Microsoft to change desktop search

SEATTLE - Bowing to pressure from Google Inc. and antitrust regulators, Microsoft Corp. will make it easier for Windows Vista users to pick a non-Microsoft program to search their hard drives.

Microsoft will let PC users and manufacturers like Dell Inc. set a different program such as Google Desktop as the default instead of Vista's "Instant Search," according to a U.S. Justice Department report released late Tuesday. Microsoft will also add a link to that alternate program in the Windows Start menu.

Currently, when Vista users browse through their documents, access the control panel, or do other system-related tasks, a Vista search box appears in the upper-right corner of the window. That box will remain, and it will continue to use the Microsoft search engine, but Microsoft will also add a link to the default desktop search program.

Tuesday's regularly scheduled status report on Microsoft's post-antitrust business practices comes after Google filed a 49-page document with the Justice Department in April, claiming that Vista's desktop search tool slowed down competing programs, including Google's own free offering. Google also said it's too difficult for users to figure out how to turn off the Microsoft program.

Microsoft initially dismissed the allegations, saying regulators had reviewed the program before Vista launched. However, Brad Smith, Microsoft's general counsel, said in an interview last week that the company was willing to make changes if necessary.

Google's claims were intended to show that the world's largest software maker is not complying with a settlement reached in 2002 after the government concluded Microsoft used its near-ubiquitous Windows operating system to throttle competition. As part of the settlement, Microsoft is bound by a consent decree that requires it to help rivals build software that runs smoothly on Windows.

In response to claims that Vista's "Instant Search" slows competing products, Microsoft agreed to give competitors technical information to help optimize performance.

Microsoft said it expects the changes to be implemented in its first service pack for Vista, putting to rest speculation among Microsoft watchers that the company would do away with its practice of catchall software upgrades. The software maker plans to release an early version of Service Pack 1 by the end of the year.

"We're pleased we were able to reach an agreement with all the states and the Justice Department that addresses their concerns so that everyone can move forward," Microsoft's Smith said in a statement.

Google, however, responded that the compromise didn't go far enough.

"Microsoft's current approach to Vista desktop search clearly violates the consent decree and limits consumer choice," said David Drummond, Google's chief legal officer. "These remedies are a step in the right direction, but they should be improved further to give consumers greater access to alternate desktop search providers."

Federal regulators worked with 17 U.S. states, also parties to the antitrust case against Microsoft, to nail down the details of the compromise.

"This agreement, while not perfect, is a positive step toward greater competition in the software industry," California Attorney General Jerry Brown said in a statement.

In the report, regulators also said Microsoft's work to improve technical documentation for software licensees continues on schedule, and that they are "encouraged by the quality of the new documents."

A hearing to review Microsoft's adherence with the consent decree is scheduled for June 26 in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

Google first raised concerns about desktop search in December. The lengthy April complaint that drew public attention to the skirmish was filed just days after Microsoft called for antitrust regulators to scrutinize the search company's planned $3.1 billion acquisition of online ad service DoubleClick Inc.

The recent moves are part of a broader battle between the two. While Windows continues to dominate the desktop operating system market, Google's ability to make money from search advertising has left Microsoft scrambling to catch up. Google has also stepped into traditional Microsoft territory in the past year with a set of free, Web-based programs for word processing, spreadsheets and presentations.

Father of Sony PlayStation steps down

TOKYO - The chief architect of Sony's PlayStation game console stepped down Tuesday as the Japanese company struggles to defend its dominance in the video game industry and revive its reputation as an electronics pioneer.

Ken Kutaragi, 56, retired as Sony Computer Entertainment Inc.'s chairman and group chief executive, the gaming unit said Tuesday. The unit is now headed by Kazuo Hirai, SCE's former president and chief operating officer.

Kutaragi had already been relieved of day-to-day responsibilities as president last year but stayed on as chief executive and chairman. In April, he announced his intention to retire from those positions this month.

Though no longer a board member, Kutaragi will hold an advisory post at the gaming unit, according to SCE official Sayoka Henmi.

The departure of Kutaragi, an icon among gamers, marks the end of an era at Sony Corp (NYSE:SNE - news). that saw the company dominate the video game industry with its flagship PlayStation consoles.

But it also highlights troubles amid a series of blunders over the rollout of its PlayStation 3 and intense competition from Nintendo Co.'s Wii console and Microsoft Corp.'s Xbox 360.

Kutaragi's most recent brainchild, the PlayStation 3, has been marred by embarrassing production shortages and a $600 price tag that some fans said was too steep. It went on sale late last year.

Tokyo-based Sony shipped 5.5 million PS3 machines in the fiscal year through March 31, fewer than the 6 million the company had targeted. Nintendo shipped 5.84 million Wii consoles worldwide during the same period.

The PS3's hefty startup costs have weighed heavily on the company's fight to drive up profit in its core electronics division. Sony is not expecting to post a profit in its game business until the fiscal year ending March 2009.

The flop has added to the woes facing the maker of the iconic Walkman, which has ceded its leadership in portable music players to Apple Inc.'s iPod.

Space station computers get final test

HOUSTON - A revived set of crucial computers aboard the international space station appeared to pass one more test Monday, making it likely that space shuttle Atlantis will return home later this week.

The test was to determine if two Russian computers were ready to control the space station's orientation as Atlantis managers decide whether the shuttle should spend another day at the outpost.

"Everything so far looks good," said NASA spokeswoman Lynnette Madison. "Now managers are going to look over everything."

Officials were to decide later Monday whether everything was working properly.

During a computer meltdown last week, the shuttle's thrusters were used to help the station maintain its position. The station's thrusters haven't been used since.

"That's a big step in our checkout of the computers to make sure everything is working correctly," flight director Holly Ridings said Monday. "It's one of those things we want to see before we undock."

Atlantis is set to undock on Tuesday and land Thursday in Cape Canaveral, Fla. The shuttle has been at the space station since June 10.

The computers, which also control oxygen production, crashed last week. All six of the computers' processors were back online Saturday. The two processors that took longer to revive are now on standby mode and can be used if needed.

Except for an oxygen generator, all the space station systems that were powered down when the computers failed are now running.

During Monday's test, the space shuttle's thrusters took control of the joined craft so it could change positions to dump waste and water. Afterward, the Russian thrusters took over. During a second part of the test, U.S. computers sent commands to the Russian thrusters.

Also Monday, Atlantis' crew finished packing the shuttle for its return trip to Earth. The shuttle and space station crews were set to say their goodbyes before hatches between Atlantis and the outpost are closed in preparation for Tuesday's undocking. They were given some free time Monday morning to enjoy the view on their last full day in space.

On Sunday, shuttle astronauts completed the fourth and final spacewalk of their mission to continue the construction of the space station.

During a nearly 6 1/2-hour spacewalk, astronauts Patrick Forrester and Steven Swanson activated a rotating joint — their top priority — on the outpost's newest segment so a new pair of solar wings can track the sun and provide power to the station. The solar arrays were delivered to the space station by Atlantis.

The astronauts also set up a new camera stanchion outside the station's newest segment and a computer network cable between the U.S. and Russian sides of the outpost. They were not able to bolt down a problematic debris shield and instead secured it in place.

Early Monday, flight controllers successfully gave the rotating joint a small test by moving it 5 degrees. During a more thorough test later in the morning, the joint began rotating automatically, allowing the solar arrays to track and sun and provide power to the station.

"The checkout went really well last night," Mission Control told the astronauts Monday morning.

U.S. astronaut Sunita Williams spent her last full day in space showing the ropes to her replacement at the space station, U.S. astronaut Clay Anderson. She thanked flight controllers on the ground for their work during her more than six months in space in which she set a record for the longest single spaceflight by a woman.

"I'm sad to say goodbye but that means progress is being made and it's time for the international space station to grow a little more," said Williams, her voice cracking with emotion. "The (space station) will always be a part of me."

coffee table 'surface computer'

Software maker will introduce a coffee-table- shaped computer that has a 30-inch display, allowing people to touch and move objects on the screen.

SEATTLE (Reuters) -- Microsoft Corp. will unveil a coffee-table- shaped "surface computer" Wednesday in a major step towards co-founder Bill Gates's view of a future where the mouse and keyboard are replaced by more natural interaction using voice, pen and touch.
Microsoft Surface, which has a 30-inch display under a hard-plastic tabletop, allows people to touch and move objects on screen for everything from digital finger painting and jigsaw puzzles to ordering off a virtual menu in a restaurant.

It also recognizes and interacts with devices placed on its surface, so cell phone users can easily buy ringtones or change payment plans by placing their handsets on in-store displays, or a group of people gathered round the table can check out the photos on a digital camera placed on top.

Surface is essentially a Windows Vista PC tucked inside a shiny black table base, topped with a 76cm touch screen in a clear acrylic frame. Five cameras that can sense nearby objects are mounted beneath the screen. Users can interact with the machine by touching or dragging their fingertips and objects such as paintbrushes across the screen, or by setting real-world items tagged with special barcode labels on top of it.

The company is selling the Surface for between $5,000 and $10,000 each, but aims to bring prices down to consumer levels in three to five years and introduce various shapes and forms.

Microsoft's coffee-table- shaped "surface computer" hopes to one day replace the mouse and keyboard with voice recognition, pen and touch.

Mark Bolger, right, the Director of Marketing
for Microsoft Surface Computing, and Pete Thompson,
Surface Computing General Manager, present "Surface"

Netscape Navigator 9

Netscape Navigator 9 Released

Netscape Navigator did not go quietly into the night. Instead, it's been reborn with version 9 as an extension of the Netscape social news site.

The new browser is tightly integrated with Netscape.com services, letting you easily submit stories and track what your friends are voting for. Essentially, it's like a specialized version of Flock, the social media browser that integrates publishing photos, blogging, and social bookmarking, but it only works for Netscape.

Two new features are notable: URL correction and Link Pad.

URL correction corrects any misspelled words or missing punctuation that you type into the address bar. That means you won't have to worry about the .CM scam. The Link Pad is a handy feature that lets you drag-and-drop links into the sidebar for later study.

Unless you're an active Netscape.com user, the new Navigator won't bring anything significant to the table, but if you are, Navigator is ideally suited to your needs.

Printing books online: an author you can't refuse

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Lawrence Durrell and Henry Miller are among the world's most respected authors, but for a while they had a hard time finding a publisher.

Rather than seek a mainstream outlet for racy novels such as "The Black Book" and "Tropic of Cancer," they used the Obelisk Press, a French publishing house started by Jack Kahane to print his own novel.

That was the 1930s. Now, a young Henry Miller could use new Internet companies like Blurb.com, i-Universe, Lulu.com or Xlibris to print his book -- and even sell it through their online stores.

Gwen Fuller used Blurb (www.blurb.com) to publish her book, "Do Mallet the Suitcase," a collection of spam e-mail arranged as haiku.

Among them: "Dude, get all U need/And dragonhead by reckon/She will love you more," and "Just what all men need/C'Mon Baby, Light My Fire/Chat and meet women."

Avoiding traditional publishing was a plus for Fuller, 48, a life coach in Menlo Park, California.

"There was a process that I was sort of unwilling to get engaged in when there was something that could so immediately deliver a quality book," she said.

Blurb requires customers to download its software, which then lets them lay out text and photos. Then they send the specifications to the company, which prints the books in either hardcover or soft.

Rates start at $18.95 for one small softcover. Bulk-order discounts start at 10 copies, company founder Eileen Gittins said.

"If you order 10 copies, you get a 10 percent discount, 100 copies you get a 15 percent discount," she said. "Over 200, we encourage you to give us a shout."

Blurb also allows authors to sell their works on its in-house bookstore, printing copies as new orders come in, and to charge a markup so they can make a profit. The company sends out a check every time an author earns $25 or more.

"PEOPLE WHO LOVE TO WRITE"

Many people use Blurb for personal projects as well. Michelle Flaherty and her husband Peter received a book made by their daughters with photos of Haunted Acre Woods, the large-scale Halloween display they mount each year at their home in East Falmouth, Massachusetts.

"It was the first Christmas gift in I don't know how many years that actually made me cry," she said. "It was so original, so different."

While a budding novelist could use Blurb, the company specializes in photo layouts with glossy paper and the look of a "coffee-table" book.

Some writers looking to print more literary works are visiting Lulu (www.lulu.com).

Lulu, founded by Bob Young, co-founder of software company Red Hat Inc., allows customers to publish school yearbooks, artwork, calendars and many other things -- but especially books. Lulu recoups expenses and takes a 20 percent cut of the profit on a book sale.

Mark Wilkerson's biography of Who guitarist and writer Pete Townshend has led him to the brink of a deal with a conventional publisher in Europe.

Wilkerson, 37, is an aircraft maintenance planner for UPS, and lives in Prospect, Kentucky -- about as far away from the mainstream publishing world as it gets.

Publishers that he pitched rejected him or asked him why he was qualified to write his book, the 618-page "Amazing Journey: The Life of Pete Townshend."

"Lulu has been fabulous for me, because what else would I have done?" he said. "I was completely ignorant of the many facets of the publishing industry."

Wilkerson sent his book to reviewers, and received positive notices in The Rocky Mountain News, the Chicago Sun-Times and influential music magazine MOJO. The book came to Townshend's attention, and the legendary musician tentatively committed to writing a foreword to the next edition, Wilkerson said.

Blurb and Lulu are not the only self-publishing options on the Internet. Xlibris (www.xlibris.com) is a self-publishing company that works in a partnership with Random House's investment unit, and iUniverse (www.iuniverse.com) offers similar services.

Both offer more services, with packages from about $300 all the way up to nearly $13,000.

Blurb and Lulu are better for enthusiasts, said Scott Flora, executive director of the Small Publishers Association of North America,

"If there are people who love to write and they want to see their book in print, this is a good option," he said.

Scientists create robot toddler

OSAKA - A group of scientists in Japan have developed a humanoid that acts like a toddler to better understand child development.

The Child-Robot with Biomimetic Body, or CB2, was developed by a team of researchers at Osaka University in western Japan and is designed to move just like a real child aged between one and three years old.

CB2, 4.3 feet tall and weighing 73 pounds, changes facial expressions and crawls on the floor.

The robot's movements are smooth fitted with 56 actuators in lieu of muscle. It has 197 sensors for touch, small cameras working as eyes, and an audio sensor.

CB2 can also speak using an artificial vocal cord.

When it stands on its feet, the robot wobbles like a child who is learning how to walk.

Minoru Asada, a professor at Osaka University who leads the project, said the robot was developed to learn more about child development.

"Our goal is to study human recognition development such as how the child learns a language, recognizes objects and learns to communicate with his father and mother," he said.

Lala.com to sell music for iPods

SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) - CD-swapping website Lala.com is taking a bite out of Apple's turf, hosting the iTunes music library for iPod owners and promising to soon sell songs directly for the devices.

Lala's new service lets people store their iTunes library on the Palo Alto, California company's website, allowing users to listen to their song collection from any computer via the Internet.

Lala also launched an online version of free radio that streams music to listeners on-demand.

The CD-swapping website said the moves made Tuesday are the first steps in a grand plan to break down barriers between people and digitized music and re-unite artists with alienated fans.

"The studios have done everything they can to get people to hate music," Lala.com founder Bill Nguyen told AFP.

"Sue them. Make them pay to hear it on the radio. The studios can't stop slapping us."

Nguyen derides the recording industry defense of Digital Rights Management (DRM) software, which blocks copying of music bought online, calling it the "ultimate insult."

"The last good thing to happen to music that people loved was Napster," Nguyen said, referring to the legendary dot-com era peer-to-peer music sharing service shuttered by the courts for inspiring rampant song copying.

"We wondered what would happen if we built a new Napster -- not the crappy old Napster -- with one hope that if you trust the consumer and don't think they are the enemy then you won't get screwed."

Lala has a deal with Warner Music Group to pay it each time one of its songs is played, so that studio's entire catalogue can be heard at the website, according to Lala spokesman John Kuch.

Kuch wouldn't disclose the amount, but said it is in line with the radio industry standard of a penny each time a song is played. Lala said it is negotiating similar deals with other studios.

"It is our big gamble that the more listening we provide the more you will want to own that music and make it part of your life," Kuch said.

"First by buying a CD and, eventually, with a download. This is the first iteration; we are going to be selling music to own for the iPod. That is coming very shortly."

Kuch said Lala can cut in on the exclusive relationship between iPods and iTunes because "we have some very talented engineers to make it simple to download from the Web to the iPod."

Lala's Anselm Baird-Smith implemented the first Java server at Sun Microsystems and another member of the Lala team helped build Yahoo's online e-mail service, according to Kuch.

"We want to do for music what Hotmail did for e-mail, make it ubiquitous and easy for everyone to access," Kuch told AFP.

Nguyen, a proven technology entrepreneur who has launched a half-dozen winning Internet companies in northern California, said he is backing the plan with riches reaped from his start-ups.

Lala launched in 2006 as an online vision of a vintage San Francisco record store where people tip each other off to artists, shop for freshly-released CDs and trade used ones for one dollar (0.77 euros) each plus 75 cents in postage.

Members can get as many CDs as they give and Lala is the first used music shop to send a portion of the proceeds to artists.

Swapping compact music disks is legal -- free of piracy concerns that bedevil online digital music delivery.

Lala membership has grown to approximately 300,000 people.

"We are going to make the biggest business bet we've ever done; pay the exorbitant fees to the record labels," Nguyen said.

"One simple bet, that if I show people so much music they will fall in love with it and buy it. Welcome to the new Napster."

Apple iPhone launch set for June 29

SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) - Apple's new iPhone, a "smart" mobile phone offering music storage and Internet access, will be launched on June 29, according to television ads by the high-tech group.

The iPhone, which combines the wildly popular iPod music player with features found in other smart phones, was unveiled in January by Apple chief executive Steve Jobs.

The device, to sell at prices of 499 to 599 dollars, will be distributed in the US market through ATT, the new name for the Cingular Wireless brand.

It will weigh 135 grams (3.8 ounces) and have the Apple OS X operating system and four or eight megabytes of storage. It will be able to play videos as well as music and have a screen of 3.5 inches (nine centimeters).

Analysts are divided on whether the iPhone will be an industry-changing device or be too expensive to compete with other smart phones such as the BlackBerry.

On its website, Apple said the iPhone will include "a revolutionary mobile phone, a widescreen iPod with touch controls, and a breakthrough Internet communications device." It will also include a two-megapixel digital camera.

ATT has already received more than a million inquiries about iPhones.

iTunes crosses language barrier with Foreign Exchange

NEW YORK (Billboard) - Apple's iTunes Music Store is introducing a new original programming feature designed to promote foreign-language music in its stores around the world, Billboard has learned.

The program is called Foreign Exchange. Under the initiative, two artists from different countries translate and cover each other's music in their native tongues.

iTunes is launching the program with German electronic act Wir Sind Helden and +44, an American rock act featuring Mark Hoppus and Travis Barker, formerly of Blink-182. Wir Sind Helden is covering +44's "When Your Heart Stops Beating" and +44 is covering Wir Sind Helden's "Guten Tag."

iTunes, which has a presence in 22 countries, is offering the covers and the original versions from both artists. The covers will be available exclusively on iTunes.

"The idea is exposing people to bands they may not listen to," Hoppus said. "In America, we don't really listen to music in other languages. I think it's a cool idea to get people to open their ears to music from different parts of the world."