Technology News and IT Business Intelligence

That sound you heard coming from the general direction of Italy earlier this week was the sound the Internet makes when it becomes just a little bit less free.
When an Italian court convicted three senior Google executives for breach of privacy, sentencing them yesterday to a six-month suspended sentence, it set a dangerous precedent. Unless the case is turned over on appeal, such a precedent could force every Web services provider on the planet — including Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft — to be completely accountable for every piece of text, audio, and video that any Average Joe decides to upload to his servers.

Four bullies, many victims
The case revolves revolved around footage uploaded to Google Video in September 2006 that depicted a group of four teenagers beating up a Down Syndrome child. It was the site’s most-viewed video before Google received complaints and removed it two months later. Prosecutors said the video violated the victim’s privacy and that Google should have moved more quickly to remove it from its servers. They originally charged four executives with violating Italy’s privacy laws and with defamation. They convicted three of them — chief legal officer David Carl Drummond, ex-CFO George De Los Reyes, and privacy director Peter Fleischer — on the privacy counts and acquitted them of defamation. The fourth defendant, Arvind Desikan, was cleared of all charges. (The four bullies were convicted in youth court.)
The executives are expected to appeal — not to avoid jail, because the judge imposed suspended sentences on all of them, but to ensure the outcome doesn’t force monumentally impossible data and content management rules onto every Web services operator on the planet. Such legislative-imposed oversight, unthinkable at first and every blush, would be akin to asking AT&T to vet every phone call made by every landline and mobile subscriber. “Ridiculous” only begins to describe the prospect.
It’s all in the definition
In assessing the merits of the case against Google, the court chose to define Google as an Internet content provider and not an Internet service provider. We all know that the average ISP simply doesn’t have the cycles to actively monitor and respond to everything its users do online. The Italian justice system gets that, too. And in defining Google as a content provider, instead, it chose to lump the company into the same boat as newspapers, magazines, television broadcasters and other conventional media outfits.
Which would be lovely and workable if, like the average newspaper, Google exclusively published its own material. But it doesn’t. It facilitates the publishing of material submitted by millions of subscribers. It’s one thing to be the gatekeeper of material submitted by a hundred or so reporters and editors, and quite another to run infrastructure that manages an endless torrent of material submitted by countless, usually anonymous, end users. It’s massively shocking and more than a little disappointing that the judge in this case allowed such a definition to stand, and serves as yet another reminder that the court system, in Italy and elsewhere, continues to lag the rapid evolution of technology and its impact on common behaviors in society.
When a ruling can’t stand
I believe this case will be turned over on appeal because the standard of care for publishers of their own content is necessarily different — by virtue of the much lower, controllable level of content — than the standard of care of providers who host sites that publish user-provided content.
If, however, my worst nightmare comes true and the ruling stands, then the climate within which services like Twitter, Facebook, Gmail, and YouTube (which Google bought soon after the offending Italian video was posted to Google Video) will become very chilly, very quickly. Believers in the Apocalypse could easily conclude that these services would all cease to exist after being shuttered by owners freaked out by the daunting prospect of actively monitoring so much content in real-time.
The rest of us know, of course, that this won’t ever happen, but that doesn’t mean the Italian judiciary’s message hasn’t resonated deeply in communities around the world. We’ve gotten the message, Italy, that services like Google need to do a better job policing what goes on in their own backyard. We’ve also learned, again thanks to the Italian court, that it’s time to get back to reality and figure out workable frameworks within which that can actually happen. Convicting their senior leaders using legislation designed for the dinosaur media age isn’t the answer. Instead, nations interested in protecting their Internet-using citizens need to leverage appropriate government or quasi-government bodies to put partner with them to enhance end user privacy and balance individual protections against the risk of heavy-handed censorship.
Ask a Canuck for advice
Canada got the message and, as a result, is now seen as a global leader in the drive to balance individual and collective rights in the Internet Age. Its Privacy Commissioner, Jennifer Stoddart, played hardball with Facebook last year, forcing the social media darling to tighten its privacy policies and procedures. Facebook’s penance in Canada has since been deployed globally. More recently, Comm. Stoddart took notice following the Google Buzz launch earlier this month, and is currently looking into the new offering in light of complaints that it plays fast and loose with users’ private data.
Notice Canada didn’t sue either company’s senior leaders. It chose a more direct, and ultimately more successful, route to ensure the services took reasonable care on behalf of their subscribers.
Shocking as it is, the Italian ruling does serve a somewhat beneficial purpose in that it focuses attention on an issue — online privacy and service provider and end user accountability — that’s long been shunted off to the side in the rush to release the next coolest thing. We’ve been so focused on the technology of social media that we’ve forgotten that all these great tools can significantly accelerate the rate at which innocent people can be victimized by those who choose to do harm. In the old days, transgressions like the Italian video wouldn’t have gone much beyond the inner circle of victimizers and victims. Today, they can go viral in no time flat. Symbolically punishing the guys who wear suits won’t fix anything.

Last year, Intel agreed to share its Atom microprocessor design with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), so that third parties wishing to create their own systems-on-a-chip under TSMC’s Technology Platform could integrate Intel Atom processors into the design without additional steps.
The partnership came on the same day that Intel announced the embedded edition of its Z5xx series of Atom processors for multimedia smartphones, and other such applications.

Apparently, not enough people are interested in creating Atom-based embedded devices, The New York Times recently reported, and the partnership between Intel and TSMC is now on a temporary hiatus.
Intel has been talking about bringing the Atom platform to smartphones for years, and after a few false starts, it has finally showed off the world’s first Atom-based smartphone, the GW990 from South Korea’s LG.
The device is another of LG’s attempts at a “panoramic” profile, with a 4.8″ screen in an odd 2.13:1 aspect ratio. Intel actually showed off a prototype of this design in late 2008 when unveiling the Moorestown mobile platform. The GW990 is expected to come to market in mid-2010 with a price tag over $1000.

The steep price could be an indication of why manufacturers aren’t exactly flocking to the x86-based smartphone idea, when there’s already a wealth of ARM-based options out there.
As Insight64 principal analyst Nathan Brookwood told me last month, “OEMs can often get chip suppliers like Samsung to roll a custom ARM design for them, with the CPU cores, DSP cores, and peripherals they want. Intel has a bunch of standard SOCs they’ve designed, which they hope to sell to OEMs. There’s little evidence (other than LG) that this strategy is working. Intel announced a ‘have it your way’ strategy that involved Atom cores at TSMC about a year ago, but there’s little evidence that strategy is working either.”

Apple shouldn’t treat iPad like iPhone or iPod touch. The iPad App Store should be stocked full of premium content, meaning no freebees. It’s the right way to help establish iPad as a premium product, as something special like the Macintosh. Unfortunately, Apple has little incentive to take this right approach benefiting its developers (because they make more money), customers (because they get better quality apps) and the iPad brand (because it comes be to viewed as a more premium product).
Apple’s business is about selling hardware, using software and services as differentiators. Sure, Apple sold its 10 billionth song at iTunes yesterday, but the company’s business isn’t about selling content. The content is a means to selling more high-margin hardware. From that perspective, paid apps only marginally benefit Apple. Free is better, because there can be more applications, which is good for building out the App Store/iPhone OS device platform.

The question: Is the platform already big enough? I say, “Yes!” — for a few reasons:
1) At the end of first fiscal quarter 2010, Apple had shipped 75 million iPhone OS-capable devices. The iPod touch may already be outselling iPhone, something often not factored into industry smartphone sales data. Apple’s mobile platform is much bigger than iPhone.
2) Apple boasts more than 140,000 applications at its App Store, or about 7 times more than the Android Marketplace.
3) The majority of App Store applications — 75 percent — already are paid ones, according to analytics firm Distimo. By comparison, 57 percent of apps at Android Marketplace are free. Nokia’s Ovi Store has highest percentage of paid apps — 85 percent.
If three-quarters of the apps are paid ones already, why not 100 percent on iPad? Sure some people will balk, but, hell, they’re the early adopters paying somewhere between $499 and $829 for iPad. What should they expect? It’s a new product category for Apple and one where competitors have repeatedly failed. If Apple is going to try and breakthrough with tablets, why not freshen the approach: Make the product even more chic by making it more exclusive — even at $499. Paid apps, and only paid apps, is one way to do it.

The approach also would better differentiate iPad from iPhone and iPod touch. The differences would then become something more than the applications, gaming and Web experience benefits coming from the larger screen size and processing power. Apple could pitch the iPad as the better App Store platform because the applications are better. They’re not just better because of the hardware but investment developers make for something they get paid for.
Free isn’t just about monetary value. It’s about perceived value. People inherently value something more they paid for than what they get for free. That difference can be huge for developers and content providers trying to build brand loyalty. Free apps are throwaways. People are more likely to keep stuff they pay for. Brand loyalty is important for generating future applications sales, too.
The iPad is a unique opportunity for Apple to change the rules and take a paid-app only approach. Publishers will love it, especially content providers seeking to build audience as well as make money. If I were a news content provider, my iPad app wouldn’t be free. There would be some fee attached to it. Better still: Apple should work with publishers on a news aggregation application. The iPad user spends, say, $120 a year and gets access to content from Economist, Financial Times, New York Times and Wall Street Journal — or any other combination of five to 10 news sources.

Apple’s risk is low, from my perspective, although company execs might balk at any strategy that could hurt early iPad sales. The people who are going to buy have already decided to do so. According to a report released today by AdMob, 16 percent of iPhone users and 24 percent of iPod touch users plan to buy an iPad within six months.
But there is concern, for and against paid-only apps, revealed by the AdMob report. The good: 50 percent of iPhone users and 35 percent of iPod touch users buy at least one app a month, compared to 21 percent for Android. However, while the majority App Store applications are paid and Android Marketplace apps free, the monthly averages are similar: iPhone users download an average 8.8 apps a month compared to 8.7 for Android users. Among these apps, on iPhone 7 are free and 1.8 paid. For Android: 7.6 free and 1.1 paid. Considering the huge differences in number of paid-versus-free apps between the two stores, the similarities in customer download habits are surprising.
For Apple, this data cuts two ways, therefore. Firstly, there is risk of alienating customers used to free apps for iPhone and iPod touch. Secondly, if Apple does nothing, iPad will be yet another hardware device for distributing free applications.

Developers need to make money; the value of free apps is often something else: brand exposure, upsell to paid apps, upsell to paid extras or advertising revenue, among other things. But I contend those same benefits could be available by charging at least 99 cents for applications. Apple should make 99 cents the new free on iPad.
Would you pay a buck for better mobile apps — or is free the right price for you? Please respond in comments.

Last month, Baidu, the leading search engine in China, filed suit against US-based Internet registrar Register.com, in a legal event that took place at the height of the debate over Google’s continued business dealings with China. Baidu accused the registrar of changing its DNS records, so that customers were redirected to a completely different site purporting to represent the “Iranian Cyber Army.” But that original suit was heavily redacted, so we didn’t know the specifics of the alleged defacement. This week, US District Court in New York released the unredacted version of Baidu’s complaint, and now, as the man once said, we know the rest of the story.
The basis for Baidu’s allegation that Register.com knowingly and willfully damaged Baidu’s property, and thereby its reputation, is that one of its customer support agents changed Baidu’s DNS records literally on the request of a guy who showed up in Register.com’s support chat room. Supposedly, he pretended to be Baidu (“Mr. Baidu,” perhaps?). And although records show the support personnel asked him to verify his identity by sending back the security code that was just sent to the e-mail address on record as Baidu’s authoritative address, the fellow instead responded with a made-up bunch of numbers…which the agent then accepted as valid.

What happened next, by Baidu’s account, could be the subject of a reality show about the world’s most flagrant acts of fraud…assuming, of course, the registrar’s support agent wasn’t in on the deal from the beginning.
“Incredibly, Defendant [Register.com] thus changed the e-mail address on file from one that was clearly a business address and contained the name of the account owner, to an e-mail address that conveyed a highly politically charged message (“antiwahabi”), with the domain name (“gmail.com”) of a competitor of Baidu, at the request of an individual who not only could not produce the correct security verification, but actually produced false information twice during the verification process.”
The search engine’s lawyers then go on to say that Register.com’s personnel (perhaps the same person) actually refused to speak with representatives from the real Baidu (whose e-mail address probably includes “baidu.com” or “baidu.cn”), either via online chat or telephone, throughout the two-day period that service was redirected to the “Iranian” site.
No reason has been publicly given for the release of the unredacted complaint, or why it was redacted to begin with. However, one possible reason could concern national and international security. If government agencies were investigating the ties of the “Cyber Army” to the real government of Iran, then perhaps the release of the unredacted version indicates that no such ties were discovered.

This morning, despite clearly and pointedly phrased headlines such as this one proclaiming that the European Commission had opened an antitrust investigation into Google, the Commission released a statement this morning saying no such investigation was launched.
“The Commission has not opened a formal investigation for the time being,” reads this morning’s EC statement. “As is usual when the Commission receives complaints, it informed Google earlier this month and asked the company to comment on the allegations.” No further information is being provided to the press on this matter — again, as per protocol, because no investigation has begun.

Instead, according to the EC, the Commission received three formal complaints about the company’s conduct, and as per protocol, forwarded the complaints to Google. The difference between an investigation and an inquiry, in this context, is that an investigation seeks information to build a specific case against its subject. No such case exists against Google, although it is possible that Google’s response to the EU could trigger the launch of a formal investigation. That has not happened yet.
Google was under no obligation to come forward with details of the allegations against it, but it did so anyway: Two of the complaints come from firms with either direct Microsoft backing or ties to organizations funded by Microsoft, and both operate shopping sites. Ciao, a German-based (not Italian) shopping service recently purchased by Microsoft and integrated into its British and German Bing services; and Foundem, the proprietor of a British-based shopping site and the member of an organization called Initiative for a Competitive Online Marketplace that claims funding by Microsoft, have both issued formal complaints that Google downplays search results that lead to their sites, in Google results. This according to Google’s assessment of the complaints in its blog post this morning; no other statements on the matter have been released by the parties involved.
Foundem’s situation first came to light last August, when an article in the UK publication The Guardian profiled its founder, Richard Wray. In that article, Wray claimed that its service was being virtually ignored by Google. Foundem is essentially an aggregator of price comparisons for computers, appliances, other consumer market items, and real estate; as is Ciao, whose British service now bears some resemblance to Bing Shopping in the US.
Typically, search engines that have their own shopping services do not feature the aggregate pricing assessments of other search engines with their own shopping services; for example, Bing Shopping does not feature results from Google Product Search. For competitors to Google Product Search, this may be a problem.
Google did not say much about the complaint from French-based legal research firm eJustice.fr, other than to say its complaint paralleled that of Foundem. That site describes itself as a professionally researched search engine that performs its own assessment of the relevance of legal material it has indexed based not on popularity, like other (unnamed) search engines, but upon direct relevance to the case or subject of law being studied. The site prides itself on providing fewer, better, search results, indexed over 100 sites, in an effort led by Dominique Barella, former president of France’s union of magistrates, and a deciding judge in many technology-related cases there over the years. For example, in 2005, Judge Barella was under the opinion that unauthorized sharing of MP3 files may not be a criminal offense on the same order as theft.
In an interview published today by the French news site Eco89, Barella stated he provided the European Commission with a 40-page complaint, complete with technical documentation and evidence, which he says proves that Google blatantly and willfully delisted eJustice from its search results, not in terms of searching for “eJustice” but specifically with respect to results that point to eJustice’s index. As an example for Eco89, he stated that Google doesn’t point to eJustice in searches for rental contract cases. He complained that Google told him, not in writing but verbally, that Google would index eJustice’s search results if eJustice could provide them in a manner accessible via Google’s algorithms.
Making eJustice comply with Google’s pattern, Barella argued, is unfair because the two sites are search engines, and are therefore competitors.
It is not impossible for Google to index search results of other Web sites’ search results. But typically, Google is only able to find the queries themselves through links to those sites on the pages it indexes. Those links tend not to reside on the most popular pages, and Google ranks pages — as eJustice’s own “About Us” page notes — by popularity as well as relevance. If, by eJustice’s own account, it indexes less popular, more relevant, sources, then by Google’s publicly known formula for assessing page rank, it may not score enough points by its own design.
The mistaken assessment of this morning’s inquiry as an investigation may have been exacerbated by Google’s own account of the affair this morning. First, senior competition counsel Julia Holtz referred to the matter as “scrutiny” — a term often applied to investigations. Later, she mentioned that Ciao’s complaints were originally handled by the German competition authority, referring to the matter as a “case” that was now “transferred to Brussels,” the seat of the EC. The EC is denying that this is a case in the formal sense. Since there is no investigation taking place after all by the EC, there’s no timetable for the next step in this inquiry.

The European Union’s preliminary antitrust investigation of Google isn’t the least surprising. But the timing is shockingly foreshadowing.
In December 2007, when Google announced the DoubleClick acquisition, I blogged: “The Google Monopoly Begins.” I asserted that the acquisition would change everything about Google’s search and advertising dominance and perceptions about the company’s growing status as gatekeeper to all online information. The preliminary antitrust investigation comes as Google makes major changes to DoubleClick with hopes of boosting its display advertising business. The changes mark the final Googlefication of DoubleClick — or the realistic, final integration of the acquisition into Google.
I don’t believe in coincidence. More than two years ago, I asserted that DoubleClick marked the real beginning of the Google monopoly. The same week Google begins to flex that monopoly, the European Union starts informally investigating the information company. The European Competition Commission is taking seriously three competitor complaints, made by, according to a Google blog post: “UK price comparison site, Foundem, a French legal search engine called ejustice.fr and Microsoft’s Ciao! from Bing.”
For clarification, after I posted, the European Commission released statement: “The Commission has not opened a formal investigation for the time being.” Right. It’s preliminary, subject first to Google’s response about the three complaints. In the Google blog post, Julia Holtz, senior competition counsel, asserted: “We will be providing feedback and additional information on these complaints,” presumably to the European Commission. Microsoft’s antitrust problems in Europe started in the late 1990s from a single complaint made by Sun Microsystems (now absorbed into Oracle).
Coincidence or not, the European Union is starting too late. Too much has changed in Google’s favor since December 2007. The acquisition should never have been approved by European regulators. The mess they’ll be cleaning up is one they helped create. I blogged 26 months ago:
The Google monopoly could be prevented, just as the Microsoft monopoly could have been. To be fair, monopolies aren’t necessarily bad, and they certainly aren’t illegal in the United States. But Google is positioned to fulfill the decade-old predictions made about Microsoft but as a more dangerous and consumer harming monopoly. Google’s monopoly would be over information, and there is just too much opportunity for abuse. DoubleClick significantly cranks up the potential volume of abuse.
Much has changed; since the DoubleClick acquisition was announced, Google:
Released the Chrome Web browser, which in less than 18 months reached version 5 beta.
Launched the Android mobile operating system, which sales rose 961 percent year over year in 2009.
Announced development of a new operating system — Chrome OS — for mobile devices, including netbooks.
Negotiated a deal (now being scrutinized) for making millions of books freely available online via Google search.
Increased search share on mobile devices, bolstered by new location-based search, local search, mapping and other services.
Erected a mobile applications stack, by leveraging together Android, Chrome, disparate Google Web applications and search services.
That’s a short, condensed list. But their meaning simply stated:
1) Google is expanding a monopoly over Web search and arguably trying to extend it into several adjacent markets, including display advertising, desktop operating systems, mobile operating systems, mobile Web applications and Web browsers. Microsoft’s antitrust problems started with leveraging its Intel-based desktop operating system monopoly into the market for Web browsers.
2) Google’s free business model is disrupting many, major established informational industries by reducing their contents’ value to zero — subsidized by search and adjacent services from which Google profits. While analyst estimates vary, the most reliable put Google’s online advertising share at about 90 percent in the European Union.
3) Recent Google activities raise serious questions about trust, such as Buzz privacy settings. Can Google be trusted with all this information? Buzz demonstrates Google’s increased willingness to put its interests ahead of customers. Likewise, ongoing tweaks to the search and keyword business model, technology or terms of agreement put Google’s interests before partners.
A Monopoly Matures
In my December 2007 post declaring the Google monopoly, I gave five reasons it matters. I’ll reiterate four of them here:
Google is the information gatekeeper. The US Justice Department went after Microsoft in May 1998 partly out of fear the company would become the Internet’s gatekeeper. That never happened with Microsoft, but it most certainly is occurring with Google. Its business is all about profiting from information. For years, I’ve argued that Google is not a search company. Google is an information company, with search being a means to an end — the end being information around which the company sells keywords and advertising. Google’s search share reaches 70-80 percent or more in some geographies, according to combined analyst reports.
Google’s business is rife with conflict-of-interest. Google provides through search the road leading to a destination, then profits from many of the businesses established around it. Additionally, as I explained 26 months ago:
Google doesn’t just offer search, but advertising, keyword search and demographic services around information and businesses pay for this stuff. DoubleClick will greatly enhance the latter activity. Marketers are hungry for demographic information, and they’re willing to pay for it. Google provides the door, checks who’s coming inside and can pass that information onto marketing paparazzi. The temptation to mine the information will be huge, and that temptation will increase as Google matures, its growth slows and its stock falls to earth.
Google leaches off the good work of others — for free. As I explained 26 months ago:
Google produces nothing. Shall I repeat that statement? The company’s core business is about search and advertising, which relies on the content of other people and businesses. Google doesn’t own the information from which it makes nearly all its revenue. Google is the middleman of the information, which it takes for free. At least Microsoft produces software and makes money off the licensing. Microsoft owns what it sells, but not Google.
Google abuses the intellectual property rights of others. “Google’s information grubbing ways come without any asking permission,” I wrote in December 2007. “In one sense, people want their Web sites to be found, for information to be mined. But they’re not compensated for something for which Google makes oodles.”
Much has changed — for the worse — since Google announced the DoubleClick acquisition. A late-2009 Fair Syndication Consortium study found that over one 30-day period 75,195 Websites published unlicensed content lifted from newspapers. Additionally, 112,000 unlicensed “full copies of U.S. newspaper articles were found on sites across the Internet.” The profit motive: Search-driven revenue, with Google accounting for “53 percent of the total monetization.” Interestingly, “38 percent of the sites were ranked in the top 100,000 most trafficked sites.” Google’s business model essentially allows — and even encourages — further intellectual property abuse.Better stated: Stealing.
Wrapping up, Google is a dangerous monopoly. Being a monopoly isn’t illegal in the United States, although in Europe it seemingly is so (because of weight given to competitor complaints). Being dangerous doesn’t necessarily mean acting dangerously. But the potential is there. How dangerous a company do you see Google — or not? Please answer in comments.

Two weeks ago, we warned the new leader in the Windows Web browser, Opera 10.5 Beta 1, that it would have to paddle fast to stay ahead of the ever-improving Google Chrome 5. Apparently only one side of that battle was listening: Opera did paddle fast, pulling nicely above 26 in our latest Windows 7 relative performance index tests. The newest Chrome 5, meanwhile, took a performance hit that sent it back the other direction.
As a result, Opera’s lead over Chrome is no longer a narrow gap. The latest build 3271, released just today, scored a 26.17 on Betanews’ Windows 7 RPI, representing over 26 times the performance posted by Microsoft Internet Explorer 7 on Windows Vista, on 70 different data points in 10 independently-developed test categories, using the same hardware. The previously tested build on February 11 scored a 25.83. Developers’ build 5.0.322.2 of Chrome, released late last week, posted a Win7 RPI score 23.90, way down from 24.60 the week before for build 5.0.317.2.
What does this mean? As developers at Google scramble to make version 5 of its Web browser — whose development track began just weeks ago — more stable, that usually takes points away from performance. We usually see this happen at the very beginning of a development cycle, after the first obvious bugs are pointed out and eradicated, and toward the very end just prior to a product’s release. But Opera hasn’t had this kind of performance lead in years, literally coming out of the blue with performance better than triple its current stable release. Opera’s developers may be riding the waves while they can.
So here’s a message for anyone working on the Opera beta: A continuing bug in the beta’s nested conditional statement handling remains responsible for as much as half a point of performance loss on our tests.
When you break down the test results by category, the news looks somewhat better for Chrome. The latest developer build actually regained the performance lead in the SunSpider computational test battery, with a 68.39 score versus Opera’s 67.75. Mysteriously, the latest WebKit development build of Apple Safari 4 suffered terribly on this test. If you want proof that WebKit’s own SunSpider battery is honest with its results, look at the result build 55138 of WebKit/Safari 4 posted today: a 38.92. Betanews retested and verified this result. The latest stable Chrome 4 posted the third best SunSpider score today with 58.55.

Click here for a comprehensive explanation of the Betanews CRPI index version 2.2.
The Opera beta took a performance hit in CSS rendering as well, which is usually Opera’s strength, with a 6.73 score on the Nontroppo CSS rendering battery versus 15.09 for the latest stable Safari 4, and 14.18 for the WebKit/Safari 4 daily build. Chrome 5 crawls toward the podium here with 12.38. Opera 10.5 hangs on to third place in the SlickSpeed CSS selector test, which compares the browsers’ performance in handling 10 different development libraries for referencing complex page elements using CSS. Chrome 5 has the best score here with a 13.29, compared to 12.43 for WebKit/Safari 4 and 11.68 for Opera 10.5. In the Testnet.world JavaScript math operators’ test, Opera continues hanging on to second place (it might be first were it not for the bug), with an 18.31 score versus 19.19 for Chrome 5.
So wait a minute…I thought Opera was in the lead here. What’s going on?
In two of the three categories where Opera 10.5 does lead, it’s by a breathtaking margin — so much that, in the average, Opera ends up winning out overall, despite having second- or third-place performance elsewhere. In the old-style Web page loading test (which judges the handling of pages that would probably be considered tailor-made for IE6), Opera 10.5 scores a phenomenal 9.86. The next highest score in that category is posted by the stable Opera 10.1 with 8.57 (the stable build doesn’t score very well elsewhere), followed by the stable Chrome 4 at 7.05.
And in the Canvas element test, which judges graphics performance in a Web app environment, Opera 10.5’s lead here has only increased: to 69.00, more than double WebKit/Safari 4’s next highest score of 31.81. Sadly, Chrome 5 posts a 22.76 in the Canvas battery.
For the Chrome dev track to retake the lead from the Opera beta, conceivably, it only requires radical improvement in just two departments. One is page loading, something Google thought it had the lead in at one time. On the standard page load test, Chrome processes bits at about 3200 KB/sec, while Opera 10.5’s speed is just over 5000 KB/sec (that’s processing speed excluding the speed of the network). And during the load process for the same test page, Opera 10.5 fires its DOM loaded event (signaling scripts that they can start referencing the Document Object Model) in 24 ms, while Safari 4 fires it in 34 ms, and both Chrome 4 and 5 in 39 ms. That’s not an indicator of how fast the page has loaded (as some have mistaken it to mean in the past), but rather how soon certain elements of the script can start executing.
The other department is graphics performance, another former Chrome stronghold. Our Testcube 3D battery examines not only how fast the browser rotates two sizes of cubes in memory and re-plots them, but how consistent each iteration is compared to the next. If it costs cycles in the middle to get fast in the beginning, that’s not good performance. For the large cube half of the test, Chrome 5 lost consistency points, with iterations as fast as 12 ms but as slow as 24 ms. That led to a 2.55 score for Chrome 5 here. Meanwhile, the Opera beta rotated the large cube as fast as 9 ms per iteration and as slow as 14 ms — more consistency, better control, better performance. Opera has the overall lead here at 3.30.
With the browser choice screen being rolled out to Europe March 1, look for Google to make up some ground, particularly so it can roll out its campaign that the fastest browser is the best browser, without Betanews blaring a big neon pointer in the direction of Opera.

With its latest announced systems on Monday, Lenovo is following up on a series of PCs unveiled just over a month ago that included AMD-powered Edge notebooks for SMBs. The global #3 PC maker’s new entries include two ultraportable notebooks, a tablet PC, and two mobile workstations — one of them outfitted with Lenovo’s trademark secondary display — and a low-cost server aimed at the smallest of businesses.
With these new products, Lenovo is adhering to a “protect and attack” strategy versus rivals such as Hewlett-Packard and Dell, said Mika Majapuro, a Lenovo product marketing manager, in a meeting with Betanews during a New York City press tour.

Lenovo, he elaborated, wants to safeguard its core business of enterprise PCs for the North American, European, and Japanese markets while at the same time branching more into the SMB and consumer spaces as well as emerging markets such as Latin America.
The five Lenovo notebooks launched this week are geared mostly to enterprises, according to Majapuro. Lenovo is officially addressing consumers through its IdeaPad line-up. But on the other hand, ThinkPads are also popular with some consumers, particularly students, because ThinkPads are designed to provide “best value,” he said.
“With a ThinkPad, you know it will last at least three years,” Betanews was told. Majaupuro contended that Lenovo’s PCs are so durable that he can stand on a ThinkPad notebook without breaking it.

Lenovo’s new X201 and X201s ultramobile notebooks come with 12.1-inch, WVGA + LED backlit displays; multiple choices for HDD or SDD storage; Intel HD GPUs; built-in Bluetooth; and a 4- to 9-volt battery. WiMax and external optical drives are optionally available. Pricing starts at $1,199 for the X201 and $1,599 for the slightly lighter X201s (pictured right).

Lenovo also unveiled a convertible tablet edition of the X201 (above). Features include a 12-inch capacitive multitouch screen; a wide angle screen for views of up to 185 degrees; a 2 megapixel camera; a fingerprint reader; dual microphones for canceling out background noise; and WiMAX, 3G, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and Gigabit Ethernet connectivity. The X201 Tablet is also expandable through up to 8 GB of memory, multiple USB ports; and a 54mm Express Card Slot for smart card readers, TV tuners, Firewire and other devices. Options for the convertible tablet include a super-bright outdoor screen and a DVD drive connection through Ultrabase or USB port.

Majapuro said that Lenovo’s new W701 (above) and W701ds (left) 17-inch mobile workstations are tailored to engineers and other users of graphics-intensive application looking for desktop replacement machines that are portable between rooms in an office, or between the office and home. Both machines sport X-rite color calibration for color accuracy and Intel Core i7 processors with NVidia Quadro FX 2800 and 3800 Series GPUs.
Pointing to the W701ds, Majapuro showed a secondary, slideout 10.6-inch WXGA resolution screen for supplementary viewing.
Options available for both machines include X-rite color calibration for color accuracy and a built-in Wacom digitizer and pen, he said. Pricing begins at $2,199 for the W701 and $3,799 for the W701ds.
Although also very suitable for home networking, Lenovo’s new T3200v ThinkServer is really aimed at small business, a target the PC maker expects to pursue some more with additional products over the next couple of years. The company’s new TS200v server — meant mainly for SMBs — offers a choice of four 32 nm Intel Core CPUs including the new 2.13 GHz Core i3-350 with integrated graphics.
Small enough to fit under a desktop, the new server comes with a DVD drive; a single Gigabit Ethernet port; x16 and x1 PCI slots; ten USB ports; dual PCI slots; and VGA out. Equipped with space for two HDDs supporting RAID 0/1, the server supports unregistered DDR3 RAM through four expansion slots. The TS200v also comes with Intel Active Management Technology, for remote management whether the server is situated in a home office or a medical building, for instance. Pricing starts at under $400.

Arizona company Objecs announced today that it has developed “enhanced memorial products” that add Near Field Communications tags to cemetery markers, which allow text and photos to be “embedded” in a headstone and retrieved whenever a cell phone is touched against its surface.

It’s the same inductive coupling technology used in wallet phones that allows complex information sharing at the expense of practically no electrical energy.
Objecs, which specializes in “object hyperlinking,” or assigning a Web-based presence to real world objects, sells two products. One is called RosettaStone, which is a palm-sized stone tablet; the other is Data Tag, which adheres directly to headstones. In good outdoor conditions, the company says the Personal RosettaStone should be readable for as much as 300 years.
While it does conjure up fantastical images of Jor-el’s parting messages to Superman, this sort of tagging can actually be incorporated into the extremely popular (and lucrative) genealogy business.
“Each tag has a unique ID number that serves the same purpose as a database primary key,” John Bottorff, Objecs Founder said in a statement today. “This unique ID number creates a common reference between the physical world and the digital world in ways that first and last name by itself can not.”

Popular instant messaging, voice chat, and video conferencing client Skype and Skype Lite are no longer available on Windows Mobile devices.
The company says, “We’ve chosen to withdraw Skype Lite and Skype for Windows Mobile because we want to offer our new customers an improved mobile experience — much like the version that has proved so popular on the iPhone, and which is now available on Symbian phones. Our focus is on providing a rich user experience that allows you to enjoy free Skype-to-Skype and low cost calls as easily on the move as you do at your desktop. We felt that Skype Lite and Skype for Windows Mobile were not offering the best possible Skype experience.”
Replying to a commenter on WMPoweruser who said Skype was canceled because hardware manufacturers all have different methods of utilizing the earphones and speakers, Skype’s Peter Parkes said, “[The] comment above pretty much nails it. It’s been very difficult for us to make the experience consistent across a wide range of Windows devices. However, we have a partnership in place with China Unicom to deliver a new beta version to their WM handsets — where we can work with mobile operators, we’ll be able to deliver a Skype experience on the current WM platform which lives up to expectations.”
This news comes just over a week after Skype and Verizon Wireless jointly announced that unlimited Skype-to-Skype calls over 3G will be allowed on certain BlackBerry and Android devices.