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The mysterious company that claims to be selling a clone of Apple Macintosh computers posted a message on its Web site Thursday proclaiming that it is a legitimate company — and that its credit-card processor has been unable to handle a flood of orders. But many bloggers and observers suspect the company may be a fraud and warned consumers to stay away.

Psystar, which is registered as a Florida company, started promoting its Mac clone on its Web site in March. Originally called the OpenMac, the company changed the name to Open Computer after press reports focused attention on the company. Apple has declined to comment on the story.

Asked if Psystar was actually shipping the computers, a woman who answered the company's phone told this reporter, “The Web site is fully functional.” She said units would be shipped within seven days of placing an order.

Earlier this week, the British newspaper The Guardian reported that the address on Psystar's Web site changed Tuesday, from 10645 SW 112th St. in Miami to 10481 NW 28th St., also in Miami.

Addresses Don't Add Up

A day later the site was sporting yet a new address: 10471 NW 28th St., Miami. Later, the address changed to 10475 NW 28th St., Miami. As of this writing, the address was changed to 10475 NW 28th St., Doral, Fla.

The Web site shows the new address on or near NW 107th Ave., near the Miami International Airport. However, a check of Google Maps reveals that no such address exists. While there is a 28th Street in the area shown on Psystar's map, it's a one block long and it appears there is no 10475 address. Mapquest, however, shows that 10475 does exist.

Psystar explained the address changes this way: “We're in the process of moving to a new location which is now listed on our contact page. The first new address posted (10481) was in error and our correct address is 10475 NW 28th Street. PSYSTAR was, prior to this past week, not ready to handle the enormous production capacity demanded by the online community. Due to the incredible response, we have now expanded to a larger commercial unit to handle the supplies and assembly of Open Computers. THANK YOU for all of your orders.”

The site did not address the existence of the first address, which is a home in a residential neighborhood, or the 10471 address.

Card Processing Stopped

Several Miami-based readers of the Gizmodo blog went to the 10481 address and identified it as the location of a packing supply company called USA Koen Pack. According to Gizmodo, the owner said he had never heard of Psystar. According to The Guardian, neither has the Miami Better Business Bureau or the Chamber of Commerce. On Google Maps, that building appears to take up the entire length of 28th Street, and according to Gizmodo it takes up from 10481 to 10490.

Whatever the truth of the address, Psystar is sporting several other signs that it may not be legitimate. Users who attempted to buy a Mac clone on Wednesday received a message that Psystar was “currently unable to process any credit-card transactions.” Users were advised to send e-mail to support@psystar.com for updates on credit-card processing.

On its Web site, Psystar explains: “Midday yesterday our store was not receiving any orders. This was due to the fact that our merchant gateway, Powerpay, dropped the ball on us and refused to process any more transactions from our company. We have reverted to Paypal until we can find a high-volume merchant. Apparently Powerpay was not ready to handle the community's demand for Open Computing.”

“Is this company run by high school kids?” asked ZDNet blogger Larry Dignan. “How about taking Visa like most legit vendors? In any case, I'd steer clear from this mess until Psystar proves itself.”

WASHINGTON - Microsoft Corp. has yet to convince Yahoo Inc. to agree to a friendly takeover, but the software company is already hiring lobbyists to help it convince regulators to let the deal — hostile if it has to be — go through.

Software company Microsoft Corp., bracing for a regulatory squabble in its takeover bid, recently hired Bryan Cave Strategies LLC to lobby the federal government on the proposed multibillion-dollar deal.

The firm disclosed the information on a registration form filed online Tuesday by the Senate’s public records office.

Microsoft announced the unsolicited offer of $31 per share, or more than $40 billion, in February for slumping Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Yahoo, which rejected the initial bid and is seeking alternatives. Options include an experimental advertising alliance with Google Inc. that could lead to a long-term partnership and, according to published reports, a combination with online operations of Time Warner Inc.’s AOL.

Yahoo has not yet disclosed whether it’s hired outside consultants on the bid. But Google, which also opposes the deal, recently tapped Franklin Square Group LLC, run by two top Democratic lobbyists, to help with “competition issues in the Internet industry,” according to a disclosure form.

A message to one of the lobbyists was not returned while Google spokesman Adam Kovacevich said the company does not comment on its lobbying activities.

Bryan Cave’s president, Broderick Johnson, is registered to lobby for Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft. A veteran Capitol Hill staffer, he also served in the White House legislative affairs office from 1998 to 2000. Until 2007, he was vice president for congressional affairs for AT&T Inc. and BellSouth Corp.

Johnson, who is an attorney, has “developed deep relationships” with House and Senate Democratic leaders and several committee chairmen, including those in the House and Senate Judiciary committees, according to his profile on the firm’s Web site. Both judiciary committees will likely examine antitrust issues related to the Microsoft deal.

A message left for Johnson were not returned.

Waldo McMillan, who served as business affairs and strategic outreach counsel to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., from 2004 to 2007, is also listed to lobby for the company.

Microsoft spokeswoman Ginny Terzano declined to comment on what the firm will specifically lobby on and whether the company plans to hire other firms to help lift the deal over regulatory hurdles.

She wrote in an e-mail the company does not comment on outside consultants, but added Microsoft has “a responsibility to engage with policymakers on issues that impact our products, customers shareholders and the industry overall.”

Lobbyists are required to disclose activities that could influence members of the executive and legislative branches, under a federal law enacted in 1995. They must register with Congress within 45 days of being hired or engaging in lobbying.

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD.N) on Thursday posted its sixth consecutive quarterly net loss as it bleeds market share to far larger rival Intel Corp, even as Intel and other high-tech companies like IBM have so far posted generally positive earnings reports.

AMD, which was held back by a chip glitch that has now been fixed and hurt by other factors, said its first-quarter net loss actually narrowed to $358 million, or 59 cents a share, from $611.0 million, or $1.11 a share, a year ago.

Revenue advanced 22 percent to $1.51 billion from $1.23 billion.

AMD, based in Sunnyvale, California, warned on April 7 that it would cut 10 percent of its work force, or about 1,680 jobs, and gave a first-quarter revenue estimate below expectations, sending its shares down as much as 5 percent that day.

Citing far lower-than-expected sales across its businesses, AMD estimated revenue for the quarter ended March 29 at about $1.5 billion, well below the average analyst forecast at the time of $1.62 billion, according to Reuters Estimates.

Shares of AMD have fallen 55 percent in the last 12 months, based on Wednesday's closing prices, compared with a 7 percent gain for Intel (INTC.O). The Philadelphia Stock Exchange Semiconductor Index (.SOXX) is down 22 percent over the same period.

Intel stock trades about 3.0 times its estimated sales in calendar 2008, compared with 0.55 for AMD, according to Reuters Estimates.

(Reporting by Duncan Martell, editing by Richard Chang)

SEATTLE (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp Chief Executive Steve Ballmer may be experiencing a case of bidder's remorse after making an unsolicited $42.3 billion offer to buy Yahoo Inc.

Speaking to a group of nearly 2,000 Microsoft enthusiasts at a technology conference in Seattle, Ballmer asked how many people use Yahoo as their primary Web search engine.

Only a handful of arms went up — fewer than for Microsoft's Windows Live search. The overwhelming majority raised their hands for Google Inc, which Microsoft is seeking to challenge as an online advertising powerhouse.

After the tepid response for Yahoo's search, Ballmer said jokingly: “Wow! We offered 31 bucks a share.”

Yahoo and Microsoft, which rank No. 2 and 3 in Web search respectively, are at a stand-off. Microsoft has said its $31 a share offer is fair, while Yahoo has said the cash-and-stock offer significantly undervalues the company.

(Reporting by Daisuke Wakabayashi, editing by Richard Chang)

Researchers have built the world’s smallest transistor - one atom thick and 10 atoms wide - out of a material that could one day replace silicon.

The transistor, essentially an on/off switch, has been made using graphene, a two-dimensional material first discovered only four years ago.

Graphene is a single layer of graphite, which is found in the humble pencil.

The transistor is the key building block of microchips and the basis for almost all electronics.

Dr Kostya Novoselov and Professor Andre Geim from The School of Physics and Astronomy at The University of Manchester have been leading research into the potential application of graphene in electronics and were the first to separate a sheet of the material from graphite

Super material

Graphene has been hailed as a super material because it has many potential applications. It is a flat molecule, with only the thickness of an atom, and both very stable and robust.

The researchers are also looking at its use in display technology - because it is transparent.

The Manchester-based scientists have shown that graphene can be carved into tiny electronic circuits with individual transistors not much larger than a molecule.

Dr Novoselov told BBC News that graphene had many advantages over silicon because it could conduct electricity faster and further.

“These transistors will work and work at ambient, room temperature conditions - just what is required for modern electronics,” he said.

Dr Novoselov said graphene was a “wonderful conductor”, making it a perfect material for chip applications.

“It is already superior to silicon by an order of magnitude and comparable to the best samples of other materials.

“We believe we can increase this mobility of electron flow 10-fold.”

Graphene is a hot topic among semiconductor researchers at the moment because it is an excellent conductor of electricity. Unlike silicon graphene transistors perform better the smaller they become.

Leak electricity

The global semiconductor business is currently built on sand; stamping out microchips from large silicon wafers.

Companies like Intel have a roadmap to reduce the size of circuits on the silicon wafer, down to about 10 nanometres - 10,000 times smaller than the width of a single human hair.

Many researchers believe that producing circuits smaller than 10 nanometres in silicon will be too difficult because they start to leak electricity at that size.

That current silicon roadmap is expected to end in 2020, making the race to find alternative materials potentially very lucrative.

Producing graphene sheets big enough to be used as wafers for chip production remained the biggest hurdle, said Dr Novoselov.

“We can control the cut down to 20 nanometres. And then when we have to scale down to one nanometre we use a bit of luck.

“The yield of the working devices is about 50%.”

Many researchers around the world are working on creating large wafers of graphene.

In order to produce microchips wafers would need to be several inches across. The biggest wafer produced so far is 100 microns across, just a tenth of a millimetre.

“I do believe we will find the technology to do this. And when we do silicon will be replaced by graphene,” said Dr Novoselov.

Professor Bob Westervelt, in an assessment of the material and its future application in the journal Science, wrote: “Graphene is an exciting new material with unusual properties that are promising for nanoelectronics.

“The future should be very interesting.”

Dr Novoselov added: “Given the material was first obtained by us four years ago, we are making good progress.”

He said the process of using graphene to build circuits was very compatible with silicon technology.

“At the moment we use all the same steps to make a transistor as is done by the silicon industry. So once we have large wafers of graphene it should be straightforward to use the same process.”

But it might be another 10 years before the first integrated circuits on graphene chips appear, he said.

Shorter term

In the shorter term graphene could be used in LCD displays to replace materials used to create transparent conductive coatings.

“The computer screen relies on good transparent conductors. But current materials are expensive and hard to produce.

“Graphene is only one atom thin so is absolutely transparent - it’s a really wonderful conductor.

“We propose to use it as a transparent conductor, using small interconnecting graphene sheets all together.”

The material is also being touted for use in solar panels, transparent window coatings and also for sensing technologies.

Dr Kostya Novoselov and Professor Andre Geim from The School of Physics and Astronomy at The University of Manchester presented their findings in the 17 April issue of Science.

As Phorm Inc. built a system that watches consumers’ Web surfing in order to deliver targeted advertising, CEO Kent Ertugrul believed the British company was doing everything possible to respect, and actually enhance, Internet privacy.

Phorm even won approval from a noted privacy activist. And in the meantime, NebuAd Inc., a company with a similar technology, started working in the U.S. without much furor.

Yet guess what greeted Phorm’s emergence this year: A privacy outcry.

Blogs with names like BadPhorm and Dephormation sprung up to advocate boycotts of companies working with Phorm. Internet policy analysts argue that it violates British wiretap laws.

The opposition probably won’t stop Phorm. British officials have affirmed its legality. But the underlying story is a cautionary tale. As marketers try to pinpoint Internet advertising more effectively, Phorm’s experience indicates how deeply privacy perceptions matter.

Phorm and NebuAd have a high bar to acceptance, because their technologies sound intrusive.

Although these companies operate in slightly different ways, both work with Internet service providers to scan their customers’ Web traffic. By analyzing the consumers’ surfing patterns, Phorm and NebuAd determine which advertisements are likely to interest them.

So if you visit several sites with reviews and prices for Jaguar autos, NebuAd or Phorm can consider you a potential Jaguar buyer. Then sites that participate in the ad networks created by NebuAd or Phorm can be triggered to show you an ad for Jaguars or competing cars, while someone else sees a different ad.

Both companies say that while their Web detectors are attuned to whether someone is interested in, say, a Jaguar, they don’t register visits to sites related to “sensitive” subjects like health or sex. They also don’t read e-mails, banking sessions or postings on social networking sites.

Also, NebuAd and Phorm do not track consumers by name, but rather by long strings of digits that are considered impossible to reverse-engineer so as to determine their source. NebuAd generates its number by running a consumer’s Internet Protocol address through a cryptographic system known as a one-way hash. Phorm uses another approach that creates a random string that changes from session to session.

Privacy advocates point out that with enough data, even anonymous profiles can be exposed as belonging to particular people. After all, there are only so many people who have plumbed the Web for information on cats, Chevrolets, porch swings, pool tables and trips to Zanzibar.

But Phorm doesn’t let consumer fingerprints get that detailed. It will discard a marketing profile that isn’t shared by at least 5,000 other people, Ertugrul said. NebuAd says it also has a cutoff but won’t disclose it.

Phorm’s protections pleased Simon Davies, founder of watchdog Privacy International. After Phorm hired Davies’ consulting business, 80/20 Thinking Ltd., to review its practices, Davies pronounced the technology “privacy friendly.”

In contrast, Davies noted, search engines retain detailed logs of their users’ queries, often for years. “Google and other companies have deployed technologies far worse than anything Phorm could have ever dreamt up,” he said.

One difference is that search engines provide a clear service, while the purported consumer benefits of personalized ad networks are hazier. NebuAd and Phorm argue that people are tired of being bombarded with irrelevant ads. The companies also contend more free content would flourish if better targeting made Web advertising more lucrative.

While Davies found Phorm’s technology itself inoffensive, he said Internet service providers should clearly disclose the system to their customers and get their permission.

British regulators have reached a similar conclusion, clearing ISPs with 70 percent of the country’s broadband market — British Telecom, Virgin Media and Carphone Warehouse — to soon deploy Phorm’s technology. It remains to be seen whether excluding users unless they opt in will dramatically limit Phorm’s reach.

Still, opponents vow to keep fighting. They question whether ISPs will adequately explain the service when seeking subscribers’ consent. The critics also say that even with customers’ agreement, Phorm could violate British surveillance laws because parties sending communications have to consent as well.

Meanwhile, NebuAd’s system is already scanning the traffic of 10 percent of the United States’ broadband subscribers. NebuAd won’t list the ISPs it’s working with, other than CenturyTel Inc., which serves 530,000 broadband subscribers. NebuAd’s system runs unless subscribers specifically opt out, and it’s unclear how the ISPs are informing customers it exists.

Why relatively little fuss about it?

Richard Clayton, a Phorm critic with the Foundation for Information Policy Research, detects cultural differences. “Americans are used to having their personal data bought and sold in a way that is entirely unlawful within Europe,” he noted in an e-mail.

NebuAd has also kept quieter than Phorm, which is a publicly traded company.

Yet there’s a bit more going on. In a now-abandoned incarnation, Phorm was 121 Media Inc., a provider of ad technology commonly derided as spyware. Also, British Telecom’s initial trials with Phorm weren’t disclosed to customers.

Deserved or not, those strikes against Phorm’s reputation haven’t helped a technology with a potential creepiness factor.

The hurdle was apparent when Davies’ firm gave Phorm its first privacy assessment.

“There is a serious risk that the product will be perceived as invasive,” the report said. “The fact of having one’s Web activity analyzed will, in the minds of some, be an intrusive act, regardless of legal analysis.”

___

On the Net:

U.K. government’s April 8 ruling on Phorm:

http://tinyurl.com/5m69mx

My home computer desk hosts a snarl of USB cables for the various cameras, MP3 players and other peripherals I’ve bought over the years.

All-in-one memory-card readers help me get around this tangled mess, but I’ve been longing for the day when my digital photos would just magically appear on my hard drive.

With the $99 Eye-Fi card, that day has finally arrived.

The card looks just like a standard 2-gigabyte SD card, but its embedded Wi-Fi circuitry allows it to wirelessly connect to a router and upload pictures to a computer or Internet sharing site — without my having to stop what I was doing.

Taking pictures is no different than with a standard SD card, and I noticed no added delay between shutter snaps.

Setup is easy. Just insert the Eye-Fi into the provided USB card reader and plug it into an available port. Once the preloaded Eye-Fi Manager software transfers from the card to the computer, it’s time to choose a wireless network and, if required, a network password.

If a wireless network requires a username besides a password — which is common at a public Wi-Fi hotspot or on a secure corporate network — you’re out of luck. The software wants only a WEP or WPA encryption key.

That’s a shame, as I’d love to use this card to instantly transfer the photos I take for stories when I return to my desk.

But the Eye-Fi works great on what it was designed for — the wireless home network — and for transmitting pictures from inside the house and nearby. Elsewhere, it functions like any other memory card.

The software lets you choose a hard drive folder to store your photos, but you can also have them appear on a growing list of Internet-based photo sharing sites including Facebook, Shutterfly and Picasa, and online retailers such as RitzPix, Costco and Wal-Mart.

To begin moving photos, make sure the Eye-Fi Manager software is running and turn on the camera within a reasonable distance from your router.

While my laptop computer considers itself in range of my router anywhere in my house, the Eye-Fi card wants to be either in the same room or one room away. A longer tether would be nice, but considering that the entire card is about a square inch, the shorter range is understandable.

Once the Eye-Fi card syncs with the router, photos automatically upload. Some cameras interpret this period as inactivity so you may need to adjust your camera’s power settings so it doesn’t shut off during a transfer, which with my Nikon and cable Internet connection took about 6 seconds a photo.

Web site user names and passwords are stored on the card so pictures can upload to the Web — if that’s the option you choose — even when your computer is turned off. The Eye-Fi software also can automatically resize pictures to meet a Web site’s requirements.

The Eye-Fi costs considerably more than a standard 2 gigabyte memory card, but the extra $70 or $75 is reasonable for cutting all those ties that bind. If they could make it work with Wi-Fi hotspots and corporate networks, it’d be even better.

___

On the Net:

Eye-Fi: http://www.eye.fi/

As two U.S. cities take over networks that were built out by EarthLink, they are putting the “municipal” back in municipal Wi-Fi.

Corpus Christi, Texas, and Milpitas, California, each voted on Tuesday to take back networks that EarthLink built or expanded and later sought to unload. The struggling Internet service provider ran into trouble trying to build Wi-Fi systems at no cost to cities and make its investment back through subscriptions.

Now both cities are giving up on commercial service and returning the focus to government applications and free public hotspots. The moves reflect a more cautious approach to municipal wireless that has been advocated by some industry observers.

Corpus Christi built its network initially for automated meter reading, then in March 2007 sold it to EarthLink, which expanded the system to serve nongovernment users. EarthLink sold monthly subscriptions to residents and short-term daily plans to consumers for use in public places, such as the city's airport.

Once it takes over the expanded network, the city will drop subscription service and dedicate the network to its own uses, said John Sendejar, acting general manager of the wireless project at the city. Those will include surveillance, restaurant inspections and free access in public hotspots. The city will make access at the airport free and also offer free service all around its marina for tenants there, he said. Some radios in residential areas will be moved to better serve the new uses.

“It has still a lot of possibilities that have been unexplored,” Sendejar said.

With the network now in its hands, the city expects its annual maintenance costs for the infrastructure, now about US$250,000, to grow to $300,000. That's well worth the benefits, he said. “We feel that we got an excellent investment back,” Sendejar said.

Milpitas began its own small Wi-Fi system in 2003, but EarthLink built a network from scratch after making a deal with the city in 2006. EarthLink put in 311 access points, covering a majority of the city's residential and commercial area, said Milpitas Information Services Director Bill Marion. The city's original 60-node network, still in operation, will eventually be merged with the former EarthLink system, he added.

Like Corpus Christi, Milpitas will drop consumer subscriptions but provide free access in popular public places around the city. Milpitas has also used the network for a variety of city functions, such as building inspections and police work, on a secured portion of the network. Using existing crews to maintain the infrastructure, Marion doesn't expect any special ongoing costs other than about $700 per year for electricity. The dalliance with EarthLink worked out well, he said.

“We wouldn't have had the resources to build out the network to the extent that EarthLink did,” Marion said. The city may even look to make a deal with another commercial service provider for residential service in the future, since that partner wouldn't bear the cost of building the network, he said.

The meltdown of EarthLink's free-network business was a stark reminder that cities have to play a role in municipal Wi-Fi projects, either as the owner or as an anchor tenant, industry analysts said.

“The city has to make some kind of financial contribution,” said Esme Vos, founder of industry blog MuniWireless.com.

There is a new wave of successful networks coming together, including in Minneapolis and Santa Monica, California, according to independent municipal network analyst Craig Settles. Some were built by private service providers and some by government, but they all have a financial foundation apart from trying to sell services to individuals, he said. That can be a government cost savings, an operator's contract to sell services to the city, or a variety of public and private anchor tenants.

“The general consumer has clouded a lot of the discussion over the last couple of years,” Settles said. It turns out that the go-anywhere Internet access that generated so much consumer attention to municipal Wi-Fi is best thought of as a side benefit, he said.

Remember the hacked MacBook Air at the CanSecWest security conference a few weeks ago? Apple has fixed the flaw that let Independent Security Evaluator researcher Charlie Miller gain unauthorized access to the machine as part of the Pwn 2 Own hacking contest.

Apple issued a security patch for its Safari Web browser, the vector that opened the door to Miller and his team of expert hackers. Miller won $10,000 for his feat, and now Apple has made sure that malicious attackers can't repeat the performance and walk off with much more through scams.

The flaw was in the Webkit open-source HTML rending engine Safari and several other Mac OS X programs use. The problem was the way Webkit processed certain specially crafted JavaScript commands. Miller exploited the flaw by using the Safari browser to visit a Web site containing malicious code.

Apple's Quick Turnaround

“It's encouraging to see a quick turnaround time from Apple as they patched Charlie Miller's exploit approximately three weeks after it was reported to them following the Pwn 2 Own contest at CanSecWest. Would it have been patched in three weeks had the contest not received such a high degree of media attention?” asked Michael Sutton, a security researcher at SafeChannel and former VeriSign iDefense director. “Probably not.”

Whether you agree or disagree with such contests, Sutton said, it's difficult to argue that they don't focus attention on software vulnerabilities in widely used software and put pressure on vendors to patch quickly. Sutton hopes such a quick patch cycle becomes the rule rather than the exception.

Safari for Windows Also Fixed

Beyond Webkit, the Safari 3.1.1 for Windows XP or Vista had a timing issue that allows a Web page to change the contents of the address bar without loading the contents of the page.

This could be used to spoof a legitimate site, Apple said, allowing user credentials or other information to be gathered. The fix addresses the issue by restoring the address-bar contents if a request for a new Web page is terminated. This issue does not affect Mac OS X systems.

Also in the Windows version of Safari, memory corruption was an issue in file downloading. By enticing a user to download a file with a maliciously crafted name, Apple said, an attacker could cause an unexpected application termination or arbitrary code execution. The fix addresses the issue through improved handling of file downloads. Again, this issue does not affect Mac OS X systems.

New Version of Mozilla

Meanwhile, Mozilla patched a single critical vulnerability in Firefox's JavaScript engine. The latest version of the open-source browser, 2.0.0.1.4, patches the bug for stability reasons, but Mozilla did not rule out that attackers could leverage crashes in JavaScript's garbage collector.

“We have no demonstration that this particular crash is exploitable, but are issuing this advisory because some crashes of this type have been shown to be exploitable in the past,” the advisory said.

Thunderbird shares the browser engine with Firefox and could be vulnerable if JavaScript is enabled for e-mail. This is not the default setting, and Mozilla strongly discourages users from running JavaScript in e-mail. Without further investigation, the organization said, Mozilla cannot rule out the possibility that an attacker might be able to exploit memory through some means other than JavaScript, such as large images.

DES MOINES, Iowa - Pioneer Hi-Bred International, a division of DuPont Co., bought a stake in an online marketing service that connects farmers with grain buyers, the companies said.

Farms Technology LLC, a privately held Overland Park, Kan., company that offers procurement applications over the Internet, said it boosts farmers’ profit potential by enabling them to market their grain directly to numerous buyers to get the best price.

Buyers, including ethanol plants and feedlot owners, can log onto the Internet site to bid on grain offered for sale.

Financial details of Pioneer’s investment in Farms Technology were not released.

The pair recently partnered to develop a new online service, called MarketPoint, and a pilot launched in February for corn growers and ethanol plants in Nebraska.

Growers with more than 60 million bushels of grain for sale registered on the site. The list of buyers that have registered include food processors, ethanol companies and grain cooperatives in North Dakota, Nebraska, Minnesota, Iowa, Kansas and Wisconsin, the companies said.

“The purchase of this equity stake in Farms Technology shows that we are making a long-term commitment to this unique and expanding business,” said Paul Schickler, Pioneer’s president. “As grain markets expand, we see this involvement as a way to help customers increase their income and drive seed sales.”

Farms Technology was formed in 2001. CEO Jason Tatge said participating growers have shown they can make more money through MarketPoint than using traditional marketing.

___

On the Net: MarketPoint: http://www.marketpoint.pioneer.com

Farms Technology: http://www.farmstech.com

DuPont Co.: http://www.dupont.com

Pioneer Hi-Bred International: http://www.pioneer.com