News For Thursday Nov 20, 2008 News For Thursday Nov 20, 2008

Science  & Technology Science  & Technology

Can Blu-ray save Christmas for Hollywood? - Added 5 days ago

Movie studio executives on Friday presented the best-case scenario for a winter holiday surge in the purchase of high-definition Blu-ray players as their best hope to keep the U.S. home video market's decline from...

Sun Microsystems slashes jobs in survival fight - Added 5 days ago

The economic downturn might be pushing Sun Microsystems Inc., one of the storied names in computing, to the brink of extinction. The company's servers and software helped stimulate the Internet boom, and its...

Summary Box: Sun Microsystems slashes jobs - Added 5 days ago

SUN DOWN: Still not fully recovered from the dot-com bust eight years ago, Sun Microsystems Inc. is being walloped by this economic downturn. In response the company plans to cut as many as 6,000 jobs _ 18 percent of...

Sector Snap: Activision, EA decline - Added 5 days ago

Shares of Activision Blizzard Inc. and Electronic Arts Inc. declined Friday after October's video game retail sales report from the NPD Group showed a disappointing performance in the music genre. Activision publishes...

Images captured of 4 planets outside solar system - Added 6 days ago

Earth seems to have its first fuzzy photos of alien planets outside our solar system, images captured by two teams of astronomers. The pictures show four likely planets that appear as specks of white, nearly...

Tech billionaire to be sentenced for fraud Friday - Added 6 days ago

Charles "Junior" Johnson was a flashy Las Vegas entrepreneur who was briefly a billionaire back in the days of the dot-com bubble. On Friday he could be sentenced to up to 18 years in prison for defrauding investors...

UN: Clouds of pollution threaten glaciers, health - Added 6 days ago

A dirty brown haze sometimes more than a mile thick is darkening skies not only over vast areas of Asia, but also in the Middle East, southern Africa and the Amazon Basin, changing weather patterns around the world and...

AMD makeover moves show limited choices in slump - Added 6 days ago

Many of the problems facing Advanced Micro Devices Inc. are of its own making. But the limited choices the chip maker has for solving its troubles are symptoms of an affliction sweeping through Silicon Valley. Slumping...

October video game sales jump 18 percent - Added 6 days ago

People flocked to buy video games in October despite a drop in consumer confidence to a historic low, spending $1.31 billion in U.S. retail stores on hardware, software and accessories. That's a gain of 18 percent from...

Web tracker NebuAd sued over privacy claims - Added 6 days ago

Angry online subscribers who had their Web surfing habits tracked in detail are suing a Silicon Valley startup that created the technology and six Internet service providers that briefly used it. The 15 customers who...

Long-lost lunar photos get another day in the sun - Added 6 days ago

!!-- pobj:WX113-1113081223 -->!!-- pobj:WX114-1113081224 -->The old moon has never looked this good. Mankind's first up-close photos of the lunar landscape have been rescued from four decades of dusty storage, and...

Not giving up the ghost: Mars Spirit rover lives - Added 6 days ago

Despite a nasty Martian dust storm, Spirit lives. NASA had not heard from the 5-year-old Martian rover for four days. Just when engineers feared having to give up the ghost, the aptly named robot radioed back to Earth...

Weather improving for Friday night shuttle launch - Added 6 days ago

NASA grew more optimistic of launching space shuttle Endeavour on Friday on a space station delivery mission as forecasters offered a more promising outlook for the nighttime liftoff. Shuttle weather officer Kathy...

Microsoft says rebate program draws new searchers - Added 6 days ago

Microsoft Corp. said Thursday that paying people to use its Internet search engine is attracting new consumers, although there is little evidence that those people are making a habit of it. Under Microsoft's Cashback...

Study: Unlicensed stories reel in Internet readers - Added 1 week ago

Here's another reason for ailing newspaper and magazine publishers to wince: On average, the audience perusing unauthorized online copies of their articles is nearly 1.5 times larger than the readership on their own Web...

EBay vendor passes gigantic feedback milestone - Added 1 week ago

If you've ever sold something on eBay, you may have been pleased to receive positive feedback from the buyer. Multiply that by a million, and you can imagine how Jack Sheng feels. Sheng, 33, owns Los Angeles-based...

Electronic Arts wants to help people get fit, too - Added 1 week ago

Following in the footsteps of Nintendo's popular "Wii Fit," the video game publisher known for the "Madden" football games is jumping into fitness software targeted mostly at women. Electronic Arts Inc. on Thursday...

Microsoft adding more networking to Windows Live - Added 1 week ago

Microsoft Corp. is planning a Windows Live update in the coming weeks that adds social networking features to the software maker's instant messaging program, free Hotmail e-mail service and other sites. This overhaul...

YouTube channels Google with search-driven ads - Added 1 week ago

Facing more pressure to profit from its huge audience, YouTube is letting advertisers promote their commercial clips alongside the search results at the Internet's most popular video site. The system introduced...

Intel slashes 4Q outlook in sign of tech downturn - Added 1 week ago

Intel Corp.'s deep cuts to its fourth-quarter guidance offers further evidence that technology companies are in for a beating because of the economy. The Santa Clara-based company slashed more than $1 billion from its...

Electronic Arts wants to help people get fit, too - Added 1 week ago

Following in the footsteps of Nintendo's popular "Wii Fit," the video game publisher known for the "Madden" football games is jumping into fitness software targeted mostly at women. Electronic Arts Inc. was set to...

Electronic Arts wants to help people get fit, too - Added 1 week ago

Following in the footsteps of Nintendo's popular "Wii Fit," the video game publisher known for the "Madden" football games is jumping into fitness software targeted mostly at women. Electronic Arts Inc. was set to...

Microsoft adding more networking to Windows Live - Added 1 week ago

Microsoft Corp. is planning a Windows Live update in the coming weeks that adds social networking features to the software maker's instant messaging program, free Hotmail e-mail service and other sites. This overhaul...

AMD rolls out new server chips - Added 1 week ago

A year ago, Advanced Micro Devices Inc. worsened its financial problems by botching the launch of a powerful new server chip. The flubbed introduction gave bigger rival Intel Corp. eight months to steal market share. ...

Study: Unlicensed stories reel in Internet readers - Added 1 week ago

Here's another reason for ailing newspaper and magazine publishers to wince: On average, the audience perusing unauthorized online copies of their articles is nearly 2.5 times larger than the readership on their own Web...

Microsoft adding more networking to Windows Live - Added 1 week ago

Microsoft Corp. is planning a Windows Live update in the coming weeks that adds social networking features to the software maker's instant messaging program, free Hotmail e-mail service and other sites. This overhaul...

AMD rolls out new server chips - Added 1 week ago

A year ago, Advanced Micro Devices Inc. worsened its financial problems by botching the launch of a powerful new server chip. The flubbed introduction gave bigger rival Intel Corp. eight months to steal market share. ...

Review: Posh Sony Ericsson X1's options overwhelm - Added 1 week ago

What kind of smart phone can $800 buy? The luxe Xperia X1 from Sony Ericsson. At this price, it probably appeals only to recession-resistant gadget lovers, but it says something about what some gadget makers think the...

Feds issue rule aimed at Internet gambling ban - Added 1 week ago

The Bush administration issued a final regulation Wednesday aimed at banning Internet gambling, drawing criticism from Democrats who said it would burden financial companies. The rule from the Treasury Department and...

Summary: Sony Ericsson X1's options overwhelm - Added 1 week ago

WHAT IT IS: The $800 Xperia X1 smart phone from Sony Ericsson. WHAT IT DOES: It has a slide-out QWERTY keyboard, sharp 3-inch touch screen and a long list of features that includes Web surfing and video recording. It...

YouTube channels Google with search-driven ads - Added 1 week ago

Facing more pressure to profit from its huge audience, YouTube is letting advertisers promote their commercial clips alongside the search results at the Internet's most popular video site. The system introduced...

Artists stage street scenes to lurk in Google maps - Added 1 week ago

Anyone using Google's Street View map feature to scan one downtown Pittsburgh street is bound to do a double-take. Two 17th century swordsmen doing battle? An escape from a building using knotted sheets? A laser...

IBM to help build broadband network in power lines - Added 1 week ago

IBM Corp. is throwing its considerable weight behind an idea that seemed to have faded: broadband Internet access delivered over ordinary power lines. The technology has been around for decades, but most efforts to...

NASA clears shuttle Endeavour for Friday launch - Added 1 week ago

NASA cleared space shuttle Endeavour for a Friday night launch to the international space station, but the weather outlook was not too promising. A cold front was making its way toward Florida on Wednesday and was...

Staples offers free Dell PC recycling - Added 1 week ago

Dell Inc. and office-supply vendor Staples Inc. are working together to offer free recycling for Dell computers, printers and other products. Under the partnership announced Wednesday, people can drop off any amount of...

Microsoft's lobbying tab dwarfs Google's tally - Added 1 week ago

The most recent federal disclosure forms offer a stark reminder of Microsoft Corp.'s mighty Washington presence: The software giant's tab of almost $2 million for the third quarter alone nearly equaled the amount its...

Cold front could thwart Friday's shuttle launch - Added 1 week ago

An approaching cold front could thwart NASA's plans to launch space shuttle Endeavour on Friday on a flight to the international space station. But the seven astronauts arrived Tuesday ahead of the countdown start and...

NASA rover low on power from Martian dust storm - Added 1 week ago

NASA's Spirit rover, which is nearing its fifth year on Mars, is struggling to survive after a dust storm sapped its power, mission scientists said Tuesday. The solar-powered Spirit produced only 89 watt-hours of...

Microsoft's lobbying tab dwarfs Google's tally - Added 1 week ago

The most recent federal disclosure forms offer a stark reminder of Microsoft Corp.'s mighty Washington presence: The software giant's tab of almost $2 million for the third quarter alone nearly equaled the amount its...

Google juices up Gmail with video channel - Added 1 week ago

Google Inc. is introducing new tools that will convert its free e-mail service into a video and audio channel for people who want to see and hear each other while they communicate. Activating the features, introduced...

After banning YouTube, military launches TroopTube - Added 1 week ago

The U.S. military, with help from Seattle startup Delve Networks, has launched a video-sharing Web site for troops, their families and supporters, a year and a half after restricting access to YouTube and other video...

Ga. town advances cell phone parking payments - Added 1 week ago

Mayor William Floyd pulled up to a parking space, dialed a number into his cell phone and watched as two hours of paid time flashed on the meter in front of his car. And with that, the Atlanta suburb launched one of...

Good Question: How can I bank online safely? - Added 1 week ago

Q: I hear so much about hackers attacking Web sites and stealing people's personal information. Is it safe to bank online? A: One of the scariest things about banking online is that you're forced to enter personal...

Vacation rental Web startup reaps $250M investment - Added 1 week ago

Even as the sinking economy is making many people think about turning their vacations into "staycations," an online vacation rental service recently managed to raise $250 million to fund its growth. The listing...

NASA says Phoenix Mars mission has ended - Added 1 week ago

NASA on Monday declared an end to the Phoenix mission, some five months after the spacecraft became the first to land in Mars' arctic plains and taste water on another planet. Mission engineers have not heard from the...

Virgin Mobile beats Street with 3Q earnings - Added 1 week ago

Wireless service provider Virgin Mobile USA Inc. posted higher-than-expected third-quarter earnings Monday despite adding fewer customers to its rolls than in the same period last year. The Warren, N.J.-based company...

Oak Ridge boasts fastest computer at open research - Added 1 week ago

How fast is the new supercomputer at Oak Ridge National Laboratory? If everyone in the world performed one mathematical calculation per second, it would take 650 years to do what this machine can do in one day. That...

Nortel Networks posts 3Q loss, plans job cuts - Added 1 week ago

Canadian telecommunications equipment maker Nortel Networks Corp. posted a third-quarter loss Monday, reversing a year-ago profit as the economic turmoil and a large goodwill impairment charge weighed on results. The...

Energy Conversion Devices swings to profit - Added 1 week ago

Energy Conversion Devices, a maker of materials used for producing solar energy, swung to a profit in its latest quarter as revenues doubled, the company reported Monday. ECD, which produces solar laminates, earned...

Sun to help old foe Microsoft get search traffic - Added 1 week ago

In its latest move to increase Internet search traffic, Microsoft Corp. has turned to an old rival, Sun Microsystems Inc., for marketing help. Under the terms of a deal being announced Monday, Sun will promote a...