Travelocity, TripAdvisor, Expedia, Sabre Holdings, and several other online travel companies have created the FairSearch.org coalition to try to block Google's acquisition of ITA Software.
In a blog post announcing its launch, FairSearch said that Google "presents a threat to competition and transparency in online travel search, and could lead to higher travel prices and less choice for consumers."
Back in July, Google announced that it intended to acquire ITA for $700 million. The search giant said at the time that ITA, which collects flight, seating, and pricing data from airlines and provides them to online travel search companies, would be used to help people shop for airfare via Google.
Google's representation of online travel.
Google's representation of the online travel industry.
(Credit: Google)
On a site detailing its intentions for ITA, Google states that it wants to "create a new, easier way for users to find better flight information online, which should encourage more users to make their flight purchases online."
Google asserts that its ITA acquisition "will benefit passengers, airlines, and online travel agencies."
But the FairSearch coalition members disagree and specifically cite "The Google Problem."
"If the transaction is approved, consumers should expect to face higher prices and less choice when searching for travel online," FairSearch states on its site. "This anticompetitive deal represents a broader pattern in Google's acquisition strategy--a strategy that threatens online competition, innovation, and economic growth."
In addition to establishing a coalition, the companies are rallying together in a lobbying effort to urge Congress members to block Google's bid for ITA, The Wall Street Journal reported.
But those companies aren't the only stakeholders concerned about Google's intentions for ITA.
Last month, the U.S. Department of Justice broadened its review of Google's ITA acquisition. The Justice Department is concerned that Google would keep travel companies from using ITA's services. The federal government also wants to ensure that Google won't use ITA to push people toward its own travel offering, rather than direct them to search sites.
For its part, Google has said that the "deal will not change existing market shares." It also plans to "honor all existing agreements" ITA Software has with travel search companies.
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Hybrid hard disk market set to take off
The hybrid hard disk drive market is expected to reach 600 million units in 2016, according to market researcher Objective Analysis. This would mean an explosion of mainstream drives that integrate the performance-boosting benefits of flash memory.
Seagate's Momentus XT Solid State Hybrid Drive can add a lot of performance on certain tasks with just a touch of flash memory.
Seagate's Momentus XT Solid State Hybrid Drive can add a lot of performance on certain tasks with just a touch of flash memory.
(Credit: Seagate)
The first generation of hybrid drive technology was "well conceived but poorly implemented," according to a report released on Monday by Objective Analysis. "Now that working versions have been implemented the hybrid drive promises to sweep the PC hard drive market."
"We expect the hybrid drive market to nearly double every year for the five years following its initial adoption, reaching 600 million units by 2016," said analyst Jim Handy, who authored the report, in a statement. "This blazing growth will result from hybrid drives replacing standard HDDs in mainstream PCs."
Hybrid drives, in their current form, add a small amount of flash memory to a traditional spinning HDD. But this pinch of flash can deliver a big boost to performance on certain tasks at relatively little extra cost, as CNET Reviews demonstrated with the 500GB Seagate Momentus XT and as other reviews of the Seagate drive have shown.
"The NAND [flash memory] in these hybrid drives will be pretty small. Seagate's Momentus XT does a really good job with only 4GB of flash, and Nvelo's Dataplex software accelerates HDDs very well with only 16GB of NAND," said Handy, responding to an e-mail query.
Handy continued. "We expect the hybrid drives released in 2010 and 2011 to be introduced around the 4GB level, but over the forecast period, the amount of flash per drive should ramp to an average of 16GB."
The upside for consumers is that they're not as expensive as flash-only solid-state drives, which can add hundreds of dollars to the price of a traditional HDD. "A 4GB NAND--using SLC [single-level cell] NAND flash, which is required in this application--should add about $20 to the manufacturing cost of an HDD today, which might translate to an added $30 to 40 to the end user."
He continued. "A lot of consumers would be perfectly happy to spend an extra $30 to 40 to get the performance of an SSD and the capacity of an HDD. So far they have not been happy to spend an extra $200 to 500 to get an SSD that's smaller than an HDD."
In the case of Apple's just-announced MacBook Air, for example, adding just 128GB of flash storage to the base configuration increases the price of the 13-inch model from $1,299 to $1,599. And choosing a 256GB solid-state drive over a 500GB hard disk on a 15-inch MacBook Pro adds a whopping $650 to the price.
Seagate's Momentus XT Solid State Hybrid Drive can add a lot of performance on certain tasks with just a touch of flash memory.
Seagate's Momentus XT Solid State Hybrid Drive can add a lot of performance on certain tasks with just a touch of flash memory.
(Credit: Seagate)
The first generation of hybrid drive technology was "well conceived but poorly implemented," according to a report released on Monday by Objective Analysis. "Now that working versions have been implemented the hybrid drive promises to sweep the PC hard drive market."
"We expect the hybrid drive market to nearly double every year for the five years following its initial adoption, reaching 600 million units by 2016," said analyst Jim Handy, who authored the report, in a statement. "This blazing growth will result from hybrid drives replacing standard HDDs in mainstream PCs."
Hybrid drives, in their current form, add a small amount of flash memory to a traditional spinning HDD. But this pinch of flash can deliver a big boost to performance on certain tasks at relatively little extra cost, as CNET Reviews demonstrated with the 500GB Seagate Momentus XT and as other reviews of the Seagate drive have shown.
"The NAND [flash memory] in these hybrid drives will be pretty small. Seagate's Momentus XT does a really good job with only 4GB of flash, and Nvelo's Dataplex software accelerates HDDs very well with only 16GB of NAND," said Handy, responding to an e-mail query.
Handy continued. "We expect the hybrid drives released in 2010 and 2011 to be introduced around the 4GB level, but over the forecast period, the amount of flash per drive should ramp to an average of 16GB."
The upside for consumers is that they're not as expensive as flash-only solid-state drives, which can add hundreds of dollars to the price of a traditional HDD. "A 4GB NAND--using SLC [single-level cell] NAND flash, which is required in this application--should add about $20 to the manufacturing cost of an HDD today, which might translate to an added $30 to 40 to the end user."
He continued. "A lot of consumers would be perfectly happy to spend an extra $30 to 40 to get the performance of an SSD and the capacity of an HDD. So far they have not been happy to spend an extra $200 to 500 to get an SSD that's smaller than an HDD."
In the case of Apple's just-announced MacBook Air, for example, adding just 128GB of flash storage to the base configuration increases the price of the 13-inch model from $1,299 to $1,599. And choosing a 256GB solid-state drive over a 500GB hard disk on a 15-inch MacBook Pro adds a whopping $650 to the price.
Monday, October 25, 2010
China hijacked U.S. Internet data
A Chinese state-run telecom provider was the source of the redirection of U.S. military and corporate data that occurred this past April, according to excerpts of a draft report sent to CNET by the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission.
The current draft of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission's (USCC's) 2010 annual report, which is close to final but has not yet been officially approved, finds that malicious computer activity tied to China continues to persist following reports early this year of attacks against Google and other companies from within the country.
In several cases, Chinese telecommunications firms have disrupted or impacted U.S. Internet traffic, according to the excerpts.
On March 24, Web traffic from YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, and other popular sites was temporarily affected by China's own internal censorship system, sometimes known as the Great Firewall. Users in Chile and the United States trying to reach those sites were diverted to incorrect servers or encountered error messages indicating that the sites did not exist. The USCC report said it was as if users outside China were trying to access restricted sites from behind China's Great Firewall.
Then on April 8, a large number of routing paths to various Internet Protocol addresses were redirected through networks in China for 17 minutes. The USCC identified China's state-owned telecommunications firm China Telecom as the source of the "hijacking." This diversion of data would have given the operators of the servers on those networks the ability to read, delete, or edit e-mail and other information sent along those paths.
The April incident affected traffic to and from U.S. government and military sites, including sites for the Senate, the Army, the Navy, the Marine Corps, the Air Force, and the office of the Secretary of Defense, the USCC said. Rodney Joffe, senior technologist at Domain Name System registry Neustar, also confirmed in a recent interview with CNET that the data diverted to China came from Fortune 500 companies and many branches of the U.S. government.
Evidence didn't clearly indicate whether this diversion of data was done intentionally or for what purpose, according to the USCC. But the capability alone raises a red flag.
"Although the commission has no way to determine what, if anything, Chinese telecommunications firms did to the hijacked data, incidents of this nature could have a number of serious implications," said the report excerpts. "This level of access could enable surveillance of specific users or sites. It could disrupt a data transaction and prevent a user from establishing a connection with a site. It could even allow a diversion of data to somewhere that the user did not intend (for example, to a 'spoofed' site)."
The report also commented on an incident in April in which a China-based spy network was accused of targeting government departments, diplomatic missions, and other groups in India. The activity, which also compromised computers in at least 35 other countries, including the U.S., grabbed sensitive documents from the Indian government.
Though the USCC could not definitively link this incident to the Chinese government, the authors of the report do believe there's an "obvious correlation to be drawn between the victims, the nature of the documents stolen, and the strategic interests of the Chinese state."
The excerpts did note some positive news--2010 could be the first year over the past decade that shows a smaller number of logged threats against defense and military networks. This doesn't necessarily mean that the number of attempts have decreased. Instead, the report cites the Defense Department's assertion that its own defensive measures over the past year have prevented a larger number of threats.
The U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission was set up by Congress in 2000 to analyze the national security issues involved in trade and an economic relationship between the U.S. and China.
The current draft of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission's (USCC's) 2010 annual report, which is close to final but has not yet been officially approved, finds that malicious computer activity tied to China continues to persist following reports early this year of attacks against Google and other companies from within the country.
In several cases, Chinese telecommunications firms have disrupted or impacted U.S. Internet traffic, according to the excerpts.
On March 24, Web traffic from YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, and other popular sites was temporarily affected by China's own internal censorship system, sometimes known as the Great Firewall. Users in Chile and the United States trying to reach those sites were diverted to incorrect servers or encountered error messages indicating that the sites did not exist. The USCC report said it was as if users outside China were trying to access restricted sites from behind China's Great Firewall.
Then on April 8, a large number of routing paths to various Internet Protocol addresses were redirected through networks in China for 17 minutes. The USCC identified China's state-owned telecommunications firm China Telecom as the source of the "hijacking." This diversion of data would have given the operators of the servers on those networks the ability to read, delete, or edit e-mail and other information sent along those paths.
The April incident affected traffic to and from U.S. government and military sites, including sites for the Senate, the Army, the Navy, the Marine Corps, the Air Force, and the office of the Secretary of Defense, the USCC said. Rodney Joffe, senior technologist at Domain Name System registry Neustar, also confirmed in a recent interview with CNET that the data diverted to China came from Fortune 500 companies and many branches of the U.S. government.
Evidence didn't clearly indicate whether this diversion of data was done intentionally or for what purpose, according to the USCC. But the capability alone raises a red flag.
"Although the commission has no way to determine what, if anything, Chinese telecommunications firms did to the hijacked data, incidents of this nature could have a number of serious implications," said the report excerpts. "This level of access could enable surveillance of specific users or sites. It could disrupt a data transaction and prevent a user from establishing a connection with a site. It could even allow a diversion of data to somewhere that the user did not intend (for example, to a 'spoofed' site)."
The report also commented on an incident in April in which a China-based spy network was accused of targeting government departments, diplomatic missions, and other groups in India. The activity, which also compromised computers in at least 35 other countries, including the U.S., grabbed sensitive documents from the Indian government.
Though the USCC could not definitively link this incident to the Chinese government, the authors of the report do believe there's an "obvious correlation to be drawn between the victims, the nature of the documents stolen, and the strategic interests of the Chinese state."
The excerpts did note some positive news--2010 could be the first year over the past decade that shows a smaller number of logged threats against defense and military networks. This doesn't necessarily mean that the number of attempts have decreased. Instead, the report cites the Defense Department's assertion that its own defensive measures over the past year have prevented a larger number of threats.
The U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission was set up by Congress in 2000 to analyze the national security issues involved in trade and an economic relationship between the U.S. and China.
Saturday, October 23, 2010
Obama meets Steve Jobs, sups with Marissa Mayer
President Barack Obama met yesterday with two ascendant Silicon Valley powers: Apple CEO Steve Jobs and Google VP Marissa Mayer.
With Jobs, Obama discussed American competitiveness and education, according to Reuters.
The president's visit to the home of Mayer and husband Zachary Bogue was for a $30,000-a-plate fund-raising dinner less than two weeks before mid-term elections, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.
Obama had good timing for catching people on the upswing.
Jobs this week revealed sleek new MacBook Air computers and announced Apple's quarterly profit of $4.31 billion.
Mayer--who is vice president of geographic and local services--isn't running Google, but she's a step closer with her promotion to Google's Operating Committee earlier this month. And like Apple, Google just reported its own strong quarter with a profit of $2.17 billion.
With Jobs, Obama discussed American competitiveness and education, according to Reuters.
The president's visit to the home of Mayer and husband Zachary Bogue was for a $30,000-a-plate fund-raising dinner less than two weeks before mid-term elections, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.
Obama had good timing for catching people on the upswing.
Jobs this week revealed sleek new MacBook Air computers and announced Apple's quarterly profit of $4.31 billion.
Mayer--who is vice president of geographic and local services--isn't running Google, but she's a step closer with her promotion to Google's Operating Committee earlier this month. And like Apple, Google just reported its own strong quarter with a profit of $2.17 billion.
Microsoft puts PC game downloads in the browser
Microsoft wants to let PC gamers know it's still serious about delivering game software and is putting that idea to the test with a new system that places fewer roadblocks in the way of getting gamers connected to digital game downloads.
Today, the company is announcing a new online store that will let gamers buy digital copies of games--old and new--from just their browser. The site, which opens up on November 15th retains the Games for Windows Marketplace moniker, but is an online version of the store that's long been available through the company's Games For Windows Live software client--albeit with a few tweaks.
Users can browse this catalog of around 100 games, find out more about them, then make a purchase that downloads right in their browser. The client software is still needed for large game files, as was to explained CNET in an interview earlier this week with Xbox's group project manager Peter Orullian.
"For people who have the client--the client will morph into a tool they might use for different reasons, but if mostly what people were using the client for was just to go and purchase the games, that's what we've solved, because a lot of those people have said, 'It's just extra work,'" Orullian said.
Another step Microsoft has removed from the PC game buying experience is the need to buy games with Microsoft Points--the tech titan's virtual currency. If users have points in their account from Xbox or Zune marketplace transactions, they can still use those, but there is now an option to just pay with a credit or debit card. When asked if that had been a point of contention from within Microsoft, Orullian said it wasn't.
"I work really, really closely with the business manager [of Microsoft], and not once did he ever express any angst on this. So what I know on this is that this is feedback we had, and we wanted to have a simple way to purchase, and we just kind of marched set drum. We never had any kind of fight on that," Orullian said.
Besides the purchase option, Microsoft is using the refresh of the online games marketplace to change what kind of information can be presented to users. That includes things like add-ons, which if they're a part of the catalog will be included not just on the game page but at the point of purchase. This comes into play with games like Bethesda's Fallout series, which has a large amount of downloadable content. Now you see these downloadable items not just when you're exploring the game on its information page, but when you're just about to buy it--something the company is banking on as pulling in extra buys in the same way a user would buy a candy bar at a grocery stand checkout.
The new marketplace also takes advantage of RSS feeds from developers, so shoppers of the site can see the most recent updates of news items from a particular developer. Orullian explained that this would be otherwise unfiltered, except for somethin
Today, the company is announcing a new online store that will let gamers buy digital copies of games--old and new--from just their browser. The site, which opens up on November 15th retains the Games for Windows Marketplace moniker, but is an online version of the store that's long been available through the company's Games For Windows Live software client--albeit with a few tweaks.
Users can browse this catalog of around 100 games, find out more about them, then make a purchase that downloads right in their browser. The client software is still needed for large game files, as was to explained CNET in an interview earlier this week with Xbox's group project manager Peter Orullian.
"For people who have the client--the client will morph into a tool they might use for different reasons, but if mostly what people were using the client for was just to go and purchase the games, that's what we've solved, because a lot of those people have said, 'It's just extra work,'" Orullian said.
Another step Microsoft has removed from the PC game buying experience is the need to buy games with Microsoft Points--the tech titan's virtual currency. If users have points in their account from Xbox or Zune marketplace transactions, they can still use those, but there is now an option to just pay with a credit or debit card. When asked if that had been a point of contention from within Microsoft, Orullian said it wasn't.
"I work really, really closely with the business manager [of Microsoft], and not once did he ever express any angst on this. So what I know on this is that this is feedback we had, and we wanted to have a simple way to purchase, and we just kind of marched set drum. We never had any kind of fight on that," Orullian said.
Besides the purchase option, Microsoft is using the refresh of the online games marketplace to change what kind of information can be presented to users. That includes things like add-ons, which if they're a part of the catalog will be included not just on the game page but at the point of purchase. This comes into play with games like Bethesda's Fallout series, which has a large amount of downloadable content. Now you see these downloadable items not just when you're exploring the game on its information page, but when you're just about to buy it--something the company is banking on as pulling in extra buys in the same way a user would buy a candy bar at a grocery stand checkout.
The new marketplace also takes advantage of RSS feeds from developers, so shoppers of the site can see the most recent updates of news items from a particular developer. Orullian explained that this would be otherwise unfiltered, except for somethin
Friday, October 22, 2010
Microsoft celebrates Windows 7's first birthday
Like any proud parent, Microsoft wants us to know just how cute its baby is.
To mark the first birthday of Windows 7, Microsoft posted a blog touting its first steps.
(Credit: Microsoft)
Unlike Vista--which was a somewhat awkward toddler--Windows 7 has proven to be a rather good addition to the family. In addition to selling more than 240 million copies, it has helped rebuild the company's reputation.
Here's some other fun facts that Microsoft wanted to show off. (Sorry, no wallet pictures.)
According to Microsoft, people have:
*
Opened the start menu 14,139,925,439 times
*
Used Aero Snap 150,957,478 times
*
Used Aero Shake 20,555,528 times
*
Used their jumplists 339,129,958 times
*
Pinned 12,643 unique applications to the taskbar
Of course, there are also plenty of other cute kids around. Apple is pregnant with a Lion and Google is still carrying Chrome OS, which should be nearing its due date, no?
As for Microsoft, it is planning on having another kid, but refuses to talk about the new baby or give any clue as to when it is due. (Someone did manage to sneak out an ultrasound, though.)
To mark the first birthday of Windows 7, Microsoft posted a blog touting its first steps.
(Credit: Microsoft)
Unlike Vista--which was a somewhat awkward toddler--Windows 7 has proven to be a rather good addition to the family. In addition to selling more than 240 million copies, it has helped rebuild the company's reputation.
Here's some other fun facts that Microsoft wanted to show off. (Sorry, no wallet pictures.)
According to Microsoft, people have:
*
Opened the start menu 14,139,925,439 times
*
Used Aero Snap 150,957,478 times
*
Used Aero Shake 20,555,528 times
*
Used their jumplists 339,129,958 times
*
Pinned 12,643 unique applications to the taskbar
Of course, there are also plenty of other cute kids around. Apple is pregnant with a Lion and Google is still carrying Chrome OS, which should be nearing its due date, no?
As for Microsoft, it is planning on having another kid, but refuses to talk about the new baby or give any clue as to when it is due. (Someone did manage to sneak out an ultrasound, though.)
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Dad and son send HD camera into space with iPhone
Some fathers and sons spend their weekends flying kites in the park.
Luke Geissbuhler and his 7-year-old son Max thought it might be more fun to send an iPhone and an HD camera into space.
The purpose was simple: to film some of that stuff that is beyond us. So they thought they'd attach their equipment to a weather balloon. Once it's up there, they figured, the dearth of atmospheric pressure would ultimately burst it and send it back to Earth.
It all seemed very clever but not exactly foolproof.
As Geissbuhler and son say in their video: "It would have to survive 100 mph winds, temperatures of 60 degrees below zero, speeds of over a 150 mph, and the high risk of a water landing."
Still, the Wright brothers wouldn't have been put off by such uncertainty, and they never had an iPhone with which they could track the route of their flying craft. So father and son did a little low-altitude testing and then wandered off to the spacecraft-launching mecca that is Newburgh, N.Y., and sent their balloon into the sky.
The camera and the iPhone had been placed inside some handwarmers and, on the appointed day, father and son were their own two-man (with help) Mission Control in the park, as they watched their balloon sail off into the vast above.
The balloon burst after around 70 minutes. But it managed to record 100 minutes of footage. As if it knew its own way home, it came back to Earth 30 miles from where it had launched, which Geissbuhler attributed to "a quick ascent and two differing wind patterns."
This is a truly committed father and son partnership, so they searched for their flying machine until they found it "in the dead of night." Yes, it was 50 feet up a tree, but the iPhone's GPS and the camera's external LED light led them to it.
One can only wonder what their self-styled "Brooklyn Space Program" might attempt next. Perhaps a manned (and boyyed) space flight?
Luke Geissbuhler and his 7-year-old son Max thought it might be more fun to send an iPhone and an HD camera into space.
The purpose was simple: to film some of that stuff that is beyond us. So they thought they'd attach their equipment to a weather balloon. Once it's up there, they figured, the dearth of atmospheric pressure would ultimately burst it and send it back to Earth.
It all seemed very clever but not exactly foolproof.
As Geissbuhler and son say in their video: "It would have to survive 100 mph winds, temperatures of 60 degrees below zero, speeds of over a 150 mph, and the high risk of a water landing."
Still, the Wright brothers wouldn't have been put off by such uncertainty, and they never had an iPhone with which they could track the route of their flying craft. So father and son did a little low-altitude testing and then wandered off to the spacecraft-launching mecca that is Newburgh, N.Y., and sent their balloon into the sky.
The camera and the iPhone had been placed inside some handwarmers and, on the appointed day, father and son were their own two-man (with help) Mission Control in the park, as they watched their balloon sail off into the vast above.
The balloon burst after around 70 minutes. But it managed to record 100 minutes of footage. As if it knew its own way home, it came back to Earth 30 miles from where it had launched, which Geissbuhler attributed to "a quick ascent and two differing wind patterns."
This is a truly committed father and son partnership, so they searched for their flying machine until they found it "in the dead of night." Yes, it was 50 feet up a tree, but the iPhone's GPS and the camera's external LED light led them to it.
One can only wonder what their self-styled "Brooklyn Space Program" might attempt next. Perhaps a manned (and boyyed) space flight?
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