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I've been playing around with the new Adobe Media Player (AMP), which made its way out of Adobe Labs to receive a formal 1.0 release yesterday. It's an interesting entry into the fast-moving market for streaming digital media, and definitely something to watch (no pun intended).

My initial reaction was: Why do we need another media player now? We already have Windows Media Player, QuickTime Player, Real Player, and a host of freeware alternatives. What could Adobe possibly add to the mix that we don't have already? But AMP is different from any of these. To call it simply a media player belies the true nature of the product; rather, AMP is a full-fledged attempt to offer a kiosk-style interface for browsing and streaming digital TV to your PC desktop. With this product, Adobe is definitely thinking outside the cable box.

Our colleagues over at MacWorldtook AMP through its paces on Wednesday, so I'll spare you the nitty-gritty details. Suffice it to say that AMP lets you browse through various “channels” of content and stream professional-looking video from a number of providers, from MTV, to the Food Network, to PBS. As others have noted, the selection is pretty slim so far, but you can expect Adobe to actively recruit new content partners as the product matures.

One interesting thing about AMP is that it's an Adobe AIR application. AIR is Adobe's runtime system that lets developers build slick-looking desktop applications using the same technologies they use to build Web applications– HTML, JavaScript, and Flash.

As a showcase for AIR, the AMP application is impressive. It definitely feels like desktop software, not a cobbled-together Flash gizmo. At the same time, this may be AMP's biggest weakness. Being Flash-based means AMP can only access video formats that are supported by Flash. You can add your own videos to the AMP catalog, but only if they're FLV, MP4, or QuickTime format– your existing AVIs and XviD files won't work.

This could be a problem for Adobe, because more flexible alternatives already exist. Miro, for example, is a similar Internet TV application that is somewhat more flexible. It's open source, supports a wider range of video codecs than AMP, and allows you to browse video “channels” based on RSS feeds. What's more, because it's based on user interface code from Mozilla, Miro is actually more cross-platform than AMP. (Although an Alpha version of Adobe AIR is available for Linux, Adobe isn't letting Linux users download AMP at this time; presumably it wouldn't work if they did.)

The way I see it, AMP's success ultimately depends on two things. First, Adobe has to secure enough content to make downloading and using its Media Player worthwhile. That puts it in competition with Google, which arguably has the leading online video property right now in YouTube.

Second, Adobe is gambling that your average TV viewers will warm up to the idea of watching their favorite shows on their PCs. That's the part I'm not so sure about. In this age of giant-screen LCD TVs and high-definition video on the one hand, and video iPods on the other, I have a feeling that Adobe might be a little too late to the party. Most folks want to veg out on their couches, not at their desks. Convincing them otherwise may be Adobe's biggest challenge.

But who knows? I could be wrong. If you're addicted to Adobe Media Player already, don't hesitate to sound off in the PC World Community Comments.

SAN FRANCISCO - Biotechnology giant Genentech Inc. is reporting a jump in first-quarter profits of 12 percent compared to last year as sales of its top-selling cancer drugs rose by double digits.

For the quarter ended March 31, the company earned $790 million, or 74 cents per share, compared with $706 million, or 66 cents a share, a year ago.

Excluding special expenses, Genentech said Thursday it would have earned $895 million, or 84 cents a share. On that basis, the results beat the average per-share estimate among Wall Street analysts by two cents, according to research firm Thomson Financial.

Revenue was $3.06 billion in the quarter, an increase of 8 percent from $2.84 billion a year ago. Sales of Genentech’s top two cancer drugs rose 13 percent.

Government auditors were able to buy military-grade equipment, including night-vision goggles, body armor and parts for fighter jets, from online sites such as eBay and Craigslist during a recently completed undercover investigation, a representative of the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) told lawmakers on Thursday.

Members of the U.S. House of Representatives Oversight and Government Reform Committee's national security subcommittee expressed particular alarm about the online availability of high-power night-vision goggles, currently used by U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, and of parts for F-14 fighter jets, flown by the Iranian air force. In many cases, those items are stolen from the U.S. military, the GAO said.

Sales of night-vision goggles and U.S. military uniforms could endanger troops in Iraq, said Representative Christopher Shays, a Connecticut Republican. “We go out at night in Iraq… with special forces,” he said. “We go out at night instead of the daytime because we have that advantage. If we lose that advantage, we're going to have many of our soldiers killed.”

In recent years, there have been “hundreds” of cases involving the sale of sensitive military equipment to countries such as Iran and China, said Greg Kutz, GAO's managing director of forensic audits and special investigations, which began an investigation into online sales of military equipment in mid-2007. GAO investigators purchased a dozen sensitive military items online, including body armor and parts for an F-14 radar warning system, during the investigation.

Multiple sellers of military equipment have been charged with crimes in recent years, Kutz said.

Representatives of eBay and Craigslist said they cooperate with federal investigations into the sale of military-grade equipment, and they take down illegal listings when they find them. But with about 113 million listings happening at any one time, it's tough to find every sensitive military item being sold, said Tod Cohen, eBay's deputy general counsel and vice president of government relations.

“With such high volumes, we must work closely with regulatory and law enforcement to police against abuses,” Cohen said.

Most Craigslist sales happened locally, with the items delivered in person, making it difficult for military items sold there to wind up overseas, said Craigslist CEO Jim Buckmaster. “International sales are extremely rare,” he said.

Buckmaster also suggested that online auction and classified sites donate all their profits from the sale of military equipment to charity, although Craigslist has not made any money that way. If other sites commit to giving away 100 percent of their profits from the sale of sensitive or stolen military equipment, Craigslist will make a “sizeable donation” to charity as well, he said.

Craigslist users are often confused about what items are appropriate to sell and what ones aren't, Buckmaster added. He suggested the U.S. Congress pass a law banning the sale of recent military equipment. “With clear and concise guidelines available, very few of our users will violate them, and those few who do will very quickly find themselves… flagged off of our site,” he said.

But lawmakers noted that much of the sensitive military equipment being sold online appears to be stolen. Shays asked if the U.S. military wasn't properly managing its inventory, including parts from retired equipment such as F-14 jets. The U.S. government sold F-14s to Iran in the 1970s, when Iran was a U.S. ally. The U.S. military retired its last F-14s earlier this decade.

“Should we know [it's stolen] before something is on eBay?” Shays said. “Do we have a serious theft problem, or do we not even have the ability to know we have a serious theft problem?”

GAO's Kutz said he believes there are “fundamental property management issues” in the U.S. military.

Text messaging on mobile devices has grown from banter between teenagers to a new emergency notification system for cell phones, as approved Wednesday by the Federal Communications Commission.

The FCC said the new rules “support the ability of the nation's wireless carriers to transmit timely and accurate alerts, warnings and critical information to the cell phones and other mobile devices of consumers during disasters or other emergencies.” The policy meets the requirements of the federal Warning, Alert and Response Network Act, whose acronym is, appropriately, WARN.

Levels of Emergency Messages

When fully operational, the Commercial Mobile Alert System, or CMAS, will be able to deliver alerts to participating wireless services. Those carriers will forward text-based alerts to their subscribers, and the FCC said that, as technology evolves for greater bandwidth, CMAS may some day include audio and video emergency messages as well.

To accommodate wireless subscribers with disabilities, the rules require that participating carriers transmit messages with “vibration cadence” and audio attention signals.

There are three types of messages that will be delivered. The top level is Presidential Alerts, related to national emergencies. The second level is Imminent Threat Alerts, with information on emergencies that could pose imminent risks. The third is an extension of the Child Abduction Emergency or AMBER alerts, an existing system that transmits alerts about children missing or endangered because of an abduction or runaway situation.

Subscribers with roaming agreements will need to have a mobile device configured to receive alerts in the network to which they've moved.

'Not a New Set of Technologies'

Peter Jarich, an analyst with industry research firm Current Analysis, said that, “unless the costs of implementing this are prohibitive,” he expects a number of carriers to participate if its availability is widely publicized. Otherwise, he noted, “it could look bad if [they] didn't.”

Although the costs of carrier participation are not evident, Jarich noted that “we're talking about text messaging, not a new set of technologies or a new network.”

But the FCC did have a setback recently in trying to establish a new network for emergency communication. The recently completed auction of frequencies in the 700-MHz spectrum included the upper 700-MHz D block. But the FCC had to de-link it from the rest of the auction, saying the bids had not met the $1.3 billion minimum price.

The D block was established for a public/private partnership that would guarantee public-safety agencies bandwidth access in emergencies. The FCC has said it will need to “consider its options for how to license this spectrum.”

SAO PAULO, Brazil - A judge has suspended the sale of the video game “Bully” in Brazil on the grounds that its content is too violent for young children and teenagers, a prosecutor said Thursday.

Judge Flavio Rabello prohibited the game from being imported, distributed, sold or promoted on Web sites and stores in Latin America’s largest nation on Friday, Rio Grande do Sul state prosecutor Alcindo Bastos said, adding that they would have 30 days to comply with the order.

Bastos said the judge found the game was inappropriate for children.

“The aggravating factor is that everything in the game takes place inside a school,” Bastos said. “That is not acceptable.”

Made by Rockstar Games and mainly distributed in Brazil by JPF Maggazine, the game lets players act out the life of a 15-year-old student and decide how to deal with teachers and cliques at a boarding school.

The request to ban it came from a local youth support center.

JPF Maggazine did not immediately comment on the ban.

Bastos said JPF Maggazine was the main importer of the game in Brazil, but it’s possible other companies also distribute the game and would need to comply with the order “because our intent is to ban the game, not the distributor.”

A spokesman for Rockstar was unaware of the ban and could not immediately comment Thursday.

Rockstar, a unit of Take-Two Interactive Software Inc., is known for “Manhunt 2,” in which players fight violently to escape from a psychiatric institution, and for the popular “Grand Theft Auto” game series, in which players can hijack cars and run down pedestrians.

Bully is rated “T” for teenagers age 13 and older in the U.S., not of “M” for mature players 17 and older. It launched in October 2006 in the U.S. for Sony Corp.’s PlayStation 2 gaming console. In March, it became available for Microsoft Corp.’s Xbox 360 and Nintendo Co.’s Wii, according to the Rockstar Web site for the game.

BOSTON (Reuters) - Symantec Corp (SYMC.O), the world's largest maker of security software, has recently laid off an undisclosed number of workers around the globe, a company spokeswoman said on Thursday.

“As part of our ongoing focus on managing operational expenses, Symantec has recently implemented some restructuring measures, including a reduction in force,” said company spokeswoman Yunsun Wee. “We're not releasing information on the size or the scope.”

Symantec, which has about 17,000 employees, had laid off some 570 workers in its fiscal third quarter, which ended Dec 31, according to its most-recent quarterly filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The company has yet to provide financial data for its fiscal fourth quarter.

(Reporting by Jim Finkle, editing by Gerald E. McCormick)

San Francisco - Intel shed more of its optical business assets on Thursday, selling the enterprise and storage assets of the unit to semiconductor company Emcore.

The technology Emcore will get from Intel includes optical transceivers and optical cable interconnects. The transaction is expected to close in the second quarter. Emcore will issue 3.7 million shares of restricted stock to Intel in exchange, with price adjustments at a later date.

Intel has slowly been selling off its optical business assets. Last year Emcore bought telecom-related assets from Intel's optical division, including technology related to tunable lasers and transponders from Intel's business unit.

The sale will allow Intel to focus its efforts on core assets in the communications and embedded market segments, Intel said. The company will also continue to focus on developing the USB

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Inside the spintronics chamber: IBM’s Kevin Roche shows how he is designing an entirley new way of storing data.

Handheld gadgets storing thousands of hours of film footage could soon be a reality thanks to IBM scientists.

Researchers for the computer giant are working on a technology known as racetrack memory which uses tiny magnetic boundaries to store data.

In a paper in the journal Science, the team at IBM’s Almaden lab in California outline ways to make the building blocks of the novel storage medium.

The capacity of MP3 players could increase 100 times from present levels.

But the IBM team say racetrack memory is still seven to eight years away from commercial use.

Memory boost

Currently most desktop computers use flash memory and hard drives to store data - both have their advantages and disadvantages.

Hard drives are cheap but their moving parts mean they are not very durable. They are also slow in that they typically take a few milliseconds to find and fetch data.

By contrast flash memory is more reliable and data can be read from it much faster though it has a finite lifespan and is expensive compared to hard drives.

The work being done on racetrack memory by Dr Parkin and colleagues could produce a storage medium that is cheap, durable and fast.

Ultimately, said Dr Parkin, racetrack memory could replace both flash and hard drives in computers and other gadgets.

“We have demonstrated the physics and materials underlying racetrack memory,” said Dr Stuart Parkin, an IBM fellow at the Almaden laboratory.

“It’s now possible to build a racetrack memory though we’ve not built one yet,” he said.

The racetrack memory stores data in the boundaries, known as domain walls, between magnetic regions in nanowires.

The medium gets its name because the data races around the wire or track as it is read or written.

The domain walls are read by exploiting the weak magnetic fields generated by the spin of electrons.

The tiny amounts of power needed to exploit these fields means racetrack memory generates far less heat than existing devices.

Many modern computers already use spintronics to improve the density of data on a hard drive.

In the paper in Science and an accompanying review, Dr Parkin, Masamitsu Hayashi and colleagues describe their progress towards making the building blocks of racetrack memory.

The team has been able to create, move and detect the tiny magnetic boundaries “properly timed, nanosecond long, spin-polarized current pulses” and have paved the way towards creating working racetrack memory systems.

The team has also shown how to fabricate the slim wires that would form the racetracks on which data is stored.

If the expected data densities of the technology are realised it could mean gadgets that have about 100 times more memory on board than is possible today. It would mean that a portable MP3 player could hold up to 500,000 songs.

“We are embarking on a path to build a prototype,” said Dr Parkin. He said it could take up to four years to produce that prototype and a further three or four to refine it for commercial use.

PARIS (Reuters) - Leo Wolff, a woman who joined the online world of Second Life in 2005, bought a small plot of virtual land with eight other musicians and opening the “Virtual Garage” to showcase and perform their music.

Her online character, or avatar, Slim Warrior was the first British musician to perform in the popular virtual world with its own currency and a growing economy. She was also the first to duet online with another artist based as far away as Texas.

Wolff, who promotes other Second Life musicians and organizes music festivals within the online world, is part of a growing number of artists who have found a launching pad for careers in the 3-D game.

Created by San Francisco-based Linden Labs, Second Life currently has about 13 million members — or residents as they are known — and just over 100 musicians performing “live” shows.

“The main benefit is being able to reach a wider audience, as well as the ability to reach out to audiences globally and create a larger fan base,” Wolff told Reuters in an interview.

“Second Life also increases a musician's confidence, especially to those up and coming artists, who feel the virtual world allows them to grow into their personas before performing outside the virtual world,” she said.

Wolff, 42, who makes mostly electronic music, describes herself as a “virtual musician.” She has never performed outside Second Life though she said “it would be wonderful to do so.”

She does, however, work in the real world, giving advice to bands and indie artists about performing on Second Life.

In Second Life, artists use the game's audio-video software to perform from their homes, music studios or even from real world shows.

And apart from a good computer, there is little cost or hassle involved with gigs in Second Life. After all, there is no transportation required or equipment to haul around.

Some performers charge a fee, but most like Slim Warrior play for free: “It's great for marketing, increasing name recognition, which can lead to selling merchandise,” she said.

Gigs are billed on the community's events calendar and followers sent an instant message inviting them to beam their avatars to virtual venues.

NO MYSPACE

Unlike the social network MySpace, Second Life offers a live platform with interaction that only can come from playing in front of a real audience.

“In MySpace, users either stumble over your page or hear about it through friends. Whereas in Second Life you are being actively promoted, whether that be by bars, islands, or forums,” Wolff said.

But there are some limitations to the application, notably the number of people who can attend a gig at the same time.

“If you have a private island you can host up to 100 avatars; on a mainland area, the general max is around 40. You can increase the number of people to attend by either having more than one island joined together or by simulcasting the event via in-world video stream or just via audio,” Wolff said.

It isn't clear if success in Second Life will translate to success in the real world through a major label contract, suggesting that it may be best in conjunction with more traditional ways to promote music.

Still, the mainstream music industry is slowly getting into the act.

In August 2006, American singer Suzanne Vega became the first major artist to perform live in Second Life in avatar form for Second Life's radio show The Infinite Mind and 1980s band Duran Duran has set up its own island to perform.

U.S. singer Regina Spektor held a listening party in a facsimile of a Manhattan loft and U2 devotees have created avatars of the Irish band to re-enact a show from their favorite band.

And last summer, the Guardian newspaper and technology group Intel sponsored SecondFest, a three-day music festival in Second Life with such acts as Pet Shop Boys, New Young Pony Club or Simian Mobile Disco.

(Reporting by Dominique Vidalon; Editing by Derek Caney)

Adobe Systems on Wednesday released its free AIR-based Media Player 1.0 along with a new Adobe TV network. Adobe said the customizable, cross-platform player provides “exciting new ways for viewers to discover and interact with their favorite content” in addition to offering brand-building and revenue opportunities for publishers.

AIR 1.0 runtime, released in February, allows developers to use “proven web technologies to build rich Internet applications” for the desktop and across operating systems, according to Adobe.

Viewing Outside the Browser

The player, originally announced a year ago at the National Association of Broadcasters show and now coming out of beta release, is being touted by Adobe for several key features. John Loiacono, Adobe senior vice president, called the player a “merge of TV Guide and a DVR” for video content on the Web.

It can provide high-quality playback of streamed, downloaded or locally stored video in Adobe's Flash Video or in H.264 formats. As a desktop application, the player allows video to be downloaded outside the browser and viewed in 1080p, 720p or 480i display resolutions with high-quality audio.

Users can also subscribe to video content or TV shows, and receive new episodes automatically. A searchable catalog can be used to find new content from participating media companies.

Some of those media companies providing initial television and video programming include CBS, MTV Networks, Universal Music Group, PBS, CondeNet and Scripps Networks. Content available includes CSI: New York, Big Brother, Star Trek, Melrose Place, Hawaii Five-O, The Twilight Zone, Yo! MTV Raps, and various shows from HGTV, Food Network, PBS and others.

Adobe TV Launches

For the publishers, the player offers several ways to make money. For offline viewing, Adobe provides what it calls “viewer-centric dynamic advertising for targeted marketing campaigns” as well as options to brand the look and feel of the player. It also offers “anonymous measurement of content-usage data.”

If a user gets tired of watching cops, rappers, endangered animals or weekend do-it-yourself fixers, Adobe has populated a channel in its Media Player with Adobe TV, a new network that provides shows about Adobe products. Also launched Wednesday, the new network will provide original series programming as well as content from leading training organizations.

Bobby Tulsiani, an analyst with JupiterResearch, said the new player will appeal to early adopters, but “it remains to be seen if it moves into the mainstream.”

He added that its differences from other choices “aren't exactly clear.” He noted that it offers offline viewing and high-quality video, but it remains to be seen “if this is disruptive enough” to gain broad popularity.