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Atari Online News, Etc. Volume 16 Issue 25
Volume 16, Issue 25 Atari Online News, Etc. June 20, 2014
Published and Copyright (c) 1999 - 2014
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 #1625 06/20/14
~ Issa's Internet Theory! ~ People Are Talking! ~ Car Mystery Solved!
~ Money for School Wi-Fi! ~ Expand Wi-Fi Spectrum? ~ AT&T Data Breach!
~ Super Mario Bros. Tip! ~ Cheaper iMac Unveiled! ~ Bing Not So Powerful?
~ ~ First Microchip, No Sale ~
-* Atari's Comeback Strategy! *-
-* Supreme Court: Social Media Threats *-
-* World's Largest Video Game Collection Sold *-
=~=~=~=
->From the Editor's Keyboard "Saying it like it is!"
""""""""""""""""""""""""""
I simply can't catch a break lately. Without dragging out the details,
let's just say that this week was a mad house around here due to one of
my dogs, and a $3,000.00 piece of grass! Yes, I said grass! You've
certainly heard stories of children ending up with foreign objects
"stuck" somewhere; well, the same can be said for pets. So, while the
little one recovers, I need to get this issue out before it gets too
late.
Until next time...
=~=~=~=
->In This Week's Gaming Section - Awesome Glitch in Super Mario Bros.!
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" Ataris Comeback Strategy!
Worlds Largest Video Game Collection Sells!
And more!
=~=~=~=
->A-ONE's Game Console Industry News - The Latest Gaming News!
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
Old Game, New Trick: Gamers Find Awesome Glitch in Super Mario Bros.
Super Mario Bros. is arguably the most popular video game of all time. The
mid-80s side-scroller brought gaming to the masses by mixing accessible
controls with a surprising number of tricks to track down.
And though the game is roughly 30 years old, gamers are still discovering
some of the titles funky little secrets.
RetroCollect, a site dedicated to old-school gaming, recently published a
clip of what appears to be a never-before-seen glitch from the Nintendo
classic and a handy one at that.
Assuming the video is legit and not some elaborate ruse created by a
gamer with too much time on his hands, the trick is pretty nifty. First
off, youll need to play a two-player game and beat the game. That will
allow you to play a second quest in which the enemies are slightly
different.
From RetroCollect:
First, you must first take player ones Mario to the second level of the
game and throw away your first life. With Luigi taking over, player two
must traverse all the way to World 5-2 and find the hidden beanstalk
block halfway through the stage. Once there, Luigi must start climbing
the vines, however, he must await - and take on the chin - an incoming
projectile from one of the Hammer Bros. Upon being hit, once player one
resumes control of Mario, the beanstalk from World 5-2 will start
growing in World 1-2, providing all you need to infinitely kick shells
for unlimited bonuses.
So, to summarize, the oft-neglected Luigi must sacrifice himself so that
his glory-hound brother can score unlimited lives and play forever.
Typical.
Will this discovery change the way games are made, played, or marketed?
Well, no. But it does serve as a reminder to developers and studios that
the best games will inspire players to hunt high and low for tricks and
glitches far into the future.
=~=~=~=
->A-ONE Gaming Online - Online Users Growl & Purr!
"""""""""""""""""""
Ataris Comeback Strategy
Atari may have set the stage for the video game revolution in the 1970s
and 1980s, but that did not prevent the company from eventually going
bankrupt. Now Atari is back, according to its new owners.
The company has unveiled its new corporate strategy as an interactive
entertainment production company. Atari plans to succeed via online video
games, online casinos, exclusive video content and a licensing business
that includes hardware and apparel.
Atari's press release also said that the company will continue its
hardware licensing business, with the goal of operating the most promising
ventures at a later stage.
The company further said that it is extending its classic gaming brands to
various platforms, including mobile (iOS and Android), PC, online and
other digital mediums. It will also seek to capitalize on other markets
and new audiences, which are said to include LGBT, social casinos,
real-money gambling and YouTube, with exclusive video content.
Fred Chesnais, chief executive officer of Atari, said:
Atari is more than a game publishing company; it's an iconic brand that
has established a passionate and timeless culture. Known across multiple
generations around the world, Atari will continue to embrace all
audiences. ... We're looking forward to delivering on our new strategy
and engaging with our audience in new ways across multiple channels as
the next era of Atari unfolds. We are leading a rebuilding exercise in a
highly volatile industry, so at the same time we are also aware of the
challenges that lay ahead.
Back in April, Atari issued another press release, announcing the launch
of the game called Minimum, a third-person multiplayer online combat
game.
Worlds Largest Video Game Collection Sells for $750,000
The worlds largest video game collection has found a new home.
Michael Thomassons epic collection, which includes more than 11,000
unique games, was sold for a whopping $750,250 at auction this week. While
the name of the winning bidder (who goes by the online handle
peeps_10091970) is unknown, he or she is now the proud owner of a
Guinness certificate proving that the collection is the worlds largest,
a lifetime subscription to RETRO magazine, and enough video games to last
several lifetimes.
The auction pulled in 56 bids, but the majority of those were between
peeps_10091970 and another bidder using the online alias catch123. The
two began their battle at the $150,000 mark.
The bidding escalated so quickly that even cash-rich Oculus founder Palmer
Luckey (who put in bids for $50,000 and slightly more than $90,000)
quickly backed out.
Of course, any auction that hits these sorts of numbers raises legitimacy
questions. Peeps has no feedback attached to his/her online identity a
classic red flag but until theres word otherwise, the collection has
been sold. At a rate of about $68 per game, thats a sizable return on
Thomassons investment. Its also in line with his valuation of between
$700,000 and $800,000.
Thomassons collection began in 1998, when he ran a game resale website
and managed a retail game store. Its a treasure, for sure, boasting more
than 20 complete U.S. sets (thats the system plus every official game).
Several thousands of games are still in their original factory
shrink-wrap.
Ironically, its not out of the realm of possibility that Thomasson may
hold the record again someday. This was actually his third collection of
games. The first he sold in 1989 to buy a Sega Genesis, and then he sold
a larger one in 1998 to pay for his wedding.
It cant be an easy living, but its certainly proving to be a lucrative
one.
31-Year Old Spy Hunter Car Mystery Solved!
So tonight while researching old driving games for that big poster, us
Jalops were looking at some of the box/cabinet art for the famous game
Spy Hunter. Specifically, we were looking at the car, which I always
assumed was just made up for the game. But something clicked for Raph.
I think I've said before that of all the technological promises from my
youth, the only thing
Here's what Raph said, over the old, salvaged Minitel system we use for
inter-Jalop communications:
Holy crap, I never bothered to wonder what the Spy Hunter car was but...
ISDERA?
Now, Isdera (a German acronym for Ingenieurbüro für Styling, DEsign ind
Racing) isn't the most well-known supercar company, but they did do some
dramatic stuff. Like the Imperator 108i, which appears to be the car used
on the Spy Hunter artwork.
The Imperator was based on a concept car built for Mercedes-Benz, the
CW311. It used a 5L Mercedes-Benz V8 which was potent enough to give it a
top speed of 176 MPH. It also had a funky rear-view periscope thing, which
seems to have been left out of the Spy Hunter car.
Alas, it doesn't seem like Raph was really the first to make the Spy
Hunter-Isdera connection, but I still feel its important to keep you, dear
reader, updated on this breaking 30 year old news.
=~=~=~=
A-ONE's Headline News
The Latest in Computer Technology News
Compiled by: Dana P. Jacobson
Darrell Issa's Internet Theory: Net Neutrality Will End Porn
The public pressure for strong regulations keeping Internet providers from
picking favorites is growing, and House Republicans dont like it. In a
hearing of a House Judiciary subcommittee on Friday, they described net
neutrality as a form of government censorship that would prevent
technology companies from innovating. Underpinning these arguments was
the flawed notion that net neutrality is an idea cooked up by the
Federal Communications Commission over the last six weeks, and not the
basis of government policy for more than a decade.
Net neutrality is a seductive slogan, said Bruce Owen, a fellow at the
Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research. While this was a
strange way to describe what is often seen as one of the most boring
phrases in history, Owen does sort of have a point: 58 percent of
respondents to a recent survey by Consumers Union said they were
against allowing Internet service providers to charge companies for
preferential treatment. Owen argued the phrase has no real meaning, and
compared it to a mutating virus that adapts to attack market freedom in
whatever way it can. When asked to provide his own definition, he
couldnt come up with one.
Owen was one of three panelists saying that antitrust laws could be used
to regulate any problems with Internet governance, essentially proposing
that the FCC, which is in the process of developing new rules, be
removed from the process altogether. This would leave the Federal Trade
Commission in charge. Every Republican member of the committee also
supported this idea.
Story: Darrell Issa's Not-Unreasonable Push to Cut Door-to-Door Mail
Delivery Columbia Law School professor Tim Wu, the man who coined the
phrase net neutrality, was the sole voice of dissent appearing before
the panel. His view is that the Internet is too important to be left to
economists, and that the government has the responsibility to protect
free speech by making sure that certain services arent favored for
political reasons. There are a wide range of non-economic values that I
fear the antitrust law simply does not capture, he said. If you have a
political bias, it doesnt necessarily give a competitive advantage to
the ISP.
Congressman Darrell Issa argued that allowing the government to consider
anything but pure economic questions was the same thing as censorship.
Pointing out that the FCC doesnt allow profanity on network television,
he said that the goal of any Internet regulation would be the same. Under
net neutrality, he said, we go back to the Leave It to Beaver times,
when you couldnt show two married adults sleeping in the same bed. He
noted that on the Internet, by contrast, there are no restrictions on
sexually-charged content. When Wu tried to explain that this wasnt the
point of net neutrality, Issa cut him off. Net neutrality doesnt
exist, he snapped.
But heres the thing: Net neutrality does exist. People arguing against
it have consistently said that the imposition of new rules would end a
decade of unregulated Internet. But the FCC has had some form of these
rules in place for years. Opponents of net neutrality can rightly make
the argument that a federal court has twice rejected these rules, but
thats different from acting like the whole concept of Internet
regulation has suddenly come out of the blue. Comcast, the countrys
largest cable Internet provider, agreed to comply with the FCCs rules
when it acquired NBCUniversal in 2011. It remains bound by those
agreements even though a court invalidated the rules in January.
Opponents of stronger FCC rules like to ask for evidence of the problem
that net neutrality is trying to solve. You could also flip that question
to ask, why change a basic concept that hasnt caused any problems? The
reason we havent had a problem over the last 20 years is that weve had
de jure or de facto net neutrality in place, said Wu. Im going to
agree with the policy of if its not broken, dont fix it.
Supreme Court To Decide Whether Threats Made on Social Media Are Free Speech
The Supreme Court will consider the free speech rights of people who use
violent or threatening language on Facebook and other electronic media
where the speakers intent is not always clear.
The court on Monday agreed to take up the case of an eastern Pennsylvania
man sentenced to nearly four years in federal prison for posting violent
online rants against his estranged wife, law enforcement officials and
former co-workers.
A federal appeals court rejected Anthony Elonis claim that his comments
were protected by the First Amendment. He says he never meant to carry out
the threats. He claims he was depressed and made the online posts in the
form of rap lyrics as a way of venting his frustration after his wife left
him.
At his trial, the jury was instructed that Elonis could be found guilty if
an objective person could consider his posts to be threatening. Attorneys
for Elonis argue that the jury should have been told to apply a subjective
standard and decide whether Elonis meant the messages to be understood as
threats.
Eloniss lawyers say a subjective standard is appropriate given the
impersonal nature of communication over the Internet, which can lead
people to misinterpret messages. They argue that comments intended for a
smaller audience can be viewed by others unfamiliar with the context and
interpret the statements differently than was intended.
The Obama administration says requiring proof of a subjective threat
would undermine the purpose of the federal law prohibiting threats.
The high court said it will consider whether conviction of threatening
another person under federal law requires proof of the defendants
subjective intent to threaten.
For more than 40 years, the Supreme Court has said that true threats to
harm another person are not protected speech under the First Amendment.
But the court has cautioned that laws prohibiting threats must not
infringe on constitutionally protected speech. That includes political
hyperbole or unpleasantly sharp attacks that fall shy of true threats.
The federal statute targeting threats of violence is likely to be used
more often in the coming years as our speech increasingly migrates from
in-person and traditional handwritten communication to digital devices and
the Internet, said Clay Calvert, a law professor at the University of
Florida.
Calvert, one of several free speech advocates who submitted a legal brief
urging the court to use a subjective standard, said people mistakenly seem
to feel that they can get away with more incendiary speech on the
Internet, in tweets and in texts.
Elonis estranged wife testified at his trial the postings made her fear
for her life. One post about his wife said, Theres one way to love you
but a thousand ways to kill you. Im not going to rest until your body is
a mess, soaked in blood and dying from all the little cuts.
FBI agents visited Elonis at home after the amusement park that fired him
contacted law enforcement officials about his posts. After the agents
left, Elonis wrote: Little agent lady stood so close, took all the
strength I had not to turn the (woman) ghost. Pull my knife, flick my
wrist and slit her throat.
The case is Elonis v. United States, 13-983.
AT&T Suffers Data Breach
AT&T confirmed Friday that attackers compromised the personal information
of an undisclosed number of AT&T Mobility members.
AT&T just revealed that outside attackers allegedly employees of one of
AT&Ts service providers stole a trove of personal information on AT&T
Mobility customers. AT&T says the stolen information includes Social
Security numbers and call records, i.e. details about the date, time,
duration and other phone number for every phone call customers make. AT&T
would not disclose the number of affected users.
AT&T believes that the attackers were seeking to sell stolen AT&T phones
on second-hand markets and hacked the AT&T database in order to get
unlock codes for the phones, which would let the thieves disconnect the
stolen phones from the AT&T network, thus letting the phones reconnect to
other mobile networks. This makes the phone far more valuable in
secondhand markets.
The AT&T Mobility breach apparently occurred on April 9 through 21, two
months ago, but AT&T only just revealed it now, as a California state law
requires all companies with 500 or more Californian customers to
self-report if they have suffered a data breach.
The good news is, if the criminals are truly most interested in unlocking
stolen phones, then only stolen phones are at risk. But because social
security numbers were included as well, users should take steps to
protect their identity, such as placing an alert on their credit report
to watch for fraud.
U.S. Senators Introduce Bill To Expand Wi-Fi Spectrum
Two U.S. senators have introduced legislation aimed at expanding the
amount of Wi-Fi spectrum available in a band now designated for
intelligent vehicle communications, satellite service and amateur radio.
The legislation, announced Friday by Senators Cory Booker, a New Jersey
Democrat, and Marco Rubio, a Florida Republican, would require the U.S.
Federal Communications Commission to test the feasibility of opening the
upper 5GHz band of spectrum to unlicensed Wi-Fi use.
The WiFi Innovation Act attempts to balance the needs of incumbent users
of the 5850-5925MHz band, including growing use of so-called intelligent
transportation systems, focused on vehicle safety and traffic
information, with a major need for more Wi-Fi spectrum, the senators
said in a statement. The bill encourages users of the band to share
spectrum if possible, they said.
Smartphone and tablet users are increasingly using Wi-Fi instead of
cellular networks to connect to the Internet, and the upper 5GHz band
also holds the potential for delivering new broadband service to
low-income communities, Booker said in a statement.
There is a clear and growing demand for increased availability of
spectrum, Booker said. We want to see this valuable resource made
available for further use by the public. Not only does access to wireless
broadband open the door for innovation and transformative new
technologies, it helps bridge the digital divide that leaves too many
low-income communities removed from the evolving technology landscape
and the growing economic opportunities.
The bill would create a study to examine the barriers to Wi-Fi deployment
in low-income areas. It would require the FCC to evaluate incentives and
policies that could increase the availability of unlicensed spectrum in
low-income neighborhoods.
The bill addresses customer demands for mobile broadband, Rubio added.
To meet the demands of our time, action must be taken to ensure spectrum
is utilized effectively and efficiently, he said in a statement. This
bill requires the FCC to conduct testing that would provide more spectrum
to the public and ultimately put the resource to better use, while
recognizing the future needs and important work being done in intelligent
transportation.
With only weeks before the 2014 campaign season kicks into high gear, the
bill is unlikely to pass during this session of Congress. The sponsors
could reintroduce the bill during the new session of Congress beginning
next January.
The Intelligent Transportation Society of America, a trade group, said it
supports an effort to explore technical solutions that would allow Wi-Fi
devices to operate in the 5.9GHz band without interfering with these
critical safety applications.
The process should happen without arbitrary deadlines ... or political
pressure that could influence the outcome, Scott Belcher, president and
CEO of ITS America, said in a statement.
Mobile trade group CTIA, as well as tech trade groups the Computer and
Communications Industry Association and the Consumer Electronics
Association, praised the bill, saying more Wi-Fi spectrum will help meet
consumer demand for mobile broadband.
FCC Proposes $1 Billion Per Year for Wi-Fi in Schools
U.S. schools could get a cool billion to set up Wi-Fi networks to connect
more than 10 million more students by the 2015-2016 school year under a
new FCC proposal.
Three out of five schools dont have the Wi-Fi they need, yet no money
was available for Wi-Fi last year under E-Rate, the U.S. Federal
Communications Commissions Internet funding program for schools and
libraries, FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler said Friday in a proposal circulated
to the agencys other commissioners.
Wheelers plan would allocate $1 billion in E-Rate funds for Wi-Fi next
year and another $1 billion in 2016, with the goal of getting Wi-Fi to
more than 10 million additional students in each of those years. It also
calls for predictable funding in future years. If the agency takes action
this summer, the Wi-Fi upgrades could be in place for the 2015-2016
school year, according to the proposal.
The initial funding would come from $2 billion that the FCC has
determined can be freed from reserve accounts and other sources, the
proposal said.
E-Rate was established in 1996 and is too tied to the technologies of
that era, according to Wheeler. His plan calls for a transition in
funding from technologies such as dial-up and pagers to broadband and
Wi-Fi in order to serve students on tablets and other personal devices.
In past years, the program has only been able to support Wi-Fi in
5 percent of schools and 1 percent of libraries, Wheeler said. E-Rate
provides a total of $2.4 billion per year in funding.
At the same time, Wheeler called for reforms to tighten control over a
program that has been plagued by fraud and corruption. His plan calls for
zero tolerance for fraud or abuse, with site inspections and tighter
document-retention rules. It would also move the program toward
electronic filing of all documents. The modernization plan is the first
such proposal in the history of the program, according to Wheeler.
In February, a survey sponsored by technology-in-education group showed
83 percent of U.S. voters would support efforts to bring faster broadband
to schools and 69 percent would back the idea even if it required a tax
of $4 per year on their mobile bills.
Apple Unveils Cheaper iMac
On Tuesday morning Apple quietly released a new iMac computer for $1099,
which is $200 less than the previous cheapest iMac model.
The new iMac retains the same design as the other iMacs, and even has the
same screen size 21.5 inches in diagonal as an existing model. The
$200 savings come on the inside: As you can see above, the less expensive
iMac comes with a slower processor a 1.4GHz processor, with two cores
instead of a beefier one the 2.7GHz processor with four cores that was
previously the cellar option.
A computers processor largely determines your machines speed, and helps
multi-taskers load and run multiple programs at the same time. The slower
the processor, the more difficulty your computer will have running those
programs.
So, if youre accustomed to watching Netflix while editing on Photoshop
and playing World of Warcraft, the new iMac might not be for you. If
youre just looking for a desktop computer to check email and surf the
Web, this one might work out.
Other sacrifices: Youll get 500 gigabytes in storage, versus 1 terabyte
in storage (thats 500GB fewer: 1TB is 1000GB). And the graphics card,
which is important to gamers, is also a little less high-quality.
The $1099 iMac gives Apple a more competitive desktop alternative to
Windows-based PCs, which are traditionally less expensive than Macs.
Despite a shrinking market for both laptop and desktop computers
globally, there are still hundreds of millions of PCs sold each year.
The new iMac is available to order now and should be at your door in
24 hours.
Power of Microsoft's Bing An Open Question in Search Industry
Microsoft Corp's new chief executive, Satya Nadella, likes to boast that
Bing is growing and powers 30 percent of the Internet search market,
making it a worthy competitor to Google Inc.
But within the advertising and research industries that measure and
manage search as a business, Microsoft's strength is an open question.
The figures quoted by Microsoft, which include searches by partner Yahoo
Inc , are much higher than the rate at which people actually click on
the links that a search returns, according to new studies by industry
researchers.
The new search data calls into question Bing's effectiveness for
advertisers. It also lends support to the argument from some investors
that Microsoft should sell Bing.
Microsoft has been in the Internet search business since 1998, and Bing
- five years old this month - is its latest and most intense effort to
unseat market leader Google. The company initially assumed that its
world-class engineers and the sheer scale of its Windows user base would
sweep away competitors, but Google has not relinquished any share.
To measure its progress in the search business, Microsoft prefers to cite
market share numbers from comScore, which established itself as the prime
source for Internet data a decade ago, when reliable numbers were hard to
come by, and has long been considered the gold standard.
ComScore said Google sites had 67.6 percent of U.S. searches in May,
compared with Microsoft's 18.8 percent and Yahoo's 10 percent, which are
both powered by Bing.
ComScore bases its calculations on desktop computer Internet searches by
about a million anonymous people in the United States. It does not
measure searches on mobile phones or tablets, which are dominated by
Google, but it does count searches within the big MSN and Yahoo portals,
factors which help explain why Bing has such a significant share.
But advertisers are less interested in searches than what users do with
search results. They want traffic to their sites; they care what search
result links users click and what sites they visit. In recent years,
technology has made that behavior much easier to track.
"Clicks are important because they tell us how well we are capturing
(search users') demand, and of course advertisers pay based on clicks,"
said Jason Hartley, group media director at search marketing firm 360i,
whose clients include brands such as Coca-Cola and Verizon. ComScore data
"can lead you down the wrong path, or it doesn't give you as much insight
as you'd like," he added.
A study published last month by Conductor, a company that advises
marketers on how to stand out in Web searches and social media, showed
Google accounted for 85 percent of traffic to websites from search
engines, with only 5 percent from Bing and 7 percent from Yahoo. The
study was based on 100 million visits to 63 websites from clicks on
search links - not counting ads - including from mobile devices.
Ireland-based StatCounter, which gets data from more than 3 million
websites, found Google accounted for 80 percent of search engine-supplied
U.S. traffic in the last three months, Bing 10 percent and Yahoo
8 percent. Search marketing firm Define Media Group came up with similar
figures based on 1.4 billion visits from search engines so far this year
to 125 websites.
Advertisers make the same point with their spending: web marketing firm
IgnitionOne estimates that Google gets about 77 percent of web search ad
dollars against 23 percent for Yahoo/Bing. Design software maker Autodesk
told Reuters that it generally splits search ad spending 80/20 in favor
of Google with its "significantly larger pool of users".
The does not mean comScore's data is faulty. Rather, many in the search
industry say it doesn't measure what advertisers and website owners want
to know, the web traffic generated by a search.
"Their current methodology is likely to mislead those who take it at face
value," said Rand Fishkin, a well-known pioneer in the search engine
optimization field and co-founder of search advisory firm Moz.
ComScore stands by its figures. Vice President of Marketing Andrew Lipsman
said the data is not designed to measure where Web traffic goes, only the
searching behavior of consumers. He added that comScore is working on
integrating mobile device results into its data.
Microsoft said it had no reason to doubt comScore's figures. It added that
it is committed to Bing, which is a core part of Microsoft's game console
Xbox and its coming voice assistant on Windows phone. Bing also powers
other companies' sites and devices, including Apple Inc's Siri and soon
Apple desktop search. Bing is integrated into translation features on
Facebook and Twitter.
Microsoft search advertising revenue rose 38 percent last quarter, helped
by higher prices and more searches, it said in its last quarterly report,
without disclosing dollar figures.
Microsoft's online services unit, which includes Bing, lost more than $14
billion in Bing's first four years, including the cost of a failed
acquisition. Last year, Microsoft put Bing in a new reporting group so
its financial performance is obscured, but many on Wall Street assume
Bing is still losing money.
Craig Beilinson, director of consumer communications at Microsoft, said
it "continues to gain traction" as a standalone search engine and
powering other companies' products.
While Bing has grown, that improvement has come mostly at the expense of
Yahoo, according to comScore figures. The combined share of Bing and
Yahoo has risen less than one percentage point in five years, taking
share from smaller competitors Ask.com and AOL Inc , not Google.
Some search marketers say they like having an alternative to Google, and
that Bing/Yahoo can be a good investment for some clients.
"Clients that have an older demographic, we sometimes do better on Bing
or Yahoo," said Pauline Jakober, founder of Group Twenty Seven, which
advises mid-sized clients on paid search ad campaigns.
Business-to-business, like janitorial or industrial types, could do well
on Bing, while tech clients might not even want to advertise on Bing, she
said.
But Bing has drawn criticism from some investors because it is expensive
to operate, requiring resources from engineers to server farms.
The new search data called into question Bing's usefulness, said Todd
Lowenstein at HighMark Capital Management.
He and other investors believe Microsoft should focus on products that
businesses pay for, such as the Office suite of products and the Windows
operating system.
"Microsoft would be better served selling Bing to another player who can
use the asset," he said.
Ironically, Google does not highlight this weakness any more than
Microsoft.
"Google loves the fact that anybody other than Google looks like they are
doing better," said Danny Sullivan, longtime industry observer and editor
of the Search Engine Land blog. "It's a very handy tool for them to go out
and say you don't need to be regulating us, look, the market's strong."
Google and Yahoo declined comment on the comScore data.
World's First Microchip Fails To Sell at Auction
The world's first microchip, handmade in 1958 by Jack Kilby at Texas
Instruments, went up for auction this week, but bids failed to meet the
reserve. This piece of history won Kilby a Nobel Prize and represents one
of the first steps leading to the modern computing era.
A germanium wafer with gold wiring, mounted on a glass plate and embedded
in a block of clear plastic, the first integrated circuit looks more than
a little primitive, like a prehistoric insect preserved in amber.
Kilby, the creator of this electronic fossil, died in 2005 but not
before seeing the technology he pioneered become ubiquitous and
indispensable worldwide. The integrated circuit on a chip, later called
a microchip, combined several functions and components of early
computing machines, making smaller and more efficient constructions
possible.
The invention was lauded as a major advance, and quickly advanced on by
others. It wasn't until 2000, however, that Kilby's work won him the
Nobel Prize in physics.
The lot comprises the original 1958 prototype, a second early chip, and
a letter from inventor Jack Kilby describing the process of creating
them.
For auction at Christie's was not just the historic chip, but a second
prototype built on a more stable silicon substrate, plus a 1964 written
statement from Kilby describing the process of the invention.
Bids reached as high as $850,000, but did not meet the reserve;
Christie's estimated the lot would bring between $1 million and
$2 million. What happens next is not clear we've reached out to the
auction house for more details, and will update this article if they
respond.
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