Category: News

The guys guarding the velvet rope at downtown’s hottest nightspot may be tough–but at least they don’t spit like these llama bouncers. The BBC reports that two llamas, Willy and Jack, have been drafted to protect the eggs and chicks of wading birds at the Merseyside nature park in Britain–in particular, they’ll guard lapwing and redshank birds, which are threatened species in England. Researchers say that the highly territorial llamas will kick up a fuss if intruders drop by, and will scare away foxes and other predators looking to snack on eggs or chicks. With the llamas on watch, the park officers hope, the young birds will have a shot at survival. This is not the first time that llamas have been deployed to protect livestock. The llama and its relative the alpaca have previous work experience protecting lambs and sheep from predators. Alpacas, in fact, come with great references—having been employed by the Prince of Wales to protect his lambs from foxes during lambing season at his Gloucestershire estate. Looking at the llamas’ resumes, it’s their bouncing skills that stand out. The BBC describes:
It is hoped their slightly erratic behavior, along with the groaning noises and the sound they make when afraid or …

By Scott M. Fulton, III, Betanews

A spokesperson for Microsoft’s legal department confirmed to Betanews this afternoon that a precise legal interpretation of the company’s patent agreement announced late yesterday with phone maker HTC is accurate, but interpretations of that announcement that imply Microsoft will charge royalties to HTC for its use of the Android operating system, are inaccurate.

“This agreement covers HTC’s use of Microsoft technology that may appear in Android,” the spokesperson told Betanews, affirming a specific interpretation of the language that we sought clarification on. As the announcement reads, “Microsoft Corp. and HTC Corp. have signed a patent agreement that provides broad coverage under Microsoft’s patent portfolio for HTC’s mobile phones running the Android mobile platform. Under the terms of the agreement, Microsoft will receive royalties from HTC.” (emphasis ours)

Our interpretation, which Microsoft affirmed, is that HTC will pay royalties to Microsoft for the use of technologies in phones that may (or may not) be adapted for use with Android…or, for that matter, any other mobile OS. Such an agreement enables HTC, for instance, to repurpose phones that were originally engineered for Windows Mobile, and also conceivably reuse software technologies such as HTC’s Sense UI (which the manufacturer is already doing), in Android-based phones.

The agreement takes the opposite approach from Apple, which sued HTC last month, claiming that it had misappropriated certain patented technologies from iPhone. Now, with an agreement in hand that effectively acknowledges Microsoft permitted HTC to use certain categories of its technologies — categories for which Apple claims exclusive rights — HTC may be able to counter-claim that those claims are not exclusive since Microsoft holds patents for which HTC pays royalties.

So the agreement could help HTC in its fight against Apple. But it does not, as the Associated Press suggested earlier today, make Microsoft a party to the suit, nor does it bring Android into that mess.

The legal distinction here may seem trivial, but from another angle, it’s actually colossal: The agreement permits HTC, as Microsoft confirmed to Betanews, to continue to use the technologies it’s already using and for which it’s already paying and will continue to pay royalties, in other phones besides the Windows Mobile-based models. From that angle, that means Microsoft is not permitting HTC to use the Microsoft technology that appears in Android (assuming it does appear there at all). It means Android may be adapted by HTC for use in other phones that have Microsoft technology.

That’s not to say Microsoft does not have outstanding concerns about Android’s use of possibly patented technologies, as the company’s deputy general counsel, Horacio Gutierrez, told Betanews in a statement late this morning. There certainly are concerns, and they may yet be resolved.

“Microsoft has a decades-long record of investment in software platforms. As a result, we have built a significant patent portfolio in this field, and we have a responsibility to our customers, partners, and shareholders to ensure that competitors do not free ride on our innovations,” Gutierrez told us. “We have also consistently taken a proactive approach to licensing to resolve IP infringement by other companies, and have been talking with several device manufacturers to address our concerns relative to the Android mobile platform.”

Though Gutierrez did not provide names, of course, one of those other manufacturers may be Motorola. Last year at this time, Motorola suspended its plans to release a certain class of phone, code-named “Heron,” for Windows Mobile 6.5, opting to release it during the latter half of 2009 under Android. It never did so, perhaps because an agreement such as the one reached yesterday with HTC, has yet to be drawn.

In June 2007, Microsoft entered into a license agreement with LG, which at the time was said to cover the use of Microsoft technologies in devices that may include Linux. That broad agreement may have been a model for the HTC agreement yesterday, and it may also be covering LG right now. LG officially announced its first Android phones just today, the SU2300 slider and the SU950 widescreen, for debut this spring in South Korea and possibly Europe.

Unfortunately for the conspiracy theorists, the HTC/Microsoft agreement does not appear to be a line-in-the-sand battle against Apple or Google. Rather, it’s good news for Android, as it means Microsoft is willing to extend its technology to other platforms (naturally, for a price). The presumption that Microsoft is taking sides against Android supporters, or that it’s forcing them to pay Microsoft for their use of Android, is false.

Tim Conneally contributed significant facts and reporting for this story.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2010

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Howard Lovy wrote:

Business incubator Ann Arbor SPARK is asking Michigan startups to take their best shots at five open spots in a business pitch competition it plans to host on June 4, the group announced today.

The winner will get up to $50,000 in business acceleration services and a one-year incubator lease at SPARK East in Ypsilanti, MI. The competition is co-sponsored by the Eastside Innovation Campus (EIC), which hosts small businesses.

“The EIC collaboration is helping to expand the region’s entrepreneurial success by delivering critical services to startups,” Michael A. Finney, CEO of Ann Arbor SPARK, said in a prepared statement. “The pitch competition is a celebration of that success to date and signifies a continued commitment by SPARK East and its partners to growing startup businesses.”

The event will showcase five “innovation-based entrepreneurs” who will have three minutes each to pitch a panel of judges who are “noted funding and business experts,” the group said. The winner has to set up shop at the SPARK East business incubator. Applications are due by close of business May 14 and finalists will be notified by May 21.

An online application is available here. Those who want to attend the free event can register here.

UNDERWRITERS AND PARTNERS

If you’re in Canada and have a hankering for some twisted, flippy Android keyboard action, know that the Motorola Backflip is now available on Telus. It runs a very respectable $399 off-contract and goes as low as $249 with the Canadian-standard three-year deal. [Telus] Thanks, Jon!

In recent days, the blog buzz in the Indiana Senate race has been about a poll nobody’s seen. Erick Erickson of Redstate described it this way:

“There is a rumor of a poll that went out in Indiana that was then not made public. Well, heck, I only call it a rumor because it happened but nobody wants to talk about it. My guess is, based on the Coats campaign’s behavior, the poll was either done for them or the results then given to them, making it an NRSC poll. That it has not been leaked means it could not be good news for Dan Coats.”

It turns out there IS a poll. It IS coming out tomorrow (April 29th). It IS a Survey USA poll (as many speculated/guessed/reported). But it IS NOT a Dan Coats internal poll. It was commissioned by the (take a deep breath before saying this aloud) Mike Downs Center for Indiana Politics at Indiana University-Purdue University Ft. Wayne.

The release of the poll is scheduled for Thursday “morning”. When I get it. I WILL post it.

This poll will be out just five-days before Primary Day (May 4th). The five-candidate GOP battle for the party nomination between Coats, Marlin Stutzman, John Hostettler, Richard Behney and Don Bates, Jr. has divided the Republican vote so well that many party regulars refuse to be quoted on their guess as to who might give the victory speech Tuesday night.

The winner gets Democrat Brad Ellsworth in the general election come November.

This afternoon, the Federal Open Markets Committee, the board of the Federal Reserve that determines monetary policy and interest rates, announced it has decided to keep the target federal funds rate between 0.0 and 0.25 percent, as expected.

The language in the statement was virtually identical to that in last month’s, indicating no change in Fed policy. All of the FOMC members voted to keep rates the same, save for Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City President Thomas Hoenig, a vocal inflation hawk who has voted for rate increases at the past two meetings. The minutes say Hoenig believes that keeping interest rates low for “an extended period” is “no longer warranted because it could lead to a build-up of future imbalances and increase risks to longer run macroeconomic and financial stability.”

49 out of 50 U.S. states are still showing less economic activity than a year ago, based on February 2010 coincident economic indicators from the Federal Reserve of Philadelphia. The chart below is organized from top to bottom, from the most growth in economic activity to the largest declines in economic activity.

States like West Virginia (WV), Maryland (MD), Idaho (ID), and Wyoming (WY) are the worst off year over year. Their February 2010 economic activity remained 13.5%, 6.3%, 6.3%, and 6.2% lower year over year. Thus their economies, along with those of another 45 states, all the red ones, are all underwater on an annual basis.

North Dakota (ND) is the only state to currently have a higher level of economic activity year over year. Its February 2010 economic activity was 1.1% higher than February 2009, as shown by the green dot in the chart below.

Moreover, 28 out of 50 states even exhibited less economic activity in February 2010 than just three months earlier (not directly shown below). This means they have been deteriorating most recently as well.

In fact, the chart below is organized from left to right by the change in economic activity in the last three months (February 2010 vs. November 2009).

Thus West Virginia (WV), Maryland (MD), Montana (MT), and Delaware (DE), have seen their economic activity fall since November 2009 the most, given that they are the left-most dots. For example, West Virginia’s economic activity fell 3.1% vs. November 2009 (percentage not shown). In contrast, Michigan has done the best most recently, given that it is the right-most dot, rising 1.5% vs. November 2009 (percentage not shown).

Net-net what this tells us is that 49 out of 50 state economies are still underwater on a one year basis, and 28 out of 50 are even still falling vs. November.

Join the conversation about this story »

After focusing on technology strategy for many years as a professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Sloan School of Management, Rebecca Henderson finally took a sabbatical. With time for leisure reading, and at the urging of her brother, a freelance environmental journalist, she decided to explore the literature on climate change.

The sobering facts and figures that she found made her want to leave academia, she told a group of HBS students, faculty, and staff at the Harvard Business School (HBS) last Thursday (April 22).

“I was interested in doing something about global warming,” said Henderson, the School’s Senator John Heinz Professor of Environmental Management.

Luckily, her “green” friends convinced her that as a business professor she was poised to make a difference in an area that really counted: corporate America. So, she shifted her academic focus and joined the faculty at Harvard Business School.

Henderson delivered her remarks as part of the annual HBS Earth Day celebration, a series of events dedicated to raising awareness of sustainability. Her current research centers on large companies that work to build new businesses or improve their efficiency using sustainable practices and technologies.

Maintaining a profitable business model and safeguarding the world aren’t mutually exclusive concepts, said Henderson.

“What we need is a clear-eyed focus on the bottom line, linked to a deep sense of moral purpose. I think that is what leadership in the age of climate change looks like.”

Henderson said she was hopeful and inspired by the many large corporations adopting stances that merge a successful business model with a moral imperative to make a difference on the environment.

The concept isn’t new. She offered the example of Johnson & Johnson, established in 1886, which incorporated the notion of helping people into its founding credo, and noted that today more CEOs are weaving a commitment to the common good into their mission statements.

Additionally, there are tremendous opportunities for innovation and profit in responding to the environmental crisis by developing wind and solar power and rethinking the world’s water, agriculture, and recycling systems, said Henderson.

Leaders who build communities dedicated to a common goal and who successfully bring the language of a common moral purpose into the daily fabric of their companies, while at the same time making sound economic decisions, are the ones who will succeed, she said.

“It’s really about understanding the uniting of the two … [and] taking this seriously as a guide to decisions and actions.”

Former F1 driver David Coulthard isn’t pleased with Michael Schumacher’s apparent criticism as he believes that Schumi should be give more time in this season to gain a firm footing.

David believes that it is not Michael’s fault and Mercedes should be blamed for not offering him the kind of car he likes to drive.

Schumi is 40 points behind his own teammate Nico Rosberg in the first four races and the revised Merc package for the Barcelona GP is being touted as his last chance to avoid being written off.

Coulthard thinks that Schumi should be given more time (at least half a season) before being assessed.

As per him, the current car Schumi is driving was originally made for Jenson Button who switched to McLaren making room for Schumi in the rebranded Brawn team.

Coulthard is hopeful that the seven time world champion will have to wait for Mercedes to develop the right kind of car.

Filed under: Car Buying, Japan, Honda, Earnings/Financials

Honda has officially joined the ranks of automakers like Kia and Ford by posting solid profits during the fourth quarter of the company’s fiscal year. The Japanese automaker managed to see profits rise by 28 percent compared to the same period last year, thanks largely to increased hybrid sales. The announcement marks the fourth-straight quarter of profits for the company after seeing a rare operating loss at the end of March, 2009.

Sales in Japan have been bolstered by sales of the incredibly popular CR-Z Hybrid. Earlier this month, Honda announced that it had received over 7,000 orders for the two-door hatchback, which accounted for over half of the models the company had set aside for sale in its home market.

Honda also attributed its quick recovery to the fact that its lineup is comprised mostly of fuel-efficient vehicles – something buyers in a global recession have been quick to appreciate. Analysts also point to a healthy dose of cost-cutting measures as bearing credit for the rebound, too. Based on the good news, the carmaker hopes to see its growth continue through the rest of 2010.

[Sources: Honda, Mainichi Daily News | Image: Justin Sullivan/Getty]

Honda in the black, fourth quarter profits up by 28% originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 28 Apr 2010 13:29:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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I’ve noted that the iPad will be a computer for people who are poor. I’ve predicted that Apple will turn on Facebook (their friend today, but so was Google, once). I’ve noted that MobileMe more closely resembles OS X server than it does Google Apps.

Spain was downgraded today, and now concerns over a minor Greek crisis are growing into the threat of a massive Spanish meltdown.

Spain would not be a minor blip on the world’s economic radar. Spanish banks have received a tremendous amount of financing from the European Central Bank (ECB).

From EconomicResources:

And Spanish banks also rely on interbank credit dwarfs Ireland and the rest of Europe, exposing those counterparties to banking sector risk.

From EconomicResources:

Combining this likely banking sector exposure with sovereign debt exposure, it looks likely France and Germany will face significant problems if the Spanish crisis progresses.

From EconomicResources:

See Just How Desperate Spain Is To Rollover Its Debt In Their Presentation To Foreign Investors >

Join the conversation about this story »

Another Android device will be hitting the market soon. This phone comes from a Chinese company named Commtiva. It will be sold through Cincinnati Bell which shares the same 3G bands as T-Mobile.

Specifications after the JUMPRadio Band & Standard
GSM/GPRS/EDGE 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900
WCDMA/HSDPA 1700 / 2100

5MP Camera

3.5 mm jack

Connectivity
GPS GPS / AGPS
Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g
Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR 2.0 + EDR
USB USB 2.0
Power
Battery Rechargeable Li-Ion 1230mAh
Power Adapter AC input: 100-240V, 50 / 60Hz, 0.2A max.
DC output: 5V, 1A
Temperature
Operating -15ºC to 55ºC
Non-operating / Storage -20ºC to 70ºC
Charging 0ºC to 40ºC
Humidity
Operating 10% to 90% non-condensing
Non-operating / Storage 5% to 95% non-condensing

The name of this phone is the Blaze. It will ship with Android 1.6, it should be priced fairly reasonable. Also, it could make its way to T-Mobile but if it doesn’t you could easily pop in your sim card and use it like it was came from T-Mobile.

[via cellphonesignal]

Found under: Nokia, N8, Symbian, Symbian^3, Announcement, Smartphone,

Big boy on the block the Nokia N8 and yes this is the first Symbian3 handset from Nokia and everything looks to be heading into the right direction. The N8 has been graced with the task of being Nokias new flagship device for Symbian3 and while the device looks really capable I cant help but feel a little underwhelmed by the handset its missing something.Right off the back you notice how the User Interface lacks glare compared to the likes of Android and the iPhone it just loo

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At the Peterson Foundation Fiscal Summit in Washington DC today, most panelists tried to distingiush between necessary short-term deficits and harmful structural long-term deficits. “I think Americans are smart enough to think about two things at the same time,” former CBO director Alice Rivlin said. 

Two employees at the Sprint outlet at Cherry Creek Shopping Center, where that iPad customer had his pinkie ripped off by a criminal earlier this month, were fired for chasing down and holding a different shoplifter one day later.

The men say they were starting their breaks when they heard the Apple store security guard, who they described as being in his mid-to-late-fifties, shout, “Help! Somebody stop that guy!” They saw a young guy run past with something in a jacket, so they chased him through Macy’s and into a parking garage, where they tackled him.

Before long, on-duty Denver cops and representatives of mall security had joined the crowd. As for the guard who’d been giving chase, he worked for the same Apple Store hit by Smith the previous day. The suspect allegedly grabbed several pieces of Apple software retailing for just over $500.

Shoemaker and McGee filled out paperwork for the mall and the police, accepted heartfelt congratulations for their quick thinking, and then returned to the Sprint store. About fifteen minutes had elapsed; their break was over.

Last week Sprint HQ started asking questions, and shortly thereafter terminated their employment, citing a policy that “employees shouldn’t confront thieves” and classifying their actions as employee misconduct.

“Sprint employees fired for capturing shoplifter” [Westworld] (Thanks to Adam!)

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“Robber Steals Man’s iPad & Part Of His Fing

Palm’s developer portal has recently added a video library section and its off to an excellent start with a number of webOS courses and tutorials.

Developers looking for more information into getting started on developing for webOS should checkout the new Palm developer podcast series. Now on their second installment, the video podcast is hosted by Palm’s developer relations duo, Ben Galbraith and Dion Almaer. The second video (also embedded after the break) gives a entry level crash course in getting started with webOS programming.

Also in the mix is a ongoing series of recorded lectures from Stanford on developing mobile apps for webOS. The college level course is currently underway at the university and is being taught by a rotating selection of Palm staff. Palm is making the recorded classes available on its video library and youtube.