quickly."

Microsoft didn't announce financial terms of the deal, but did say the Teamprise technology will be integrated into Visual Studio 2010.

At TechEd Europe, Microsoft also talked about enterprise adoption of Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2, highlighting some early customers of the two products.

"We remain just pleased and humbled by the very warm reception we're seeing," Microsoft vice president Tami Reller said in a Webcast on Monday.

As part of the same Webcast, senior vice president Chris Capossela sounded off on Cisco's announcement of updated collaboration tools that could take on Exchange.

"Rather than stitching together acquired products and calling that a solution, we've built Exchange form the ground up," he said.

IBM 'in anti-competition probe'

IBM is being investigated by the US Department of Justice over allegations of anti-competitive behaviour, a computer industry trade body has said.

The Computer and Communications Industry Association (CCIA) said the investigation came after it urged officials to look into the matter.

CCIA accuses IBM of withdrawing software licences from business clients who do not also buy its hardware. IBM denies any wrongdoing and says it will co-operate with any investigation.

The Department of Justice has declined to comment.

'No merit'

The CCIA said the investigation centred on IBM's mainframe operating systems.

The association's spokesman, Ed Black, said the scope of the Justice Department study was "quite broad". The news comes a week after an anti-competition complaint against IBM by software developer T3 Technologies was thrown out by a judge in Manhattan.

"We understand the Department of Justice has asked T3 for documents from the litigation," said IBM in a statement. "IBM intends to co-operate with any inquiries from the Department of Justice.

"We continue to believe there is no merit to T3's claims, and that IBM is fully entitled to enforce our intellectual property rights and protect the investments that we have made in our technologies."

Verizon Wireless, Google in Android partnership

Verizon Wireless said Tuesday it will put substantial resources into developing and selling phones that use Google Inc.'s Android software.Verizon Wireless had already said it would sell Android phones, but the announcement suggests that the carrier is positioning these "smart" phones as a main means of competing with Apple Inc.'s iPhone, which is exclusive to AT&T Inc. in the U.S.

Verizon Wireless and Google said they plan to "codevelop" Android-based devices that will be pre-loaded with their applications. They will be made by major manufacturers, they said.

The carrier now expects to sell the first Android phones in a few weeks, it said. It has already said it will be a carrier for a new smart phone from Motorola Inc., which is releasing several new devices based on Android software as a part of its turnaround effort.

The announcement adds to the momentum behind Android, which is seeing significant interest from carriers and manufacturers. Sales of the few existing Android phones have been small compared to the iPhone's, however.

Rival carrier T-Mobile USA came out with the first phone based on Google's operating system last year. It recently announced that it will carry Android phones from Samsung Electronics Co. and Motorola. Sprint Nextel Corp. is also set to release an Android phone.

Windows Live Marketplace Goes Live for Windows Mobile 6.5 Phones

While the iPhone certainly has driven the smartphone craze to new heights, currently it arguably retains only one crucial advantage over its rivals. That advantage is its App Store. While rivals such as Palm and Google have launched their own markets, they lack the number of applications and developers that are on the iPhone.

Now Microsoft is looking to become the latest to try to challenge Apple's App Store dominance. Microsoft just rolled out Windows Live Marketplace, a new app store which is available on phones running on its Windows Mobile 6.5 operating system. The store appears to have launched a day early on some phones, but few are complaining.

The marketplace reportedly has 40 currently available applications (iTunes App Store currently has around 75,000). You can access the store using your current Windows Live ID and pay for apps via credit card.

Some of the currently available applications include Street Fighter II, Facebook, a Netflix manager, Pac-Man, Mastersoft Money V6, and a WorldTime clock application.

More applications are likely on the way for tomorrow's official launch. EA reportedly has signed a contract with Microsoft to provide some games for the store, including a mobile version of Sim City.

The Windows Live Marketplace was first noted on the new AT&T Pure, which users began picking up this weekend.

Windows XP Mode for Windows 7 hits RTM

Microsoft today announced that the code for Windows XP Mode has been finalized and the company is now preparing to release it in exactly three weeks. "Thanks to everyone's feedback, we're happy to announce that Windows XP Mode has RTM'd today," according to the Windows 7 Team Blog. "We expect to make the final release of Windows XP Mode available via the Microsoft Download Center on October 22nd. OEMs will be able to offer Windows XP Mode on their PCs based on their manufacturing schedules."

Windows XP Mode is aimed at small and mid-sized businesses that are migrating to Windows 7 Professional, Windows 7 Ultimate, or Windows 7 Enterprise and that need the ability to run Windows XP productivity applications which are incompatible with Vista's successor. While Microsoft insists that many Windows XP applications will be compatible Windows 7, or at least every one that is compatible with Vista, the company says Windows XP Mode can be used as a last resort for those that are not.

Microsoft first announced Windows XP Mode and released a beta in April 2007. The company explained that users had to install the old applications directly in Windows XP Mode, which is a virtual Windows XP environment running under Windows Virtual PC. Once that is done, the applications become available on the Windows 7 desktop and can be run directly from Windows 7. In May 2009 it became clear that Microsoft and Intel had contrived to make XP Mode unavailable to many Intel users. In August 2009, a Release Candidate version was released that brought many improvements to the add-on, including USB and jumplist support as well as a new user tutorial

Chandrayaan Mission a Complete Success

The discovery of water on the moon could pave the way for us to build a rocket refueling station up there. For man to be able to make sustainable, affordable voyages in the solar system, we need a way to re-fuel off the planet.

Now, with the discovery of hydrogen and oxygen molecules - the components of water - on our neighbouring body, we may now have a staging post to explore the other planets.

With hydrogen and oxygen both abundant on the moon's surface, man may be able to have all the water and rocket fuel needed for space exploration

A ship taking off from the Earth expends so much fuel escaping the planet's gravitational fuel that there is little to spare for inter-planetary exploration. But a staging post on the moon could allow a ship to re-fuel with relative ease, and could help speed up the exploration of other planets, such as Mars, where water has also been detected within the last few weeks.

The discovery of water on the moon was made by the Indian lunar mission Chandrayaan-1. Scientists were looking for a signature of water in the craters near the poles, but were surprised to find evidence of water on the sunlit areas of the Moon instead.

Experts believe the water is trapped in the Moon's surface dirt and in theory can be extracted in large quantities to support life.

Microsoft Courier tablet runs Windows 7, coming 2010

Microsoft's Courier booklet is reportedly currently running on top of Windows 7 (remember the emphasis Redmond put on Windows Touch during the operating system's development), much like how the Microsoft Surface runs on top of Windows Vista, according to ZDNet. On the flip side, however, you won't be able to install Windows 7 apps on the device.

Furthermore, the rumor goes on to say that Microsoft will actually be making the booklet hardware, much like it does for its Zune portable media players and its Xbox gaming consoles. Finally, the device is currently slated for a "mid-2010" release (translation: don't expect it before Christmas 2010), but it's still not in the commercialization pipeline. ZDNet's tipster explained that Courier builds on Microsoft Office OneNote, used especially on current tablet PCs: "The concept started as a software idea on how one would really build OneNote from scratch if you could for the Tablet form factor. That then morphed into building a tablet."

Gizmodo has more details on Courier. Apparently the device is being developed around the term "infinite journal," a continuous (and searchable—again, think OneNote) document that can be used to collect together snippets of text, diagrams, webpages, contacts, and so on. The journal can be published in whole or in part online, it seems, in either a native Courier format, as a PowerPoint presentation, or as a PDF. There's also a library where things like subscriptions, notebooks, and apps, can be stored.

Multitouch finger gestures are used to navigate between pages, move images, and drag contacts/appointments around, but for data entry, handwritten text is the name of the game. Gizmodo also posted a video, produced by the same firm that collaborated with Microsoft's Pioneer Studios on the first leaked video, which further shows how Microsoft thinks we'll use Courier. The video makes us think a later iteration is being shown, compared to last time.

Microsoft is still refusing to comment on anything Courier-related since as far as the software giant is concerned, it's still all "rumors and speculation." Speculation around pricing continues to be all over the place.