Apple Releasing a Windows Browser
Apple said that it would make its Safari Web browser available for Windows-based PCs, opening a new front in its rivalry with Microsoft. The announcement came at the end of a presentation made by Steve Jobs, at the company’s annual World Wide Developers Conference. It indicates that Apple is increasingly confident in its ability to compete against Microsoft’s desktop computing monopoly. A test version of the program was available Monday for downloading from Apple’s Web site. Jobs said that Safari’s market share was currently about 5% and the share of Firefox, the open source browser, was about 15%. There has been a persistent fear that Microsoft would be able to create new standards that would force computer users to adopt its software to reach certain Web sites and Internet services. The broader appeal of the browser might have implications for Apple’s iPhone. In his presentation, Mr. Jobs said that the company was encouraging Apple software developers to use modern Internet software standards to make applications compatible with Apple’s iPhone, which will go on sale June 29. The announcement is likely to touch off a frenzy of activity because Mr. Jobs said that applications that are written to Internet standards like AJAX and designed to work with Web browsers would work from the first day the iPhone is available.

RealPlayer 11 allows online video capture
RealNetworks has unveiled a closed beta of RealPlayer 11, the first major media player that allows users to download online video from sites including YouTube. Users can download clips and watch them offline, or burn them to CD or DVD. RealPlayer 11 has been in development for nearly three years, and supports most major formats including Real, Windows Media, Flash and QuickTime. Clips are downloaded in their native format where possible, or saved in a new Real format dubbed Internet Video Recording (.ivr). Support has not yet been confirmed for DivX and Xvid. The plug-in currently works with Internet Explorer and Firefox, but the company has promised support for other platforms and browsers. The original URL will be embedded into the downloaded video allowing users to direct others back to the original source of the clip. However, the new functionality raises serious piracy implications around being able to download and save clips from the web.

Half of all workers admit stealing data
Half of all workers admit to having no qualms about stealing "useful" information from their employers and taking it with them to their next job, research warned today. The poll by Check Point Software also claimed that 85% of employees could easily download competitive information and take it with them to their next job. The survey of 200 senior IT professionals found that UK employees are not quite as trustworthy as their Scandinavian counterparts. Similar research conducted in the Nordic region found that, although most Nordic employees could download data from their current employer, only 32% would go on to use this information for competitive advantage in their next job. Over 80% of poll respondents admitted taking files from work to use at home, most using USB sticks to transport the data.

Relief in store for cable customers
It has been 11 years since Congress voted to break the cable television industry's stranglehold on set-top boxes -- the devices that consumers need to receive digital programming and change channels. So why are you still paying $5 or more a month for that thing on top of your TV? When Congress rewrote the nation's communications laws in 1996, it envisioned a thriving retail market where subscribers could actually buy their own boxes rather than make monthly payments to the cable company in perpetuity. Things haven't quite worked out that way. The retail market for the boxes has failed to materialize, and the cable industry has filed numerous appeals and continued to press a furious lobbying and public relations campaign to make sure it never does, foes say. Come July 1, the gloves come off. After two years of deadline extensions, that's when the Federal Communications Commission will require cable companies to make hardware changes in all new set-top boxes that it hopes will lead to a competitive market. At the center of this melee is FCC Chairman Kevin Martin, who has opposed cable's requests for another delay. He sees set-top boxes going the way of the black rotary-dial telephone that consumers once rented from the phone company. When the government opened that market, it "led to more innovation and lower prices and better quality phones," he said. "I think the same thing can be true in this (cable box) market as well." The cable industry disagrees. David Cohen, executive vice president of cable giant Comcast Corp. in Philadelphia and its top political liaison, said consumers won't benefit from the change. The FCC rules will only affect customers with digital cable, a population that has grown steadily. There's so much focus now on complying with the integration ban by July 1," he said. Gary Shapiro, CEO of the Consumer Electronics Association, doesn't buy that argument. "They've had 10 years to solve this problem," he said. "Consumers want a retail marketplace. Retailers want to sell it. Manufacturers want to make it. The cable industry is doing everything they can to preserve their monopoly profits on set-top boxes." Even with the change, the cable industry will still have a distinct advantage over competitors. Unlike the cable company's set-top box, televisions with cable card slots sold at retail and other devices still won't be able to do interactive functions like deliver on-demand and pay-per-view programming. An agreement has yet to be reached between cable and consumer electronics makers on technical standards for interactive technology. The digital cable-ready TVs now in circulation can receive but not transmit data, creating a one-way street that limits their appeal to consumers.

Sony plans TV line for Wal-Mart, Target
Sony will soon be selling a line of televisions specifically for Wal-Mart Stores, Target and other discount retailers. Without revealing too many other details, Sony would supply a "unique series of models" of liquid-crystal display (LCD) televisions to big-box retailers for availability in the next 60 days. It's part of the company's strategy to sell to targeted groups of consumers. That means smaller specialty electronics sellers will also be supplied specific models, so they won't be competing as directly with the largest retailer in the world, Wal-Mart. Although Sony ranks as the top seller of televisions, the company (like all established electronics vendors) is facing increased competition from new companies offering cheaper sets. Often, these companies avoid the electronics superstores and sell their products in club stores and big-box retailers. The new sets will allow Sony to better fend off newcomers without alienating its traditional partners by selling the same sets in different stores for the same price. Sony executives revealed that part of its strategy in a media briefing here.

Sony also offered some other interesting tidbits:

• The company is moving almost exclusively into 1080p-resolution televisions. Though it will sell some 720p sets, those will mostly be entry-level displays.

• Expect a greater push on getting Web content directly from the television. The $299 Bravia Internet Video Link, coming later this year, will let Sony television owners get videos and other content from the Web directly on their televisions without having a PC in the mix. Right now, Sony has only four content partners, but the list is expanding.

• Though Apple has eaten up most of the market for portable audio, Sony says it will relaunch the Walkman brand in the fall. Sony will tweak its home audio products so that there will be better interoperability between portable and home products.

• Not to anyone's surprise, Sony will be backing away from other types of television that aren't LCDs. Though it continues to make, for instance, microdisplay rear-projection televisions, and has fine-tuned the technology to bring the size way down--to 10 inches deep--it doesn't have much hope for microdisplays' future.

• Sony Reader 2.0: "I'd like to sell a hell of a lot more than we're selling,

• The Mylo, a handheld communicator that debuted last year and is aimed mostly at college-age buyers, is also getting a refresh, though sales weren't necessarily spectacular.

• Sony will bundle more too. Rather than try to sell individual products, the company will look to sell bundles or packaged solutions at different customer segments. Recently, for instance, some Japanese engineers visited a U.S. fraternity house to check out how technology was being used. Expect to see products like televisions bundled with PlayStation 3s.

The company has already had success in tweaking products and actively marketing to Hispanic communities in the U.S., said a spokesman. Some keyboards on Vaio computers for Spanish speakers are adjusted to make some more commonly used keys easier to reach.

• Sony will come out with an 11-inch television based on an organic light-emitting diode screen in Japan this year. Larger screen sizes and wider markets will depend on demand and how the technology evolves.

• Sony's LCD television buyers are older than they thought--more than one-third of sales are to consumers older than 50 years.

Studios balk at Apple movie rental plan
Apple plans to enter the nascent online movie rental business drew skepticism from Hollywood executives who questioned pricing, copy protection and the timing of a possible launch. Sources inside and outside the major movie studios confirmed news reports the maker of computers and iPods is considering online film rentals to complement digital movie downloads that are already sold at Apple's iTunes Web site. But the sources, who declined to be named because film licensing talks are preliminary, questioned Apple's desire to fight copy piracy and the reported $2.99 price per rental. Some said that, because the film download market remains small, the studios do not need to rush into a deal with Apple. Several companies already rent digital movies to Web customers, including CinemaNow, Movielink and Amazon.com. "It just feels like the ball is in our court," said one source. Two publications recently reported Apple was talking to all the major studios about licensing films for a rental service and the service could launch as early as this fall with movies available for a 30-day period at a cost of $2.99. But that price raises questions for the studios because it would significantly undercut what consumers now pay for online rentals of new releases, which can cost up to $4.99. Moreover, the price might cannibalize pay-per-view revenues the studios already receive from cable and satellite TV. Among several issues involving copy protection, some movie executives expressed concern that Apple's digital rights management software would not adequately protect against unauthorized copies made for the video iPod and other devices.

Bankruptcy Filing May Delay Pornography on Cellphones
Amp’d Mobile’s filing for protection from bankruptcy on June 1 may have one unexpected side effect: a delay in the introduction of sex-oriented programming on cellphones. No mobile carrier, including Amp’d Mobile, a niche carrier that markets itself as a service for the young and technologically sophisticated, directly offers sexually oriented videos or still nude imagery. Amp’d Mobile let subscribers download pictures of fully clothed pornography stars and models. But Amp’d Mobile had discussed the possibility of offering racier fare in a meeting with industry analysts in March. While Amp’d, declined to comment on the bankruptcy filing, analysts believed that the company would be more cautious in proceeding for fear of alienating subscribers while it worked though its financial difficulties. Members of CTIA, a wireless industry trade group, agreed not to introduce sex-oriented programming until age-verification technology is in place. People who are determined to download pornography to their cellphones can do so today, but it must be done from third-party Web sites designed for mobile phones.

Plastic That Heals Itself
Researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) have made a polymer material that can heal itself repeatedly when it cracks. It's a significant advance toward self-healing medical implants and self-repairing materials for use in airplanes and spacecraft. It could also be used for cooling microprocessors and electronic circuits, and it could pave the way toward plastic coatings that regenerate themselves. The first self-healing material was reported by the UIUC researchers six years ago, and other research groups have created different versions of such materials since then, including polymers that mend themselves repeatedly when subject to heat or pressure. But this is the first time anyone has made a material that can repair itself multiple times without any external intervention. The self-healing material consists of an epoxy polymer layer deposited on a substrate that contains a three-dimensional network of microchannels. The epoxy coating contains tiny catalyst particles, while the channels in the substrate are filled with a liquid healing agent. To test the material, the researchers bend it and crack the polymer coating. The crack spreads down through the coating and reaches the underlying microchannel.

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