Coop's Corner

The last time I flew out of San Francisco, my laptop battery conked out as we passed Salt Lake City. Considering how I was stuck in cattle class with no chance to recharge the unit, I closed the computer in disgust and proceeded to slip into a deep sleep.

(Credit: CNET News)

If my laptop drops dead one more time because the battery's out of juice, I may go postal. I know. There are worse things in life. But how lame is lithium ion? I'm sure that my frustration's not unique. Many (most?) of you have surely engaged in the same frantic race against the clock, typing furiously as the computer's battery icon wastes down to empty. And Murphy's Law being what it is, there doubtless was not an electrical unit in the same time zone.

Of course, some laptops are better at power management than others. Still, three hours, maximum, is about the best you can hope for. That's no bargain. But such is life in the lithium-ion era.

Now a start-up called ZPower says it's come up with a battery technology breakthrough which it claims will result in 40 percent longer laptop life than lithium-ion on a single charge. The company says it has struck a deal with "one of the major" PC makers to use its silver-zinc batteries in a notebook line slated for 2009. The CEO, Ross Dueber, declined to get more specific than that.

I don't know ... Read more

Despite the early kinks attending MobileMe, what's not to like about the concept? I'll include Live Mesh in the category, though Microsoft still remains in beta with the product. Synchronizing e-mail, calendars, and contacts--it's a fine idea. Unfortunately, nobody has figured it out to anyone's full satisfaction yet.

Maybe that will soon change as more companies with the means and the motivation offer cloud-based storage to consumers. One recurring rumor has Google planning an upcoming consumer service with "infinite storage" called GDrive. Take rumors for what they are worth, but given Google's (growing) cloud-centric history, it's not unreasonable to expect an announcement along those lines.

Meanwhile, another name with the bonafides is thinking about trying its hand.

Dell.

I recently caught up with Praveen Asthana, who directs storage operations at Dell. While cloud-based storage so far has had an uneven reception in the market, he says the initial consumer reluctance to store valuable digital files "out there" is receding.

"What convinces me about this is that people now are comfortable putting their photos onto the cloud," he told me. "When you read about someone's house catching on fire, what's the first thing they try and save? It's the photos and the memories."

Of course, Dell knows that it is not guaranteed to succeed where others have failed. If it were that easy, Xdrive would have turned into a money machine for AOL. Instead, the company is looking to dump the service ... Read more

Intel has invented a way to double the air flow generated by fans used to cool ultrathin notebook computers.

Demonstrating a prototype of the technology in public for the first time at its developer forum taking place this week in San Francisco, Intel says the upshot will be cooler computers--and it's not referring to style.

Fan prototype developed by Intel.

(Credit: CNET News)

"This will have the same power consumption and noise level of current fans," said Bradley Urban, an engineer inside Intel's thermal technology development unit.

As with other engineering advances coming out of its research side, Intel intends to license the proprietary design to computer makers--the idea being that anything which fosters more demand for Intel-based computers will, by definition, add to the company's bottom line.

Call it a product announcement by stealth: you'll find the technology demonstration in a nondescript booth at San Francisco's Moscone Center, a half stone's toss away from the myriad Atom-based notebook PCs Intel is putting on display at its developer forum.

In a side-by-side comparison, the Intel fan flow moves a Styrofoam ball around a track significantly faster. "It's a 2x comparison," Urban said. He added that Intel took less than a year to work out the kinks for a reliably faster fan to fit into ultrathin notebooks.

"As soon as we can get it into production, we will," he said. It was unclear how long this next step in the process will take before ... Read more

IBM is making a $300 million bet that it can turn cloud computing into a lot more than the buzzword du jour.

(Credit: CNET News)

Big Blue is spending that sum to equip 13 data centers around the world with infrastructure that will let customers access a bevy of cloud-based computer services in the event service disruptions take down their networks.

The investment also constitutes the biggest investment IBM has ever made in this area, according to Brian Reagan, who directs the company's Global Strategy & Portfolio Management group.

"You either would have dedicated seats or essentially a replica of your work center at that data center (shared or dedicated)," he said. "By using a lot of these virtualization techniques, when you want to move your workspace from your office we would be able to transparently move your applications and desktop so you'd be up and running."

Although it's nearly impossible to guarantee 100 percent up time in the event of a man-made or natural disaster, Big Blue is treading on familiar terrain. Cloud computing dates back several decades to the era when mainframes ruled the computing roost. As Rob Enderle noted on a different occasion:

"Back when IBM was at its peak, it leased mainframes and was virtually recession-proof. Cloud computing, in its absolute sense, isn't computers you purchase for your own cloud, but services you subscribe to for your organization, which can be increased or decreased based on need."

In a similar way, IBM'... Read more

Three Massachusetts Institute of Technology students who have been barred by a court order from discussing subway card vulnerabilities are now free to say what they want.

The University of Michigan released its annual ACSI scores for the PC industry, and Apple took top honors for the fifth straight year.

Plus, it isn't your usual Nokia jingle, but a campaign to promote condom use in India sponsored by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is off to a strong start.

Today's stories:

U.S. mobile-phone sales take a hit

Android security team appeals to bug hunters

Georgia cuts access to Russian sites, TV news

Overheating iPod Nanos? Japan investigates

Apple extends MobileMe accounts--again

Palm leaks Treo Pro photos and videos

Intel: Sensors will be key to future computing

Google digs up funds for geothermal energy

Wish I could read minds because I'd love to know what the representatives from Comcast and Verizon were thinking as they listened to lobbyists from the recording and film industries push them to snoop on their customers.

All in the pursuit of upholding the law, of course. (Naturally.)

"We need the help of ISPs. They have the technical ability to manage the flow over their pipes," Shira Perlmutter, a vice president for global legal policy at the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, said earlier Monday at a technology conference sponsored by the Progress and Freedom Foundation. "The good news is that we're beginning to see some of these solutions emerge, in particular in Europe and Asia." (IFPI is the Recording Industry Association of America's international affiliate.)

Clearly, the content industries have legitimate interests to protect, but I doubt that any of that would hold up in court. The idea strikes me as a perverse reading of the U.S. Constitution. You don't need to be a paranoid anchorite holding out in the remote hills of Montana to grasp where this policy prescription inevitably heads. But let's suspend that skepticism and momentarily assume that some ISPs would play along. Would you trust your friendly broadband provider not to monitor other prohibited items beyond pirated songs and movies? There would be no shortage of First Amendment lawyers queuing up to get a piece of this case.

Back to reality, what all this demonstrates for the umpteenth ... Read more

Frustrated with political deadlock, solar energy companies fear a big setback if Congress fails to renew a key federal tax credit set to expire at the end of the year.

The provision would extend a 30 percent break of up to $2,000 to homeowners. Businesses would qualify for the same percentage, without a cap.

Barry Cinnamon, CEO, Akeena Solar

(Credit: Akeena Solar)

While the U.S. House of Representatives has passed a bill to extend the tax credit, the effort so far has failed eight times in the Senate--the latest defeat occurring on July 30.

"The delay in the ITC (investment tax credit) renewal has meant that large commercial jobs are being postponed" because of the risk that they can't be installed by December 31, said Barry Cinnamon, chief executive of Akeena Solar.

Registering concern for the future of their nascent industry, executives like Cinnamon note that the uncertainty over the tax credit's renewal has already contributed to the loss of small and medium commercial jobs. If the current logjam continues, they say the impact will likely hurt the commercial sector more than the residential sector as the residential credit is capped at $2,000--which is rarely a critical factor in a homeowner's decision-making process.

The irony is that industry lobbyists report bipartisan support for the provision in the Senate, where the vote fell nine votes short of the three-fifths supermajority needed. Six members did not vote, including Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama. (The national governor's association has also ... Read more

Here's the way things work at Microsoft: After correcting shortcomings in the first and second editions of its software, version 3.0 of a Microsoft product usually silences the company's worst critics, allowing management to get on with business of crushing rivals. But I'll be first to acknowledge that Silverlight breaks with that pattern.

Since the start of the Beijing Olympics, I've been using the Silverlight 2 beta to access video over the Internet and it works just fine. As a loyal Flash user, I was surprised when Microsoft won the deal to supply NBC with video-viewing technology for the Olympics. There was the obvious old-school tie between Microsoft and NBC dating back to their collaboration building MSNBC. Still, this was Adobe Systems' game to lose. And lose it did--big time.

In the end, Microsoft was able to convince NBC it could do more by using Silverlight than by sticking with Flash. Rob Bennett, the general manager of sports for MSN, told me that it came down to a two-day meeting in November, where he brought in the Siliverlight team. I'm simplifying, but his pitch was that Flash's scalability had never been put to an Olympic-size test. Accurate or not, that argument left the desired impression. What's more, even though Silverlight was new on the surface, Microsoft argued that under covers, it was really based on very familiar Windows Media technologies.

"We talked about features like adaptive streaming, the ability to automatically keep ... Read more

It wasn't the world's worst-kept secret but it wins honorable mention.

As expected, Yahoo announced Thursday afternoon that it had appointed Frank J. Biondi Jr. and John H. Chapple to its board of directors.

This seemingly puts a final coda on the months-long Carl Icahn soap opera, which featured the billionaire investor's sundry attempts to take control -- or force a sale -- of the company. In the end, Icahn settled for a board seat for himself as well as Yahoo expanding the size of the board to accommodate two more directors. Yahoo agreed to select the candidates from a pool that included Icahn's former slate of dissident directors.

In a statement, CEO Jerry Yang had this to say:

I look forward to working together with Frank, John, and the rest of our board to continue the progress we've made on our strategy to be the starting point for the most Internet users, a must buy for the most advertisers, and to develop the world's most open platforms.

Biondi is a senior managing director of investment adviser WaterView Advisors, former chairman and chief executive of Universal Studios, and former head of Viacom. Chapple is president of Hawkeye Investments in Redmond, Wash., and former CEO of Nextel Partners.

Fire Eagle, Yahoo's new geolocation service, is fresh out of the company's Brickhouse development team, and third parties are lining up to cut deals.

Who can deny that location is going to become increasingly important for Web services? In the initial rush of coverage, MG Siegler correctly noted that Fire Eagle essentially serves as the intermediary between services offering that geolocation capability and those wishing to make use of it. (Fire Eagle's not an original idea. There's also Loopt, a cell phone-based service that allows people to track and communicate with friends, as well as Whrrl and Brightkite.)

So this is progress? Maybe it's just my particular hangup but, truth be told, knowing that "they" (and that includes friends and family) may be watching me does not fill me with much enthusiasm. Sometimes it's comforting just being off the grid. I don't think I missed something growing up in a Fire Eagle-less world and I'm in no hurry to change now.

From a business perspective, Yahoo probably has a winner. Whether it's Fire Eagle or a better, similar incarnation by someone else, this is another signpost of a future where we choose from a panoply of location-based services. From what I understand of Fire Eagle, I can't find any evidence that it won't succeed. Already, more than 50 services make use of the Fire Eagle technology and more will follow. Unfortunately, don't you just know that some marketing ... Read more