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AP Technology NewsBrief at 7:32 p.m. EDT(Associated Press Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Google hopes readers will 'flip' over new formatSAN FRANCISCO (AP) _ Google Inc. is testing a new format that is supposed to make reading online stories as easy as flipping through a magazine, a shift that eventually could feed more advertising sales to revenue-starved publishers. The Internet search leader unveiled the experiment, called "Fast Flip," Monday at a conference hosted by TechCrunch, a popular blog. Fewer players in wireless could rein in price cutsNEW YORK (AP) _ How many wireless carriers do we need? It's a question that's popping up again as T-Mobile USA is said to be looking at buying Sprint Nextel Corp. Now that most people have a cell phone and once-heady growth in the industry is slowing, analysts say carriers are going to be looking at buying each other to increase their scale and to avoid competing too much on price. Consumers have been benefiting from relentless price-cutting on cell phone service in the past few years. $100 million question: Where's broadband in US?WASHINGTON (AP) _ The national stimulus package passed by Congress in February may have been too enthusiastic about spending money on one particular project: figuring out where broadband Internet access is available and how fast it is. The $787 billion stimulus bill championed by the Obama administration set aside up to $350 million to create a national broadband map that could guide policies aimed at expanding high-speed Internet access. That $350 million tag struck some people in the telecommunications industry as excessive, compared with existing, smaller efforts. The map won't even be done in time to help decide where to spend much of the $7.2 billion in stimulus money earmarked for broadband programs. Microsoft swaps pictures for text in some searchesSEATTLE (AP) _ Microsoft Corp. is testing a way to display some search results as galleries of moveable images instead of text links, part of its ongoing attempt to differentiate its Bing search engine from Google. Bing's new visual search page lets people flip through pictures to track down where and when a movie is playing, read up on baseball players or shop for items like digital cameras. You can go to bing.com/visualsearch to browse available categories. Chief of Intel's biggest division heads to EMCSAN FRANCISCO (AP) _ Intel Corp., the world's biggest computer chip maker, said Monday that Pat Gelsinger, who ran Intel's main division, and Bruce Sewell, Intel's top lawyer, are leaving the company. The departures appeared to catch Intel off guard. Gelsinger was scheduled to give a keynote speech next week at Intel's developer forum in San Francisco but now is headed to data-storage company EMC Corp. Sewell has been Intel's public face in its fight against allegations of antitrust abuse. Startup lets you play console video games remotelySAN FRANCISCO (AP) _ As any a video game aficionado knows, it's easy to pop a game into your Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3 and spend hours working your way from one level to the next. Without the hefty console, though, you're out of luck if you want to keep blasting those aliens while away from home. A startup called Spawn Labs thinks it has a solution to this problem. Starting Monday, the Austin, Texas-based company began selling a box that is much like a Slingbox _ a device that lets you watch your home TV remotely _ for video gaming. Government Web sites kept alive at Cyber CemeteryDALLAS (AP) _ It was a historian's nightmare. During the change from the Clinton to the Bush administration, Web sites affiliated with the Clinton White House went dark, and an unknown number of online documents and files were forever lost. Such Internet deaths inspired the Cyber Cemetery at the University of North Texas, which preserves government Web sites in their final form. The Cyber Cemetery archives sites when commissions or panels expire, allowing the online work of defunct government bodies to live on and remain accessible to the public. Court rules against Universal Music in Veoh caseLOS ANGELES (AP) _ A federal judge in Los Angeles has ruled against Universal Music Group in a copyright lawsuit against online video site operator Veoh Networks Inc., although Universal says it will appeal. U.S. District Judge Howard Matz on Friday dismissed the 2007 suit in which Universal accused Veoh of supporting and inducing copyright infringement. Yahoo sees $150M windfall from Alibaba.com saleSUNNYVALE, Calif. (AP) _ Yahoo has cashed out of its investment in China's leading e-commerce site, Alibaba.com. The sale announced Monday is expected to generate a pretax windfall of about $150 million for Sunnyvale-based Yahoo. The Internet company had owned a 1 percent stake in Alibaba.com. Cyber criminals targeting small businessesWASHINGTON (AP) _ Cyber criminals are increasingly targeting small and medium-sized businesses that don't have the resources to keep updating their computer security, according to federal authorities. Many of the attacks are being waged by organized cyber groups that are based abroad, and they are able to steal not only credit card numbers, but personal information _ including Social Security numbers _ of the card holders, said Michael Merritt, assistant director of the U.S. Secret Service's office of investigations. (c) 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. |