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AP Technology NewsBrief at 6:56 p.m. EDT
[August 21, 2008]

AP Technology NewsBrief at 6:56 p.m. EDT


(AP Online Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Oracle's Ellison grabs top spot on best-paid listSAN FRANCISCO (AP) _ Oracle Corp. founder Larry Ellison, a longtime fixture on the list of the world's richest people, is now ensconced atop The Associated Press' rankings of the top-paid chief executives in the United States. Never shy about flaunting his estimated $25 billion fortune, Ellison established himself as the best-paid CEO among major U.S. companies by persuading Oracle to award him a fiscal 2008 pay package valued at $84.6 million under the AP's calculations.

Intel demonstrates powering up without plugging inSAN FRANCISCO (AP) _ Imagine juicing up your laptop computer or cell phone without plugging them into an electrical socket. That's a luxury that could be provided by wireless power transmission, a concept that has been bandied about for decades but is creeping closer to becoming viable. Building off work unveiled last year by Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers, Intel Corp. on Thursday demonstrated how to make a 60-watt light bulb glow from an energy source 3 feet away. The Intel team did it with relatively high efficiency, losing only a quarter of the energy the researchers started with.

New Microsoft photo site spends first day offlineSEATTLE (AP) _ Microsoft Corp.'s new digital photo sharing site spent most of its first day offline as its servers strained to handle a flood of traffic. The site, called Photosynth, stitches together a set of related digital photos into a presentation that allows viewers to zoom and pan across the scene.


AT&T expands tech support to cover other gadgetsNEW YORK (AP) _ Phone companies have been expanding their technology-support offerings, and AT&T Inc. took that trend one step further Thursday by introducing a tech-help plan that's even available to people who don't subscribe to other AT&T services. AT&T ConnecTech offers in-home service for "virtually all" tech-support needs, the company said, including home theater installation, wall-mounting of flat-panel TVs and computer repair, starting at $99.

US company sues Nintendo in Wii wand patent suitTOKYO (AP) _ Nintendo's hit Wii console with its wandlike remote controller has been targeted in patent infringement complaints by a U.S. technology company. Hillcrest Laboratories, based in Rockville, Md., has filed a complaint with the U.S. International Trade Commission in Washington D.C., and a patent infringement lawsuit in the U.S. District Court in Maryland against Nintendo Corp., the company said in a statement Wednesday.

IAC completing split into 5 publicly traded partsNEW YORK (AP) _ Barry Diller's IAC/InterActiveCorp is completing its split into five publicly traded companies Thursday _ a move intended to give each business more focus and value than the previously cluttered whole. With the split, home shopping network HSN Inc., time-share business Interval Leisure Group Inc., ticketing service Ticketmaster and lending and real estate business Tree.com Inc. were due to begin regular trading Thursday under their own ticker symbols. The symbols are "HSNI" for HSN, "IILG" for Interval, "TKTM" for Ticketmaster and "TREE" for Tree.com.

Microsoft site makes digital photos into panoramasSEATTLE (AP) _ Digital cameras have liberated awe-struck travelers and proud parents from worrying about the price of film processing. But showing off those megapixels of memories is still reminiscent of tedious living room slideshows _ and perhaps now worse, because instead of one blurry photo of the Eiffel Tower or the high school musical, there might be 50. Most digital photo-sharing sites require viewers to click from an album to a bite-sized thumbnail of a picture, and then again to a large image, then sit through a slideshow of snapshots one by one. Microsoft Corp.'s newest Web tool, Photosynth, is designed to give viewers a much zippier way to take in the sights of Paris or an act of "HMS Pinafore."

Some eBay sellers frustrated with rule changesNEW YORK (AP) _ Some people who sell things on eBay are fed up with new rules the company has been imposing in hopes of making the auction site more attractive to online shoppers. Now even more changes are coming in the next few weeks, but this time eBay Inc. hopes it can cool tempers. Already this year, eBay has tinkered with its fee structure, search results and feedback system. These efforts might be meeting eBay's aims of improving the experience for buyers, but several sellers say their relationship with eBay is worse than ever, and some have left the site entirely.

American launches in-flight Internet on 3 routesNEW YORK (AP) _ One of the few remaining Internet-free havens vanished Wednesday as American Airlines launched airborne e-mail, Web and other online services on some of its longer, nonstop flights. The move could create a new stream of revenue for an aviation industry facing high fuel prices and other challenges. But it also could create new headaches as passengers retrieve sensitive e-mails and Web sites in confined quarters.

Review: 2 new devices mix learning with gamesYour kids can learn math, how to tell time and other skills needed for school _ and you don't have to pry them away from video games. That was the appeal of two new handheld devices my three boys recently tested: the $70 Leapster2 and the $90 Didj, made by LeapFrog Enterprises Inc. and designed to put learning games into a format likely to be coveted by children.

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