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The latest twist in the search-engine wars is revisiting privacy policies. Pressure from the European Commission is behind the latest industry move as Microsoft agreed to rework Bing to discard user data after six months.

Microsoft’s Chief Privacy Strategist Peter Cullen framed the change as an ongoing evaluation of the company’s Internet search privacy practices. That evaluation, he said, led to the change in Microsoft’s data-retention policy that will see the company delete the entire Internet Protocol address associated with search queries at six months.

Microsoft has been deleting the information after 18 months. The software giant lagged behind Google, which cut data-retention times to nine months from 18 months in August 2008. In December 2008, Yahoo announced a data-retention policy that promised to anonymize user log data within 90 days, with limited exceptions for fraud, security and legal obligations.

Accommodating the EU

“This change is the result of a number of factors, including a continuing evaluation of our business needs, the current competitive landscape, and our ongoing dialogue with privacy advocates, consumer groups, and regulators — including the Article 29 Working Party, the group of 27 European national data-protection regulators charged with providing advice to the European Commission, and other European Union institutions on data protection,” Cullen said.

In 2008, EU privacy regulators asked Google, Yahoo and Microsoft to delete user data, including text entered into search-engine boxes and the computer’s IP address and location, after six months. Microsoft moved last year to make searchers’ unique IP addresses anonymous after six months, and with the new announcement Bing becomes the first company to fully cooperate with requests from EU countries.

“Under our current policy, as soon as Microsoft receives a Bing search query we take steps to de-identify the data by separating it from account information that could identify the person who performed…

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Filed under: Apple Corporate, Hardware, Multimedia, Rumors

The Wall Street Journal is reporting this morning that Apple is in talks with Harper Collins regarding ebooks for the new tablet. They suggest that the publisher will set the prices of the books with Apple taking a cut, in similar fashion to the 30/70 split currently in place for the App Store (but percentages not determined). The most interesting line notes that the ebooks “…will have added features.”

Back in December, HarperCollins CEO Brian Murray noted that “…e-books enhanced with video, author interviews and social-networking applications” were a possibility. Just watch this demo from Sports Illustrated to get an idea of the potential. While consumers love the über-cheap prices being offered on the Kindle and the Nook, publishers would undoubtedly like to bump them up a little. These additional features will serve both the consumer and the publisher: Shoppers get a more interesting ebook experience, wrapped in Apple style, while publishers receive a bigger payday.

The Wall Street Journal notes that other publishers have been talking with Apple without offering any additional details. Now that we have a firm date for the tablet’s introduction (probably, maybe) the rumors are going to swirl ever faster. Hold on to your seats.

[Via Engadget]

TUAWReport: Harper Collins, Apple negotiating tablet deal originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, 19 Jan 2010 10:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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With Conan O’Brien set to receive $40 million to walk away from the “Tonight Show,” the television media is circling to pin the blame for NBC’s broken late night carousel. Months after moving Jay Leno to primetime, the network announced that they would return their leading chin to late night, prompting O’Brien to demand a severance deal. Is this mess all Jay’s fault for sticking around, and being generally lame? Or Conan’s fault for failing to capture a late night audience, and being too goofy? Or NBC’s fault for coming up with the generally horrible idea in the first place?

Let’s start at the beginning. The problem with late night comedy is that it’s really neither late night nor comedy.

The NYT’s David Carr and his daughter have been watching the Jay Leno show recently, he
writes. But not on TV. On Hulu. The first problem with late night
comedy is that it’s no longer always late night. We can watch most
television shows online at any time. But late night TV — whose
transience is literally a part of its genre title: Late Night
TV– loses all cultural currency mere hours after their hosts sign off because the news changes and the jokes stale.

That is, if the shows haven’t lost all cultural currency to begin with. Carr explains:

But as things stand now, by the end of the day, we all have been
bombarded by news and commentary from all manner of media, making “The
Tonight Show” and its ilk increasingly seem beside the point, no matter
who is delivering the monologue. In its glory days, “The Tonight Show”
served as a search engine on culture, letting us know which politician
had made a gaffe, which corporate evildoer had been caught doing evil
and which starlet had experienced a wardrobe malfunction.

Now the search engine is the search engine — or more likely, any number of “did-you-see” alerts received by e-mail or on Facebook, Twitter or other sites we visit from our desktops or on our cellphones.

The choice to watch late night TV used to be: Leno or Letterman. Now it’s
Leno, or Letterman, or Community on NBC.com, or CSI on Hulu, or
Arrested Development on DVD, and so forth. Late night TV used to live in the alpine
wilderness of midnight television, where no primetime dramas dared to
tread. Now it’s fighting to survive in a jungle where every show on TV
is, technically speaking, “on.”

The second problem with late night comedy is that it’s not comedy — at
least not to me and everybody I know. I can’t remember the last time somebody recited a Jay
Leno joke, or sent along a David Letterman monologue, or implored me to
watch last night’s Conan O’Brien – Andy Richter interaction. But I get
Daily Show clips sent to me all the time. Precisely because late night
comedy is designed to appeal to everyone and offend as little as
possible, it inevitably appeals to no one and surprises as little as
possible. Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart — the real heirs to late
night comedy as a brand of actual comedy — peddle media satire and
criticism with an edge of partisanship. They’re funny because they’re
unpredictable yet purposeful, incendiary with a point.

Late night television has lost more than an audience, or a host. It’s lost its reason to exist.

ONE point I’ve been making recently is that a return to full employment in America will be slow to arrive so long as household balance sheets remain troubled. Consumption is a large part of the American economy, and while Americans pay down the debts accumulated during the past few decades, consumption spending will lag.

In a new note (PDF) from IMF economists Jaewoo Lee, Pau Rabanal, and Damiano Sandri, the problem is assigned some numbers:

U.S. household consumption declined sharply in late 2008, against the backdrop of a deepening financial crisis. Personal consumption expenditure, which had peaked above 95 percent of disposable personal income in 2005, fell below 92 percent by the second quarter of 2009. This decline, if sustained, would break the trend of steady increase in the U.S. consumption rate since the 1980s…

Our analysis suggests that U.S. household consumption and saving rates will settle at 89½–91½ and 5–7 percent, respectively, over the next several years. Similar levels of consumption and saving rates were last seen in the early 1990s. Though not too far from the 2009 saving rate of nearly 5 percent, the forecast implies a significantly lower share of private sector demand in GDP by about 3 percentage points compared to the pre-crisis (2003–07) average. However, the forecast uncertainty is large: a 95-percent confidence interval has width of about 7 percentage points (3¾ percentage points on each side).

To put this in context, real GDP fell by about 3.8% from the second quarter of 2008 to the second quarter of 2009, a period during which payroll employment fell by nearly 6 million.

Now, some will argue that government is likely to make up for this shortfall in private demand. I don’t think that will be the case; the federal deficit is scheduled to decline from 2009 to 2010, and state budget tightening is likely to be significant over the course of this year. Ultimately, new demand will have to come from somewhere else: either from export demand, or a new wave of business investment (which will likely have to come in an emerging sector, given continued problems of excess capacity).

Amidst my personal quest for a simple steam basket, I came across a serious steamer fit for any Giz reader, the Morphy Richards Intellisteam.

Yes, that’s a backlit blue LCD you see, allowing you to control three separate steaming pods, each with their own steam controls (loaded with plenty of presets that make steaming various different foods simple).

Aside from all that practicality, the Intellisteam sounds like it performs dutifully, with instant steam, a visible water gauge, auto-off when water runs out and up to 40 minutes of food warming.

Making a meal for up to 4 people, the Morphy Richards Intellisteam is available now for about $160. Oh kitchen gadgets, how I neither need nor resist you. [Morphy Richards via Appliancist]

The Video Electronics Standards Association has codified the standard for the next version of DisplayPort, and the small, Apple-loving HDMI competitor, and it just got a lot more interesting. Like, multiple-monitors-on-one-plug interesting.

The concept of daisy-chaining multiple monitors on one DisplayPort connection has been part of the vision all along, but version 1.2 will be the first to actually support the technology—at this stage, up to four at a time, at a resolution of 1920 x 1200. On top of that, it’ll bring full HD, 120fps-per-channel 3D support, a 21.6Gbps data rate, and bi-directional USB data, meaning that anything connected to a DisplayPort 1.2 cable could serve as a high-bandwidth USB hub.

And of course, VESA’s already accepted Apple’s miniaturized version of the port into the DisplayPort family and audio support is still present—albeit not in Apple’s variant. In other words, no, the battle isn’t settled, and HDMI hasn’t won—even forthcoming HDMI 1.4 hardware can’t hang with the next generation of DisplayPort hardware, if anyone decides to actually make it. [PC Authority]

Milpitas, Calif., Jan. 18, 2010 — The Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA) today formally unveiled the industry’s most innovative and flexible digital communication interface standard for transporting display, audio and other data.

VESA’s DisplayPort Version 1.2 is a comprehensive extension to the original DisplayPort standard offering many new benefits to the end user. Benefits include: double the data rate of the previous DisplayPort v1.1a standard (enabling higher performance 3D stereo displays, higher resolutions and color depths, and fastest refresh rates); multiple monitor support from a desktop or notebook computer using only one DisplayPort connector; the ability to transport USB data between a PC and Display, supporting Display USB functions such as a webcam and USB hub. DisplayPort v1.2 is backward compatible with existing DisplayPort v1.1a systems, including existing cables and the Mini DisplayPort connector.

DisplayPort v1.2 increases performance by doubling the maximum data transfer rate from 10.8 Gbps (Giga-bits-per-second) to 21.6 Gbps, greatly increasing display resolution, color depths, refresh rates, and multiple display capabilities.

DisplayPort v1.2 supports “multi-streaming” — the ability to transport multiple independent uncompressed display and audio streams over a single cable, supporting protected content and high performance applications such as 3D gaming. This enables the use of multiple monitors connected by cable in a daisy chain or hub configuration. Whereas the current Display v1.1a standard can support one 2560 x 1600 monitor at 60Hz, DisplayPort v1.2 can support two such monitors with one cable, or four 1920 x 1200 monitors. Many other combinations are possible, including multiple video sources, multiple displays (even at different resolutions) and multiple audio speakers.

Another new feature is the ability to support high-speed, bi-directional data transfer, allowing USB 2.0 or Ethernet data to be carried within a standard DisplayPort cable. For DisplayPort v1.2, the maximum data rate of this “AUX” channel has been increased from 1 Mbps (Mega-bit-per-second) to 720 Mbps, providing suitable bandwidth for USB 2.0. The DisplayPort cable can therefore support USB data to/from the display to support Display USB functions, in addition to sending the video and audio information. Standard Ethernet can also be transported in the DisplayPort cable.

DisplayPort v1.2 was designed to be compatible with existing DisplayPort systems and cables. To take advantage of the new capabilities, a PC will need to be DisplayPort v1.2 enabled, however existing standard cables can still be used, including those with the new Mini-DisplayPort connector. To achieve the 21.6 Gbps rate, the per-lane data rate is doubled from 2.7 Gbps to 5.4 Gbps, over the four lanes that exist in the standard cable. For a single display, this enables up to 3840 x 2400 resolution at 60Hz, or a 3D display (120Hz) at 2560 x 1600.

DisplayPort v1.2 also adds new audio enhancements including the following:
— Audio Copy Protection and category codes
— High definition audio formats such as Dolby MAT, DTS HD, all Blu-Ray
formats, and the DRA standard from China
— Synchronization assist between audio and video, multiple audio channels, and
multiple audio sink devices using Global Time Code (GTC)

DisplayPort v1.2 also includes improved support for Full HD 3D Stereoscopic displays:
— Life-like motion using up to 240 frames-per-second in full HD, providing 120
frames-per-second for each eye
— 3D Stereo transmission format support
Field sequential, side by side, pixel interleaved, dual interface, and stacked
— 3D Stereo display capability declaration
Mono, Stereo, 3D Glasses

“DisplayPort is a truly open, flexible, extensible multimedia interconnect standard that is ubiquitous in the PC, notebook and display markets and is rapidly gaining traction in consumer electronics applications,” said Bill Lempesis, VESA’s executive director. “DisplayPort Version v1.2 offers a complete set of benefits and capabilities that no other standard can provide. It is completely backward compatible with DisplayPort v1.1a and requires no new cables or other equipment, making it the standard of choice across the industry.

In this morning’s Gartman Letter, Dennis Gartman went off on a politcal tangent mostly.

But buried within was a beautiful nugget about energy expectations for 2010, with a strong emphasis on crude demand.

The Gartman Letter: As we have noted here in recent days, the contangos for both Brent and WTI continue to widen, seemingly inexorably, as crude bids for storage and as the long-only funds continue to do their buying in the deferred futures. This has given rise to a very interesting phenomenon where the nation’s crude oil refiners have become storers of crude rather than refiners of crude. Refinery margins are low but returns to storage are large… and are rising.

Hence the only buying taking place is by the refiners and others in the industry who are willing to secure storage facilities, including tankers off-shore, buying spot crude and hedge it in the same deferred futures that the funds are bidding for. This is the strangest of symbiotic relationships, but it is working for both.

What it breaks down to, says Gartman, is that agencies are predicting less global demand for crude oil this year. Why produce more than necessary and store your surplus?

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See Also:

• Gartman: Here’s How To Go Long Gold In Another Currency
• Gartman: Here’s How The Chinese Tightening Could Prick The Real Estate Bubble, But Help Inflate Stocks
• Gartman: Blame Democratic Mayors For Nationwide Poverty

For the past 14 years, Ria Pell has had her eye on the building on the corner of Edgewood and Waddell Streets in Inman Park. With its jauntily angled plate windows and geometric midcentury modern lines, it looked just a bit — if you squint — like a vintage piano store or maybe the Jetsons’ rec room.

About a year ago she took the lease over from its former tenant, 11:11 Teahouse, and on Christmas night opened Sauced restaurant as a gift to all the retro design buffs in the city.

The Look: With its glossy black naugahyde booths and incandescent light emanating from vintage lamps, Sauced gives off a vibe that at once brings to mind Graceland, that gloriously divey tavern your friend took you to in Philadelphia, and the best finished basement on the street you grew up on.

“It was a ton of hands-on work with carpenters and metal workers,” says Pell of the build out. Woodworkers recycled the bar top from the building’s roof rafters, and the warm wooden paneling — so in line with the …

MSI outs exceptionally exquisite X-Slim X420 laptop originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 19 Jan 2010 10:57:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sony Computer Entertainment Asia announced that the company has formally started PlayStation business in Socialist Republic of Vietnam, making the one of the world’s popular computer entertainment systems and services available to the PlayStation fans and consumers in the country. Vietnam will be the 8th country and region in the SCE Asia territories.

Along with the initiation of the PlayStation business in Vietnam, SCE Asia will introduce to the market the PlayStation 3 (CECH-2006A) computer entertainment system featuring an extremely streamlined form factor with a 120GB Hard Disk Drive (HDD), PlayStation 2 (SCPH-90006CB) computer entertainment system, the world’s most selling computer entertainment system and PSP (PlayStation Portable) (PSP-3006) handheld entertainment system. The PS3, PlayStation 2 and PSP system are available now at very attractive suggested retail prices of VND 9,990,000, VND 4,490,000 and VND 5,990,000 respectively (including tax). With the launch of the PlayStation platforms, users in Vietnam will be able to enjoy a wide variety of entertainment content including games, music and movies on the favorite entertainment systems.

According to All Things D, we shouldn’t expect the music industry to play a major—or minor—part in Apple’s presumed tablet announcement next week. That’s not as surprising as it may sound.

No one expects the tablet to replace your iPhone or iPod Touch, much less the Nano or Shuffle. It’s not, primarily, a music player. The iSlate (or whatever it’ll be called) is going to useful for the content that takes advantage of its larger screen. So think e-books, newspapers, and of course video. The iTunes LP format might find a happy home on a tablet, but it’s hard to see how that would become tablet-specific.

I’m sure eventually the music industry will find a way to make more money off of tablet devices, and that Apple will happily dictate the terms and take a big chunk of whatever that turns out to be. But for now, it’s a safe bet that you won’t see any Sony BMG execs lurking around at the Yerba Buena Center next week. [All Things D]

Other Great AndroidGuys Posts

• January 14, 2010 — MacLife Magazine Reviews the ‘Droid. (9)
• January 8, 2010 — Flash for “Most” Android Devices in 2010? (9)
• December 31, 2009 — Motorola’s 4.3-Inch ‘Mirage’ Headed for China (12)
• December 9, 2009 — I’ve Got Cliq Envy (13)
• November 25, 2009 — Best Buy Mobile Offering 5 Android Under $100 (22)

Anderson to the rescue! CNN correspondent Anderson Cooper has been one of the journalists on the frontlines of reporting on the tragedy in Haiti ever since a castastrophic earthquake shook the island nation last week. But the media’s beloved Silver Fox has earned a new distinction — hero — after quickly scooping up a bloody Haitian kid and carrying him off to safety as a gaggle of looters went wild in the streets of Port-au-Prince on Monday.

Starting Wednesday, United Airlines plans to begin relief flights that will ship water and other badly needed supplies to earthquake-ravaged Haiti and return, red-tape permitting, filled with far more precious cargo: orphans.

The Chicago-based carrier plans to operate about 30 flights to Port-au-Prince over the next month to support global disaster-relief agencies such as the U.S. Agency for International Development, Red Cross and Doctors Without Borders.

United has gathered 50 tons of supplies for the Haitian cause at a hangar at O’Hare International Airport, the airline’s home hub, officials said.

Getting the goods to the devastated area is a logistical challenge, complicated by the fact that United hasn’t operated regular airline flights to Haiti within recent memory, if ever. The carrier will have to fly to Haiti with its own ground-handlers to unload its aircraft and sufficient fuel to cover the next leg, to San Juan, Puerto Rico.

“We’ll operate as self-contained as possible,” said Joe Kolshak, United’s senior vice president of operations.

United’s first flight is slated to ferry about 20,000 16-ounce bottles of water donated by Walgreen Co. and 50 aid workers to the Haitian capital. If visas and other paperwork snarls are resolved, United plans to return to the U.S. with children from a Haitian orphanage run by two Pittsburgh-area sisters.

The nation’s third-largest airline, United is one of several Chicago-area companies that are stepping up efforts to aid Haiti as the impoverished island nation deals with a horrific disaster. Reports are putting the number of people killed in the quake between 100,000 and 200,000.

The loss of life in Haiti is comparable to the death toll following the 2004 tsunami that was spread across a half-dozen nations, experts said. That disaster, as well as Hurricane Katrina a year later, galvanized corporations to become more involved in relief efforts.

Many companies forged closer ties with humanitarian groups, which made it easier for the parties to coordinate plans and quickly swing into action following the latest crisis. The U.S. Air Force, which has taken control of the air space surrounding Port-au-Prince, estimated that the private sector accounted for about two-thirds of the 300 flights to the airport between Wednesday and Sunday.

“In terms of scale, we’re seeing very, very similar levels of support [to the tsunami cleanup],” said Joan Lundgren, who works closely with corporate donors as CARE’s senior director for strategic partnerships and alliances.

“This is a little bit different situation because it’s close, but also because we’re talking about an urban disaster, a place that people in Chicago can really relate to.”

As rescue operations transition to recovery and rebuilding efforts, relief workers report severe shortages of basic necessities such as potable water and food.

In response, Chicago’s largest drug makers, Abbott Laboratories and Baxter International Inc., have pledged $3.5 million worth of medicine and financial relief. Through the University of Miami, Walgreens has donated two semi-trucks filled with bottled water, one full of medical supplies and another filled with hygiene products.

The drug-store chain also is donating $100,000 to the American Red Cross and matching employee donations, dollar for dollar, up to $50,000.

United has urged consumers to donate frequent-flier miles to the cause and has pledged to match up to $50,000 in contributions made to the American Red Cross by employees. Flight attendants on the first flight to Haiti, meanwhile, are donating their time and working that day for free.

American Airlines has flown seven relief flights to Haiti, each of which carried 10,000 pounds of goods, since the Jan. 12 quake.

“We’ve ferried everything from diapers to water to food,” said Martha Pantin, spokeswoman for the Texas-based carrier, which also has a hub at O’Hare. Like United, American plans additional relief flights to Port-au-Prince, but is scrambling to obtain landing and takeoff from military planners.

But far more aid is needed. “We believe this is going to be a three-to-five-year recovery process,” said CARE’s Lundgren.

Tribune reporter Bruce Japsen contributed to this report.

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If you’ve got nothing better to do between now and the 27th of January, head over to AdWeek where all 66 TV adverts starring John Hodgman and Justin Long have been saved for posterity’s sake. [AdWeek]

A roundup of economic news from around the Web.

• Fed Regulation: Felix Salmon makes the case for why the Fed should regulate banks. “Anybody else given broad regulatory authority — and someone needs to have it — would need to work hand-in-glove with the Fed in any event, especially when it comes to questions such as the Fed paying interest on reserves. And there’s no particular architectural reason not to give the Fed those powers — objection to the idea comes overwhelmingly from the fact that this Fed has made so many mistakes that people don’t trust it to do the right thing in future. But the fact is that if you try to build a bank regulator from scratch, it will take decades to find its feet and learn from its mistakes. The Fed, with any luck, has reached that point now. Let’s give it regulatory authority, and cross our fingers it uses them wisely.”
• Green China: On voxeu, Matthew E. Kahn and Siqi Zheng look at China’s environmental influence. “China’s economic growth has profound environmental implications. This column estimates the household carbon emissions of China’s major cities. Even in China’s most polluting city, per household emissions are just one-fifth of those in San Diego, the greenest city in the U.S.”
• Helping Haiti: Tyler Cowen of Marginal Revolution offers way to help Haiti. “1. Repeal tariffs on Haitian sugar and lower remaining restrictions on Haitian garment imports. 2. Give expedited approval, in terms of food safety rules, to the importation of Haitian mangoes. 3. Set up a Term Loan Auction Facility for Haitians, or alternatively apply quantitative easing to the market for Haitian mud cakes. It’s worked for every other macro problem. Alternatively, get out the helicopter, I have heard worse ideas. Stabilize Haitian nominal GDP! 4. Find someone from the government to give a radio address. 5. In Port-Au-Prince and environs, define squatter’s rights. 6. Invite Haitians to occupy the empty homes in the run-down parts of New Orleans. 7. Set up nearby charter cities which would welcome Haitian migrants. 8. Redefine the mission of Guantanamo to help Haiti.”

Compiled by Phil Izzo