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IBM has released software that allows BlackBerry users to access more of its applications, including its Cognos business intelligence software and Lotus Connections.

It's part of an ongoing trend toward providing mobile access to enterprise applications, and comes two weeks after a similar announcement from SAP, which said it was building a version of its CRM (customer relationship management) software for the device.

“We think this is a trend that is happening in the industry where you're taking enterprise applications and wanting to carry them around on a handheld as well as get them on laptops,” said Kevin Cavanaugh, vice president of Lotus software for IBM.

The developments are also good for BlackBerry maker Research In Motion, which has a new competitor emerging in the workplace in the form of Apple's iPhone. The iPhone has been popular mostly with consumers so far, but Apple has said it plans to add native support for Microsoft Exchange as its starts to build an enterprise push.

BlackBerry users now have access to IBM's Cognos 8 Go software, a version of the business intelligence software designed for the BlackBerry. IBM completed its acquisition of Cognos earlier this year.

Other IBM software that runs on the device includes Lotus Notes 8.01, the WebSphere portal and dashboard software, and the latest version of Sametime, the instant messaging client. Lotus Connections lets users view blogs and wikis created by co-workers.

Users of the IBM software will need to visit a Web page from their Blackberry and download a small application that allows them to access the IBM software.

Comcast will acquire social-networking company Plaxo to power upcoming community features on its TV, broadband data and phone services.

The Mountain View, California, startup will help Comcast build social-networking capabilities that subscribers will reach through the U.S. cable giant's SmartZone Communications Center, said Comcast spokeswoman Jennifer Khoury.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Comcast expects the acquisition of privately held Plaxo to close in the next two months, Khoury said. The companies have already been working together in developing SmartZone, which is due to become available later this year, she said.

Plaxo will add community capabilities to cross-platform services that can bring into play all three of Comcast's basic platforms, Khoury said. For example, subscribers will be able to go into a set of contacts stored on Smartzone, pick out a friend to share photos with, and let that friend view the photos on TV via Comcast cable service.

Comcast has about 25 million cable TV subscribers and 14 million Internet subscribers. Battling to get consumers to identify with, spend time with, and remain loyal to them, service providers and entertainment companies alike are tapping into social networking.

Plaxo is just one of many social-networking sites that have sprung up on the Web in recent years. It allows automatic updates of business address-book information. Plaxo earlier this year signed on to the Google-led Open Social specifications aimed at making different social-networking services compatible.

All of Plaxo's approximately 50 employees will be absorbed into Comcast after the deal closes, Khoury said.

SAN FRANCISCO - Billionaire investor Carl Icahn reportedly plans to try overthrowing Yahoo’s entire board to clear the way for Microsoft to renew its attempt to buy Yahoo.

Icahn, who acquired about 50 million Yahoo shares this month will nominate an alternate slate of 10 directors for election at the company’s annual meeting in July, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday evening in a story that cited an unnamed person close to the matter.

Yahoo has set a Thursday deadline for submitting the alternate nominees.

Icahn didn’t immediately return calls seeking comment.

Icahn hopes to capitalize on a shareholder backlash against the Yahoo board’s handling of Microsoft Corp.’s unsolicited takeover bid.

Microsoft dropped the bid after orally offering $47.5 billion, or $33 per share, only to be told Yahoo’s board wanted $53 billion, or $37 per share.

SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) - A US judge has ordered a pair of accused spammers to pay MySpace about 230 million dollars in what was being billed Wednesday as a record-setting punishment for such Internet abuses.

Federal district court judge Audrey Collins issued a judgment against Sanford Wallace and Walter Rines this week after they didn't show up in her California courtroom for a hearing in the case.

News Corp-owned MySpace accused the pair of using their own or other customers' MySpace accounts to deluge the online community with email that tricked them into linking to sales pitches or websites that earned the men “per hit” payments.

Some of the websites contained “adult material” that put its young users in jeopardy, MySpace said in court documents.

Wallace and Rines crafted emails to appear as though they were from friends of users of the social networking site whose messages could be trusted, according to court filings.

The two men were accused of sending more than 725,000 email messages to MySpace members in violation of US anti-spam law.

MySpace use has climbed in the past year while spam at the website has decreased, signaling that efforts such as the lawsuit are helping reduce the problem, MySpace chief security officer Hemanshu Nigam told AFP.

“We thank the court for serving justice upon defendants Wallace and Rines and we remain committed to punishing those who violate the law and try to harm our members,” Nigam wrote in response to questions.

“MySpace has zero tolerance for those who attempt to act illegally on our site.”

TOKYO (Reuters) - Shares of Sony Corp (6758.T) opened 10 percent higher on Thursday after it forecast a bigger-than-expected operating profit this financial year as it aims to boost flat TV sales and wipe away losses on the PlayStation 3.

Sony's stock first traded at 5,350 yen, up 10.3 percent. It was up 9.5 percent at 5,310 yen as of 0032 GMT (8:32 p.m. EDT), compared with the benchmark Nikkei average's (.N225) 0.9 percent gain.

Sony said on Wednesday that it suffered an operating loss of 4.7 billion yen in January-March as the weak stock market ate into the value of securities held by its finance arm. The result fell short of an average estimate of a 27.3 billion yen profit from five analysts surveyed by Reuters.

But Sony said it expected operating profit to grow 20 percent to 450 billion yen in the year to March 2009, beating the market consensus of 428.5 billion yen. The upbeat outlook comes despite hurdles such as a slowing U.S. economy and a stronger yen.

After the earnings announcement, Nomura Securities lifted its rating on Sony to “strong buy” from “buy.”

Sony, locked in a three-way battle with Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O) and Nintendo Co Ltd (7974.OS) in the game industry, has been able to narrow losses on the PlayStation 3 game console by cutting manufacturing costs and expanding sales.

The electronics and entertainment conglomerate has also enjoyed strong sales of Cyber-shot digital cameras, VAIO PCs and Handycam camcorders, helping push its operating profit up more than five-fold in the full year that ended on March 31.

(Reporting by Nathan Layne; Editing by Hugh Lawson)

Virgin Mobile USA is in talks with SK Telecom over a possible deal involving Helio, the U.S. mobile operator that gears itself toward affluent youngsters but has struggled to make a profit since its launch.

The talks, which could potentially lead to an acquisition or an investment, are in the early stages, and Virgin said Wednesday that it didn't expect to comment further unless an agreement is reached.

Helio was founded by SK Telecom and EarthLink in 2005 and launched the following year. It is known as a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) because it rents capacity from a third party rather than owning its own network. SK Telecom became the majority owner after EarthLink reduced its ownership to 22 percent last year.

Both SK Telecom and EarthLink have sunk hundreds of millions of dollars into Helio, which continues to post losses despite boasting some of the best customer spending and usage metrics in the mobile industry.

At the end of last year, Helio said its users spent more than US$85 per month, compared with an industry average of $50. Helio customers send an average of 550 text messages per month, and 95 percent of Helio users access the Web from their phones, the company said at the time.

Still, EarthLink expected Helio to report a year-end loss for 2007 of as much as $360 million on revenue of as much as $170 million. That's after SK Telecom and EarthLink started the company with a combined $440 million. Since then, both companies have made additional investments in Helio.

Virgin Mobile USA's earnings for the first quarter were down from the same period a year earlier. It had 5.1 million subscribers in the first quarter, compared to Helio's 200,000 at the end of 2007. Like Helio, Virgin Mobile USA is also an MVNO, and both use Sprint's network to deliver their service.

The companies have different types of customers, however. While Helio is after big-spending mobile users, Virgin offers only prepaid services and targets people looking for a lower-cost service. Combining the companies could allow the new entity to offer both pre- and post-paid service and attract a wider spectrum of the market.

Helio and Virgin aren't the only struggling MVNOs. Amp'd, which was also geared toward young mobile users, filed for bankruptcy and then shut down last year. Other MVNOs such as ESPN Mobile and Disney Mobile have suffered similar fates. In addition, Qwest dealt a blow to the concept of MVNOs earlier this month when it decided to stop selling its own branded mobile service, using Sprint's network, and begin selling service branded by Verizon.

PHILADELPHIA - Comcast Corp. is buying contact management company Plaxo Inc. and plans to incorporate into all its offerings features intended to help people synchronize their address books and connect socially online.

The Philadelphia-based cable company said social networking and other services will be added to its Comcast.net, Fancast.com and Fandango.com Web sites. Cable subscribers eventually will also be able to access the services through their set-top boxes and other devices.

“We think the combination of Plaxo and Comcast together can supercharge both of our products,” said Sam Schwartz, executive vice president of Comcast Interactive Media. “Comcast is looking at Plaxo to become the social media backbone of its products.”

Plaxo, based in Mountain View, Calif., is a 50-employee company funded by investors ranging from Cisco Systems Inc. to former Yahoo Inc. CEO Tim Koogle.

The purchase price was not disclosed.

One Plaxo service lets users update the contact information their friends have on them automatically, by sending the updates to friends’ address books. Plaxo also operates a social networking site called Pulse. Plaxo says it has 15 million online accounts.

Plaxo Chief Executive Ben Golub said his company already manages address books on Comcast.net. Both companies hope to expand their services across different devices.

“Right now on Plaxo you have a lot of people who are sharing photos,” he said. “On Comcast, you … also share them with your grandmother when she turns on the TV.”

He was referring to the ability to post photos on comcast.net for other subscribers to see.

The acquisition is part of Comcast’s strategy to strengthen its online presence. The nation’s largest cable operator has been steadily adding features to Comcast.net, its main e-mail portal.

It also developed an entertainment site called Fancast and now owns the Fandango movie and ticketing site.

Shares of Comcast rose 28 cents to $22.37 on Wednesday.

NEW YORK - The company that runs many of the Internet’s core directory systems has won a patent for its controversial service that helps Internet users find sites even when they mistype addresses.

VeriSign Inc. said it has no intentions of resurrecting the Site Finder service, but it declined further comment on its plans for the patent, including bloggers’ speculation that it could now demand licensing fees from EarthLink Inc. and other companies that have since started similar efforts.

Normally, when you mistype a Web address, perhaps switching two letters, a generic error message often appears.

Site Finder sought to help guide surfers mistyping “.com” or “.net” names — which VeriSign runs — by offering a list of likely alternatives, including pay-for-placement listings for which VeriSign got a share of revenues when users clicked on one.

Although Time Warner Inc.’s AOL, Microsoft Corp.’s Internet Explorer browser and others already offered similar services, VeriSign was criticized when it launched Site Finder in 2003 because of the influence the company already had as the keeper of the traffic-control directories containing all “.com” and “.net” names.

VeriSign agreed to suspend the service under mounting pressure. Despite the March 4 patent approval, the company says it “does not intend to relaunch related services.”

If VeriSign tries to demand licensing fees from others, patent lawyers could claim that similar services existed before Verisign’s was patented. In fact, VeriSign had cited those pre-existing services in justifying Site Finder.

Time Warner Cable Inc.’s Road Runner and Verizon Communications Inc. are among the service providers that have launched or tested such services to tap the growth in search advertising. OpenDNS also offers it to users of its free directory services crucial for translating a Web site’s domain name into its actual numeric Internet address.

EarthLink was recently criticized after security researchers discovered a vulnerability with its U.K.-based service partner, Barefruit. Officials say that the flaw was quickly fixed and that no users were harmed.

NEW YORK - Samsung Electronics is combining efforts with fellow Korean electronics maker LG Electronics to develop a new standard for mobile TV broadcasts, the companies announced Wednesday.

Harris Corp., an American broadcast technology company, will provide key elements of the technology, which will allow mobile devices such as cell phones to receive signals sent out by local TV stations.

That technology will be competing with two others to become the standard for mobile TV, a decision that rests with the TV industry’s technical standards-setting body for digital broadcasts.

One of the other standards is from the French video technology company Thomson. The third is from Qualcomm Inc., which developed the MediaFLO video service currently offered for a monthly fee on mobile phones by Verizon Wireless and AT&T Inc.

The TV industry wants to set a single standard for mobile TV broadcasts — and avoid a costly battle among them — but it probably will find the technology then must compete with other video technologies offered by cell phone carriers.

The standard-setting body, the Advanced Television Systems Committee, is expected to select a standard by early next year.

Mobile TV broadcasts are one of the ways broadcasters hope to capitalize on a federally mandated switch to all-digital signals. After Feb. 17, 2009, all regular analog broadcasts will stop and older, non-digital TVs not connected to cable will need a converter to display broadcasts.

The government is subsidizing purchases of converters with a coupon program, and each household can receive two. To request coupons, apply online at http://www.dtv2009.gov or call the 24-hour hotline, 1-888-DTV-2009 (1-888-388-2009).

SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) - Google said Wednesday it is blurring the faces of people in street scenes pictured at its free online mapping service.

The US Internet colossus said it was testing the technology in updated “Street View” pictures woven into its map of Manhattan and, if successful, would put it to work across its mapping website.

While blurring faces may reduce complaints that snapshots of street life posted with Google Maps results could violate people's privacy, that is not the motivation for applying the technology, a Google spokeswoman told AFP.

“It is something we have been looking into for quite some time,” she said.

“The purpose of Street View isn't looking at people, it's looking at buildings and locations. Obviously, we want to take steps in protecting people's privacy, but from the beginning we've been committed to doing this.”

Google has been working for a year on a way to automatically detect and blur faces in pictures, company software engineer Andrea Frome wrote in a Google blog post.

“Working at Street View-scale is a tough challenge that required us to advance state-of-the-art automatic face detection,” Frome wrote.

“We continue working hard to improve it as we roll it out for our existing and future imagery.”

Frome pointed out that Manhattan street view pictures were also modified to allow people to look up to admire skyscrapers and the cityscape.

Street View photos were added to Google online maps of major US cities a year ago.