American Airlines sues Google over keywords

Yes, another week, another tech lawsuit – this time it’s American Airlines suing Google for its keyword ad placement. American Airlines alleges that Google sells sponsored links on top and to the right of search pages that, according to American Airlines, dilutes the company’s good name and confuses the public.

American Airlines filed the massive 55-page complaint in the Northern US District Court of Texas and demands a jury trial. If it wins, the airline wants an injunction, treble damages and money to conduct a “corrective advertising campaign”.

In Google’s “AdWords” program, the company sells pay per click ads that are triggered by keywords. These ads are set along the sides and top of the search engine page and are distinctly marked as “Sponsored Links”. So a person searching for Los Angeles airline flights could get American Airlines in the center search window, but also Southwest and other airlines in the right side of the screen. Regular search engine placement is determined by Google and cannot be purchased, however many online companies attempt to boost their rankings by using search engine optimization techniques (SEO).

While Google believes the sponsored section of the search windows is distinct enough for consumers, American Airlines believes differently. According to the complaint, the airline thinks the links allows competitors to grab business from American and that they also violate trademark laws by confusing and diluting the American Airlines name. “They seek a free ride on the reputation and goodwill of another’s brand,” said American Airlines in the complaint.

A quick Google search of American Airlines currently brings up a set of sponsored links (the ones you see on the right side of the search screen) by Cheap Air Tickets and CheapnHotels. American Airlines has purchased the most prominent sponsored link location at the top center of the search window.

Google has faced similar lawsuits in the past, most notably from the GEICO auto insurance group in 2004. In that case, a federal judge ruled that the search engine company could continue selling Sponsored Links triggered by search terms.

Canon introduces EOS 40D digital SLR

With 6.5 FPS continuous shooting, a new auto focus feature and a 10.1 MP sensor, Canon's latest DSLR camera is ready to hit the market.

Canon's EOS 40D, the successor to the EOS 30D, takes significant advances over the previous model with new technology that Canon introduced earlier this year. For example, the 40D incorporates Canon's DIGIC III processor, which allows for nearly instantaneous camera boot-up and advanced color rendering.

Additionally, the 40D maintains image quality of up to ISO 1600 and a burst rate of 6.5 frames per second. According to Canon, the camera can handle up to 75 large JPEGs without pause.

The camera also uses a new auto focus system. The new platform has nine AF points, each of which can focus on horizontal and vertical planes. There's also a new button that enables auto focus immediately.

The 40D has a three inch LCD screen for image previewing, complete with grid overlays and a real-time histogram to simulate the exposure of the picture.

Canon also today launched the Wireless File Transmitter WFT-E3. Compatible with the 40D, the WFT-E3 lets users transfer pictures wirelessly to rmote FTP servers. Additionally, when connected to a GPS device, the image is tagged with its precise location.

40,000 MP3 files in your pocket

Samsung is getting more aggressive in the hard drive market: The company today announced a new 160 GB drive in a 1.8" form factor – which is often used in compact notebooks and some portable audio and video players such as the video iPod.

According to the manufacturer, the 4200 rpm Spinpoint N2 drive is targeting mainly consumer applications such as portable media players and hard drive-based camcorders (which typically top out at 60 GB today). The 2-disk, 160 GB drive has enough room to carry about 40,000 MP3 files or about 100 HD movies.

Samsung did not say when the new drives will be available and how much they will cost.

The hard drive industry is on fire these days, answering the apparent competition from flash-based solid state disk (SSD) drives, which are expected to hit capacities of 128 GB this year. Samsung is one of the key drivers in the SSD segment, but is becoming a more visible player in the hard drive market as well.

EA sends out four games for Macs

Delivering on its promise to bring more games to the Apple computer platform, Electronic Arts today shipped four new Mac titles.

Two of the titles, Need For Speed Carbon and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, will be available to consumers tomorrow. The other two, Command & Conquer 3 Tiberium Wars and Battlefield 2142, will be held until their August 28 release date.

All four titles were released on the PC within the last year.

EA announced in June that it would begin bringing more titles to the Mac. However, the four titles announced today encountered delays beyond what EA originally expected.

EA also pledged to release Madden NFL 08 simultaneously on the PC and Mac. The Mac version is nowhere to be found. The same promise was made about Tiger Woods PGA Tour 08, which is slated to come out later this month.

Initially, the new games will be exclusive to the Apple Store and Apple.com, while EA and Apple try to attain additional retail partners.

Paramount, Dreamworks go HD DVD

The HD DVD camp today received an exclusivity commitment from two major movie studios – a welcome commitment the group needs in its battle against Blu-ray.

According to the announcement, Paramount and Dreamworks will publish home videos in HD DVD only, including titles from Paramount Pictures, Dreamworks Pictures, Dreamworks Animation Paramount Vantage, Nickelodeon Movies and MTV Films. The program will begin with the release of Blades of Glory on August 28, followed by Transformers and Shrek the Third.

Today’s announcement does not include films directed by Steven Spielberg as his films are not exclusive to either format.

The HD DVD group said that its format has "emerged as the most affordable way for consumers to watch their movies in high definition" and "offers consumers the chance to personalize the movie-watching experience, to interact with their movies and even to connect with a community of other fans."

Treatment for Internet addiction suggested

Is your computer mouse your first thought when you get up in the morning? Are you obsessed with email, MySpace or YouTube? A psychiatrist said that such behavior should be put on the same level with other extreme addictive disorders and be treated as such.

According to Dr. Pinhas Dannon, a psychiatrist from Tel Aviv University’s Sackler Faculty of Medicine, says that Internet addiction should be taken seriously and grouped together with gambling, sex addiction, and kleptomania. In a new report, he describes Internet addiction as a "pathological condition that can lead to anxiety and severe depression."

Internet addiction is currently classified by mental health professionals as an Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), a mild to severe mental health condition that results in an urge to engage in ritualistic thoughts and behavior, such as excessive hand-washing or, in the case of the Internet, Web surfing. This, however, needs to change, Dannon claims. “Internet addiction is not manifesting itself as an ‘urge.’ It’s more than that. It’s a deep ‘craving.’ And if we don’t make the change in the way we classify Internet addiction, we won’t be able to treat it in the proper way,” he said.

According to the psychiatrist, especially teenagers and empty nesters are at risk to suffer from Internet addiction disorder. Diagnosis of form this condition may be difficult, he said, but stated that it will reveal itself through loss of sleep, anxiety when not online, isolation from family and peer groups, loss of work, and periods of deep depression.

Dannon believes that Internet addiction can be treated effectively, if it is viewed as any other extreme addiction. This treatment, he suggests would include medication such as Serotonin blockers and Naltrexone, which are typically used in cases of kleptomania and pathological gambling.

According to Dr. Dannon, Internet addiction is an "inevitable" product of modernization: “They are just like anyone else who is addicted to coffee, exercise, or talking on their cellular phone. As the times change, so do our addictions,” he said.

Wii movie playback unlocked

Video converting specialist X-OOM Software has released a new application that allows users to format movies that will playback on the Wii without modifying the console.

X-OOM Movies On Wii takes virtually any video format and coverts it into a unique format that, according to the software publisher, can be played back on the Wii if the video is saved to an SD card. The Wii has an SD card reader and a "photo viewing" channel on the main menu.

There are existing console modification kits that allow the Wii to play back DVD movies. However, by modding the console it becomes vulnerable to inoperability and the warranty is voided. Nintendo has so far announced no plans to bring any sort of video playback to the Wii.

The software program also contains various basic video editing features. Currently it is available in the UL for £20 ($40).

Software bug took Skype out

Skype today provided a few more information pieces about the reasons behind its massive network outage last week.

According to the company, the network outage was initially caused by a "massive restart of [its] user’s computers across the globe within a very short timeframe as they rebooted after receiving a routine software update." That high number of reboots was followed by an equally high number of log-in requests, which resulted in what Skype calls a "chain reaction."

On the Skype blog, a company representative wrote that this event revealed a "previously unseen software bug within the network resource allocation algorithm" which prevented Skype's "self-healing function from working quickly."

"The issue has now been identified explicitly within Skype," the representative wrote. "Skype has now identified and already introduced a number of improvements to its software to ensure that our users will not be similarly affected in the unlikely possibility of this combination of events recurring."

The company said that there were no malicious activities that impacted Skype.

Tilera announces 64-core processor

Silicon Valley startup Tilera today announced the Tile64, a processor with 64 programmable cores that, according to the company, houses ten times the performance and 30 times the power efficiency of Intel's dual-core Xeon processors.

Intel may be getting tired of hearing about products performing better than its dual-core processors targeting server and embedded, as the company describes dual-core processors, at least when it comes to performance, as last year's product. However, when there's a company claiming that it can beat Intel's last year's product by a factor of 10x and 30x, depending on discipline, it's certainly worth a look.

The Tile64 is a RISC-based processor clocked between 600 MHz and 1 GHz aiming for integration in embedded applications such as routers, switches, appliances, video conferencing systems and set-top boxes. Its manufacturer claims that the CPU solves a critical problem in multi-core scaling and opens the door to hundreds or even thousands of cores using this new architecture.

Other than for example Intel's Core architecture, which is expected to soon be running into a bottleneck caused by its centralized bus architecture (which acts as communication node between all cores), Tilera's cores can exchange data with all other cores through a "mesh" architecture. Each of the 64 tiles consists of a CPU unit, a cache unit and a switch, which can send information into four directions to neighboring "tiles". Each tile has a bandwidth of 500 Gb/s, with the Tile64's aggregate bandwidth topping out at 32 Tb/s.

Besides the fact that Tilera claims that it has untangled a data traffic mess that otherwise would have surrounded a central bus, the company has come up with an interesting and flexible cache architecture for the tiles, each of which is able to act as a fully functioning system that can run an operating system. Each tile integrates two 8 KB L1 caches (8 KB iL1, 8 KB dL1) as well as a 64 KB L2 cache. There is no L3 cache per se, but if required by the application, a software developer can utilize all L1 and L2 caches as one 5 MB L3 cache.

The result is a claimed performance that is ten times what a dual-core Xeon offers, while performance per watt is exceeding the Xeon by 30x. The manufacturer states that each tile consumes a maximum of 300 mWatt, which translates into a maximum power consumption of 19.2 watts per Tile64 chip. Still, there is enough horsepower to encode eight parallel standard definition video streams at 2 Mb/s per stream, two high definition 720p streams at 7 Mb/s each or one 1080p video stream at 20 Mb/s.

According to Tilera, programmers can get their application up and running on Tile64 "very quickly", while they mentioned that "fine-tuning" will optimize the software's performance.

Tilera said that the processor is available now. For a new entry into the market, Tilera priced its product with confidence: 10K-tray pricing is set at $435 for each Tile64 – which appears cheap, if it can replace ten Xeon processors. But in a real world environment, the processor is priced against a quad-core Xeon 5345 (2.33 GHz, 8 MB L2 cache), which currently sells for a 1K tray price of $455.

Initial customers using the processor in upcoming products include 3Com, Top Layer, Codian and GoBackTV.

Of course, every time a new processor company comes around, there is the question if there is really enough room for another player – in this case, a market where heavyweights such as Intel and Texas Instruments battle for market shares. Other than PA Semi, a relatively new microprocessor company that does not build its processor, but licenses its technology, Tilera is actually manufacturing the Tile64, which is reminiscent of the rise and fall of Transmeta.

If you have been around in this industry for some time, then you may remember that Transmeta was in "stealth mode" from 1997-2000 and reason for media reports mainly because of one famous employee, Linux inventor Linus Torvalds. Transmeta launched with great fanfare in January 2000, but never got a foot on the ground and today is struggling to survive with revenues from licensing its LongRun2 technology to companies such as NEC.

Companies such as Tilera are exposed to the problems that broke Transmeta's neck in CPU manufacturing: Microprocessor buyers today, for example, expect a track record of reliability that new companies cannot offer, buyers expect a support system, extensive manufacturing capabilities, a long-term roadmap that reveals what can be expected in terms of performance and feature set. Transmeta never made it much further than a presence in Asian markets, a few sub-notebooks on these shores as well as exotic computing solutions such as desktop clusters. Tilera, however, believes that it is competing in a different and "aggressively adopting" multi-core market in which it has the performance edge (which Transmeta never had).

During our briefing with Tilera, chief technology officer Anant Agarwal told us that he believes that the company has solved a "huge problem" of multi-core architectures and therefore has a substantial advantage: "We know how to get to hundreds of cores. This means that we are way ahead of the competition."

Playstation 3 kills HD DVD

Just a few months ago, the high-definition arena looked like we were in for a lengthy battle between Blu-ray and HD DVD. That impression surely has changed: Blu-ray is capturing the market where it counts – movie sales, which apparently are driven by Playstations making their way into the market. Will the game console break HD DVD's neck?

Well, let’s look at the market we have today.

From a general perspective, HD DVD seems to have all the pieces of the puzzle in its favor and it has a strategy that makes common sense. HD DVD (consumer electronics) players are less expensive than Blu-ray players, suggesting the technology should be adopted faster than the pricey rival. The group behind HD DVD is also pushing much more to bring new interactive features to the format.

The strategy has worked somewhat: When looking at standalone CE players, HD DVD has sold countlessly more units. Yet, some how the format continues to be trampled upon by Blu-ray in terms of movie sales. The latest estimate found Blu-ray movies outselling HD DVD by a factor of 2:1.

So, despite the fact that HD isn't quite mainstream yet, are these early numbers significant? Can it really be that a group of early adopting gamers with a console widely panned for its lack of games has dynamically shifted the home video format war? We here believe it did.

There was doubt earlier this year whether the PS3 could deliver an edge for Blu-ray or not. Now it turns out that Sony had its bet right and it looks like the PS3 could decide the format war much earlier than anticipated. HD DVD has become the struggling format that is losing supporters left and right these days.

It's a timely discussion because we're now in the very beginning stages of seeing more clues who could emerge as a winner. Target, Blockbuster, and other small chains have already cast their votes for Blu-ray, deciding not to devote retail space to HD DVD. For the average consumer, this says Blu-ray is the next format. There is no other choice. This is crucial because the long-term acceptance of a format relies heavily on the average consumer.

Movie Studio support also appears to be shifting with Disney being the latest to heavily invest into the format.

Recently revealed advantages of Blu-ray in movie sales are pretty substantial for a format war just one year in the making. However, Toshiba says standalone HD DVD players are outselling standalone Blu-ray players by a margin of four to one. That disparity raises a lot of questions, most of which can be answered with two words - Playstation 3.

According to a study commissioned by Sony in June, 72% of Playstation 3 owners have purchased a Blu-ray disc movie, and 87% said they intend to buy one in the next 12 months. Of those who said they watch BD movies on their PS3 frequently, 82% said Blu-ray is their preferred movie format.

There's some confusion about whether PS3 owners do actually make use of the console's ability to play Blu-ray movies. In stark contrast to the Sony survey, NPD released a study this week that found that 40% of next-gen gamers didn't even know the PS3 had a Blu-ray player.

However, the NPD survey included owners of any next-gen system, meaning the Wii, PS3 and Xbox 360. It also included participants as young as six years old. This undoubtedly includes people who don't even care about high definition content. For die-hard PS3 fans, though, it seems there isn't even a question. They appreciate the Blu-ray functionality and probably don't even look at HD DVD.

However, HD DVD has always been ahead of the game in terms of interactive features. Some HD DVD titles can now access the Internet to download exclusive content. Users can also view picture-in-picture features for things like video commentary, storyboard comparisons, and street map overlays for car chase sequences. This is all exclusive to HD DVD. Meanwhile, there's a huge collection of Blu-ray movies that don't even have an interactive menu screen comparable to DVD.

There's no question in my mind that HD DVD is a fundamentally better product. If it were up to the true videophiles to decide, it probably would be gaining a lot more traction. However, for the first time in a heated format war, the core audience is not the video enthusiast group that's deciding. It's the much wider audience of video gamers. Even though the PS3 is the slowest-selling next-gen console, it still accounts for over three million Blu-ray players. That's a number HD DVD can't even dream of yet.

Because of the accessibility of it for people who are just barely curious of next-gen DVD formats, Blu-ray has gained steam - so much steam in fact that it has already left HD DVD in the dust.

So, what's next for HD DVD?

We believe, if the HD DVD group wants to keep any chance at a comeback is to pull back the hundreds of millions of dollars it currently pours into promotional campaigns and invest into a sweet spot in the hardware market instead.

The sales of the bare bones drive for the Xbox 360 certainly have been rather disappointing when compared to the Blu-ray/PS3 combination. The format already essentially lost its shot at adoption within a game console. Even big-name exclusive titles like The Matrix haven't really caused much of a stir for HD DVD.

So, aside from just sitting around and waiting, hoping for consumers to look its way, the only thing I can see is that HD DVD needs to expand on its other platforms. Bringing a killer app in the form of an HD DVD-based computer game, standard iuntegration into the Xbox, landing a partnership with TiVo to bring an HD DVD player to the high-definition TiVo box, or even incorporating built-in HD DVD players into a wide variety of HDTVs all could create more awareness for the format.

The clock is ticking, though, and HD DVD simply cannot just wait until the mainstream crowd decides they want to move into high definition. From today's view the battle could be decided much earlier – by video gamers. There's a lot of ground to cover, thanks mainly to Sony's foresight in combining Blu-ray with the PS3.

Yes, we also had our doubts whether Blu-ray was a good move or not. But as it looks right now, Sony got it right and the PS3 investment may pay off big time.