Posted by: Olga Kharif on May 17, 2010
There's no link between cell phone use and occurrence of some types of cancer, according to the world's largest study examining the subject that came out on May 17. "An increased risk of brain cancer is not established from the data," Christopher Wild, director of International Agency for Research on Cancer that coordinated the Interphone study, said in a statement.
That doesn't mean that cell-phone use is safe, said Joel Moskowitz, director of Center for Family and Community Health at the University of California, Berkeley. In a May 16 paper, he argued the study and conclusions that have been drawn from it may be "biased." "Based upon... analysis by the Interphone investigators, cell phone use may increase gliomas" -- a type of a brain tumor -- "by 12,000 to 21,000 cases per year in the U.S.," he argues.
The Interphone study indicates that people who've used cell phones for at least 1,640 hours face a 40% higher risk of developing a glioma, which is a type of a brain tumor, he wrote. "... the average user in the U.S. today could fall into this high risk use category after about 13 years of use," Moskowitz said.
The study followed cell-phone users from 13 countries, not including the U.S. It mostly collected data on cell phone usage between years 2000 and 2004, when people didn't use their cell phones as much as they do today. An average study participant talked on the phone for two to 2-1/2 hours a month.
Today, though, the average U.S. cell phone user talks as much in a week, Moskowitz wrote. That said, more people nowadays use Bluetooth and wired headsets. And many users, particularly teens, often text instead of calling their friends.
Posted by: Douglas Macmillan on April 20, 2010
Workers at Microsoft's corporate headquarters in Redmond, Wash. are being courted by a much smaller software maker. This week, Xobni spent thousands of dollars advertising its email tool - a free add-on for Microsoft Outlook - on shuttle buses, local radio stations, and other attention centers in and around the Redmond campus. The goal: win over a big corporate customer, one employee at a time.
Xobni, a San Francisco-based company that began in the Y Combinator startup incubator in 2006, aspires to be a big name in enterprise software. Since launching an enterprise product for faster and smarter email management in January, it's signed up more than 50 corporate customers, including General Dynamics and the U.S. Army. Xobni recently made its email software compatible with Microsoft Office 2010, which will be released to businesses on May 12. But in Redmond, where Microsoft employees have been using the latest version of the productivity suite for months, the startup is already working hard to win users.
In many ways, Microsoft's workforce presents ripe opportunity for Xobni. The email tool is suited to workers in large organizations, who need to quickly scan through thousands of contacts, messages, appointments, and attachments. It only works for companies using Outlook - at Microsoft, a given. And it doesn't hurt that Xobni has already been used by as many as 15,000 Microsoft employees, or more than 15% of the staff.
Xobni has some of its biggest fans at the top of the Redmond food chain. Bill Gates showed off the product during a developer conference in 2008 and called it "the next generation of social networking." The same year, TechCrunch reported that Xobni walked away from an acquisition offer from Microsoft. Both companies declined to comment on the reports of a negotiation.
Dave Drach, the managing director of Microsoft's emerging business team says he "couldn't live without" the email program. When Microsoft began requiring all employees to use a test version of Office 2010 last year, Drach and other Xobni addicts found their access to the add-on cut off - a glitch in the programming code for Outlook 2010 rendered it incompatible. A few persisted and found a workaround, but Xobni lost the vast majority of users from what was its largest pool of individual customers from a single company.
Continue reading "Xobni Takes Enterprise Push to Redmond"
Posted by: Olga Kharif on April 13, 2010
On April 14, Spring Design will start shipping Alex, yet another new e-reader to compete with current market leader, Amazon’s Kindle line. Alex offers access to more than 1 million books and allows for Web browsing and even using e-mail. Unlike the Kindle, it can also access and run apps. Unlike the Kindle, it has a full-color touch screen. Unlike the Kindle, it allows users to store content on a removable SD card.
Cupertino, Calif.-based Spring Design may be a start-up, but it has some formidable backers. Co-founder Albert Teng was a general manager at chipmaker Intel. Co-founder Jack Yuan previously co-founded storage maker SanDisk. Its partners include search giant Google and software maker Adobe. Because Alex can read digital books published in so-called ePub format, users will be able to download books from Google Books, which offers free public-domain older books and magazines.
Alex is entering a market crowded with offerings from giants, such as Amazon, Sony and Barnes & Noble. Apple’s iPad tablet, and other upcoming tablets and netbook computers could compete head-to-head with e-readers as well.
Alex is yet another device adding to the pressure for Amazon to innovate, and to add more features to the Kindle, which is increasingly beginning to look less capable than rival offerings.
Posted by: Olga Kharif on April 6, 2010
The effort to let any Web service run over wireless networks may be dead.
On April 6, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia said the Federal Communications Commission couldn’t tell the U.S.’s largest cable company, Comcast, not to interfere with certain types of traffic. This in effect reverses the FCC’s 2008 ruling, which allowed Web services like Web-calling provider Skype to run over most wired networks, and to grow and prosper faster.
Ever since, Skype and other services have lobbied the FCC to impose similar, so-called net neutrality rules on wireless networks of carriers such as Verizon Wireless and AT&T; Mobility. The agency’s chairman, Julius Genachowski, has said he’d like to extend net neutrality rules onto wireless networks.
Now, however, Genachowski's ability to go ahead with the reforms may be severely crippled. While the FCC could appeal the court’s decision, that could be a drawn-out process. And it’s likely to halt any new net neutrality rulemaking and proceedings. That’s bad news for Skype, as well as a myriad of other Web services that depend on being able to run over various carriers’ networks to grow. These companies will have to work with the carriers to gain access to their networks via business negotiations – as Skype has already done with Verizon Wireless.
Posted by: Olga Kharif on April 1, 2010
Go to Google.com, and you’ll see that Google has just renamed itself Topeka, after Topeka, K.S. Yes, it’s an April Fool’s joke. But it indicates that Google has noted the city’s efforts to attract its notice and to be considered for the Google Fiber project, which will bring ultra-fast broadband to a lucky city or several in the coming months.
On March 26, Google announced in a blog post that more than 600 communities have applied to be part of Google Fiber. Google has promised to pick at least one city by year-end. And Topeka, K.S., has been one of the most active and inventive in trying to persuade Google to come to its town. The city even jokingly renamed itself Google, K.S., for the month of March. Now Google is returning the favor. “Early last month the mayor of Topeka, Kansas stunned the world by announcing that his city was changing its name to Google,” CEO Eric Schmidt wrote in an April 1 blog. “We’ve been wondering ever since how best to honor that moving gesture,” Google said in an April 1 blog. “Today we are pleased to announce that as of 1AM (Central Daylight Time) April 1st, Google has officially changed our name to Topeka. We didn’t reach this decision lightly; after all, we had a fair amount of brand equity tied up in our old name.”
“Our new product names will take some getting used to,” Schmidt wrote. “For instance, we’ll have to assure users of Topeka News and Topeka Maps that these services will continue to offer news and local information from across the globe.” He noted that the renaming will have no bearing on which community Google chooses for its Google Fiber project.
