(See {EXT2
--Editors: Jodi Schneider, Jim Rubin.
To contact the reporters on this story: Richard Rubin in Washington at rrubin12@bloomberg.net; Ryan J. Donmoyer in Washington at rdonmoyer@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Mark Silva at msilva34@bloomberg.net
If Google expected a warm welcome for its Chrome OS and the new Cr-48 laptops it's currently giving away to select beta testers, it was wrong. The hardware has received a reception colder than Scrooge's heart. Folks at TechCrunch have given it a verbal lashing that would make a drill sergeant proud. For that past three days, I've been using the Cr-48. Here are my impressions.
The hardware:The boot-up is extremely fast and the log-on process is smooth and speedy, so long as one has a Google Mail account. (Google Apps ID doesn't quite work.) The screen is great, but the graphic capabilities are pretty limited. There is a single USB port and a flash memory card slot; frankly, having lived with the old MacBook Air with a single USB port, I don't see much of a problem. The trackpad is awful. I love the dedicated Search button and would love to see it on all computers. The laptop picked up most of the commonly used USB peripherals. Both a Logitech mouse and a Microsoft optical mouse worked just fine, without need for special discovery or driver installs.
The User Interface/Experience: The Interface is rough around the edges; what you see is essentially the Chrome Web browser. It takes too many cues from Microsoft Windows, which is understandable, considering that they are going after the mainstream and enterprise markets. The OS needs better font support and reminds me of some early Linux distributions. The user experience expects us to come to the idea of using browser tabs instead of apps—a weird notion, but not so strange if you have used the Chrome browser as your primary browser and are accustomed to cloud-based services. If you use Google Chat and Google Tasks, then you easily understand the idea of "Panels," a new feature inside Chrome OS that runs in small, easy-to-access panes at the bottom right of the browser. Even the best Web apps currently available at the Chrome Web Store are works-in-progress. The biggest challenge for Google's Chrome OS is going to be fighting against the many lifelong habits people have developed using a desktop OS.
The Cloud-Based Services: Despite being severely underpowered, one thing the device does very well is to let you use Google apps—especially Google Docs, Gmail, and other cloud services (from Google)—without problems. The YouTube experience is marginal at best. Netflix doesn't work. Most of your browser-based apps will work, but Adobe Flash on Chrome OS is like watching a toddler learn to crawl. It will be a long time before it reaches the maturity of Adobe on the Windows platform. Adobe has already stated that it plans to improve its integrated Flash performance in Chrome OS, essentially calling it a "work-in-progress."
Bottom line: Will I use Cr-48 or something like it as my primary computer? It would be tough for me to make Chrome OS my primary computing experience. I have a lifelong habit of using a full desktop operating system. That doesn't mean I won't keep an open mind, but for now it's a no-go for me. My more portable, 2.13 GHz MacBook Air is the machine I like. Even as I spend a lot of time inside the browser, I prefer a desktop with the Chrome browser and raw power. Plus my Mac has Silverlight, which lets me play Netflix and use third-party, native apps such as Reeder.
As Google stated very clearly, this particular device isn't going to be sold in the market; the company's partners are going to make the devices that consumers can buy. I hope they do a better job and come up with more attractive hardware.
The real story to focus on is the Chrome OS, what it really means, and whom it targets.
Google's growth has coincided with the shift to the Web. Google is a company that has been a believer in networked computing from its inception. Since 2004 an increasing amount of our focus and attention has been devoted to the browser and what we can do inside it. The so-called Web 2.0 concept helped enhance the inside-the-browser experience, slowly replacing the desktop as our primary focus of attention.
Dec. 6 (Bloomberg) -- Supporters of a ballot measure in California that outlawed gay marriage urged a federal appeals court today to overturn a ruling that declared the law unconstitutional.
Proponents of the voter-approved 2008 state constitutional amendment banning same-sex weddings contend traditional marriages protect society’s “vital interest” in reproduction and childrearing. U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker in San Francisco struck down Proposition 8 in August, saying the measure violated the constitutional rights of gay people to equal protection and due process.The case before Walker was the first to go through a federal trial testing whether same-sex unions are protected by the U.S. Constitution. A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco is hearing arguments today in a case that may reach the U.S. Supreme Court.The city of San Francisco and gay couples from Berkeley and Burbank sued in federal court to strike down Proposition 8, which was passed by 52 percent of voters after same-sex marriages were legalized by the California Supreme Court in a 4- 3 decision in May 2008.Proposition 8 backers say the desire of gays and lesbians to marry is outweighed by the state’s interest in promoting child rearing through traditional heterosexual marriages.They said in court papers that before recent movements to include same-sex relationships in the definition of marriage, “it was commonly understood and acknowledged that the institution of marriage owed its very existence to society’s vital interest in responsible procreation and childrearing.”Same-sex marriage supporters have countered that the Constitution doesn’t permit unequal treatment under the law.‘Responsible Procreation’They contended in court filings that the “responsible procreation” justification can’t pass constitutional muster as a means to create a separate classification of relationships. They wrote that Proposition 8, while banning same-sex marriage, “had no effect on legal regimes governing parentage and childrearing in California.”After the January trial over Proposition 8, Walker concluded in August that San Francisco and the gay couples had demonstrated by “overwhelming evidence” that Proposition 8 violates constitutional rights. He prohibited California from enforcing the ban on same-sex marriage.The appeals court put Walker’s decision on hold temporarily, barring additional gay marriages in California at least until after the panel rules.18,000 Gay CouplesAbout 18,000 gay couples married in California before voters passed Proposition 8. As of 2006, there were an estimated 109,000 gay couples in California, more than any other state, according to U.S. Census data compiled by the University of California, Los Angeles.Some 36 states have passed state laws or constitutional amendments to ban same-sex marriage. Since California approved its ban in 2008, Iowa, Vermont, New Hampshire and Connecticut have legalized same-sex marriage. Massachusetts did so in 2004.The appeal raises a procedural issue that could sway the outcome. Both California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Attorney General Jerry Brown declined to defend Proposition 8 in court. The measure’s campaign organizers from ProtectMarriage.com moved in to defend the amendment.Walker said in his ruling that he doubted supporters of the ban could proceed on appeal. He said they don’t have anyone officially representing the state of California on their side and therefore lack legal standing to pursue the case.‘State’s Interest’The proponents say they are acting as “agents for the people” of California and as such are legally permitted to “assert the state’s interest,” according to a court filing.Imperial County in Southern California filed an appeal jointly with marriage ban supporters, raising an additional question of whether a local government entity can act on behalf of the state.The three-judge appeals panel set aside the first hour of today’s two-hour proceeding to deal with so-called standing issues.The three appellate judges, selected by random drawing, are Stephen Reinhardt, who was appointed to the court in 1980 by President Jimmy Carter; Michael Daly Hawkins, appointed by President Bill Clinton in 1994; and N. Randy Smith, appointed by President George W. Bush in 2007.The case is Perry v. Schwarzenegger, 10-16696, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (San Francisco.) The district court case is Perry v. Schwarzenegger, 09-02292, U.S. District Court, Northern District of California (San Francisco).--With assistance from Karen Gullo in San Francisco. Editors: Peter Blumberg, Michael Hytha
To contact the reporter on this story: Pamela A. MacLean at pmaclean@pacbell.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: David E. Rovella at drovella@bloomberg.net.
YOKOHAMA, Japan
Pacific Rim leaders sought Saturday to smooth divisions over currency policies and other issues, shifting their attention to their shared goal of working for freer trade for the sake of future growth.
President Barack Obama and other leaders attending the annual meeting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum pledged not to backslide into retaliatory trade tactics, a day after discord over such issues marred a summit, held in South Korea, of the Group of 20 major economies.
"We will liberalize our trade," Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan told a business conference on APEC's sidelines. "The United States is looking to expand trade and commerce throughout the Asia-Pacific," Obama said. "The international community should oppose protectionism in all manifestations," said Chinese President Hu Jintao.
The emphasis at APEC, where congeniality usually trumps conflict, is on a common mission of eventually forging a vast regionwide free trade zone that would encompass all 21 member economies, accounting for more than half of all global commerce.
But much of APEC's work occurs in face-to-face encounters outside the summit, held in the port city of Yokohama. Kan took the opportunity to hold his first formal meeting with Hu since a territorial dispute erupted two months ago, badly straining ties between the Asian neighbors.
The two leaders both expressed their positions on the issue, and agreed developing strategic relations between the two countries would benefit not only the two sides but also the region and the world, said Japan's deputy chief Cabinet secretary, Tetsuro Fukuyama.
"The formal bilateral talks mark a major step forward to improving Japan-China relations," said Fukuyama, who did not elaborate on whether the two made any progress toward reconciling their differences.
Kan also met with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, who recently angered Tokyo by visiting an island off its northern coast that both nations claim. Though both said the talks should help reinforce trust, afterward Fukuyama explained that Kan told Medvedev his visit was "unacceptable" and had insulted the Japanese.
Relations between Tokyo and Beijing have been soured by the collision of a Chinese fishing trawler with two Japanese coast guard vessels near disputed islands east of Taiwan, an incident that has provoked protests on both sides.
Outside the heavily guarded APEC venue thousands of anti-China demonstrators rallied Saturday, waving big Japanese flags and placards with slogans such as "Defend our territory," and "Defeat Chinese imperialism."
"I think China is a threat to Japan," said Sayo Kuroda, a 19-year-old college student whose family joined the protest.
Many in Japan and elsewhere in the region are looking to the U.S. to be a counterweight for China's growing influence and sometimes aggressive stance.
"We have had various problems in our relations with Russia and China, and I thank President Obama for his support," Kan said, noting Tokyo's awareness of the important role played by the U.S. military, which has 50,000 troops in Japan under a 50-year-old security treaty.
After meeting with Obama, Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard likewise noted their countries' shared "strategic objectives."
"As China rises, obviously, we want to see China be a force for good in the world," she said.
Obama reaffirmed America's commitment to pursuing closer ties with the region that has helped power the world's recovery from the global financial crisis, in trade as well as in broader areas of defense and diplomacy.
Asia's robust and resilient growth has hinged on trade, and the U.S. is keen to tap into that dynamism, Obama said.
"In this region the United States sees a huge opportunity to increase our exports to some of the fastest growing markets in the world," Obama told the APEC business conference. "For America this is a jobs strategy."
Obama praised Kan for pledging to further open Japan's sluggish economy to trade and investment, despite protests from farmers who fear the loss of subsidies and protective tariffs.
Though about half the leaders from the G-20 meeting traveled on to Yokohama, there was no sign that the ill-will shown in Seoul had carried over to the APEC summit.
Currency issues did, however, appear to get more attention than they usually do at APEC.
The leaders' draft statement notes a need to reduce trade imbalances and government debt to help ensure stable and sustainable economic growth. It also includes a pledge to move toward more "market-determined exchange rate systems."
"I think we could say that we have averted a competitive devaluation and currency wars for now ... But I think it's not something that we have altogether overcome yet," said Indonesia's Trade Minister Mari Pangestu.
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Associated Press writers Jim Gomez, Eric Talmadge, Tomoko A. Hosaka, Malcolm Foster and Mari Yamaguchi contributed to this report.
Do you use a location-based app or service such as Foursquare or Gowalla? Then you are a member of a tiny minority of Internet users, according to a new report by the Pew Research Center's Internet and American Life Project. The survey found that only 4 percent of online adults use any service that allows them to share their location with friends, and on any given day just 1 percent of Internet users are making use of such services. The multimillion-dollar question is whether the launch of Facebook Places—and particularly its recent mobile Deals feature—will change those numbers and take location services mainstream.
It's not surprising that a small percentage of Internet users overall have made use of a location-based app, but what about those who typically go online via their smartphones? According to the Pew report, only 7 percent of those adults who go online via their phones make use of a location-based service regularly. The study found that a larger proportion of younger users—those between 18 and 29—use such services, but still only 8 percent. Men use these services far more than women do: twice as much, in fact, with 6 percent of men using them regularly and just 3 percent of women. (Interestingly, the survey also found that significantly more Hispanics use such services: 10 percent, compared with 3 percent of whites and 5 percent of blacks.)
The study's overall conclusions are not a surprise. A Forrester research report in July came up with similar numbers. It also found that only 4 percent of U.S. online users had ever used a location-based application, and almost 85 percent of those surveyed by the research company said they were not familiar with location-based apps at all. As the Pew report points out, it wasn't that long ago that Twitter reached a similarly tiny proportion of Internet users, and it has effectively achieved mainstream status, with almost 25 percent of survey respondents saying they use it.
One thing that could help catapult location-based services into the mainstream is the arrival of Facebook Places. The new feature is only a few months old, but according to a statement by Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg on Wednesday, it already is "multiples bigger" than any other location service. By way of comparison, Foursquare has about 4 million users, although it's not clear how many of those are regular users of the service. And Facebook has just launched an add-on to Places for mobile—a service called Deals that allows retailers and other merchants to offer discounts to users who "check in" to a specific location. The social network has already signed up several major advertisers for the service, including The Gap (GPS), Starbucks (SBUX), American Eagle Outfitters (AEO), and McDonald's (MCD).
Getting a discount is a great incentive to check in somewhere, but it's not obvious it's going to persuade large masses of people to adopt location services. The biggest issue for many users, including some friends I have spoken with, is that sharing one's physical location breaches a personal privacy barrier that many people are uncomfortable with, even if it is being broadcast only to one's friends—and the fact that your friends can tag you at a location through Facebook Places just adds to that uncomfortable feeling. Facebook may have 500 million users, but even that kind of reach may not be enough to move location-sharing into the mainstream.
Also from GigaOM:
Will the Real 4G Please Stand Up?
With FaceTime Looming, Skype Outs a Better Mac Client
Green Overdrive: Sneak a Peek at the Official Plug-In Prius Prototype
Bowing to Pressure, YouTube Takes Down Jihadi Videos
Three iOS Game Developers to Watch
Provided by GigaOm—NEW YORK
Sprint and Verizon Wireless are building wireless data networks using new technologies that the industry calls fourth-generation, or 4G. Not to be outdone, T-Mobile USA is launching a campaign this week that renames its upgraded 3G network "4G."
T-Mobile says the move is justified because downloads on its network are as fast as the new 4G networks.
Previously, T-Mobile has referred to the network as offering "4G speeds," but it's giving up that qualification to call it straight-up 4G in TV ads that started Tuesday evening.
Sprint Nextel Corp. says the 4G name isn't just about speeds, but the underlying technology. Sprint says T-Mobile's network doesn't qualify, though it didn't say if it might challenge T-Mobile's advertising in court or with a complaint to the advertising industry's self-regulatory board.
PARIS
President Barack Obama is too strong a leader to be deterred by his party's setbacks in the U.S. midterm election, Germany's foreign minister said Wednesday, but there was some concern that Democratic losses in Congress could affect Obama's nuclear disarmament plans.
"One would massively underestimate the president of the United States if one wanted to think that he would be weakened in foreign policy," German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle told ZDF television, noting that the U.S. campaign was driven by "domestic and economic issues."
"America is a strong country; the American president is a very strong and decisive president," he added.
Obama's Democrats held onto the Senate in the vote Tuesday but gave up their majority in the lower house to Republicans, which could make it harder to pass new legislation.
Westerwelle called on new members of Congress to support Obama's nuclear disarmament bid.
"We cannot fall back on the issue of disarmament," Westerwelle said. "I call on those newly elected to support the president's initiative on this."
Roman Joch, head of a conservative think tank in the Czech Republic, said New Strategic Arms Control Treaty signed by Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in April -- "one of the biggest successes of Obama's foreign policy -- is facing problems."
"It is now possible that the treaty won't be ratified," Joch said.
The treaty would lower limits on the two countries' nuclear arsenals. However, there is concern among some Republicans that the United States can't verify whether Russia is sticking to the treaty.
Spanish Foreign Minister Trinidad Jimenez was among those betting on Obama's strengths rather than the Democrats' stinging losses.
"It happened with President Clinton and I'm convinced that with that political capability he (Obama) has always shown, he will be able push through all the projects he feels are necessary and opportune for the U.S. public," she said.
Some analysts said the election results are more likely to change U.S. domestic policy than foreign policy.
"America is a democracy and policies do not revolve around one person in the United States. Therefore, I do not expect any change in the U.S. foreign policy," said Ishtiaq Ahmad, a professor of international relations at Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad, Pakistan.
Will the delicate Middle East peace process be a victim of the midterms?
Zalman Shoval, a confidant of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Israeli ambassador to the U.S., thinks not. "Foreign policy is the prerogative of the president, even if he is weak," said Shoval.
At least one African country, Sierre Leone, praised the vote.
Ibrahim Ben Kargbo, the West African nation's information minister, said it was good to see a country in which "elections are conducted swiftly and results announced without any controversy."
He added, however, "that the African-American population should have provided more support for the Democratic Party."
And in Indonesia, where Obama spent part of his childhood, some still hoped that Obama's experience in their country would help bridge ties between the West and the Muslim world.
"It will be harder for him, yes," said Sonni Gondokusumo, a former playmate of Obama's. "But he's not going to give up. He's going to keep struggling, because this isn't just what's best for the world but for Americans. He still has two years to prove himself."
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Associated Press reporters Tini Tran in Beijing, Geir Moulson in Berlin, Jan Olsen in Copenhagen, Clarence Roy-Macaulay in Freetown, Sierra Leone, Ali Kotarumalos and Irwan Firdaus in Jakarta, Indonesia; Katharine Houreld and Kathy Gannon in Kabul, Afghanistan; Munir Ahmed in Islamabad; Karel Janicek in Prague contributed to this report.
LONDON
British authorities say Google breached data protection laws when its Street View mapping service scooped up data from private wireless networks.
The Information Commissioner's Office says that the Internet search provider's data protection practices will be audited and that the company must promise to ensure that the breaches don't occur again.
Google Inc. will not be fined for the breach, although the office said Wednesday that the company, based in Mountainview, California, faces penalties if it refuses to comply with its instructions.
Nov. 1 (Bloomberg) -- Brazil’s Bovespa stock index rose for a second day as commodities advanced and traders reduced bets interest rates would increase after President-elect Dilma Rousseff vowed to restrain spending after yesterday’s election.
Vale SA, the world’s biggest iron ore producer, rose as metals prices advanced. MRV Engenharia e Participacoes SA and Rossi Residencial SA gained on Rousseff’s victory. Cosan SA Industria & Comercio, the world’s biggest sugar-cane processor, climbed after saying its unit, Cosan Overseas Ltd., sold $300 million of perpetual bonds to yield 8.25 percent.“This election was somewhat of an overhang on the Bovespa,” said Ed Kuczma, an emerging markets analyst at Van Eck Associates in New York, which manages $21 billion. “As long as Brazil continues on the fundamentals Lula enacted, Brazil should be fine.”The Bovespa stock index rose 0.7 percent to 71,137.14 at 9:44 a.m. New York time. The Bovespa stock index advanced on Oct. 29, capping a second monthly gain, as homebuilders and retailers rallied on easing concern policy makers will raise borrowing costs to cool the economy.The real was little changed at 1.6996 per dollar today.Yields on interest-rate futures contracts due in January 2012 fell 3 basis points, or 0.03 percentage point, to 11.31 percent.Copper rose in London as manufacturing accelerated in China, the world’s biggest consumer of the metal.Vale rose 0.6 percent to 48.03 reais. Cosan gained 2.2 percent to 27.44 reais.Rousseff’s PromisesRousseff won 56 percent of the vote yesterday compared with 44 percent for Jose Serra, the former governor of Sao Paulo state. The Brazilian people won’t accept governments that spend at “unsustainable levels,” Rousseff told supporters in Brasilia after the election results were announced.Rossi climbed 1.9 percent to 16.97 reais. MRV advanced 1.4 percent to 16.83 reais.Rousseff won by promising continuity with Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, whose policies lifted 21 million Brazilians out of poverty since 2003 and created a record 15 million jobs.Maintaining Lula’s economic policies may be insufficient to allow Rousseff to match his successes, which include winning Brazil’s first investment-grade credit rating in 2008. Traders are pushing up borrowing costs for Brazil, which has $957 billion in public debt, on bets that Rousseff will fail to curb spending, forcing policy makers to raise interest rates in 2011.--Editors: Glenn J. Kalinoski, Brendan Walsh
To contact the reporter on this story: Alexander Ragir in Rio de Janeiro at aragir@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: David Papadopoulos at papadopoulos@bloomberg.net
(Adds Clinton meeting with Dai in the sixth through 10th paragraphs.)
Oct. 31 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. and Japan sought to ease tensions with China fueled by territorial disputes in waters off its coast that have hindered talks on currency and trade policies before a Group of 20 summit next month.Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan told reporters he met for 10 minutes yesterday with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao after a spat over a disputed island chain in the East China Sea scuttled more formal talks. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton offered to host a meeting to mediate between the two sides while repeating a U.S. obligation legally to defend Japan’s claims.“We’ve encouraged both Japan and China to seek a peaceful resolution of any disagreement,” Clinton said in a speech in Hanoi yesterday, where she attended a regional summit with Wen, Kan and 15 other Asia-Pacific leaders. “It’s in all of our interests to have stable, peaceful relations” between China and Japan, she said.The conflict has distracted Asian leaders as they prepare to iron out a global deal on currency policy for the G-20 meeting in Seoul. Clinton “made very clear we want the temperature to go down,” a U.S. official who briefed reporters on the condition of anonymity said after Clinton met Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi. “The stakes are so high.”Return to TalksHours after her remarks in Hanoi and a meeting there with Japan’s Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi, Clinton landed on China’s Hainan Island for talks with State Councilor Dai Binguo, who outranks Yang.In the course of a two-hour meeting, Clinton touched on tensions over the island chain, North Korea and the U.S.-China relationship. She encouraged Dai to get North Korea to return to talks about dismantling its nuclear program and reviving ties with South Korea, according to a U.S. official.Clinton also told Dai that the U.S. expects China to ensure that North Korea in no way takes provocative steps during the G- 20 that South Korea will host next month.In her talks with Dai, Clinton stressed the U.S. desire to see tensions between Japan and China ease. The two leaders also discussed a “roadmap” for the U.S.-China relationship, including steps that will lead to the resumption of military-to- military ties and a possible visit to China by Defense Secretary Robert Gates, the official said.Disputed IslandsWhile the frequency and level of U.S.-China meetings have increased, Clinton also suggested that U.S. and Chinese officials meet informally more often, a proposal Dai agreed with.Japan ruined the atmosphere for talks between Wen and Kan by giving “untrue” media statements, the state-run Xinhua News Agency cited Chinese Assistant Foreign Minister Hu Zhengyue as saying Oct. 29. China’s foreign ministry also expressed “deep dissatisfaction” with Clinton for saying the disputed islands, known as Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China, fall within the Japan-U.S. security alliance, Xinhua said in a separate report.Yang told Clinton yesterday that the U.S. should respect China’s sovereignty and not make any “irresponsible remarks,” Xinhua reported.A sea collision between a Chinese fishing boat and Japanese Coast Guard vessels near the disputed islands last month soured relations and reportedly prompted Beijing to cut exports of rare-earth minerals. Wen pledged a steady supply of the minerals during an Oct. 28 meeting with Kan and South Korean President Lee Myung Bak. Both Yang and Dai repeated those vows to Clinton yesterday.National InterestThe U.S., Japan and several countries in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations continued to push China to agree to a set of rules at sea at the three days of meetings in Hanoi. Clinton said yesterday she was “encouraged” that another round of working-level talks on a sea code involving Asean and China, which have been stalled since 2002, will take place in December.“The United States has a national interest in the freedom of navigation and unimpeded lawful commerce,” Clinton told the summit. “When disputes arise over maritime territory, we are committed to resolving them peacefully based on customary international law.”In July, Yang said Clinton’s assertion that the U.S. had a “national interest” in the South China Sea was “virtually an attack on China.” U.S. Defense Secretary Gates said Oct. 12 that China’s actions in the seas are “clearly on everybody’s mind” and fall within the sphere of maritime security.A Rising ChinaThe issue came up at the East Asia Summit, a forum of 16 nations that the U.S. and Russia joined for the first time yesterday. Rocky outcrops in the South China Sea that may contain oil and gas reserves are claimed in whole or in part by China, Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan.“The region fears being dominated by a rising China,” said Ernest Bower, an analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “The solution? Invite the Americans to join. This gives the rest of Asia the balance they want.”China has aimed to keep its territorial disputes with Japan, Vietnam and the Philippines off the agenda at regional meetings, preferring one-on-one negotiations.U.S. allies in the region include Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Thailand and Australia. Washington has boosted its naval presence in Singapore and is increasing cooperation with the Indian navy in the Pacific Ocean, Clinton said on Oct. 28.She denied that increased military ties with Asian countries were aimed at containing China, saying the U.S. supports the country’s growth. Last night she visited China’s Hainan Island, home to a naval base with quick access to the South China Sea.--With assistance from Bomi Lim and Giang Nguyen in Hanoi. Editors: Sylvia Wier, Mark Rohner
To contact the reporter on this story: Daniel Ten Kate in Hanoi at dtenkate@bloomberg.net Nicole Gaouette on Hainan Island, China at ngaouette@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Bill Austin at billaustin@bloomberg.net; Paul Tighe at ptioghe@bloomberg.net
The numbers tell the tale of MySpace. Visitors? Down 20 percent in the last two years. Profits? None: It loses "below $100 million a year," according to the company. Value? Just over half the $580 million News Corp. (NWS) paid to acquire the social-networking site in 2005, says Alan Gould, an analyst at Evercore Partners (EVR).
On Oct. 27, MySpace unveiled a "dramatic remake," as News Corp.'s chief digital officer, Jon Miller, puts it. After years of cluttering its pages with distracting ads and features, MySpace is reversing course and slimming down. It hopes to lure back the lucrative under-35 demographic that has abandoned MySpace for Facebook, the top social network in the U.S. In September, Facebook drew 148 million visitors; MySpace had 58 million.
The redesign is also a last-ditch effort to keep News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch from cutting the cord and selling MySpace, which he's likely to do barring a major turnaround, says RBC Capital Markets analyst David Bank. News Corp. declined to comment. Dana Settle, a partner with venture capital firm Greycroft Partners, says "people have been very skeptical" that MySpace can do it. "It's a pretty Herculean task for any sort of entrenched company to really restart itself," she says. MySpace Chief Executive Officer Mike Jones responds that "the feedback we're getting so far is very strong."
The site's best shot at a successful reboot may be a design overhaul. Before the revamp, it had drawn unfavorable comparisons to GeoCities, the early Web company that let people build their own, often tacky websites. MySpace's customizable profile pages became littered with flashing pictures, auto-starting music players, and garish background images that sometimes rendered text nearly unreadable. A $300 million-a-year advertising deal with Google (GOOG) (now being renegotiated) rewarded MySpace for page views, so the company added complexity to the site to boost the number of clicks. Until recently, for example, it took three steps to add a friend. "The experience degraded" over time, says Miller in an interview. Jason Hirschorn, a top MySpace executive who left the company in June, is harsher. "MySpace had no respect for user experience," he says.
Jones, a former AOL (AOL) executive who joined MySpace in April 2009 and oversaw the redesign, decided to streamline the site. He and his team junked little-used features like weather and horoscope pages. Instead, visitors will be greeted by a mosaic of tiles featuring the most popular videos, music, and news on the site. Entertainment content, not friends, is meant to be the focus. "We're offering social entertainment, not a social network," says Jones. The new look is sleeker, though not necessarily quieter. Miller acknowledges that the changes will probably send some MySpace users fleeing but says they'll help attract new members over time. The redesigned site, says Jones, is meant to appeal most to the core demographic of 13- to 35-year-olds, frequent Web users who are prized by advertisers.
The redesign complements other changes Jones has made. Over the summer, MySpace started letting users sync their account with other social-media sites, including Twitter, YouTube, and yes, even Facebook. (That way, any comments people make on Facebook or Twitter would also appear on their MySpace pages, and vice versa.) MySpace was originally built with five different programming languages, which caused glitches and slow load times; Jones has replaced them with one. "It sounds simple," he says, "but you wouldn't believe how complicated that was."
He also is trying to get his team thinking about mobile—another party MySpace was late to. Facebook more than doubled its mobile users in 2009, to 25.1 million, while the figure for MySpace shrank 7 percent, to 11.4 million. To boost traffic, MySpace will soon roll out a revamped mobile site. Jones and his staff recently developed MySpace Music Romeo, an application for Apple's (AAPL) iPad that plays mood-appropriate music videos when users tell it how they're feeling. "Mobile is the future," Jones says. "I need my people thinking how MySpace fits in that future."
Even if the redesign can stanch the financial bleeding, MySpace still needs to bring back that most ephemeral of assets: cool. The online masses move on quickly, and no one has yet managed to turn around an Internet business in free fall. (See: Yahoo! (YHOO), AOL, MSN, and Digg, the last of which announced on Oct. 26 that it would lay off 37 percent of its staff.) "It's not that News Corp. was naive to buy MySpace," says Bank, the RBC analyst. "They were naive not to sell it sooner."
The bottom line: MySpace unveiled a sleeker new look on Oct. 27 that puts the emphasis on entertainment and celebrities rather than friends.
Fixmer is a reporter for Bloomberg News in Los Angeles. Grover covers the media and entertainment industry for Bloomberg Businessweek in Los Angeles.In an interview shortly after he unveiled Microsoft's (MSFT) new Windows Phone 7 mobile software on Oct. 11, Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer declared a new era for Microsoft. "This is a big launch for us—a big, big launch," he boomed.
Ballmer, never known for understatement, may be lowballing this one. Gartner (IT) expects smartphone sales to surpass PCs in 2012. Microsoft remains immensely profitable thanks to its aging PC monopoly, and it will remain so even if it never figures out the smartphone market. Yet the stakes go beyond numbers—it's about staying at the center of computing while the world's information moves away from PCs and into the cloud.
People get e-mail, music, and Season Two of Mad Men on smartphones and other mobile devices—essentially pocket computers—and that information is warehoused at and delivered from far-off data centers, not PC hard drives. "If Microsoft gets this right, the stock is really, really cheap," says Michael F. Holland, founder of investment firm Holland & Co. "It would be an indication they've been able to evolve into a 21st century company."
By almost any measure, Microsoft is nearly out of the mobile game. Its market share fell to 5 percent from 22 percent in 2004, says Gartner. Customer satisfaction of Windows smartphones is 24 percent, according to ChangeWave Research; it's 74 percent for iPhones and 65 percent for handsets powered by Google's (GOOG) Android. There are a few hundred apps for Windows mobile, vs. 250,000 for Apple (AAPL) and 70,000 for Android. Asked about Windows Phone 7's chances, Google Android chief Andy Rubin has said: "The world doesn't need another platform."
Unless, of course, Windows Phone 7 handsets, on sale Oct. 21 in Europe and Nov. 8 in the U.S., blow away consumers as the iPhone did back in 2007. Today, consumers load their smartphones with apps. Rather than tap between separate programs, Windows Phone 7 users will choose from a few larger icons—Microsoft calls them tiles—that aggregate information from related apps. For example, a "People" tile lets users contact friends via phone, text, or Facebook without having to click on any of those apps. An "Office" tile opens a screen to edit and send a PowerPoint deck or Word file, no attachments necessary. This is the biggest step forward since Android, says Jonathan Sasse, senior marketing vice-president of Internet music company Slacker.
Microsoft mobile chief Andy Lees says Windows Phone 7 reflects his group's new approach to design. In the past, the company wrote the software and left it to licensees to ensure great products. This time, Microsoft set strict rules. All Windows Phone 7 handsets must come with three buttons (home, search, and back) and a camera with at least five megapixels of resolution. "In some cases that meant saying no to some of our largest partners, says Lees. He adds that Microsoft doesn't need to have as many apps as Apple or Android, just the most popular ones. That way Microsoft can assure the quality of Windows handsets. Ours is a structured ecosystem," says Lees.
Oct. 12 (Bloomberg) -- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu set terms for the renewal of a West Bank settlement freeze that were swiftly rejected by the Palestinians, leaving the status of U.S.-brokered peace talks in limbo.
Netanyahu told parliament yesterday he was ready to convene his Cabinet and ask for an extension of a freeze on settlement building if “the Palestinian leadership tells its people in an unequivocal manner that it recognizes Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people.”Mohammad Shtayyeh, a member of the Palestinian Authority negotiating team, said Netanyahu’s demand was “unacceptable.”The comments come as the U.S. is trying to keep peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians alive after Israel’s 10-month freeze on construction in the West Bank expired on Sept. 26. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has said he will only return to talks if Israel reimposes the construction moratorium.“There is no way that the Palestinian Authority is going to make this declaration,” said Jonathan Spyer, a political scientist at Israel’s Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya, near Tel Aviv. “The government of Israel is trying to educate the U.S. administration on why there is no basis for a productive peace process at this point.”The Palestinians reject Israel’s demand that they recognize it as the state of the Jewish people on the grounds it undermines the right of return for Palestinian refugees. Israel says recognition of it as a Jewish state is necessary to ensure the Palestinians don’t make additional claims once a peace treaty has been signed.‘Work Constructively’“The parties must work constructively to create conditions for the negotiations to continue,” U.S. State Department spokesman Philip J. Crowley said in an e-mail. “Both sides need to take steps if we are going to move forward.”The Arab League last week backed the Palestinian Authority’s position not to resume direct peace talks until Israel renews the freeze, and gave U.S. President Barack Obama’s administration more time to revive the peace effort.Israel had signaled last week that a compromise may be in the works. “The U.S. has come back to Israel with a number of suggestions, incentives if you would, that enable the government to maybe pass a limited extension of two or three months,” Ambassador Michael Oren told the Washington Post.Shtayyeh said Netanyahu was “adding additional complications” to the renewal of talks. “We hope that the international community will bring Israel into the talks without any conditionality,” he said.West BankAbout 500,000 Jews have moved to the West Bank and east Jerusalem since Israel captured the territory in 1967.The United Nations says that settlements are illegal, and the International Committee of the Red Cross says they breach the Fourth Geneva Convention governing actions on occupied territory. Obama has said the settlements aren’t legitimate.Israel says the settlements don’t fall under the convention because the territory wasn’t recognized as belonging to anyone before the 1967 war, in which Israel prevailed, and therefore isn’t occupied.Netanyahu, who spoke at the opening of the winter parliamentary session, told lawmakers that security arrangements for Israel were vital in ensuring that “the peace was maintained.” He said they would also safeguard the country “in the regrettable but possible event that the peace was violated.”Israel and the Palestinians agreed last month to try and reach an agreement on the framework for a comprehensive peace accord within a year. All the issues at the core of the conflict would be on the table, including the borders of a future Palestinian state, security arrangements for Israel, the right of return for Palestinian refugees, and the status of Jerusalem.Spyer said he expected more bargaining in the month before the Arab League meets again to discuss the peace process. “There will be a series of proposals and counterproposals,” he said.--With assistance from Alisa Odenheimer in Jerusalem. Editors: Peter Hirschberg, Louis Meixler.
To contact the reporter on this story: Calev Ben-David in Jerusalem at cbendavid@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Peter Hirschberg in Jerusalem at
BELGRADE, Serbia
Serbia's riot police fought running battles on Sunday with hundreds of far-right supporters who tried to disrupt a gay pride march in downtown Belgrade. Several dozen people were hurt, officials said.
Thousands of police officers sealed off the streets in the capital where the march took place, repeatedly clashing at several locations with rioters who were trying to burst through security cordons.
Several parked cars were set on fire or damaged, shop windows were broken, garbage containers were overturned and streets signs destroyed.
The rioters fired shots and hurled petrol bombs at the headquarters of the ruling pro-Western Democratic Party, setting the garage of the building on fire. The state TV building and other political parties headquarters were were also attacked, with many of the house windows shattered by stones.
The protesters, chanting "death to homosexuals!" hurled Molotov cocktails, bricks, stones, glass bottles and firecrackers at riot police. Police responded by firing tear gas and deploying armored vehicles to disperse the charging protesters in the heart of the capital even after the brief pride march ended.
The protesters hijacked a bus, ordered all of its passengers and the driver out, and pushed it down a steep street before hit an electric pole on a main Belgrade square.
Belgrade emergency hospital said 57 people have been injured, including 47 policemen, one seriously. Police said several rioters were arrested.
Right-wing groups say the gay events are contrary to Serbian family and religious values. Most of the rioters Sunday were young football fans whose groups have been infiltrated by neo-Nazi and other extremist organizations.
"These riots obviously have nothing to do with the gay parade or any moral values," said Democratic Party spokeswoman Jelana Trivan. "These are hooligan gangs which must be punished severely."
Defense Minister Dragan Sutanovac, vice president of the Democratic Party, said a part of the party's archive, warehouse and phone lines at the building were destroyed and shots were also fired at the building.
"It is high time that we deal in a very democratic way, through the courts, with those who call themselves members of the patriotic organizations," Sutanovac said. "Is this Belgrade or the wild West?"
Senior Justice Ministry official Slobodan Homen said that the state response will be "fierce." He said that the city center is covered with surveillance cameras and that the rioters have been identified and many already detained. He said they could face up to eight years in prison.
Sunday's march was viewed as a major test for Serbia's government, which has launched pro-Western reforms and pledged to protect human rights as it seeks European Union membership.
Right-wing groups broke up a pride march in 2001 and forced the cancellation of last year's event.
Vincent Degert, the head of the EU mission in Serbia, addressed around 1,000 gay activists and their supporters who gathered at a park in downtown Belgrade which was surrounded by riot police, including armored vehicles.
"We are here to celebrate this very important day ... to celebrate the values of tolerance, freedom of expression and assembly," Degert told the crowd waving rainbow flags.
The same right-wing group set the U.S. Embassy on fire during riots in 2008 to protest U.S. support for Kosovo's independence.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton plans to visit Belgrade in coming days as part of a Balkan tour.
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Associated Press writer Dusan Stojanovic contributed to this report.
NEW YORK
Kaufman Bros. analyst Shaw Wu said Thursday Cisco's new home videoconferencing product is "much better" than free services like Skype with a webcam, but its high price will likely limit widespread adoption.
Cisco Systems Inc. said the product, umi, will cost $599 plus $25 per month. It includes a camera and TV set-top box that are controlled by a remote control.
THE OPINION: "We believe there is a market for premium video conferencing, but it will likely be a high-end niche," Wu wrote in a note to investors.
But with a lower price or the elimination or at least the lowering of the monthly fee, "we see great potential to reach the broader mainstream market," he said, adding that many people would likely consider using this over a voice-only phone call.
THE STOCK: Shares of the San Jose, Calif.-based networking equipment maker climbed 3 cents to $22.33 in midday trading.
NEW YORK
It is the thinnest and strongest material known to mankind -- no thicker than a single atom and 100 times tougher than steel. Could graphene be the next plastic? Maybe so, says one of two scientists who won a Nobel Prize on Tuesday for isolating and studying it.
Faster computers, lighter airplanes, transparent touch screens -- the list of potential uses runs on. Some scientists say we can't even imagine what kinds of products might be possible with the substance, which hides in ordinary pencil lead and first was extracted using a piece of Scotch tape.
Two Russian-born researchers shared the physics Nobel for their groundbreaking experiments with graphene, which is a sheet of carbon atoms joined together in a pattern that resembles chicken wire.
Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov of the University of Manchester in England used Scotch tape to rip off flakes of graphene from a chunk of graphite, the stuff of pencil leads. That achievement, reported just six years ago, opened the door to studying what scientists say should be a versatile building block for electronics and strong materials.
"It has all the potential to change your life in the same way that plastics did," Geim, 51, a Dutch citizen, told The Associated Press. "It is really exciting."
Michael Strano, a chemist at MIT, said trying to predict its uses would be "folly ... We can't even imagine the uses we're going to find."
But he and others have some ideas. Graphene's electrical properties mean it might make for faster transistors, key components of electronic circuits, and so lead to better computers, the Nobel committee says. As a single layer of carbon atoms it's tiny, which could pay off in more powerful cell phones, several scientists said.
And since it's practically transparent, it could lead to see-through touch screens and maybe solar cells, the committee says. It might also pay off for big TV screens.
Its tremendous strength could produce new composite materials that are super-strong and lightweight, for use in building airplanes, cars and satellites, the committee says.
So why aren't pencil leads super strong, if they contain graphene? Breaking a lead generally involves a shearing off between graphene sheets rather than breaking the sheets themselves, explained James Tour of Rice University. And while a person can tear up a single sheet of graphene, it's still stronger than a one-atom-thick sheet of anything else.
"There's nothing stronger," Tour said.
Graphene has not made its mark in ordinary consumer products yet, although some prototype electronic display screens and composite materials have been created, Strano said.
Lots of scientists are studying it, in some cases to learn about basic physics, Strano said. Researchers are still trying to find a practical way to make large quantities of pure graphene, something more amenable to large-scale use than the Scotch-tape approach, he said.
"The field is still very new," he said, and the awarding of the $1.5 million prize to Geim and Novoselov is "absolutely marvelous."
Joseph Stroscio, a physicist at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, said he had thought it would take a few more years of scientific appraisal before graphene would win a Nobel. But its potential applications and the brand-new behavior it presents for basic physics have drawn strong interest since the 2004 breakthrough, and the prize is well-deserved, he said.
It might take five or 10 years before graphene shows up in products like cell phones, he said.
Novoselov, 36, is the youngest Nobel winner since 1973 of a prize that normally goes to scientists with decades of experience. He holds both British and Russian citizenship.
Paolo Radaelli, a physics professor at the University of Oxford, marveled at the simple methods the winners used.
"In this age of complexity, with machines like the super collider, they managed to get the Nobel using Scotch tape," Radaelli said.
The 2010 Nobel Prize announcements began Monday with the medicine award going to British researcher Robert Edwards, 85, for in vitro fertilization. Unlike the physics prize, which came just six years after the graphene breakthrough, the medicine award came more than 30 years after the birth of the first test tube baby. The prize committee ignores the provision in Alfred Nobel's will that the award honor discoveries made the preceding year because it takes time to measure the benefits.
The chemistry prize will be announced Wednesday, followed by literature on Thursday, the peace prize on Friday and economics on Monday, Oct. 11.
The awards were created by Nobel, a Swedish industrialist, and first given in 1901. The prizes are always handed out on Dec. 10, the anniversary of Nobel's death in 1896.
There have been no Americans among this year's Nobel laureates so far, but that could change Wednesday with chemistry, a prize that has been dominated by U.S. scientists. Only once in the past decade, in 2007, did the prize not include a U.S. citizen.
Harvard researchers George Whitesides and Charles Lieber frequently figure in Nobel speculation. So do Scottish chemist Sir Fraser Stoddart at Northwestern University and Japan's Sumio Iijima, who discovered carbon nanotubes in 1991.
Thomson Reuters, which analyzes high-impact scientific papers to make predictions, suggested Stanford University biochemistry professor Patrick Brown for his work on DNA microarrays. It said Japan's Susumu Kitagawa and American Omar Yaghi could also share the award for designing porous metal-organic frameworks.
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Karl Ritter reported from Stockholm. Associated Press writers Malin Rising and Louise Nordstrom in Stockholm and Danica Kirka in London contributed to this report.
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Online:
http://www.nobelprize.org
