Technology latest news

NEW YORK (AP) — Danny Federici, the longtime keyboard player for Bruce Springsteen whose stylish work helped define the E Street Band’s sound on hits from “Hungry Heart” through “The Rising,” died Thursday. He was 58.

Federici, who had battled melanoma for three years, died at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York. News of his death was posted late Thursday on Springsteen’s official Web site.

According to published reports, Federici last performed with Springsteen and the band last month, appearing during portions of a March 20 show in Indianapolis.

Springsteen concerts scheduled for Friday in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and Saturday in Orlando were postponed after news of Federici’s death.

He was born in Flemington, N.J., a long car ride from the Jersey shore haunts where he first met kindred musical spirit Springsteen in the late 1960s. The pair often jammed at the Upstage Club in Asbury Park, N.J., a now-defunct after-hours club that hosted the best musicians in the state.

It was Federici, along with original E Street Band drummer Vini Lopez, who first invited Springsteen to join their band.

By 1969, the self-effacing Federici — often introduced in concert by Springsteen as “Phantom Dan” — was playing with the Boss in a band called Child. Over the years, Federici joined his friend in acclaimed shore bands Steel Mill, Dr. Zoom and the Sonic Boom and the Bruce Springsteen Band.

Federici became a stalwart in the E Street Band as Springsteen rocketed from the boardwalk to international stardom. Springsteen split from the E Streeters in the late ’80s, but they reunited for a hugely successful tour in 1999.

“Bruce has been supportive throughout my life,” Federici said in a recent interview with Backstreets magazine. “I’ve had my ups and downs, and I’ve certainly given him a run for his money, and he’s always been there for me.”

Federici played accordion on the wistful “4th Of July, Asbury Park (Sandy)” from Springsteen’s second album, and his organ solo was a highlight of Springsteen’s first top 10 hit, “Hungry Heart.” His organ coda on the 9/11-inspired Springsteen song “You’re Missing” provided one of the more heart-wrenching moments on “The Rising” in 2002.

In a band with larger-than-life characters such as saxophonist Clarence Clemons and bandana-wrapped guitarist “Little” Steven Van Zandt, Federici was content to play in his familiar position to the side of the stage. But his playing was as vital to Springsteen’s live show as any instrument in the band.

Federici released a pair of solo albums that veered from the E Street sound and into soft jazz. Bandmates Nils Lofgren on guitar and Garry Tallent on bass joined Federici on his 1997 debut, “Flemington.” In 2005, Federici released its follow-up, “Out of a Dream.”

Federici had taken a leave of absence during the band’s tour in November 2007 to pursue treatment for melanoma, and was temporarily replaced by veteran musician Charles Giordano.

At the time, Springsteen described Federici as “one of the pillars of our sound and has played beside me as a great friend for more than 40 years. We all eagerly await his healthy and speedy return.”

Besides his work with Springsteen, Federici played on albums by an impressive roster of other artists: Van Zandt, Joan Armatrading, Graham Parker, Gary U.S. Bonds and Garland Jeffreys.

___

On the Net:

Bruce Springsteen: http://www.brucespringsteen.net

The use of touch screens on mobile phones is already soaring, and the introduction of a new line of small computing devices designed to connect people to the Internet is also fueling their use, a manufacturing executive said Thursday.

The touch screen market will grow to a value of US$3.1 billion this year from $2.78 billion last year, said Kevin Chuang, an executive at Swenc Technology, at a conference in Taipei.

Three trends are driving the market, starting with the iPhone craze, he said. But what really boosted volume handset sales was a chip developed by Taiwan's MediaTek that made it easy for companies to put touch screens on handsets. MediaTek's main customers are in China, and the chips have been used in scores of handsets there, he said.

A new category of devices is also coming out that is increasing touch screen use, known variously as ultramobile PCs (UMPCs), mobile Internet devices (MIDs) and a growing list of names.

“Most people buying iPhones today are using them more for accessing Internet content than even for phone calls,” he said. That's a sign ultramobile PCs and the like will probably find a place in global markets.

Swenc Technology is a producer of touch screen components. Chuang was speaking at a DisplaySearch conference in Taipei.

NEW YORK - Shareholders of Take-Two Interactive Software Inc. easily passed a proposal Thursday to grant ZelnickMedia, the company’s management, 1.5 million shares of restricted stock.

Chairman Strauss Zelnick called it a vote of confidence — Take-Two’s board was also re-elected by a wide margin. But a spokesman for Electronic Arts Inc., the company that launched a $2 billion tender offer to buy Take-Two more than a month ago, likened the approval to “asking your last employer to give you a million dollar raise and forcing your new employer to pay it.”

That’s because Take-Two only allowed shareholders of record as of Feb. 19 to vote at the meeting. That was five days before EA’s offer went public, and analysts estimate that more than half of Take-Two’s shares have changed hands since.

EA spokesman Jeff Brown said since it’s possible that more than 50 percent of Take-Two’s current shareholders were not allowed to vote, the results are “hardly a measure of confidence.”

Zelnick called the criticism “disingenuous” and noted that the company extended the opportunity for shareholders to put proposals on the ballot, which they did not do. EA, he added, knows how record dates are selected for shareholder meetings and there was nothing unusual about Take-Two’s Feb. 19 cutoff.

A big chunk of Take-Two’s current investors are thought to be arbitrageurs, short-term shareholders looking to make a quick profit. Institutional investors like Oppenheimer Funds and FMR LLC, meanwhile, have substantially reduced their stakes in the company.

The restricted stock grants reduce the value of EA’s bid to $25.74 per share from $26, according to EA and analysts, some of whom think this means shareholders are leaning toward accepting the bid at its current value. Take-Two’s management, however, has repeatedly said the offer undervalues the company.

New York-based Take-Two’s shares fell 24 cents to $25.85 Thursday.

EA went public with its bid Feb. 24 after Take-Two privately rebuffed it. Take-Two has since said it is open to a buyout, but it wants to wait until the day after “Grand Theft Auto IV,” the latest game in the wildly popular GTA franchise, goes on sale April 29. EA wants the deal to happen soon because it wants to put its marketing muscle behind the popular game ahead of the lucrative holiday season.

Earlier Thursday, EA said it received a second request from the Federal Trade Commission regarding the buyout proposal. The world’s largest video game publisher said while it believes the proposed acquisition would not be anticompetitive, the FTC has not come to a conclusion and said it needs more information and time to complete its review.

The outcome of the buyout is still up in the air. EA can still raise its bid, extend Friday’s midnight deadline for the tender offer, or even walk away.

Shares of Redwood City, Calif.-based EA fell 56 cents to $51.46 Thursday.

SAN JOSE, Calif. - A Texas woman has sued Blockbuster Inc. alleging the video rental company transmitted her personal information to Facebook.com through the Web site’s Beacon marketing program.

Cathryn Elaine Harris, of Dallas County, Texas, claims that Beacon, which Facebook launched in November, got information on her movie renting and buying habits from Blockbuster through computer tracking programs without her permission.

In her complaint, filed April 9 in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, Harris claims that Blockbuster violated the Video Privacy Protection Act, which prohibits a video store from disclosing information about a person’s video rentals or purchases.

Randy Hargrove, a spokesman for Dallas-based Blockbuster, said the company denies the allegations.

“Our alliance with Facebook included numerous levels of privacy protection built in for our online subscribers,” Hargrove said.

Beacon, which members could always opt out of, tracks purchases Facebook members make online and sends members’ “friends” alerts about the transactions. Within a few weeks of its launch, thousands of complaints poured in from Facebook users who hadn’t realized it would share their commercial activity. Now users must opt into the program if they want it.

But Harris’ lawsuit, which she hopes the court will certify as a class action, claims the damage is already done and that Blockbuster continues to share her information.

“To this day, however, Facebook still receives personal identifiable information from participating Web sites … whether the Facebook member has chosen to distribute their information or not,” the complaint says. “To this day, Blockbuster Online members remain unsuspecting victims.”

It was not clear from the complaint whether Harris is claiming that Blockbuster is sharing new information.

Palo Alto, Calif.-based Facebook did not immediately respond to a call requesting comment.

Harris’ lawyers at The Corea Firm and Otstott and Jamison in Dallas could not immediately be reached Thursday evening.

Congress passed the Video Privacy Protection Act in 1988 in response to the experience of U.S. Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork, whose video rental history was obtained by a newspaper.

WASHINGTON/STANFORD, California (Reuters) - The head of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission said on Thursday the agency would scrutinize whether broadband Internet providers were open with customers about how they are managing their networks and make good on the speeds they promise.

Speaking at an agency hearing on broadband services, FCC Chairman Kevin Martin said the commission should look closely at the two factors as it grapples with what constitutes “reasonable” management of broadband networks by providers such as Comcast Corp.

The FCC is looking into complaints from consumer groups that cable operator Comcast Corp has unreasonably blocked or hindered some file-sharing services, such as BitTorrent, that distribute TV shows and movies.

“Application designers need to understand what will and what will not work on the network, and consumers must be fully informed about the exact nature of the service they are purchasing,” Martin said in comments at the hearing.

“Particularly as broadband providers are trying to provide tiers of service, it's critical to make sure that we are understanding that the broadband network operators are able to deliver the speeds and service that they are selling,” Martin said.

Martin and the FCC's other four commissioners held a hearing at Stanford University in the heart of Silicon Valley to get input on what constitutes “reasonable” network management.

Martin said at a previous hearing on the subject that he was disturbed Comcast did not disclose more to customers and application developers about the way it manages traffic on its network.

Subsequently last month, Comcast announced it would change the way it manages its network and cooperate with BitTorrent and other critics to resolve the dispute.

On Tuesday Comcast said it will partner with a second file-sharing company and help create a “bill of rights” for consumers and Internet service providers.

The dispute over so-called “network neutrality” pits open-Internet advocates against some service providers such as Comcast, which say they need to take reasonable steps to manage traffic on their networks.

Comcast, which has more than 13 million broadband subscribers, has denied impairing some applications and has said it merely manages the system to deal with network congestion for the good of all users.

The commissioners heard testimony from a number of experts, ranging from a software engineer and a songwriter to a law professor and consumer advocate, on how far network operators should be allowed to go in managing their networks.

Martin said Comcast and other broadband providers had been invited to take part in the hearing but chose not to attend.

Comcast said in a statement on Thursday that it had appeared at the previous commission hearing and “felt issues specific to us were well covered at the first hearing and the focus of this event should be broader than any individual company's issues.”

Martin said networks could discriminate against individual applications in certain cases such as child pornography. The key question, he said, would be whether their actions “further a legitimate purpose.”

The commission's two Democrats said called for the FCC to stake out strong position that the agency will not tolerate unreasonable discrimination against particular content and software applications.

“Consumers don't want the Internet to become just another version of old media,” said commissioner Jonathan Adelstein.

The two Republicans on the commission said the FCC should take charges of anti-competitive tactics seriously, but they said the issue was better settled by network engineers in the private marketplace rather than the government.

“The point is that the Internet has flourished by operating under the principle that engineers should solve engineering problems, not politicians and bureaucrats,” said Republican commissioner Robert McDowell.

(Reporting by Peter Kaplan, editing by Richard Chang)

It's a busy time in the world of Web analytics. On Wednesday at the ad:tech conference in San Francisco, Google announced its free Website Optimizer is available to anyone. This comes on the heels of last week's announcement of Yahoo's acquisition of IndexTools, a major provider of Web analytics software for online marketing.

Website Optimizer is a tool for testing designs, headlines and graphics for the highest results. As a beta, it was part of Google AdWords, but now it has its own Web site and an official blog. Google said the standalone Optimizer is virtually the same as the one that accompanied AdWords, and that it can be accessed by any Google account.

Urchin Released

Google also announced that its Urchin software, also formerly in beta, is now available in a release version. Urchin, which runs on a customer's servers, is the basis of the Google Analytics hosted service.

Urchin can be used to analyze firewall-protected content, such as an intranet, or to sift through several years of old server log data. It can also be used if a company needs to have its traffic audited by a third party, if custom reports need to be generated, or if a site owner wants to see if visitors are getting “Page Not Found” errors.

Urchin is only available through Google's professional services network, which consists of partner companies that offer support and consulting services. A free 30-day trial version is available, and an Urchin license is about $3,000.

Yahoo said its new IndexTools technology will boost its analytics services by adding the ability to deliver “relevant insights and metrics for online campaigns that run across the entire Yahoo network.”

'Permanent Game Changer'

IndexTools COO Dennis R. Mortensen wrote last week in his blog that IndexTools will be offered free to Yahoo's current partners and clients who accept its standard Yahoo agreement. At the moment, new clients or partnerships are not being added, but Mortensen indicated that could change during “the next rollout.”

“Those of you who know me or heard me evangelize IndexTools as essentially 80 percent of the functionality of Omniture for a fraction of the cost,” Mortensen wrote, will now have to get used to getting that 80 percent of Omniture for free.

Others in the Web analytics community also applauded Yahoo's move. For instance, analytics professional Eric T. Peterson wrote in his blog shortly after the announcement that the IndexTools acquisition was potentially “the permanent game changer” because many people consider it as good as expensive solutions. He also said he expects Yahoo to take advantage of the Google Analytics Authorized Consultant network as it rolls out IndexTools.

A seriously goofy Microsoft sales-team video on YouTube titled “Rockin' Our Sales” initially had bloggers and sites like Gizmodo and Engadget jumping on it as another example of how Redmond just doesn't get it. 

But the joke's on them, it seems. Anonymous inside sources say the Springsteen-esque music video was meant as a spoof all along, according to Cnet.

The video, which covers Vista and business reluctance to adopt it, is superbly cheesy.  If I had seen it without knowing it was a joke, I might have jumped on the Microsoft-bashing bandwagon as well. Instead I chuckled at moments like when a female fan with short, dark hair got pulled up on stage to dance with the Boss look-alike.

I will say I'm a bit curious as to why the inside source wasn't named. You'll see anonymous sources used for sensitive topics or leaks, but I can't think of any reason why someone wouldn't want to go on record here. Conspiracy-types might suspect damage control, but it really is too goofy to be real. 

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O) said on Thursday it sold 262,000 Xbox 360 game consoles in the United States in March, regaining its lead over Sony Corp's (6758.T)(SNE.N) PlayStation 3 as supply constraints eased.

“We said as our supply issue lifted that we'd be back in the game,” said Microsoft spokesman David Dennis. “For the most part we're in good supply throughout the retail channel. There are still pockets of shortage, but for most part you can go into a store and find an Xbox 360.”

Microsoft cited data from market research firm NPD, which is due to release fuller monthly video game sales figures later Thursday.

(Reporting by Scott Hillis; editing by Jeffrey Benkoe)

Quarterly earnings from IBM, Intel and Google are allaying some of the worst fears of IT investors facing a U.S. economic slowdown.

The sputtering economy, credit-market turmoil and rising energy costs are having an effect on technology product and service sales in some sectors, but tech bellwethers this week issued upbeat reports.

After seeing its share price drop since November, along with most tech stocks, Google excited investors with a strong report on Thursday, easily beating analyst expectations for both profit and revenue. For the quarter, net income jumped to US$1.31 billion from $1 billion a year earlier, while revenue, after taking out traffic costs, rose to $3.70 billion from $3.61 billion.

Google has been beset by fears that revenue from paid clicks– money the company makes from advertisers when people click on sponsored links– is slowing. In fact, Google reported that the number of paid clicks rose 20 percent in the quarter, compared to a rise of 30 percent in paid clicks for the same quarter last year. The bigger Google gets, the harder it will be for the company to keep paid-click growth up at that rate.

But the company's profit and revenue growth for the quarter will help alleviate those concerns. In after-hours trading, Google shares shot up by $57 within 30 minutes after the market closed, trading at $506.

IBM's strong report on Wednesday showed that the company has leveraged a flexible product strategy to deal with different market conditions around the world. Beating analyst earnings forecasts, the company reported net profit of US$2.32 billion, a jump of 26 percent from the 2007 period.

IBM was helped by the weak dollar. But the company also was able to target infrastructure products and services in emerging growth markets, while stressing cost-savings products in the U.S., according to IBM Chief Financial Officer Mark Loughridge, speaking on a conference call. IBM raised its profit forecast for the year, from $8.25 per share to $8.50 per share.

IBM shares rose Thursday by $2.61 to close at $123.08.

Intel on Tuesday reported strong demand for chips in the quarter. Hurt by restructuring charges, profit for the quarter fell 12 percent, to $1.4 billion. But revenue increased 9 percent to $9.67 billion, and the company raised its forecast for gross margins for the year.

In a nod to the company's geographic reach, CEO Paul Otellini stressed a “strong global environment” in a conference call to discuss the results. Intel shares jumped Wednesday by $1.22 to close at $22.13.

There is no doubt that the U.S. slowdown is affecting technology. PC shipments in the first quarter rose only 3.5 percent from a year earlier, according to an IDC report on Wednesday. Boosted by Asia, however, global PC shipments rose 14.6 percent for the quarter.

Global companies that are executing on product strategy, like Intel and IBM, suggest that a pullback in U.S. spending may not hit the tech sector as badly as had been feared.

AMD weighed in with an expected poor performance. Still hampered by last year's botched launch of its “Barcelona” line of quad-core chips, the company reported a net loss of $358 million. Most market observers, however, attribute the loss to AMD's staggered rollout of the Barcelona chips, not to industrywide forces.

With another round of quarterly reports due next week, so far the main thought in many investors' minds must be: It could have been worse.

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - SanDisk Corp (SNDK.O), the world's largest maker of data-storage memory chips, posted higher-than-expected quarterly revenue on Thursday and said it expected price declines to “moderate” in the current quarter.

Shares of SanDisk, down about 22 percent this year, rose 6.2 percent to $27.50 following the results.

SanDisk said first-quarter net income was $17.9 million, or 8 cents per share, compared with a net loss of $575,000, or nil cents per share, a year earlier, when SanDisk had more than $20 million in acquisition-related costs.

Revenue rose to $850 million from $786.1 million amid strong demand for memory in consumer gadgets, exceeding analysts' average forecast of $812.2 million, according to Reuters Estimates.

In January, SanDisk had projected first-quarter revenue of $775 million to $875 million.

Excluding acquisition-related expenses and other items, SanDisk earned 21 cents per share, less than analysts' average projection of 27 cents per share, according to Reuters Estimates.

Chief Executive Eli Harari said the company expects price declines to “moderate” in the current quarter but cautioned that product profit margins are expected “to continue to be under pressure” as lower-cost chips will not be released until the second half.

The company said first-quarter sales were helped by its international business, by demand for its Sansa music players, and by mobile-phone and satellite-navigation device buyers.

SanDisk, based in Milpitas, California, in January gave a cautious outlook for the first quarter, citing falling prices and consumers' concerns about a slowing U.S. economy.

(Reporting by Philipp Gollner; Editing by Andre Grenon and Braden Reddall)