Rivals Answer the iPhone
Apple's iPhone may be the most anticipated device in the history of the wireless industry. But when it hits AT&T and Apple stores June 29, it will face plenty of competition. Nokia has already begun selling the N95, has a large color screen, can surf the Web and can play music and DVD-quality video. LG Electronics has brought a sleek, minimalist touch-screen phone to market in Europe and Asia that was co-designed with the fashion house Prada. A slightly different version will be offered later this year in the U.S. market. Taiwan-based smart-phone maker HTC is introducing a handset called "Touch" this month in Europe and Asia. The phone allows users to navigate its features by sweeping across the touch screen with their fingers, much like the multitouch feature of the iPhone. And Samsung has released a super-thin music phone.

Good privacy pays for web stores
People will pay more for goods if a website does a good job of protecting their privacy, a study shows. The Carnegie Mellon study looked at what shoppers do when they are told what sites do with personal data. It suggests that shoppers will pay a premium equal to about $0.60 on goods worth $15 if they are reassured about privacy. The study was used to evaluate a tool that aims to give web users clearer information about privacy policies. Before now, many studies have shown that many web users fear that the information they must surrender to buy goods and services online will be abused by some shops. At the least, users fear their contact details will be passed on to marketing firms without their permission. Many also worry about what is being done with credit card or bank details they hand over to make purchases. Despite these fears many shoppers often made poor choices by surrendering valuable personal information if they thought they were getting low prices. The small study of 72 shoppers looked at how their behaviour changed if they were armed with a tool which showed how good a site's privacy policy was. The study used a tool called the Platform for Privacy Preferences (P3P) developed by the World Wide Web Consortium to make it easier for the average net user to assess privacy policies. The P3P tool tries to give consistent information about privacy policies across sites. However, it is currently only used by about 20% of e-commerce sites. The results of the study suggest that people will turn toward sites with "high privacy" ratings and that they would pay slightly extra for that reassurance.

US patent system braced for a shake-up
The US patent system is set for a thorough review, according to reports, with the aim of improving the quality of patents awarded, and thus reducing the number of patent lawsuits. The New York Times says the Bush administration wants better information from applicants, and is considering opening patent applications to public scrutiny. Both the Senate and the House have proposed legislating changes to the patent system this year as concerns mount over the quality of the system. The review has been prompted by concerns that rather than encouraging innovation, the patent system has let in so many poor patents and become so clogged with litigation that it is now starting to hinder entrepreneurs. (To illustrate just how so many poor quality patents might have been granted, consider this: in 2000, 72% of all applications were approved. In the first quarter of 2007, after the USPTO hired 1,200 more patent examiners, this figure fell to 49%). In particular, it wants to shift much of the prior art research burden to the applicant and tighten up the legal requirements on the amount and quality of supporting information that must accompany an application.

CBS Invests in TicketRESERVE
CBS Becoming the latest company to jump on the ticket-sales bandwagon, CBS has invested in TicketRESERVE, a site that lets sports fans pay to guarantee they’ll attend the big game should their team make it through the play-offs. The broadcaster didn’t disclose terms of the deal, announced Wednesday, but said the investment is along the lines of the $8.3 million average of the 12 deals it’s made so far this year, excluding its $280 million purchase of music site Last.fm. With its new minority partnership in TicketRESERVE, CBS becomes one of several large media and online properties to enter the realm of ticket sales this year. TicketRESERVE works essentially like a futures market. A fan of a particular team pays anywhere from $5 to more than $50 to guarantee a face-value ticket to the Super Bowl, say, or a Final Four game, if the team makes it. If the team goes, the fan must buy the ticket. If the team gets knocked out, the fan forfeits the initial payment. TicketRESERVE users can also sell the guarantee, or

Netscape browser gets refresh
Netscape has released its Netscape Navigator 9.0 Beta 1. The release is now available for download and is availabile for Windows, Mac, and Linux. Once there was a time that such an announcement would be the trumpet call for another wave of browser war features in the tech press. But now the Navigator is a small player these days. Navigator 9 has some natty features. It will automatically correct common typos in URLs. For example, if you accidentally type theinquirernet, Navigator will fix it be to theinquire.net. The browser will watch for nearly 30 different types of common mistakes and correct them for you. It will ask you first of course, because it is a polite browser. It also has a news menu and sidebar because anything involving news usually requires a bar.

EU governments OK lower roaming fees
EU governments agreed to cut the cost of using mobile phones abroad Thursday, paving the way for a cap on roaming fees later this summer. The price of a mobile phone call from abroad may drop by as much as 70%. Europeans will have better information on hidden charges they face when they make calls from a country other than their own within the 27-nation bloc after the law takes effect at the end of June. Telecom companies will have one month after that to offer customers a new pricing structure with considerably cheaper roaming fees. Mobile phone users will have another two months to choose whether they want to stick with their existing contracts. After that, they will be put on the new contract automatically. The timetable should allow proactive customers to benefit from cheaper prices this summer, the Commission has said. The exact timing depends on the law going into effect as scheduled on June 30. Before the reform, a four-minute call from France across the border to Germany would cost a traveler 4 euros ($5.38) even though a similar call made within France over a much larger distance could cost just a few cents. A Maltese calling home from Latvia can end up paying as much as 11.21 euros ($15.19) for a four-minute conversation. Under the new rules, the retail roaming cap will be set at 0.49 euros ($0.66) per minute for making a call when abroad and 0.24 euros ($0.33) per minute for receiving one, plus value-added tax. The ceilings would drop further, to 0.43 euros ($0.58) for making calls abroad and 0.19 euros ($0.26) for receiving them, by 2009. Some 150 million mobile phone customers in the EU use roaming to make calls outside their home nation every year. Mobile operators draw between 10% and 18% of their revenues from international roaming charges. The European Commission has long argued that operators are reaping massive, unjustified profits from high roaming charges.

South Africa mulls reining in roaming
The South African justice committee is considering making foreign travelers register their name, passport number, and address with a local provider before being allowed to use the local GSM services. The requirement is part of the "Regulation of Interception of Communication Amendment Bill". The bill also requires anyone buying a phone in South Africa to prove who they are and where they live. Most countries make some attempt to find out who you are when you buy a phone; with different levels of legislation, enforcement, and effect. Local operators in South Africa are also complaining that long queues will develop as visitors try to register. But it seems more likely that fans on a short visit just won't bother, and thus be unable to incur the exorbitant roaming fees those operators depend on for a significant portion of their revenue.

Indian software jobs outsourced to Mexico
The increasing cost of labour in India is forcing the country’s largest software services provider to hire 5,000 employees in Mexico. Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), which opened a software development centre in Guadalajara, Mexico, last week, will outsource the first 500 jobs from India in this financial year. A further 4,500 jobs will follow over the next five years. A talent supply crunch in the booming services sector in India, coupled with a sharply appreciating rupee against the dollar, is threatening to knock the country off its perch as the world’s leading outsourcing centre. Mexican salaries are up to half those in the United States, where TCS employs about 12,000 people. In addition, more than half of the group’s $18 billion revenues come from the US and having a centre in the same time zone means that its pro-grammers can service customers more quickly. TCS is not the only software group to express concern at the rising cost of doing business in India. It and severakl of its rivals, including Wipro, Infosys and Satyam, have set up operations in China, where an excess supply of well-trained software engineers has kept salary inflation under control.

Travel Sites Offer More Options to Book Online
As airplanes continue to get fuller, consumers' options for booking flights and travel packages online continue to get broader. Vayama.com, a booking site dedicated to international travel, officially launched today, claiming to offer a greater selection of international flights and fares than the more established sites. Orbitz.com this week announced the launch of Orbitz Insider Deals, a downloadable desktop application that gives users access to special offers and deal-searching and tracking tools. And is AA.com, offering a tool that allows customers to search for flights by price and schedule combined, not just one or the other. The new offerings come as the airline industry enters what's expected to be a record summer travel season. The Air Transport Association, the industry's trade group, recently forecast that approximately 209 million passengers will travel globally on U.S. airlines between June and August, a 3% increase over the same period last year. Vayama charges $10 for online bookings and $25 for those by phone.

Average user rating

   (0 vote)