Acer Acquires Gateway
Taiwan's Acer said it had reached an agreement to acquire Gateway Inc. in a deal that values the U.S. company at about $710 million and pushes Acer past Lenovo as the world's No. 3 vendor of personal computers. The deal appeared to mark a double blow to Lenovo, which has been the world's No. 3 PC vendor since buying the PC business of IBM in 2005. Lenovo disclosed earlier this month that it is in talks to buy a stake in Packard Bell a Netherlands-based PC maker. That deal was aimed at giving the Chinese company a leg up in the European consumer market, where Acer is especially strong. But in a separate statement issued just before Monday's announcement of the planned merger with Acer, Gateway appeared to throw some cold water on those talks by indicating that Packard Bell would likely become part of the new company. Gateway said it "intends to exercise its right of first refusal" to acquire "all the shares" in PB Holding Company, which Gateway said is the parent company for Packard Bell. Acer's acquisition of Gateway highlights the rapid rise of what is becoming one of Asia's best-known brands. It also gives Acer a significant new foothold in the American market, making it a more formidable competitor to industry leaders Hewlett-Packard Co. and Dell Inc. on their home turf. Gateway, while not among the world's top five PC vendors, ranked third in the U.S. in unit shipments in the second quarter of this year, with about 5.6% of the market

New York taxi drivers split over GPS technology, possible strike
New York City taxi drivers are split on whether they should strike in opposition to a new GPS requirement. One taxi group plans to strike from 5 a.m., Sept. 5, through 5 a.m., Sept. 7, in opposition to New York City's requirement that all cabs be equipped with GPS technology beginning Oct. 1. The New York Taxi Workers Alliance, which claims more than 8,400 members, announced the strike dates this week, saying GPS infringes on drivers' privacy. The New York State Federation of Taxi Drivers and other groups representing about 10,000 cab drivers oppose the strike. The Taxi and Limousine Commission passed a rule stating that all New York City cabs must have touch-screen display panels, credit card readers, and GPS beginning this year. Many taxis already are equipped with the technologies, which allow passengers to get news, route data, and other information. The TLC claims that the technology will not be used to invade drivers' privacy but will provide real-time maps and help passengers recover lost property. The TLC said it would use electronic trip reports to assess the needs of the industry, which it does now with paper trip sheets. New York City's contracts prohibit vendors from sharing information regarding off-duty locations of taxicabs with the TLC. The technology is also designed to notify drivers of emergencies. Passengers can turn the monitors off after mandatory safety information has been displayed. The TLC says all cabs should accept credit cards because people generally tip more when paying with credit cards and pedestrians are more likely to hail cabs if they can pay with plastic. Tests showed that the credit card processing times are normally less than eight seconds.

Yahoo rolls out enhanced e-mail service
Yahoo is introducing an upgraded free e-mail service with enhancements that include letting people send text messages from computers to mobile telephones. The improved Yahoo! Mail being rolled out around the world in the coming weeks is the most extensive overhaul of the web-based e-mail service since it was launched a decade ago. Because the text messaging feature depends on cooperation of mobile phone service providers its debuts are limited for now to India, Canada, the Philippines and the United States. Yahoo doesn't charge for sending or receiving text messages, but mobile telephone users may be charged fees by carriers that provide their services. Yahoo is making its upgraded service available to the more than 250 million users of its e-mail as it competes with rivals Google and Microsoft for "eye balls" that can be parlayed into advertising revenues.

San Fran faces glut of vendor conferences
The tech sector is due to reward San Francisco with a massive payoff as vendors squeeze in conferences at the city’s Moscone Center next month. The city by the bay will play host to BEA Systems' BEAworld on 10-12 September, overlapping with VMWare’s VMworld from the 11th to the 13th. Then Salesforce.com’s Dreamforce takes root from the 17th to the 19th, criss-crossing with Intel’s Developer Forum, which runs from the 18th to the 20th. At this rate, you won’t be able to walk down Market street for all the discarded USB keys and nasty sponsored bags. The packed schedule will bring millions into Californian coffers as well-heeled visitors spend big in hotels, restaurants and shops, but the fixture congestion means that some delegates, speakers and hacks will be forced to stay on in the city and do double-duty. September won’t be the end of the conference glut. Oracle’s monster Openworld event is due in November while the CTIA’s Wireless IT conference runs in October. It gets worse for those of you work for these companies. BEA execs will schlep from San Francisco in September to Barcelona in early October and then head east to Shanghai in December. Intel will follow up IDF in SF with a similar event in Taipei in mid-October. Asia and eastern Europe have seen conference action escalating in the past few years as suppliers seek to chat up lucrative growth markets. The collapse of big business expos such as Comdex has given more focus to vendor conferences. That inflation means that fewer cities now get to host the big IT names. In the past, New York, Paris and London could get these gigs but now SF, Las Vegas Barcelona and Shanghai are hogging the pie. And what common theme that will doubtless be trotted out by vendors flying in the droves of visitors?

On Advertising: Jets become flying billboards
'Please return your seat backs and tray tables to their upright and locked position - and start reading the advertisement that is staring you in the face." O.K., you won't actually hear that last part as the flight attendants prepare an aircraft for landing. But as airlines look for new sources of revenue to offset rising fuel costs, more carriers are turning planes into marketing vehicles, installing advertising in hard-to-miss places. Several American carriers, including US Airways and AirTran, recently started selling ads on napkins or stickers that appear on open tray tables. Over the summer, Ryanair, the European low-fare carrier, has gone further, installing advertising panels on the covers of the overhead luggage compartments and in the backs of closed tray tables. Ryanair, and the companies behind these advertising systems, say the new spots offer marketers an effective way to reach consumers who have cash to spend and who are increasingly difficult to influence via traditional media like television and newspapers. InviseoMedia, which has sold the seat-back ads to Ryanair and another European low-fare carrier, Germanwings, says the system provides an average of 40 minutes of "dwell time" during a typical flight. In other words, the only ways for passengers to avoid the ads, which are placed behind tamper-proof plastic shields, is to open the tray or get up and stretch their legs.

Australian teen disables government's porn filter
The Australian government Monday admitted no Internet child safeguards were foolproof after a teenager claimed he was able to break through its multi-million dollar pornography filter in minutes. 16 year old Melbourne teenager Tom Wood said it took him less than 30 minutes to override the cyber barrier technology which was launched by Prime Minister John Howard earlier this month. "I downloaded it on Tuesday to see how good it was, because for 84 million dollars (69 million US), I would have expected a pretty unbreakable filter," he told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. "Tried a few things, it took about half an hour and (it) was completely useless," he said, having effectively disabled the software. Communications Minister Helen Coonan said that the NetAlert filters, which the government has announced will be free for every family, were always going to be challenged by teenagers. "Sadly, just as a seatbelt will never prevent every fatal car crash, as the government has always maintained, no filter is foolproof," Senator Coonan said. "But a computer with a filter is infinitely safer than one without." The company which provided the technology was investigating the unconfirmed hacking report, she added. The filter system was one of several measures, including an information and education campaign and telephone hotline, announced by the Australian premier earlier this month to make the Internet safer for children and families.

Mobile roaming rates for Europe revealed
All mobile operators have told the European Commission their new European roaming rates, as required by new regulations. At least one mobile operator in 23 out of the 27 EU Member States including the UK, will offer roaming charges below the Commission's top allowed tariff, the Commission said. The roaming charges are now listed on the Commission's website, and the UK rates will be activate by 30 August 2007. The publicised tariffs are a result of the EU Roaming Regulation - in force since 30 June 2007 - which requires mobile operators to make available, and actively offer, a revised tariff to their customers. Under the rules, 'eurotariffs' must be offered with a maximum charge of €0.49 per minute for making calls within the EU and €0.24 per minute for receiving them. These will be lowered further in 2008 and 2009.

India Passes U.S. to Become Nokia's No. 2 Market
India has succeeded the United States as Nokia’s second largest market for its mobile phone handsets and network equipment, with China retaining the No. 1 spot. Additions to India’s mobile phone subscriber base are happening at a rate of more than 6 million new subscriptions a month. Total subscriber count as of the end of July 2007 stood at about 118 million. In 2005 the country came fourth in Nokia’s sales rankings, after China, the United States, and the U.K., and by 2006 it had moved up to third. As of the past quarter it had taken the No. 2 spot. Nokia wouldn’t say, however, exactly how many handsets it is selling in the Indian market. In 2004, he said, the company had just 450 employees in the 1.13 billion population country. Today there are more than 9,000. And he predicted that Nokia India would continue to grow at a fast pace. Half of the production is being exported to customers in Africa, Asia, Australia, the Middle East, and New Zealand. Nokia also recently set up a design studio in Bangalore to explore design ideas for the Indian and export markets.

'Bacn,' While Nicer than Spam, Still Clogs Inboxes
The web has given birth to yet another word that defeats the laws of the English language. "Bacn" refers to email that's not quite spam, because users actually want to read the contents. These could be newsletters, bid notifications, niche product news or social networking updates. Nonetheless, the growing volume of this type of email significantly clogs inboxes. Since the term was first used at a geek summit, blogs have quickly adopted it. It remains to be seen whether "bacn" will be a contender for next year's Lulu Blooker Prize.

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