MySpace to snap up Photobucket
MySpace has tabled a $250m bid to buy image-sharing website Photobucket. The social networking site, which is owned by News Corporation, proposed the buyout just a few weeks after the two services fell into dispute over adverts placed on MySpace websites. MySpace had blocked access to Photobucket slideshows including adverts that were placed on its users' sites. Photobucket chief executive Alex Welch responded to the block by claiming that MySpace was "contradicting the very ethos of personal and social media". The issue was eventually resolved and an official statement from Photobucket stated that the company had established open lines of communication with MySpace to prevent a sudden block of Photobucket content in the future. "We want our users to be able to share their content and we understand that it must be within the framework of MySpace's Terms of Service for it to appear on the site," the statement said. MySpace was known to be in early takeover talks with Photobucket a month ago, before the incident took place. Photobucket received 17.6 million unique site visitors during January 2007, according to figures from comScore. The photo site claims 41 million registered users, with 80,000 new registered users signing up daily.

Icahn loses bid to gain seat on Motorola board
The billionaire financier Carl Icahn came to Chicago to attend Motorola's shareholders meeting, with some expectation that he would get elected to the board. But as the politics played out, Motorola, the world's second-largest maker of cellphones, said Icahn had not received enough votes from shareholders to be elected to its board, according to preliminary results. The company said final results would take a few weeks to confirm, but if they stand, it would be considered a victory for Edward Zander, Motorola's chief executive. Icahn had used his push for a seat on the board to criticize Zander's leadership of the company. Hundreds of shareholders packed into an auditorium at the Art Institute of Chicago for a two-hour-plus meeting, perhaps hoping to see a duel between company executives who had promised to make changes and Icahn, an investor who had played this role numerous times: buying a stake in a company, demanding changes or leading a proxy fight and in the end, usually initiating change. But anyone hoping for a quick decision was disappointed.

100Mbps mobiles coming soon?
While today's 3G connectivity seems positively zippy at 1.8Mbps, some of the biggest names in telecoms are clubbing together to work on a standard that could boost mobile speeds to 100Mbps. Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson, Nokia, Nokia Siemens Networks, Nortel, Orange and its parent company France Telecom, T-Mobile and Vodafone have all announced their intention to work together on promoting LTE (long term evolution), a super high speed version of 3G. The collaboration, under the banner of the LTE/SAE (Systems Architecture Initiative) Trial Initiative, will start work this month with a view to showcasing the standard. The initiative will arrange field tests, interoperability experiments and customer trials to promote the 3G variant. The joint efforts are scheduled to last between 18 and 24 months. According to the group, the technology is "expected to enable lower operating costs for operators as well as higher data-rate, lower latency end-user services and an improved end-user wireless mobility experience". It's thought LTE networks will start to be rolled out from 2009 to 2010 and could cost operators $18bn.

Microsoft launches major Hotmail update
Microsoft has launched the latest version of Hotmail, the software giant's 11 year-old web-based email client. The company has described the upgrade as the most significant for Hotmail since its launch in 1996. The latest version went online in 36 different languages as part of a worldwide launch. Current Hotmail users will be presented with an option to upgrade on logging into their accounts. Microsoft decided against a completely new interface, such as that used by Google's Gmail, electing to make Hotmail behave less like a browser-based email service and more like a conventional email client. The company said that it has tailored the interface and behaviour of Hotmail to be more like Outlook. Hotmail will include several Outlook features, including right-click and drag-and-drop features. Users will be able to choose between the conventional Hotmail interface or the new Outlook style. Microsoft will also allow users to manage a Hotmail account through Outlook, and hopes to launch a free application later this month that synchronises and manages Hotmail accounts through Outlook. Redmond has also improved message filtering for the new service, automatically labelling messages from unknown sources and potential frauds. Spam protection has been improved to allow for better filtering of junk email by linking all spam reports to a single filter database. Microsoft claims that there are more than 280 million active Hotmail accounts, 20 million of which took part in the public beta for the new service. Research firm Hitwise said that Hotmail.com is the second most-popular webmail domain behind Yahoo Mail.

How do you carry your mobile phone?
Data on how people carry their mobile phones, gathered by Nokia over the last four years, is being presented at HCI International 2007 in Beijing. It reveals that women are missing more calls than men, and that belt-pouches are a sign of middle age. Nokia interviewed more than 1500 people around the world, in cities including New York, Milan, Kampala, Tokyo and Beijing, to understand how people carry their mobile phones and why they carry them that way. Turns out that most men (60%) carry their phone in their right front trouser pocket; easy to reach, though when middle age spread starts to bite belt pouches become more common as the trouser pocket becomes stretched. 61% of women like keep their phone in a handbag, despite 50% missing calls 'cos they can't get to it in time. In Kampala 32% like to keep their phones in protective covers, perhaps to protect resale value. Only 3% of those in Tokyo try to protect their handsets from scratches and bumps. Most anomalous is the attachment of ornamental straps or charms to handsets - this is endemic in Asia and pretty much unknown anywhere else. Females are prone to attaching straps of distinctive fabric so they can find their phone in a bag, but otherwise the straps serve only to individualise the technology. Why that should remain an Asian preserve is unknown. Nokia also looked at other items carried by respondents, such as purses or credit cards.

AT&T raises spending plan for U-verse
AT&T said on Monday it had raised its spending plan for its new Internet and video service, called U-verse, by up to $1.4 billion, although it scaled back its end-2008 target for the rollout. The top U.S. phone company said it plans to spend $6 billion to $6.5 billion on U-verse, which promises a high-definition video and ultra-high speed Internet service, compared to its initial plan to spend $5.1 billion. AT&T said the increase in spending on U-verse will not affect its outlook for overall capital expenditure in 2007 and 2008. Despite the higher spending, AT&T said it expects the service to be "passed," or made available, to 18 million homes in its traditional 13-state territory by the end of 2008, down from an initial estimate of 19 million homes.

U.S. babies watching TV, despite warnings
About 90% of U.S. children under age 2 and as many as 40% of infants under three months are regular watchers of television, DVDs and videos, researchers said on Monday. They said the number of young kids watching TV is much greater than expected. The American Academy of Pediatrics estimates that children in the United States watch about four hours of television every day. They recommend that children under age 2 should not watch any and older children should watch no more than 2 hours a day of quality programming. But 29% of parents surveyed believe baby-oriented TV and DVD programs offer educational benefits. For the study, conducted random telephone surveys of more than 1,000 families with young children in Minnesota and Washington. They found 90% of children under age 2 and 40% of infants under three months watched TV regularly. At 3 months, children watched less than an hour per day, but by 24 months, they watched more than 1.5 hours per day, the study said. About half of the shows watched were in the educational category, with the remainder split evenly among noneducational children's content, baby DVDs/videos and adult TV. In a separate survey of 1,051 parents published in the journal Pediatrics, 75% of children aged 0 to 6 were found to watch TV every day, often in their own bedrooms. Parents said 22% of teens who watched less than an hour a day were often bored at school, compared to 35% of the moderate watchers and 42% of those who watched three hours or more. The result was the same regardless of socioeconomic status. Johnson said he believes TV may be shortening teens' attention spans. "Over time, it could really dumb down society," he said.

EU funding to save Galileo?
Stalled Euro sat-nav project Galileo could be set to receive more extensive backing from the European Union (EU) in order to get it moving again. Galileo was supposed to be more than half funded by private investors, principally AENA, Alcatel, EADS, Finmeccanica, Hispasat, Inmarsat, TeleOp, and Thales. The idea was that the new satellite constellation, in addition to a basic free service, would offer paid options which would allow these backers to recoup their money. But, when it came time to start signing serious cheques, the EU's corporate partners didn't feel able to proceed. The first big problem with selling satellite location services is that the US Defense Department already offers a pretty good free service from its Global Positioning System (GPS) birds, which is difficult to compete with. Galileo could be more accurate than basic GPS, and in time might deliver better coverage in difficult locations such as so-called "urban canyons" where much of the sky is blocked out. But there are ways to squeeze improved accuracy out of GPS already, which don't necessarily involve paying a large fee. Furthermore, the latest GPS receivers seem able to pull in signals from some very difficult locations indeed - perhaps even from between a mobile phone's battery and circuit board. On top of this, restricting access to sat-nav services is very difficult, perhaps even worse than implementing effective DRM on music and video. Tellingly, the US military gave up even trying to do so with GPS some time back. In another indication of difficulties ahead, the encryption on Galileo test platforms was cracked as soon as they were put into orbit. The encryption on operational Galileo birds would no doubt be tougher, but paying customers will have to have access - which means that cracks will be possible.

Papua New Guinea reaches for the online gambling ring
An island nation more famous for ritualized cannibalism than for internet commerce has tossed its ceremonial headgear into the online gambling ring, after its parliament approved a bill legalizing both "bricks and mortar" and internet-based casino offerings by a 61-0 vote last week. The legislation, titled the "Gaming Control Bill of 2007" flew through parliament with the endorsement of Prime Minister Sir Michael Somare. It provides for the creation of a National Gaming Control Board to regulate the social downside of the controversial industry, such as potential criminal involvement, corruption and gambling addiction. Who watches over the Gaming Control Board, of course, is anybody's guess. The bill mandates a 20% gross revenue tax and an additional 5% tax to be returned to the local communities most affected by the new law. Illegal gambling on slots and horse racing has become a problem in the country in recent years, and tight regulation of the gambling industry, proponents argued, could both provide increased government revenues and lessen the collateral social damage of the industry.

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