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Atari Online News, Etc. Volume 13 Issue 36
Volume 13, Issue 36 Atari Online News, Etc. September 9, 2011
Published and Copyright (c) 1999 - 2011
All Rights Reserved
Atari Online News, Etc.
A-ONE Online Magazine
Dana P. Jacobson, Publisher/Managing Editor
Joseph Mirando, Managing Editor
Rob Mahlert, Associate Editor
Atari Online News, Etc. Staff
Dana P. Jacobson -- Editor
Joe Mirando -- "People Are Talking"
Michael Burkley -- "Unabashed Atariophile"
Albert Dayes -- "CC: Classic Chips"
Rob Mahlert -- Web site
Thomas J. Andrews -- "Keeper of the Flame"
With Contributions by:
Fred Horvat
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=~=~=~=
A-ONE #1336 09/09/11
~ 9/11 Internet Archive! ~ People Are Talking! ~ MS Services Failed!
~ PlayStation Phone Soon ~ Amazon Sales Tax Deal? ~ 'Take Up Arms' Trial!
~ Yahoo Fires CEO Bartz! ~ WikiLeaks Reveals All! ~ IE Usage Plummets!
~ Yahoo Move Under Fire! ~ .xxx Domains Go on Sale ~ Schools Adding iPads!
-* Sony Hires Former DHS Officer *-
-* Amazon Forced To Collect Sales Tax? *-
-* Hackers Faked Security Guarantees, CIA Site *-
=~=~=~=
->From the Editor's Keyboard "Saying it like it is!"
""""""""""""""""""""""""""
In a few days, the world will be remembering the attacks on the World
Trade Center, the Pentagon, and the crash of Flight 93 in Shanksville.
It's been 10 years, ten long years. A lot has changed since the events
of that fateful day, and not necessarily for the better. The U.S. - no,
the world, had been put on notice that no one is safe from terrorism.
But, the world has answered, and egotistical despots have been taken down
throughout the world. But, the world is still full of such maniacs.
But more and more of the citizens of those countries are finally making
a statement, tiring of the tyranny. How all of this will end is anyone's
guess, so we'll just have to watch as these events unfold.
There's nothing that I can say about that fateful day ten years ago that
hasn't been said, or will be said again. It will be a day to remember
what happened. It will also be a day to recall and honor those who were
victims, and all those were were affected.
So, take a minute on Sunday morning to reflect on those events - Never
Forget!
Until next time...
=~=~=~=
->In This Week's Gaming Section - Sony Hires Former Homeland Security Officer!
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" 4G 'PlayStation Phone' Coming to AT&T!
=~=~=~=
->A-ONE's Game Console Industry News - The Latest Gaming News!
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
Sony Hires Former Homeland Security Officer
In a clear sign that Sony has learned a lesson from its security drama,
the Japanese electronics maker has recruited a heavy hitter to its team.
Sony Corp. named Philip R. Reitinger as its senior vice president and
chief information security officer. Reitinger, who was once a member of
the U.S. Homeland Security Department, is now the corporate exec in charge
of global information security and privacy for the company.
"Certainly the network issue was a catalyst for the appointment," a Sony
spokesman told Reuters. "We are looking to bolster our network security
even further."
Sony took a black eye in April when hackers infiltrated its Sony
PlayStation Network. Just weeks later, LulzSec, the same hackers who broke
into the PBS website and led many to believe that murdered rapper Tupac
Shakur was still alive, took responsibility for another attack on Sony
Online Entertainment. During that attack, information from about 100
million user account profiles was exposed.
Shares in Sony stock have plummeted a whopping 55 percent since the company
admitted to the massive hacking on April 27. The PlayStation hack rattled
investor confidence in Sony's plans to expand into online music and movie
distribution, and at the same time the electronics giant's TV business saw
losses and economic conditions in general have worsened.
Rob Enderle, principal analyst at The Enderle Group, said Reitinger's
appointment was a wise move. As he sees it, Sony needs to send a message
that it is taking security seriously.
"Sony's breaches were largely caused by the company's own failures. Before
the breaches occurred Sony had become a rolling joke with the security
community, which had been outspoken about the fact that Sony was exposed
and it was just a matter of time before someone compromised them," Enderle
said.
"When you demonstrate negligence it's incredibly important, unless you
enjoy litigation, that you overemphasize a focus on correcting the problem.
Bringing on someone with a pedigree like Reitinger's goes a long way
toward doing that."
Reitinger is a well-known veteran in the information security community.
Beyond the Department of Homeland Security, he also has held key
cyber-security positions at Microsoft, the Department of Defense and the
Department of Justice. He graduated from Vanderbilt University with a
bachelor's degree in electrical engineering and computer science, and from
Yale Law School.
In his new role, Reitinger will be responsible for assuring the security
of Sony's information assets and services. He will oversee information
security, privacy and Internet safety across the company, coordinating
closely with key headquarters groups and working in partnership with the
information security community to bring the best ideas and approaches to
Sony.
Is Reitinger's appointment enough to impress investors? Not in and of
itself, analysts said.
Enderle suggested Sony's issue is the appearance of lacking confidence,
with security just one aspect of the overall problem. In order to win back
investors, he said, Sony needs to address the broader picture.
"The contrast between Sony and Apple, and Apple was based on Steve Jobs'
idolized view of Sony, is just too stark," Enderle said. "The investors
really want Sony to step up to its potential and will likely continue to
punish the firm - even if they fix the security problems - if they don't
start living up to that potential."
4G 'PlayStation Phone' Coming to AT&T Sept. 18
Haven't gotten a "PlayStation Certified" Xperia Play on Verizon yet? Good
things come to those who wait. Not only is the world's only gaming phone
with a slide-out controller coming to AT&T, it's got a host of exclusives
and upgrades included, according to an AT&T press release:
"Stealth Blue" color
Tired of your gray-and-black smartphone chassis? (Or aluminum and glass, if
you go Apple.) Gaming gadgets like the Nintendo DS have long had cool
features like different-colored backplates. Now the PlayStation phone's
sporting a royal blue outfit, to go with your choice of live wallpapers.
Seven exclusive games
Dungeon Defenders: Second Wave? Asphalt 6 Adrenaline? Star Batallion? If
you're familiar with the mobile gaming scene at all, these names are
pretty big, and they're among the seven that come with the AT&T Xperia
Play. But so are some names you might recognize outside of the Android and
iOS world, like The Sims 3 and Crash Bandicoot.
With the ability to buy games from both the Android Market and the Xperia
Play's store of PlayStation games, there's something for everyone. Plus,
many games are already optimized for use with the Xperia Play's slide-out
controller - like Minecraft: Pocket Edition - and more are being added all
the time.
Bonus accessories
What's better than getting an awesome smartphone? Getting a multimedia dock
along with it. The "Sony Ericcson Multimedia Dock DK300" is also a charging
station that converts your phone into a clock, while an extra exclusive
cable lets you connect it to external speakers. Both are included free with
the new bundle package.
4G capabilities
These aren't the LTE speeds available on Verizon's 4G network; just the
HSPA+ on AT&T's (which is more like 3-and-a-half-G). But then, the Xperia
Play on Verizon's network doesn't have a 4G wireless radio either, so this
is an upgrade both for the phone and the network.
So is it worth getting for $50?
Because that's how much it's going to cost on contract, when it's released
September 18!
The answer is "it depends." The iPhone 4 is still, in many ways, the best
gaming smartphone, if only because it has more and better games. The
"PlayStation Phone" can't use the PlayStation Network for much more than
chatting, and buys its games from a separate store than PSP / PS3 owners get
theirs. And it's not quite as state-of-the-art anymore as it was when it
first came out; it lacks a dual-core processor, and there's no word yet on
whether or not its screen is still as dim as when it was released.
It's still the only phone that has the dual-touchpad slider control,
though. And the fact that a new model of Xperia Play is being released
shows promise for the future, as it means that a new PlayStation Certified
phone is even more likely.
=~=~=~=
A-ONE's Headline News
The Latest in Computer Technology News
Compiled by: Dana P. Jacobson
Internet Archive Shows September 11 Coverage
For many in New York and Washington, Sept. 11, 2001, was a personal
experience, an attack on their cities. Most everywhere else in the world,
it was a television event.
TV's commemoration as the 10th anniversary approaches on Sunday puts that
day in many different contexts. There is one place, however, for people to
see the Sept. 11 attacks and the week after as they unfolded, without any
filters.
The Internet Archive, a California-based organization that collects audio,
moving images and Web pages for historical purposes, has put together a
television news archive of that day's coverage.
More than 20 channels were recorded with more than 3,000 hours of
television. Besides major U.S. networks like ABC, CBS, CNN and NBC, the
Internet Archive has posted online TV recordings from Moscow, Paris,
London, Baghdad, Tokyo, Ottawa and elsewhere.
The site is available at http://www.archive.org/details/911/day.
The material is valuable to researchers, but the Internet Archive wanted to
make it easy to use so the general public can go back and see what that day
was like, said Brewster Kahle, the organization's director.
"It is one of the top four or five events that have happened on
television," Kahle said. "You can think of putting a man on the moon, the
Watergate hearings, the Kennedy assassination. I'm hopeful that people
will come to this and make their own decisions about how they want to think
about it, as opposed to politicians who have been pushing and pulling the
event for years."
The archive begins at 8 a.m. ET, or 46 minutes before American Airlines
Flight 11 crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center.
That alone is interesting for the striking contrast it provides with the
last seemingly carefree moments before several tough years. On NBC's
"Today" show, Katie Couric talks brightly of "a beautiful fall morning in
Manhattan" and the camera pans to a cheering crowd. Charles Gibson mocks
his "Good Morning America" colleague Diane Sawyer for writing notes on
her hand, and ABC's Claire Shipman said the biggest news in Washington
was Michael Jordan giving hints he might return to the basketball court.
Out of a commercial late in the morning shows, even cutting one
commercial short on CNN, suddenly came camera shots of a burning World
Trade Center, ones that would dominate screens for several hours.
Newscasters were careful before the story became clear. Matt Lauer
initially called it an "accident." Morning shows effectively used phone
calls from eyewitnesses adding details beyond the faraway camera shots.
"It's mind-boggling and it's horrifying," one witness, Jennifer Oberstein,
told Lauer.
Then came one of many unthinkable moments: a second plane darting into
pictures and crashing into the second tower, exploding in a fireball and
falling debris.
"We just saw another plane coming in to the other side," Gibson said.
"This looks like there is some sort of concerted effort to attack the
World Trade Center that is underway."
Later, when the towers collapsed, one after the other, it seemed so
inconceivable that anchors initially couldn't grasp what viewers had seen
on the screen. NBC's Tom Brokaw talked of structural damage so severe that
the buildings would probably have to be brought down - after one of them
already came down on its own.
"The whole side has collapsed," ABC's Peter Jennings said when the first
tower came down.
"The whole building has collapsed," ABC's reporter on the scene, Don
Dahler, corrected him.
"The whole building has collapsed?" Jennings responded.
CNN's Aaron Brown responded with the horror most viewers no doubt felt
when the second tower fell. "Good lord," he said. "There are no words."
"The landscape of New York has just been changed and you have to presume
that thousands of lives have been extinguished," Jennings said.
In those early hours, ABC's John Miller and NBC's Andrea Mitchell had
raised the name of Osama bin Laden as possibly the man behind the attacks,
even as the networks reported the false claim of a Palestinian
organization taking credit.
Also interesting are the perspectives from overseas. The BBC in London,
for example, showed video of people jumping or falling from the towers -
images that American networks stayed away from. In Moscow, a newscaster
who broke into a program to report on the towers collapsing displayed a
voice halting with emotion.
The site is easy to navigate, with timelines that direct users to specific
events of the morning, such as when the second plane hit the trade center
and when each tower collapsed. It can be frustrating to use, however, as
the video is displayed in 30- or 40-second blocks instead of continuous
streams. And there are occasional gaps; large portions of CBS' coverage
is missing, for example.
Kahle said he believed it was important to provide this resource. There
are surprisingly few ways for people to go back and see television news
reports, at least compared to print, he noted.
"It is so important yet it has been, up until now, quite ephemeral," he
said.
Hackers Faked Security Guarantees for CIA Website
The Dutch government says hackers who broke into a web security firm in
the Netherlands last month issued hundreds of bogus security certificates
for websites including the CIA and Israel's Mossad, as well as Internet
giants such as Google, Microsoft and Twitter.
The fake certificates could in theory be used to monitor users'
communications with those sites without them noticing, but only by an
organization that also has the ability to reroute Internet traffic to
servers they control - most likely a government.
A handful of Iranian users of Google's popular email service are known to
have been affected.
The Dutch government said Monday Internet browser makers are now rejecting
all security certificates issued by the hacked firm, DigiNotar.
Microsoft Online Services Hit by Major Failure
Millions of Microsoft users were left unable to access some online
services overnight because of a major service failure.
Hotmail, Office 365 and Skydrive were among the services affected.
Microsoft was still analysing the cause of the problem on Friday
morning, but said it appeared to be related to the internet's DNS
address system.
Such a major problem is likely to raise questions about the reliability
of cloud computing versus local storage.
Especially embarrassing is the temporary loss of Office 365, the
company's alternative to Google's suite of online apps.
Its service also went offline briefly in mid-August, less than two
months after it launched.
The latest disruption is believed to have lasted for around
two-and-a-half hours, between 0300 GMT and 0530 GMT.
In a blog <http://windowsteamblog.com/windows_live/b/windowslive/>,
posted at 0649 GMT, Microsoft said: "We have completed propagating our
DNS configuration changes around the world, and have restored service
for most customers."
The Domain Name System (DNS) is responsible for translating URL web
addresses , such as bbc.co.uk into the internet's native system of IP
addresses, e.g. 212.58.246.95.
Microsoft is not alone in suffering problems with its cloud-based
applications. Google Docs was unavailable for a period on Wednesday.
However, the fact that Microsoft's Office 365 is a paid-for service,
with users charged £4 per month, may raise expectations of a more robust
setup.
Moving applications from installed software on individual computers, to
web-based "software as a service" has been a major trend in computing in
recent years.
Such systems are seen as easier to manage, simpler to scale-up and down,
and potentially offering more robust security.
But a number of high profile failures have dented confidence in cloud
computing.
Among them have been several failures of Amazon's EC2 - the company's
remote computing service, which allows businesses to hire additional
processing power and storage on demand.
The system failed in April 2011, impacting several large websites,
including Foursquare and Reddit.
Another period of down time in August brought affected many of the same
websites.
"There will be an element of confidence shaken," said Ken Moody, data
centre services manager at the Cloud Computing Centre.
Avoiding major cloud problems in future would depend on IT companies'
ability to spread the risk, according to Mr Moody.
"People should look at smaller data centres which are divided up where
resilience could be guaranteed," he told BBC News.
"Our service level agreements are 99.99% because we don't put everything
into one large data centre."
Mr Moody said that no-one, including its users, knows exactly how
Microsoft's cloud computing systems are structured.
Building future confidence in the platform may depend on sharing more
information.
"There's a requirement for transparency and communication to prospective
clients," he said.
Yahoo's Stock Rises After Bartz Fired As CEO
Yahoo's stock rose more than 5 percent on Wednesday after the company fired
its CEO following more than 2½ years of financial lethargy.
Tuesday's ouster came as investors were convinced that Carol Bartz couldn't
steer the Internet company to a long-promised turnaround.
To fill the void, Yahoo's board named Tim Morse, its chief financial
officer, as interim CEO. Bartz, who became CEO in 2009, lured Morse away
from computer chip maker Altera Corp. two years ago to help her cuts costs.
Yahoo said it is looking for a permanent replacement.
Yahoo Chairman Roy Bostock, also a target of shareholder frustration,
informed Bartz about the move over the phone, according to an e-mail the
outgoing CEO sent from her iPad that was obtained by the All Things D
technology blog. The blog first reported Bartz's ouster.
Yahoo didn't return requests for comment Tuesday and Wednesday.
Bartz's rude dismissal "made you feel a little bit like you were watching
some reality TV show," Forrester Research analyst Shar VanBoskirk said
Wednesday.
Macquarie Securities analyst Ben Schachter said the handling of Bartz's
departure was unseemly and a sign of even more drama to come at Yahoo.
In a research note late Tuesday, Schachter predicted there will be a wide
range of conjecture about Yahoo's future, with the most likely speculation
centering on Yahoo as a takeover target during a vulnerable time.
Alternatively, Yahoo could make a bold move itself by trying to buy the
online video site Hulu.com, which is already talking to suitors, or trying
to sell its 43 percent stake in the Alibaba Group, one of China's most
prized Internet companies. Bartz's tense relationship with Alibaba CEO
Jack Ma had fed investor dissatisfaction about her leadership.
Youssef Squali at Jefferies & Co. said that the Internet company's
challenges, and the fact that Bartz was Yahoo's third CEO in four years,
will make it tough for the board to find an "A player" for the job.
Squali said Yahoo could be sold to a large media company like News Corp.
or be bought by some sort of consortium that could feature Microsoft Corp.
or AOL Inc.
"In all, we believe that it is more likely that the board reaches an
agreement to sell the company or parts of the company before a new CEO is
found," Squali wrote Wednesday.
In a statement Tuesday, Yahoo said it is undergoing a "comprehensive
strategic review" in its latest effort to give investors a reason to buy
its stock, but the company didn't offer details.
Bartz, 63, led an austerity campaign helped boost Yahoo's earnings, but the
company didn't increase its revenue even as the Internet ad market grew at
a rapid clip.
The financial funk, along with recent setbacks in Yahoo's online search
partnership with Microsoft Corp. and the Alibaba investment, proved to be
Bartz's downfall. Her ouster comes with 16 months left on a four-year
contract that she signed in January 2009.
That contract entitles her to severance payments that could be two to three
times her annual salary and bonus, along with stock incentives she received
during her tenure. Bartz received a $2.2 million bonus to supplement her $1
million salary last year.
Yahoo has now replaced three CEOs in a little over four years. During that
time, Yahoo has lost ground in the Internet ad race to online search leader
Google Inc. and Facebook even though its website remains among the world's
most popular.
Known for her no-nonsense leadership and sometimes gruff language, Bartz
arrived at Yahoo as a respected Silicon Valley executive who had won
praise for turning around business software maker Autodesk Inc. But she
had no previous experience in Internet advertising, the main way Yahoo
makes money.
That hole in her resume immediately raised questions whether she was
qualified for the job, and those doubts only escalated as Yahoo's revenue
continued to sag.
At first, Bartz blamed bad timing; she started the job during some of the
bleakest months of the Great Recession. Later, she would say that she
inherited such as mess from her two predecessors, Yahoo co-founder Jerry
Yang and former movie studio boss Terry Semel, and that it would take time
to get Yahoo back on the right track.
At one point, she even compared her challenge to those that faced Steve
Jobs when he returned to Apple Inc. as CEO in 1997.
Unlike Jobs, Bartz never was able to articulate a strategy to win over
investors.
"She focused on plugging holes in the ship instead of turning it around,"
said Gartner Inc. analyst Ray Valdes.
The disappointing performance was reflected in Yahoo's stock price, which
closed Tuesday at $12.91. That's 81 cents, or 7 percent, higher than where
Yahoo shares stood when Bartz was hired as CEO. During the same period,
Google's stock price has risen by more than $200, or 66 percent, and the
technology-driven Nasdaq composite index has climbed by 60 percent. A group
of investors led by Goldman Sachs Group concluded privately held Facebook
is worth $50 billion in an appraisal done earlier this year. That's triple
Yahoo's current market value.
Bartz never hit any of the price targets that the board set for her when
she was hired. That means none of the 5 million stock options that she
received upon signing her contract had vested by the time she was ushered
out the door.
Investors seemed happy to see Bartz go. On Wednesday, the Sunnyvale-based
company's stock rose 70 cents to close at $13.61.
Although Bartz's exit as CEO came suddenly, her departure isn't a shock.
The pressure to replace her grew earlier this year after Bartz
acknowledged Yahoo's search partnership with Microsoft wasn't producing
as much revenue as the companies anticipated.
Then, in May, Yahoo stunned investors by disclosing that Alibaba had spun
off an online payment service in a move that threatened to diminish the
value of Yahoo's investment in the Chinese company.
Alipay in July agreed to a complex settlement that could eventually be
worth more than $1 billion to Yahoo, but there were too many uncertainties
in the deal to placate shareholders.
Bostock had steadfastly stood behind Bartz whenever she was attacked by
investors or analysts. In a Tuesday statement, Bostock thanked Bartz for
"her service to Yahoo during a critical time of transition in the
company's history" without providing an explanation for why the board
decided to replace her.
BGC partners analyst Colin Gillis said Yahoo's board "has got to look in
the mirror here."
"Swapping the CEO without swapping the (board) chair doesn't solve your
problem," he said. "The person that hired Carol to begin with deserves to
share the culpability."
To help Morse, Yahoo set up an "executive leadership council" that includes
some of the executives that Bartz recruited, including the company's
products guru Blake Irving and the head of its North American operations,
Ross Levinsohn. While he worked for News Corp., Levinsohn helped put
together the Hulu video site and is seen as a possible CEO candidate.
Analysts also have speculated that David Kenny, an Internet veteran who
joined Yahoo's board in April, might be a candidate for Yahoo's CEO job.
Kenny is currently president of Internet networking services provider
Akamai Technologies Inc.
With its stock sagging and its management in limbo, Yahoo could be more
vulnerable to a takeover attempt by a private equity group or another
opportunistic bidder attracted to what remains one of the Internet's
best-known brands. Microsoft offered to buy Yahoo for $47.5 billion, or
$33 per share, in 2008 only to be rebuffed.
Yahoo's Board Under Fire After Firing of CEO Bartz
Carol Bartz's firing as Yahoo Inc.'s CEO isn't going to be enough to
placate a loudening chorus of shareholders who believe Chairman Roy Bostock
and his fellow board members also should be ousted after years of
questionable choices that raised doubts about their competence.
The deepening disdain for Yahoo's board gained a potentially influential
voice Thursday with the disclosure that successful hedge fund manager
Daniel Loeb had bought a 5.2 percent stake in the company with designs on
getting rid of Bostock and at least two other longtime directors.
Bartz, still technically a Yahoo board member, also fanned the flames in
her first interview since Bostock fired her in a phone call late Tuesday.
While defending her own decisions, Bartz called the board a bunch of
"doofuses" in a profanity-laced interview with Fortune magazine.
Bartz, 63, wasn't a shareholder favorite either, but her description
summarized the sentiment of many investors who have been stewing since
Bostock and fellow board member Jerry Yang balked at Microsoft Corp.'s May
2008 offer to buy the company for $33 per share, or $47.5 billion. They
insisted they were pursuing a strategy that would make Yahoo worth much
more than Microsoft's bid, an argument that now looks absurd. Yahoo shares
haven't closed above $20 in nearly three years. The stock finished
Thursday at $14.44, a gain of 83 cents, or 6 percent, that was propelled
by Loeb's attack on the board.
"This board has presided over some of the worst decisions made by any
company in recent history," said Darren Chervitz, co-manager of the Jacob
Internet Fund, a longtime Yahoo shareholder.
Even so, Yahoo's 10-member board probably still isn't viewed as the worst
in Silicon Valley, said BGP Financial Partners Colin Gillis. He thinks that
lowly title belongs to Hewlett-Packard Co.'s board, which has snooped into
people's phone records and 13 months ago switched CEOs in a move that has
been followed by a nearly 50 percent drop in the company's market value
that has wiped out about $45 billion in shareholder wealth. By comparison,
Yahoo's market value is about $30 billion below Microsoft's last offer.
Gillis worries, though, that Yahoo's board will do more damage as long as
Bostock and the current members remain. Possible missteps include bidding
too high for video website Hulu.com, which is up for sale, or picking
poorly when they settle on a permanent leader to take over from interim
CEO Tim Morse.
"They could still do something really foolish," Gillis said. "The concern
out there is that this is not a functional board."
Loeb hopes to shake things up through his Third Point fund, which
specializes on buying stakes in troubled companies. In a letter Thursday,
Loeb demanded the resignation of Bostock and two other directors, Arthur
Kern and Vyomesh Joshi. Kern, who has a background in radio broadcasting,
has been on the board since 1996 while Joshi, a top HP executive, has
been a director since 2005. Loeb also said he expects Susan James, a board
member since last year, to step down because he considers her too close to
Bartz.
"It is time that certain members of this board were held accountable for
its past failures and their individual roles," Loeb wrote.
Loeb said he is drawing up an "all-star" list of potential replacements.
A spokesman for Yahoo's board said it welcomes a dialogue with Third Point.
"The Yahoo board recognizes the critical challenges facing the company and
appreciates constructive input from all shareholders," the spokesman said.
In her interview with Fortune, Bartz said the board should bring her back
as CEO because she "knew what to do."
Loeb, Chervitz and other shareholders have made it clear they believe Bartz
had to go. One of their biggest grievances is that Yahoo's board signed
Bartz to a four-year contract in January 2009, even though she had no
previous experience running an Internet company or one that sells
advertising to make money. She was most recently CEO and then executive
chairman of design software maker Autodesk. The board's critics also think
the board waited far too long to replace Bartz.
But Bartz felt she was being turned into a scapegoat by a board that she
says is still haunted by its rebuff of Microsoft's takeover offer.
"The board was so spooked by being cast as the worst board in the country,"
Bartz said. "Now they're trying to show that they're not the doofuses that
they are."
During Bartz's tenure, five Yahoo directors left the board and four of the
spots were filled with new appointees. Bartz remains on the board, a seat
she told Fortune she intends to keep.
But Yahoo doesn't want her in the boardroom. "Ms. Bartz is obligated to
resign from the board, and we expect her to do so," the company spokesman
said. Yahoo already has removed Bartz's picture and biography from the
section of its website devoted to its board.
Bostock, who is also vice chairman of Delta Air Lines Inc., has steadfastly
refused to surrender his post at Yahoo even after nearly 40 percent of
shareholders voted against his re-election in 2008 after the Microsoft
talks collapsed. About 20 percent of Yahoo's shareholders opposed Bostock's
re-election at the company's latest annual meeting. During that meeting,
Bostock told shareholders that Yahoo's board was "very supportive" of
Bartz.
Yahoo leaves the evaluation of its directors' performances up to its
nominating and corporate governance committee. That's chaired by Patti Hart,
a Yahoo board member for the past 14 months and CEO of casino game maker
International Game Technology.
If the board truly values its shareholder opinion, Chervitz thinks a
majority of the directors should pressure Bostock into resigning.
"I do not delude myself into thinking that will necessarily change the
company's direction or drive up the stock price, but it would have
important symbolic value," he said. "(Bostock) picked the wrong person to
be CEO last time and waited too long to get rid of her. Now, it's time for
the accountability to move up the chain of command."
Should Amazon Be Required to Collect Sales Tax?
Should Amazon be required to collect sales tax on online purchases? The
behemoth online retailer remains at odds with California legislators over
that very issue.
In June, state tax legislation was signed into effect requiring the site
to collect a 7.25% base sales tax on online purchases made by consumers in
California. Amazon has thus far avoided its obligation, opting instead to
circumvent the law by severing ties with its affiliates in California.
Now, the Internet ecommerce giant is collecting signatures in an effort to
take the issue to state voters next June. "Once it submits the signatures
for the referendum and they are verified, the law will be suspended until
the vote," the New York Times reports.
State lawmakers, meanwhile, are working to pass urgent legislation to
thwart Amazon's attempts. Amazon, says the Times, has drafted a
counterproposal that offers to build two warehouses and hire 7,000 workers
in the state if the sales tax matter is suspended for a few years.
The battle has become a hot button issue in California - a state in dire
need of revenues from sales tax - and beyond.
"Amazon fears that a defeat in California will sway legislators across the
country, and that it will lose a critical pricing advantage. It is
fighting a similar measure in New York in the courts," the Times writes.
"Like so many others, I love the convenience of shopping at Amazon, the
unparalleled selection, the great customer service, the ease of checkout,
the low prices. I don't need the added incentive of no sales tax to make
me shop there," O'Reilly Media founder and Silicon Valley thought-leader
Tim O'Reilly opined on Google+ Monday morning. "Yes, it would be a minor
inconvenience for Amazon to collect sales tax for every county in the
nation ... But at this point, the added advantage we're giving to them
and other online retailers is completely unnecessary, except to gild
their bottom line."
Amazon Sales Tax Deal in California May Help Rivals
Amazon.com Inc's agreement to start collecting sales tax in California next
year may help brick and mortar rivals compete on prices with the world's
largest Internet retailer.
In a meeting on Wednesday of Amazon representatives, members of the state
legislature and the California Retailers Association, the parties reached
a "handshake" agreement on the issue, according to Mark Hedlund, a
spokesman for Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg.
Amazon will drop its effort to overturn a law passed earlier this year that
required the company to collect sales tax starting in July. In return,
Amazon will not have to collect sales tax in California until September
2012, Hedlund said.
If Congress passes national online sales tax legislation before July 1,
2012, that law will supersede the California agreement. The handshake
agreement is being written as an amendment to the state law and the changes
still have to be voted on, hopefully this week, Hedlund said.
Online retailers without a physical presence in a state do not have to
collect sales tax on purchases by those residents. As e-commerce ballooned
in recent years, that exemption came under pressure from several states
looking to fill big budget gaps.
Brick and mortar retailers have been pushing hard behind the scenes to get
Amazon to collect sales tax. The pact struck Wednesday is a victory for
companies such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc, Best Buy Co Inc and Staples Inc.
"The Internet is an important channel for sales now and its growth is
going to compel a solution from Congress," said David French, senior vice
president of government relations at the National Retail Federation.
The California deal puts Amazon and bricks and mortar retailers more on
the same page, which will help with a national solution, he added.
"The bottom line is that a potential agreement is a positive for brick and
mortar retailers as it will level the sales tax playing field in a
critical state in less than 12 months time, and may become the model
applied nationwide," Gary Balter, an analyst at Credit Suisse, wrote in a
note to investors on Thursday.
In the hard-line retail sector, the biggest beneficiaries will be
categories that are most price sensitive and where Internet penetration is
above the average of 7 percent, the analyst added.
E-commerce accounts for more than 20 percent of consumer electronics and
office supply sales, according to Balter.
"However, Amazon and other Internet retailers are making serious inroads
in Pet Supply, Home Improvement and other categories and this agreement
may slow that down," the analyst added.
Amazon spokeswoman Mary Osako said: "On pricing, we offer low prices
whether or not we collect and remit sales tax."
She declined to comment on the California tax deal.
Amazon shares slipped 1.2 percent to close at $217.26 on Thursday.
Higher-priced items sold online, such as big-screen TVs and diamonds, will
likely be affected by the collection of sales tax, said Colin Sebastian,
an analyst at RW Baird.
The shares of Blue Nile, which sells diamonds and jewelry online, declined
2.3 percent to close at $36.74 on Thursday.
Still, Sebastian said the online sales tax issue looks more like a "smoke
screen" for bigger problems faced by brick and mortar retailers.
Scott Tilghman, an analyst Caris & Company, reckons most consumers shop
online for convenience and selection rather than to avoid sales tax.
"There are marginal customers that do make purchases online for that
reason, but my sense in talking to a broad range of people is that group
is a very small minority," he told Reuters.
There is a perception that online offerings are cheaper, but that is not
always the case, Tilghman added.
In cases where products are cheaper online, the price advantage may shrink
once sales tax is imposed, but it will still exist.
"Pricing transparency through apps and comparison shopping websites is more
likely to pressure brick and mortar than sales tax collection is to help
it," the analyst concluded.
WikiLeaks Reveals All, Media Groups Criticize Move
WikiLeaks disclosed its entire archive of U.S. State Department cables
Friday, much if not all of it uncensored - a move that drew stinging
condemnation from major newspapers which in the past collaborated with the
anti-secrecy group's efforts to expose corruption and double-dealing.
Many media outlets, including The Associated Press, previously had access
to all or part of the uncensored tome. But WikiLeaks' decision to post the
251,287 cables on its website makes potentially sensitive diplomatic
sources available to anyone, anywhere at the stroke of a key. American
officials have warned that the disclosures could jeopardize vulnerable
people such as opposition figures or human rights campaigners.
A joint statement published on the Guardian's website said that the
British publication and its international counterparts - The New York
Times, France's Le Monde, Germany's Der Spiegel and Spain's El Pais -
"deplore the decision of WikiLeaks to publish the unredacted State
Department cables, which may put sources at risk."
Previously, international media outlets - and WikiLeaks itself - had
redacted the names of potentially vulnerable sources, although the
standard has varied and some experts warned that even people whose names
had been kept out of the cables were still at risk.
But now many, and possibly even all, of the cables posted to the WikiLeaks
website carried unredacted names.
There's a debate over what kind of an impact that will have.
In an interview with the AP earlier this week, former U.S. State Department
official P.J. Crowley warned that the new release could be used to
intimidate activists in authoritarian countries. Crowley said "any
autocratic security service worth its salt" probably already would have the
complete unredacted archive of cables, but that the fresh releases mean
that any intelligence agency that did not "will have it in short order."
WikiLeaks staff members have not returned repeated requests for comment
sent in the past two days. But in a series of messages on Twitter, the
group suggested that it had no choice but to publish the archive because
copies of the document were already circulating online following a
security breach.
WikiLeaks has blamed the Guardian for the blunder, pointing out that a
sensitive password used to decrypt the files was published in a book put
out by David Leigh, one of the paper's investigative reporters and a
collaborator-turned-critic of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.
But the Guardian, Leigh and others have rejected the claim. Although the
password was in fact published in Leigh's book about seven months ago,
Guardian journalists have suggested that the real problem was that
WikiLeaks posted the encrypted file to the Web by accident and that
Assange never bothered to change the password needed to unlock it.
In their statement, the Guardian's international partners lined up to slam
the 40-year-old former computer hacker.
"We cannot defend the needless publication of the complete data - indeed,
we are united in condemning it," the statement read. It added: "The
decision to publish by Julian Assange was his, and his alone."
The media organizations' rejection is a further blow to WikiLeaks, whose
site is under financial embargo and whose leader remains under virtual
house arrest in an English country mansion pending extradition proceedings
to Sweden on unrelated sexual assault allegations.
It's also a sign of the borderless online whistleblower's increasing
estrangement from traditional media outlets. Assange and his supporters
have long feuded with the Guardian and The New York Times, and in a recent
statement the group noted that other Western media organizations had
"slowed their rate of publishing" stories derived from the cables.
As a result, the anti-secrecy site said it would increasingly turn to
"crowdsourcing" - that is, relying on Internet users to sift through its
leaked documents and flag important material.
It's a relatively new tactic for the group, which has in the past relied
on mainstream partners to organize and promote its spectacular leaks of
classified information - including hundreds of thousands of U.S.
intelligence documents detailing the course of America's wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan.
WikiLeaks says the process is working, pointing to one document flagged by
Twitter users who've already begun perusing the newly released files.
The cable, filed in 2006, carries an explosive allegation that U.S. forces
entered a house during a 2006 raid in Iraq, handcuffed 10 members of the
same family and executed them.
Although the U.N. letter in which the allegation was made was five years
old, its publication put new pressure on the already strained negotiations
over keeping U.S. forces in Iraq. Iraq's government said Friday that it is
investigating, and some officials said the document is reason enough for
the country to force the American military to leave instead of signing a
deal allowing troops to stay beyond a year-end departure deadline.
"Crowdsourcing has proved to be a success," WikiLeaks said.
But amid the controversy over the unredacted cables, some supporters are
keeping their distance. The press freedom group Reporters Without Borders
said Thursday that it had temporarily suspended its WikiLeaks "mirror
site." Such sites act as carbon-copies of their originals, relieving
pressure due to heavy traffic and preserving data in case of attack.
In a statement, Reporters said it had "neither the technical, human or
financial resources to check each cable" for information that could harm
innocent people and thus "has to play safe."
Jury Being Chosen in 'Take Up Arms' Blogger Trial
Jury selection began Wednesday in the trial of a blogger who was arrested
two years ago for urging readers to "take up arms" against Connecticut
lawmakers and suggesting that government officials "obey the Constitution
or die" after a legislative debate about Catholic Church finances.
The prosecution and defense began questioning potential jurors in Hartford
Superior Court in the case of Harold "Hal" Turner, a North Bergen, N.J.,
resident who is already serving a nearly three-year prison sentence for
making death threats against federal judges in Illinois. Turner insists
his comments were protected by the First Amendment right of free speech.
Six jurors, plus two alternates, will be chosen for the trial, which is
expected to begin Sept. 15 and last up to four days.
Also Wednesday, officials disclosed in court that the state had revised its
charges against Turner to one count of felony inciting injury to persons
and one count of misdemeanor threatening. Turner had faced three counts of
inciting injury to persons, which carries one to 10 years in prison per
count upon conviction. The new charges reduce the potential prison time in
the case.
Turner, 49, who wore a dark suit and was clean-shaven in the courtroom as
his family watched from the small crowd, pleaded not guilty to the
revised charges Wednesday and demanded that the judge honor what he
called his right to have a grand jury review the case before it went to
trial. But Judge Carl Schuman told Turner there is no such right in
Connecticut state courts.
Before the trial begins, Turner's public defender, John Stawicki, is
expected to file a motion to dismiss the threatening charge. Schuman
announced Wednesday that he denied Turner's previous motions to dismiss
the three inciting charges. Besides the free speech claim, Stawicki
argued that Turner never meant for anyone to get hurt and that
Connecticut courts didn't have jurisdiction because Turner made the blog
comments at his home in New Jersey.
Connecticut Capitol police arrested Turner in June 2009 after he wrote on
his blog that Catholics should "take up arms and put down this tyranny by
force" and promised to post lawmakers' addresses. He was angry over
legislation that would have given lay members of Roman Catholic churches
in the state more control over parish finances. The bill actually had been
withdrawn three months before the blog post.
"It is our intent to foment direct actions against these individuals
personally," Turner wrote. "These beastly government officials should be
made an example of as a warning to others in government: Obey the
Constitution or die."
Stawicki said during pretrial arguments that the comments were as harmless
as baseball fans shouting, "Kill the umpire!"
Police said Turner's specific targets were the co-chairmen of the
legislature's Judiciary Committee at the time - Sen. Andrew McDonald and
Rep. Michael Lawlor, who both now hold high-ranking positions in Gov.
Dannel P. Malloy's administration - and state ethics enforcement officer
Thomas Jones.
Prosecutors Thomas Garcia told prospective jurors that he may call up to
five witnesses: McDonald, Lawlor, Jones, Capitol Police Cpl. Timothy Boyle
and David Bednarz, now a spokesman for Malloy.
Stawicki said he wasn't sure if he would call any witnesses, noting that
the burden of proof is on the prosecution.
In the case of the Illinois judges, Turner was sentenced in December to 33
months in prison. The case stemmed from a 2009 ruling by the 7th U.S.
Circuit Court of Appeals that upheld a lower court decision dismissing
lawsuits that challenged handgun bans in Chicago and Oak Park, Ill.
Turner criticized the ruling online, saying, "These judges must die."
Internet Explorer Usage To Plummet Below 50 Percent by Mid-2012
According to new data posted this week from a company called Net
Applications, Microsofts Internet Explorer appears to be continuing a
downward spiral. Over the last ten months, Microsoft has lost five percent
of the web browser market while Googles Chrome has gained about six
percent. The amount of people using Internet Explorer is expected to fall
below the 50 percent mark around late May of 2012. One bright point for
Microsoft is that usage of its latest version of Internet Explorer, IE9,
increased by about two percent from July to August. However, IE9 is
limited to usage on Windows Vista and Windows 7. Windows XP users are
limited to Internet Explorer 8 until upgrading.
Across all operating systems, Internet Explorer 8 is the most popular
browser at a bit over 30 percent of the market. Google Chrome 13 followed
in second place at about 11 percent of the market and the aging, third
place Internet Explorer 6 clocked in at about 10 percent. This version of
Internet Explorer is often reviled by web designers and developers, but it
seemed to hold fairly strong over July to August and barely dropped in
usage. The ability of Google Chrome to quietly upgrade without bothering
the consumer seems to have helped Google keep its user base consistently
using the latest version of the browser.
Mozillas Firefox has remained fairly stagnant over the last 10 months,
but has only lost about one percent of the browser market. Mozilla
recently switched to an upgrade cycle identical to Google Chrome as the
inability to roll out quick updates made the browser seem stale in
comparison to Chrome. Apples Safari browser slowly gained market share
over the last year to the tune of one percent and the Opera browser seems
to be slowly fading away. Operas share dropped from 2.42 percent in
September 2010 to 1.68 percent in August 2011.
Many U.S. Schools Adding iPads, Trimming Textbooks
For incoming freshmen at western Connecticut's suburban Brookfield High
School, hefting a backpack weighed down with textbooks is about to give
way to tapping out notes and flipping electronic pages on a glossy iPad
tablet computer.
A few hours away, every student at Burlington High School near Boston will
also start the year with new school-issued iPads, each loaded with
electronic textbooks and other online resources in place of traditional
bulky texts.
While iPads have rocketed to popularity on many college campuses since
Apple Inc. introduced the device in spring 2010, many public secondary
schools this fall will move away from textbooks in favor of the
lightweight tablet computers.
Apple officials say they know of more than 600 districts that have
launched what are called "one-to-one" programs, in which at least one
classroom of students is getting iPads for each student to use throughout
the school day.
Nearly two-thirds of them have begun since July, according to Apple.
New programs are being announced on a regular basis, too. As recently as
Wednesday, Kentucky's education commissioner and the superintendent of
schools in Woodford County, Ky., said that Woodford County High will
become the state's first public high school to give each of its 1,250
students an iPad.
At Burlington High in suburban Boston, principal Patrick Larkin calls the
$500 iPads a better long-term investment than textbooks, though he said
the school will still use traditional texts in some courses if suitable
electronic programs aren't yet available.
"I don't want to generalize because I don't want to insult people who are
working hard to make those resources," Larkin said of textbooks, "but
they're pretty much outdated the minute they're printed and certainly by
the time they're delivered. The bottom line is that the iPads will give
our kids a chance to use much more relevant materials."
The trend has not been limited to wealthy suburban districts. New York
City, Chicago and many other urban districts also are buying large numbers
of iPads.
The iPads generally cost districts between $500 and $600, depending on
what accessories and service plans are purchased.
By comparison, Brookfield High in Connecticut estimates it spends at
least that much yearly on every student's textbooks, not including
graphing calculators, dictionaries and other accessories they can get on
the iPads.
Educators say the sleek, flat tablet computers offer a variety of
benefits.
They include interactive programs to demonstrate problem-solving in math,
scratchpad features for note-taking and bookmarking, the ability to
immediately send quizzes and homework to teachers, and the chance to view
videos or tutorials on everything from important historical events to
learning foreign languages.
They're especially popular in special education services, for children
with autism spectrum disorders and learning disabilities, and for those
who learn best when something is explained with visual images, not just
through talking.
Some advocates also say the interactive nature of learning on an iPad comes
naturally to many of today's students, who've grown up with electronic
devices as part of their everyday world.
But for all of the excitement surrounding the growth of iPads in public
secondary schools, some experts watching the trend warn that the
districts need to ensure they can support the wireless infrastructure,
repairs and other costs that accompany a switch to such a tech-heavy
approach.
And even with the most modern device in hand, students still need the
basics of a solid curriculum and skilled teachers.
"There's a saying that the music is not in the piano and, in the same way,
the learning is not in the device," said Mark Warschauer, an education and
informatics professor at the University of California-Irvine whose
specialties include research on the intersection of technology and
education.
"I don't want to oversell these things or present the idea that these
devices are miraculous, but they have some benefits and that's why so many
people outside of schools are using them so much," he said.
One such iPad devotee is 15-year-old Christian Woods, who starts his
sophomore year at Burlington, Mass., High School on a special student
support team to help about 1,000 other teens adjust to their new tablets.
"I think people will like it. I really don't know anybody in high school
that wouldn't want to get an iPad," he said. "We're always using
technology at home, then when you're at school it's textbooks, so it's a
good way to put all of that together."
Districts are varied in their policies on how they police students' use.
Many have filtering programs to keep students off websites that have not
been pre-approved, and some require the students to turn in the iPads
during vacation breaks and at the end of the school year. Others hold the
reins a little more loosely.
"If we truly consider this a learning device, we don't want to take it
away and say, 'Leaning stops in the summertime.' " said Larkin, the
Burlington principal.
And the nation's domestic textbook publishing industry, accounting for
$5.5 billion in yearly sales to secondary schools, is taking notice of the
trend with its own shift in a competitive race toward developing
curriculum specifically for iPads.
At Boston-based Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, for instance, programmers
scrambled to create an iPad-specific secondary school program starting
almost as soon as Apple unveiled the tablet in spring 2010.
The publisher's HMH Fuse algebra program, which became available at the
start of the 2010 school year, was among the first and is a top seller to
districts. Another algebra program and a geometry offering are coming out
now.
The HMH Fuse online app is free and gives users an idea of how it works,
and the content can be downloaded for $60. By comparison, the publisher's
950-page algebra text on which it was based is almost $73 per copy, and
doesn't include the graphing calculators, interactive videos and other
features.
For a school that would buy 300 of the textbooks for its freshman class,
for instance, the savings from using the online version would be almost
$4,000.
Jay Diskey, executive director of the Association of American Publishers'
schools division, said all of the major textbook publishers are moving
toward electronic offerings, but at least in the short term, traditional
bound textbooks are here to stay.
"I think one of the real key questions that will be answered over the next
several years is what sort of things work best in print for students and
what sort of things work best digitally," Diskey said. "I think we're on
the cusp of a whole new area of research and comprehension about what
digital learning means."
.XXX Domains Go On Sale Wednesday
Registered trademark and brand holders will get a chance to secure .xxx
domains Wednesday, if only to fend off cybersquatters.
The ICM Registry, which doles out domains to third parties like GoDaddy and
Network Solutions, is giving brands 50 days to claim their domain. For
example, Coca-Cola can grab www.coca-cola.xxx. Stuart Lawley, the CEO of
ICM Registry, says it should cost around $200 for brands to get their .xxx
domains. Unlike other top-level domains, which charge roughly $50 a year to
maintain rights to a URL, brand holders will pay a one-time fee for .xxx
domains.
"The truth is, no one is going to be going to coca-cola.xxx, but some may
not want their brands associated [with .xxx domains] in any way," Lawley
says.
After the 50-day period, there will be a 17-day period where domains are
sold exclusively to the adult entertainment industry. Lawley says the appeal
of such domains is that they will provide more traffic and offer a
verification of sorts.
"It's a win because you'll be able to surf porn safely," says Lawley, adding
that it's also a win for consumers wishing to avoid porn since they can
filter out all .xxx sites.
The .xxx top-level-domain is the first to be approved by ICANN since .co,
which was approved for commercial use in July 2010. ICANN has also approved
a so-called "dot-whatever" plan that will allow for all kinds of suffixes.
That proposal has been opposed by marketers, who claim it is a shakedown.
For his part, Lawley says he is empathetic to marketers and thinks ICANN
should have removed trademarked URLs from the table at no cost to the
brands.
=~=~=~=
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