Microsoft cuts contractor pay
Microsoft is cutting current contractor pay by 10% and future contractor pay by 15%.  The software giant’s CEO, Steve Ballmer, said that he plans to continue looking for ways that the company can reduce costs.  The company employs almost 96,000 people.
ComputerWorld

Facebook appeases angry users with new terms
Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of social networking site Facebook, is petitioning users on their opinions over a new set of governance principles created following criticism of their revised clauses of privacy and ownership of content on the site. 
Computer Weekly

Twitter traffic trebles
Web traffic analyst Hitwise says Twitter traffic more than trebled in 2009.  Traffic to the popular micro-blogging site has increased 27 fold, and though still small in comparison to Flickr and Photobucket, it is growing rapidly within the UK, partly due to high-profile users such as Stephen Fry, Jonathan Ross and Barack Obama.
Macworld

Mobile WiMAX market Up 5% in 4Q08; Cisco, Huawei Begin challenging market leaders
According to Infonetics Research the overall WiMAX equipment and device market held steady in 4Q08 over 3Q08 at $275 million, as the 802.16e mobile WiMAX segment increased 5% to counter a slight dip in the 802.16d fixed WiMAX segment.
Cellular News 

"Overheating" BlackBerry Bold pulled from sale 
The BlackBerry Bold has been pulled from sale in Japan amid reports the smartphone is overheating. Japan's biggest mobile phone operator, NTT DoCoMO, has halted sales of the device saying that it has received no reports of users getting burned or of phones catching fire.
PCPro

Vodafone and Microsoft in SME services love-in
Vodafone announced on Thursday that it would start to sell and manage Microsoft products such as email, calendars, portals, instant messaging and web conferencing tools, to small and medium-sized businesses through the computer, phone and browser.
Silicon

Symbian laptops coming soon?
The world’s number one mobile handset manufacturer, Nokia, reckons we’ll see the Symbian operating system running on laptops within the next five years. Nokia CEO, Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, revealed to Finnish national broadcaster, YLE, that his firm is looking "very actively" at the opportunity. Symbian could offer a number of advantages over established CPU OS, not least of which is the potential for superior battery life thanks to its optimisation for lower power consumption.
The Register

O2 reports 10% rise after selling 1m Apple iPhones
Apple’s iPhone has helped O2 buck the economic gloom and report a 10% rise in revenues. O2 grabbed 390,000 new mobile phone customers in the last three months of 2008, cementing its position as the UK's largest mobile phone company with 19.5 million users.
The Guardian

HP and Sun partner to launch Solaris

Sun and HP have agreed to a new deal which will see the Solaris software platform offered on HP's servers. Under the partnership, HP will bundle the Sun operating system on several of its ProLiant and blade server models. The companies also plan to work on future server models equipped with both Solaris and OpenSolaris.

VNUnet

 

UK government backs open source

The UK government has said it will accelerate the use of open source software in public services.

Open source software will be adopted "when it delivers best value for money", the government said. It added that public services should where possible avoid being "locked into proprietary software".

BBC News Online

 

Telefonica Q4 net profit up 89% but company lowers 2009 guidance

Madrid-based Telefonica, Spain's largest telecommunications company by market capitalisation and subscribers, said net profit for the fourth quarter rose to EUR2 billion, from EUR1.06 billion a year earlier, above analysts' expectations for net profit of EUR1.8 billion.

Total telecom

Carphone Warehouse To Axe 450 Jobs

Carphone Warehouse Group has announced that it will cut 450 jobs at its call centers and head office as part of a strategic review to identify cost savings. The planned job cuts won't affect the group's store staff or its fixed-line and broadband Talk Talk service, but rather the group's joint venture with Best Buy Co. Inc. (BBY).

CNN Money

 

Samsung to embed fring

Samsung is to pre-load the fring social networking app on its Omnia HD phone. The deal extends the partnership between the two firms: fring is a member of the Samsung Mobile Innovator programme and has already pre-loaded on the Samsung Innov8. Samsung OmniaHD is the Korean vendor's flagship new touchscreen device, and was unveiled last week at MWC.

Mobile Entertainment

 

Yahoo social networking guru joins the BBC as CTO

John Linwood, former Yahoo social networking guru, will join the BBC as the broadcaster's chief technology officer (CTO). Linwood will be responsible for delivering the BBC's technology strategy which includes maintaining the technical infrastructure behind the BBC.

Computing

 

Nokia to diversify its business?

Nokia CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo has confirmed the vendor's plans to put Symbian onto laptop computers. Nokia predicts that the converged devices are likely to appear in as little as five years from now.

IT Pro

 

Google stops unlocked G1 users buying apps

Google is stopping users who bought unlocked versions of the T-Mobile G1 handset from downloading copyright-protected apps for the phone. The handset is the first to run Google's Android Platform. The unlocked handset comes from particular operators and is priced at £280.

PC Advisor

 

Steve Jobs on target to return to Apple

Apple directors have confirmed that Steve Jobs is expected to return to the helm of the company in June, following his six month break.

VNUnet

 

Virtualisation's new frontier - the mobile phone

VMware has announced a mobile virtualisation platform (MVP) aimed at handset vendors to enable mobile users to choose between two different platforms or phone numbers on a single mobile handset, enabling users who had separate phones for work and for home to use both from a single device.

Network Word

Google mail users hit by global outage

For over two hours on Tuesday, Gmail was down, locking 113 million people and companies out of their e-mail accounts when Google’s e-mail service went offline for several hours.

The Times

 

Ballmer: Microsoft anticipating Android threat to desktop OS

Steve Ballmer has stated that Microsoft is very focused on Linux, Android and Mac OS X as key rivals, and believes that it will see Google as a growing force in desktop operating systems in the coming year.

Tech Radar

 

Social networks alter minds of young people, says neuroscientist

Neuroscientist Baroness Greenfield has stated that social networks create concerns around the 'infantilisation' of young minds, result in short attention spans, sensationalism and an inability to empathise.

New Media Age

 

Facebook sees audience grow by over 100% in 2008

Facebook grew its audience by 107% during the past 12 months to total 17.6m unique users in the UK, whilst MySpace and Bebo only achieved 7% and 6% growth respectively last year, according to Nielsen Online.

New Media Age

 

Google wants to get in on Microsoft antitrust case

Google has applied to be a “third-party” in the European Commissions antitrust case against Microsoft’s dominance of the web browser market. If granted Google will have access to confidential documents in the case and the ability to voice objections. The EU has already granted “third-party” access to Mozilla, the organisation behind Firefox.

Silicon

 

Motorola offloads mobile email platform

Motorola has announced the sale of its mobile email unit, Good Technology, to rival Visto for an undisclosed sum. The deal strengthens Visto's position as a provider of mobile email platforms to enterprises, mobile operators and OEM handset manufacturers. Motorola originally picked up Good Technology in 2006 to increase its presence in the enterprise space.

Telecoms.com

 

Microsoft unveils new kit at TechFest

Craig Mundie unveiled a bunch of new technologies at Microsoft's annual TechFest. Along with Commute UX, a system that enables drivers to interact vocally with in car devices and Situated Interaction, a project that weaves together multiple sensing, learning and reasoning components, Microsoft announced a new research organisation called Cloud Computing Futures that has the goal of reducing data centre costs by fourfold or greater, all while increasing reliability.

TechRadar

 

ID cards database breached by nosey council staff

The government’s controversial national ID cards programme received further backlash after routine checks revealed that staff at 30 local authorities had accessed the core database without business justification. The database, which contains information on nearly everyone in the UK, will form the core of the biometrics-based national identity register, under the government's ID cards programme.

Computer Weekly

 

Nokia hopes 1,000 staff will volunteer redundancy

Nokia will open applications for 1,000 voluntary redundancies on 1 March in an attempt to cut personnel related costs and involuntary redundancies. The offer will close either once 1,000 have applied or at the end of May.

Mobile

 

VeriSign promises DNSSEC patch to stop hacking

VeriSign has promised to deploy DNS Security Extensions - known as DNSSEC - across all of its top-level domains within two years. DNSSEC uses digital signatures and public-key encryption to allow websites to verify their domain names and corresponding IP addresses.  DNSSEC has been deployed on top-level domains operated by Sweden, Puerto Rico, Bulgaria, Brazil and the Czech Republic. .org and .gov are deploying DNSSEC later this year.

Techworld

Vodafone will cut 500 jobs in Britain

British mobile phone giant Vodafone announced to axe 500 jobs across the UK business as part of a cost-cutting programme that aims to reduce costs by £1 billion by March 2011.

BBC Online

 

Motorola confirms plan for 4G rollout in China

Motorola is pushing ahead with the development of time division duplex version of LTE that will move the Chinese 3G standard to 4G networks. The company will be working with operators on TD-LTE trials in China later this year. Full deployment is expected from Q4 2009 to mid-2010.

Electronics Weekly

 

UK IT spending holding up during recession

Despite the current economic downturn UK businesses spent more on hardware and software in the last three months of 2008 than at any period of the year. According to the Office of National Statistics (ONS) shows that UK IT spending held up far better than other sectors.

Computing

 

Europe a major beneficiary of AT&T's continued investment

AT&T has announced that it is to spend US$1 billion in 2009 as it continues to build out its global network and supply new services throughout Europe. AT&T will be will be investing in its Internet data centres and extending the reach of its Ethernet portfolio to seven more European markets.

Telecom TV

 

Microsoft reveals details of new Web browser Gazelle

Microsoft is developing a new web browser that could offer a far greater degree of security than Chrome, Mozilla's or Microsoft's current products. The browser relies on 5,000 lines of C# code called a "browser kernel" that helps enforce security rules to prevent malicious access to the PC's underlying operating system.

Computerworld

 

Yahoo plans new marketing tools

Yahoo is expected to unveil new tools intended to help marketeers better target their online ads. Various services include targeting graphical ads to users based on particular search terms executed in Yahoo's search engine and customizing the offers in the ads based on websites the user has visited.

CNET news

 

BlackBerry Management Software Rolls Out

BoxTone has announced that its latest monitoring, management, and support software for enterprise BlackBerry handsets can offer better load balances and decreased costs. BoxTone v4.0 is software that helps businesses manage, monitor, and support their deployment of BlackBerry Smartphones by analysing a company's BlackBerry Enterprise Server's performance.

Information Week

 

Virgin Media Upgrades 2Mbps Broadband Users to 10Mbps

This morning Virgin Media pledged to upgrade customers that still reside on its recently discontinued 2Mbps M broadband package to the faster speed of 10Mbps, without any charge. The move is due to Virgin Media’s recent network capacity upgrades, which included adding support for its new ultrafast 50Mbps product.

ISPreview

 

Visto snaps up Good Technology from Motorola

Motorola is to let go of its mobile messaging unit and will sell the Good Technology business it paid $500 million for just a couple of years ago to rival wireless email provider Visto Corp.

CBR online

 

Study reveals iPhone apps are instantly forgettable

A report by an analytics company, Pinch Media, reveals that of all the users who download free applications from the App Store, only 20% use the app the next day, whilst only 5% of users are still using an application a month after downloading it.

PC Pro

Universal mobile phone chargers by 2012

The world's major mobile phone manufacturers have agreed to develop a universal charger for all mobile phones. The new micro-USB design should use 50% less energy than the current products, and the plan is to adopt the new design for use by 2012.

Mobile Choice

 

Nokia invests in KongZhong

Nokia has invested in $6.8 million in Chinese content provider KongZhong Corporation. The non-binding agreement with Nokia Growth Partners is in the form of 5-year convertible senior notes.

Mobile Entertainment

 

Smartphones are go

Mobile phones that have professional-grade cameras, that allow you to mix your own music like a DJ, read you a book or newspaper, charge using sunlight or double up as wristwatches are just some of the gadgets that the mobile industry hopes will help it ride out the economic storm.

The Observer

 

Parents call on operators to help protect their children from harmful content on mobile phones

Nearly three quarters (72%) of British internet users are concerned that children are accessing harmful content online through their mobile phones, according to recent research.

Mobile Europe

 

BBC, ITV and BT's 'next generation Freeview' venture under review

The planned alliance follows the collapse of Project Kangaroo, the joint TV project between ITV, Channel 4 and BBC Worldwide, which was blocked by the Competition Commission earlier this month.

Marketing

 

ARM launches tiny 12k gate processor

ARM has developed a 12,000 gate CPU. The new 32-bit ARM Cortex-M0 is designed to power a microcontroller. Last year revenues from microcontrollers, which are useful for ultra-low-power Bluetooth, were the fastest-growing sector of ARM’s business overall, growing 80%.

Electronics Weekly.com

 

Mobile music revenues to reach $14.6bn by 2013 despite fall in ringtone sales, claims report

A sharp fall in ringtone revenues will be more than offset by growth in full-track downloads, streamed music services and ringback tones, according to a new report from Juniper Research which forecasts that global revenues from mobile music services will reach nearly $14.6bn by 2013.

European Communications

 

Yahoo boss readies revamp  

Yahoo's long-expected reorganisation under new chief executive Carol Bartz is expected to arrive this week, creating a new chief marketing officer position and forcing all senior executives to report directly to Bartz. In 2008, Yahoo lost market share in search advertising, while display ad sales have been badly hit by a global recession.

PCPro

 

Twitter turns to search to turn a profit?

Twitter, working to convert its popularity into a business, has begun to testing its search page use on the main Twitter.com page. Twitter search shows a strong reflection of what people collectively find interesting in the moment, which could be a nice avenue for advertisers trying to catch the latest trends.

Silicon.com

 

Microsoft asks laid-off workers for refund

Microsoft says it made an accounting error when it laid off 1,400 employees last month and now feels the best way to correct the error is with what seems likely to add up to a public-relations blunder.

Zdnet.co.uk

Vodafone tests 20Mbps mobile broadband
Vodafone is testing a 3G HSPA + mobile broadband connection capable of delivering maximum download speeds of 20 Mbps. Using technology from Qualcomm, Ericsson and Huawei, Vodafone claims to have achieved one of the fastest 3G data connections possible during field trials.
Computer Weekly

T-Mobile Offering $50 Unlimited Voice
T-Mobile is trialling a plan that allows unlimited voice calling for $50 a month, aimed at breaking the barrier of 'value for money' free minute allowance. If trials in San Francisco prove successful, they will roll out the price plan across the US.
Digital Trends

YouTube annotations now vandal-friendly
YouTube has launched a feature that will allow viewers to add annotations to films submitted by other users. The YouTube annotations feature lets you add text, labels and links to videos and users will be given a special link to share with friends to allow them to annotate your videos as you would. The launch has sparked concern of an increase in online vandalism.
Electricpig

Carphone Warehouse Eco mobile phone charger launches
Carphone Warehouse have launched The Eco - a mobile charger that works like any other but shuts off more or less completely once your handset has sufficient energy. This means no energy drain, more cash in your pocket and the added feel good feeling that you’re saving the planet.
T3

EU seeks to change Skype wiretapping laws
The EU is considering changing the law so that VoIP conversations using services such as Skype can be recorded during criminal investigations. This comes following a warning from Italian police that much of the country's crime is being organised via VoIP services.
PC Advisor

Ryanair launches in-flight mobile calls
Low cost airline Ryanair has launched an in-flight mobile phone service across 20 of its aircrafts. The airline aims to enable the service throughout its 170 aircrafts over the next 18 months, allowing all passengers to send and receive mobile calls and texts. Passengers will be charged up to £3 per minute for a call, around 40p to text and up to £2 to email from their mobile, Blackberry or other smartphones.
New Media Age
 
Intel targets cloud with chip upgrades
Intel is making a push into cloud computing with forthcoming changes in its Nehalem server line aimed at large datacentre deployments. As part of that initiative, earlier this week the company outlined hardware and software updates that will lead to energy savings and offer the scalability necessary for cloud-computing services.
Computer World UK

Google touts offline Gmail for iPhone
Google has demonstrated a version of Gmail for the iPhone that allows users to browse and read emails even when the phone had no network connection. This follows on from Google’s January release of an offline version of Gmail for desktops and laptops. Offline applications can't of course retrieve new data from the network but they do synchronise when network access is restored.
Silicon.com

Nokia selects Broadcom as next-generation 3G chipset supplier
Nokia has selected Broadcom, a supplier of semiconductors for wired and wireless communications, as a next-generation 3G baseband, radio frequency and mixed signal chipset system supplier for worldwide markets. The two parties will co-operate on technology, including Nokia modem technology.
CRB mobility

Barcelona pickpocket makes off with Microsoft's new mobile phone
A prototype mobile phone loaded with Microsoft software built to rival Apple’s iPhone was filched from an executive’s pocket during an evening function at the Mobile World Congress. The stolen phone had been given its debut at a press conference on Monday and contained software which would "allow every person in the world to access information and participate in the knowledge economy".
The Times

O2 wins carbon savings award
O2 has become the first operator to be officially certified with Carbon Trust Standard. O2 said the reward was recognition of its commitment to reduce its carbon footprint. The operator has made a 15% reduction in energy consumption over the past three years.
Mobile News

Nokia Secures European Lone for Symbian R&D
Nokia has completed a EUR 500 million loan agreement with the European Investment Bank to part-finance software research and development projects over the course of the next five years. The funds will be used to advance projects during 2009-2011 to develop its Symbian-based smartphones.
Cellular News

Nintendo gives DSi launch date
The Japanese computer games giant Nintendo today announced an April 3 launch date and a price of “around £149” for its latest handheld games console, the Nintendo DSi. The DSi is the company’s latest refinement of its phenomenally successful DS console, which has sold over 98 million units since its launch in late 2004, 9 million of them in the UK alone.
The Times

New Bluetooth standards to bring speed and energy efficiency
Although Bluetooth technology is commonly used for syncing up mobile devices with headsets or for wirelessly networking PCs with mice and printers, the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) is working on two new standards that will make the technology both faster and more energy-efficient. Mike Foley, executive director of the Bluetooth SIG, says the specifications will greatly expand the types of applications that can utilise Bluetooth for wireless communications.
Macworld

Nokia unveils N86 8-megapixel cameraphone with Carl Zeiss optics
Nokia is delivering a potentially paradigm shifting N86 cameraphone with a camera they claim has SLR-like optics and is good enough to replace your current compact digital one. With 8GB of internal storage, and a lens system from Carl Zeiss, this device can capture still images at 8 mega pixels, as well as 640x480 video 30 frames per second. The camera has a F2.4 aperture (so it's able to handle low light conditions) and includes a high intensity dual LED flash. Nokia is also using internal GPS to geo-tag all the photos.
Gizmag

Smartphones driving interest in Mobile Games
Smartphones are driving the mobile games market, led by the iPhone. ComScore/M:Metrics reports that the number of mobile game downloaders grew 17% between Nov 2007 and Nov 2008, however non-smartphone gaming dipped 14% during that same period. In Nov 2007 none of the top 10 handsets used to download a game was a smartphone, whereas a year later 6 out of the top 10 handsets used to download games were smartphones.
MoCoNews.net

Samsung phone includes mini projector
Samsung has partnered with Texas Instruments to create a mobile phone with an embedded projector. On display at Mobile World Congress it has DLP Pico chipset technology from Texas Instruments, allowing the phone to project an image up to 50in onto almost any surface. The phone also has a 5-megapixel camera, integrated audio speakers and a high-resolution colour OLED touchscreen.
PC Advisor

Skype, Nokia partner to integrate Skype into Nokia devices
Nokia will incorporate Skype into the Nokia N97 device. Under terms of the agreement, the Skype experience will be integrated into Nokia devices, beginning with the Nokia N-series. Skype will be part of the address book, enabling presence, seeing when Skype contacts are online and IM.
Computer Business Review

Desktops will drive virtualisation
According to Gartner, worldwide virtualisation software revenue will increase 43 per cent this year to $2.7 billion (£1.9 billion), with desktop virtualisation driving the market. Global virtualisation penetration is on pace to reach 20 percent in 2009 from 12 percent in 2008. Its adoption within the information technology (IT) organisation is driven by the need to reduce the total cost of ownership (TCO), enhance the agility and speed of deployment of IT needs and minimise carbon footprint.
Computerworld

Economic Downturn Creates Opportunities for Mobile Advertising
According to Analysys Mason despite the economic downturn, prospects for mobile advertising in 2009 are promising. The research firm forecasts that, by 2012, mobile advertising will account for over 4% of total advertising spend in European countries that have relatively high mobile penetration and 3G network coverage, and for as much as 2% of advertising spend in emerging Central and Eastern European economies.
Cellular-News

Verizon Announces LTE Partners, No Nortel
Verizon Wireless announced that Ericsson and Alcatel-Lucent have won the contract for their planned LTE network. Many had expected the contract to go to Nortel as the vendor was conducting field trials for Verizon.
xchange

YouTube Asks Users to Engage Congress
YouTube is expanding its Senate Hub and House Hub channels to make it easier for users to communicate with their members of Congress. Each week a video from a member of Congress will be highlighted that solicits questions or input from people on the country's press issues. The feature utilises Google's Moderator tool.
WebPro News

Mozilla backs move to decriminalize iPhone jailbreaking
Mozilla is supporting a move that would nullify copywrite infringement charges against people who "jailbreak" their iPhone, according to comments submitted to the US Copywrite Office. The EFF wants the Copywrite Office to let users jailbreak their handsets without fear of copyright infringement penalties.
Network World

First fall in five years for UK software and services
Last year saw the first fall in the UK software and IT services market. Revenues in the sector fell about 1% year-on-year in 2008 to £39bn and will continue to drop until 2011 according to a report by TechMarketView and Pierre Audoin Consultants.
Silicon.com

Nokia Siemens Sells Music2You to IMImobile
Nokia Seimens Networks announced today that it has sold its music download and subscription service Music2You to IMImobile, an Indian mobile technology developer. IMImobile is seeking to expand its European services offering and under the agreement will acquire the M2Y brand along with existing relationships with telecommunications service providers.
PC World