Discovery astronauts complete ’textbook’ spacewalk

Two space shuttle Discovery astronauts moved a failed ammonia cooling pump during a more than six-hour spacewalk outside the International Space Station.

NASA officials called Monday's work a "textbook" spacewalk, after overcoming a problem with the station's robotic arm that left astronaut Steve Bowen holding the weightless pump for a bit longer than expected.

It was the first of two spacewalks in the shuttle mission, which is Discovery's last before the spacecraft is retired.

NASA said after the spacewalk that it had decided to add another day to the mission, making it a 12-day affair, in order to allow Discovery astronauts to help with work setting up a new room that it carried aloft.

Astronauts Bowen and Alvin Drew also installed a back-up power extension cable and camera equipment and did other work to make future spacewalks easier.

Before heading back inside, they filled a metal container with the vacuum of space as part of a Japanese experiment called "Message in a Bottle" that will later be displayed on Earth.

The cooling pump broke last year and had to be relocated from a temporary storage location where it had been stashed on an earlier spacewalk. It had to be moved before it can be taken back to Earth for analysis.

The six-hour, 34-minute spacewalk wrapped up at 2220 GMT.A second spacewalk is set for Wednesday.

Two more shuttle flights are planned for later this year in the final missions for the rest of the fleet, Endeavour and Atlantis.

Discovery's mission is delivering the last major US contribution to the ISS - an extra room - along with supplies and equipment, including a human-like robot, known as Robonaut 2 (R2), the first such robot ever sent to space.

Apple launches iPad 2

A thin but energetic Steve Jobs made a surprise return to the spotlight on Wednesday, taking the stage to unveil Apple Inc's new iPad and drawing a standing ovation.

The Silicon Valley legend has been out on medical leave since late January and his reappearance, in trademark turtleneck and jeans, bolstered Apple shares and reassured investors and fans worried about his health.

Defying speculation in some tabloid reports that he was seriously ailing, Jobs took swipes at rivals and mocked competing tablet computers. Striding back and forth across the stage at the Yerba Buena Center, Jobs spoke passionately about the iPad 2's features as No. 2 and heir apparent Tim Cook looked on.

The $499 device is thinner than the iPhone 4, twice as fast as the last tablet, camera-equipped, and ships March 11 in the United States and March 25 in 26 more countries. The surprisingly fast roll-out highlights the fierce competition in

the tablet market.

"We've been working on this product for a while and I just didn't want to miss today," Jobs told a packed auditorium in San Francisco with his characteristic flair and energy.

A relaxed-looking Jobs lingered near the theater stage for more than 20 minutes after the show wrapped up, chatting amiably with acquaintances and Apple employees.

In the run-up to the event, there had been almost as much speculation about whether Jobs would appear as there was about the device itself.

Jobs, who has been treated for a rare form of pancreatic cancer, remains on medical leave for an undisclosed condition. An Apple spokesman referred questions about his medical leave back to Jobs' statement in January that he planned to remain involved in major strategic decisions for the company.

His appearance on Wednesday comes at a critical moment. Apple is launching the next generation of its ground-breaking tablet computer just as its main adversaries are releasing their first such devices.

"Steve Jobs is the most important asset for Apple without a doubt and that's why investors are so curious about whether he will remain and continue to have an impact," said Robert Lutts,

chief investment officer at Cabot Money Management. "The stock went up after his appearance but not as much as it normally would if Apple had a fully healthy CEO."

IPAD 2 ARRIVES NEXT WEEK

The iPad 2 goes on sale at AT&T Inc and Verizon Wireless, and at $499 is about $100 cheaper than Motorola Mobility's Xoom. Its shares slid 4 percent. Avian Securities analyst Matthew Thornton said Motorola investors were concerned by both its earlier-than-expected release and its still-aggressive pricing.

"The hardware is as good as anything on the market, the price is still very aggressive, and the software just buries the competition," said Gartner analyst Van Baker. "They're still the guys to beat by a large margin."

"This does serious damage to the competitors in the market. Xoom now looks like an extraordinarily expensive tablet, and the HP tablet looks under-featured." Apple sold nearly 15 million iPads in nine months of 2010, two or three times as many as analysts had predicted. The company is expected to sell 30 million or more this year, which would generate close to $20 billion in sales.

That is despite a growing cast of competitors like Motorola, Research in Motion and Hewlett-Packard Co. Shares of Cupertino, California-based Apple were up 1.2

percent at $353.44 on Nasdaq late Wednesday afternoon. "It's pretty positive. It's definitely a sign that he's in good enough health," said Vijay Rakesh at Sterne Agee.

Tablets are seen as a must-have device for consumers and many businesses over the next few years. Analysts expect the market to surge to more than 50 million units this year, and 200 million units by 2015.

As in the smartphone market, Apple's chief rival is expected to be Google Inc's Android platform, which is free to license and is being used on a number of tablets.

The iPad, along with the iPhone, is expected to fuel Apple's growth over the next several years. The two product lines already make up more than half the company's revenue. Apple's products tend to be priced at a premium to its rivals, but the iPad has been priced aggressively low versus the competition, both to dominate the market and because the company can leverage its own retail network and pre-bought manufacturing capacity.

That has pinched the company's margins, a problem Apple seems happy to live with if the tablet can deliver such startling growth.

A longer-term problem might be the question of who might replace Jobs were he to step down -- Cook is the favorite for the top job and has been running Apple in his boss's absence. But for now, concerns that Jobs might have to exit --stirred by sensationalist and unsubstantiated tabloid reports -- appear to be allayed by Wednesday's proceedings.

"Investors know his illness is pretty serious, but it's comforting to know that while he's in his supposed leave of absence, he's still involved," said Capital Advisors Growth Fund co-manager Channing Smith. "The new product looks good and

the key is they continue to innovate, which is what we want to watch rather than looking at Steve Jobs." Apple shares rose 0.8 percent to close at $352.12 on

Nasdaq. It held steady in after-hours trade.

How Apple's iPad 2 compares to rivals

Here's how Apple Inc's iPad 2, unveiled on Wednesday, stacks up against competing tablets.

BY THE NUMBERS:

iPad 2

Price: $499-$829

Weight: 1.33 lbs

Height: 9.5 inches

Width: 7.3 inches

Depth: 0.34 inches

Technicals: Runs on 1GHz dual-core A5 processor, iOS 3.4

Available: March 11

iPad - original

Price: $499-$829

Weight: 1.5 lbs

Height: 9.6 inches

Width: 7.5 inches

Depth: 0.5 inches

Technicals: Runs on 1GHz A4 processor

Motorola Mobility Xoom

Price: $600-$799

Available: Since February

Software: Android

Weight: 1.6 lbs

Height: 9.8 inches

Width: 6.6 inches

Depth: 0.5 inches

Tech: Runs on 1GHz Dual Core processor with Android 3.0

Honeycomb

Research In Motion PlayBook

Price: TBA

Available: Probably March

Weight 0.9 lbs

Height 5.1 inches

Width 7.6 inches

Depth 0.4 inches

Tech: Runs on 1 GHz dual-core processor with BlackBerry OS

Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1

Price: TBA

Screen: 10.1 inch-display

Weight: 1.3 lbs

Tech: Runs om 1 GHz dual-core processor with Android 3.0

Honeycomb

Available: TBA

ISRO postpones remote sensing satellite’s launch

Not wanting to risk a failure of its lucrative Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) and to be doubly sure about the on-flight performance of the various subsystems, India's space agency has postponed the launch of the rocket carrying remote sensing satellite Resourcesat-2 by nearly a month.

"A realistic date of launch could be estimated only by the end of this month as it depends on the results of tests that are being done to know the high temperature tolerance levels of a key component," an official of Indian Space Research Organisation told IANS.

The PSLV launch, scheduled for launch this week, was supposed to sling Resourcesat-2 and two other small satellites - Youthsat and X-Sat - into orbit. Remote sensing satellites like Resourcesat send back pictures and other data for various uses. India is a major player in providing such data in the global market.

The Youthsat, an Indo-Russian micro satellite, carries two payloads - one Indian and the other Russian. Singapore's X-Sat is also a micro satellite.

ISRO officials told IANS the space agency's chairman K. Radhakrishnan wanted to be sure about the parameters of the rocket's subsystems as he was of the view that ISRO cannot afford another failure and that too involving the PSLV rocket.

ISRO's commercial arm Antrix Corporation is earning a sizeable sum launching third party satellites using PSLV rockets.

The Indian space agency's last two missions involving its heavy rocket - Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) - ended as a failure resulting in a total loss of around Rs.600 crore -- cost of two rockets and two satellites.

According to ISRO officials, even if the test results turn out positive and the launch decision is taken, it would require minimum of around 20 days to get ready the PSLV rocket for the launch.

India has the largest constellation of remote sensing satellites in the world providing imageries in variety of spatial resolutions from better than a metre ranging up to 500 metres.

The remote sensing satellites that are operational are: Cartosat-2B, Oceansat-2, RISAT-2, Cartosat-2A, IMS-1, Cartosat-2, Resourcesat-1 and TES.

For some time Resourcesat-2 and Resourcesat-1 would work together before the latter would go into oblivion.

Launched in 2003, Resourcesat-1 has outlived its original mission life of five years.

Compared to Resourcesat-1, the multispectral swath of Resourcesat-2 has been enhanced from 23 km to 70 km based on user needs.

Suitable changes including miniaturisation in payload electronics have been incorporated in Resourcesat-2.

The other remote sensing satellites that ISRO plans to launch are RISAT, Megha-Tropiques, INSAT-3D a meteorological satellite, Astrosat (astronomy satellite to observe celestial bodies)

ISRO suspends telecast of edu channels, students suffer

Indian space agency ISRO has suspended the telecast of popular educational programmes in many states due to an unidentified glitch in its ground equipment, says a senior official. As a result, millions of students have been affected.

"This is the first time we have been asked to suspend conducting virtual classroom teaching for over three weeks since Feb 3, affecting about six million students in 12,000 schools across the state," a top Kerala education department official told IANS.

In a note Feb 12, a copy of which is with IANS, state-run Indian Space Research Organisation directed the Kerala education department to keep the hub used to telecast its 17-hour educational classes in switch off mode due to 'inference issues' in channel 12 of Insat-4CR communication satellite till Friday.

Other states where telecasting of state-funded educational programmes is severely affected include Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Assam and Jammu and Kashmir.

The space agency shifted beaming the educational programmes in November last year to Insat-4CR from its dedicated satellite (Edusat) after its mission life ended prematurely. Meant for distant classroom education from school to college levels, Edusat was launched in September 2004.

"Due to malfunctioning of the ground equipment, we are not able to relay the signals from the transponder to telecast the programmes," a senior scientist associated with the satellite communication and navigation programmes (SCNP) said.

"We are trying to locate the problem and fix it in the next three-four days so that we can resume the channel," the scientist added but declined to be identified as he was not authorised to speak to the media.

The glitch has, however, not affected the operations of other users of Insat-4CR that was launched in September 2007.

Other users of the satellite include the country's largest telecom player Airtel, Utkarsh channel, Orissa Space Application Centre and Bhaskaracharya Institute for Space Applications and Geo-Informatics though their programmes are beamed through different transponders.

In addition to the Virtual Classroom Technology on Edusat for Rural Schools (ViCTERS) of the Kerala education department, Visvesvaraya Technology University (VTU) and Vidya Vahini in Karnataka too are users of the satellite for educational programmes.

"This is the second time in 10 days we have been directed to keep the hub switched off for two weeks more. We are not sure if we will be able to resume the programmes after Friday, as there is no further directive from ISRO yet," Anwar Sadath, Kerala IT @ School Project executive director, said.

Launched by former president A.P.J. Abdul Kalam in 2006, ViCTERS is Kerala's Rs.120-crore IT School Project to provide high speed net connectivity to schools and implement learning management solutions.

Veteran journalist Anand Parthasarathy, who anchors a weekly programme "IT For All" on the channel in Kerala, countered the official claim and wondered how ISRO was adhering to quality of service (QoS) conditions by providing its channels to commercial users from the same satellite, assuring an uptime of 99.9 per cent.

"I find it outrageous that a state-run organisation, which meets its obligations to its paying customers, can with impunity cut off for weeks a vital educational umbilical that assures distance education for millions of students," Parthasarathy asserted.

As ISRO is under cloud over the now annulled controversial deal for allotting scarce S-band spectrum to a private firm (Devas) without bids, its officials and scientists are wary of admitting that shortage of transponders and other priorities are forcing them to shuffle the usage pattern of its channels to users.

With the loss of about 50 transponders due to twin launch failures and operational glitches in Insat-4B during the last 12 months, ISRO's commercial arm Antrix Corporation has been forced to lease a whopping 70 transponders from foreign satellites such as Intelsat and Measat of Malaysia to meet the demand for space-based services from private and state-run agencies.

According to a source associated with the programmes, ISRO is forced to allot the satellite channel meant for Edusat programmes to its commercial end-users, including television channels, radio broadcasters and private/public institutions as part of its service commitments and contractual obligations.

"Due to non-availability of the terrestrial channel, we are suffering a lot, as preparation for the board exams from next month is affected. We conduct revision classes to students appearing in the final exams through the channel, which is also aired by thousands of cable operators as part of the package," Sadath lamented.

Facebook overtakes Google

Facebook passed Google as the most visited website in the US in 2010, according to a survey by the web tracking firm Experian Hitwise.

The social networking site also claimed the top search term of the year, with variations on its name filling four of the 10 most popular searches, the survey found. In all, Facebook searches accounted for 3.48 per cent of all web searches in the US in 2010, a 207-per cent increase over 2009.

The study found that Facebook accounted for 8.93 per cent of all US website visits in the year, ahead of Google.com's 7.19 per cent and third-placed Yahoo Mail with 3.85 per cent.

However if all Google's various properties are taken into account, the web search giant did overtake Facebook with 9.85 per cent of all website visits. Microsoft's msn.com and bing.com also made it into the list of top ten websites, as did myspace.com.

Other terms in the top 10 searches included "youtube", "craigslist", "myspace", "ebay" and "yahoo".

World's Teensiest Battery

Atomic-scale examination of battery life was a scientific pipe dream until the DOE team invented a new type of electrolyte, a molten salt that functions under the high-vacuum conditions of transmission electron microscopy. Use of single nanowires rather than bunched wires or bulk materials was another novel approach, like assessing the strength of a rope by studying its individual threads.

With electron microscopes and tiny wires far thinner than a human hair, U.S. Department of Energy researchers have pinpointed key events in the life of a consumer electronics staple -- the lithium ion battery.

Their findings could lead to smaller, longer-lasting, more powerful batteries ready to rev up next-gen electric vehicles, laptops, cellphones and tablets.

"We think this work will stimulate new thinking for energy storage," said Chongmin Wang, a materials scientist at the Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL). "We hope that with continued work, it will show us how to design a better battery."

World's Smallest Battery

A desire to understand batteries "from the bottom up" motivated Wang, fellow PNNL researcher Wu Xu, DOE Sandia National Laboratories nanotechnology scientist Jianyu Huang, and researchers from the University of Pittsburgh and University of Pennsylvania to create the world's smallest lithium ion battery, a feat they reported in the Dec. 10 issue of the journal Science.

One seven-thousandth the thickness of a human hair, the battery's 100-nanometer-wide anode, through which electric charge flows in, is a single nanowire made of tin oxide, Xu explained. From the single-wire anode, the nanobattery's electric current flows through a liquid electrolyte to a lithium-cobalt oxide cathode.

It's a design that mimics the ubiquitous consumer electronics battery, albeit on a far smaller scale.

In a rechargeable lithium ion battery (LIB), positively charged lithium ions move from a negative electrode (the anode) to a positive electrode (the cathode) during electric discharge, and back again during recharge.

Lithium ions make great battery chargers because they strongly gravitate toward electrons, initially clustering around the cathode. As charging pumps free electrons into the anode, lithium ions make haste across an electrolyte fluid, flowing from the cathode to the anode.

Playing tunes on an iPod or downloading email on a notebook depletes the newly charged battery, causing electrons to flee the anode while leaving lithium ions behind. In time, those ions return to the cathode, back across the electrolyte fluid.

Dual Innovations

Atomic-scale examination of battery life was a scientific pipe dream until the DOE team invented a new type of electrolyte, a molten salt that functions under the high-vacuum conditions of transmission electron microscopy.

Use of single nanowires rather than bunched wires or bulk materials was another novel approach, like assessing the strength of a rope by studying its individual threads. Previous battery researchers have studied bulk materials, a process Huang likened to "looking at a forest and trying to understand the behavior of an individual tree."

These dual innovations provided what he termed "the closest view to what's happening during charging of a battery that researchers have achieved so far," including how so-called "lithiation stresses" -- physical nanowire distortions -- take a toll on battery life.

"Lithiation means squeezing lithium into a material, which happens during battery charging," Huang told TechNewsWorld. "Our observations -- which initially surprised us -- tell battery researchers how lithiation distortions are generated, how they evolve during charging, and offer guidance on how to mitigate them."

Medusa's Hair - and Glare

The distortions and contortions the nanowires sustain during lithiation create a many-headed area of atomic dislocations the researchers christened the "Medusa front."

Medusa was a Greek Gorgon, a mythological female monster with snakes for hair whose countenance could turn a person to stone.

"The dislocations emanating from the Medusa front are just like Medusa's hair snaking out of her head," said Huang.

A high-resolution video of the tin oxide wires shows them behaving like snakes during a meal, writhing and fattening by as much as 250 percent as lithium ions feed them with electricity.

The nanowire's lively behavior is important for several reasons, PNNL's Xu explained. Repeated distortions can introduce tiny defects that accumulate, damaging electrode materials. Indeed, over time lithiation changes the tin oxide from a neatly arranged crystal to an amorphous glass -- not unlike the Medusa's flesh-to-stone changing glare.

"The insertion of lithium ions into tin oxide crystals leads to a phase transformation, from crystalline to amorphous," PNNL's Wang told TechNewsWorld. "Accompanying this phase transformation is the volume expansion."

Along with the volume expansion, the researchers observed that upon recharging the battery, the tin oxide nanowires nearly double in length, a finding that conflicts with the conventional wisdom -- that batteries swell across their diameter.

To help avoid short circuits that shorten battery life, "manufacturers should take account of this elongation in their battery designs," said Sandia's Huang. "The gap between the cathode and anode needs to be more than double the length of the nanowire, so that no short circuit will occur during charging."

Lab to Market

Observing that nanowires "were able to withstand the deformations associated with electrical flow better than bulk tin oxide, which is a brittle ceramic," PNNL's Wang envisions a rudimentary design for a nanoscale battery that works as well in the marketplace as it does in the laboratory.

"It reminds me of making a rope from steel -- you wind together thinner wires rather than making one thick rope," he said.

Presently studying silicon, which works extremely well with lithium ions, the DOE research team's nano-sized rechargeable battery "might look like a human hair," Huang said.

Until they finish such a design, however, "the methodology we developed should stimulate extensive real-time studies of the microscopic processes in batteries," he said, "and lead to a more complete understanding of the mechanisms governing battery performance and reliability."

Trojan attack on Android phones

A bit of malware that could allow hackers to control victims' phones is making its way around Android handsets. A Trojan called "Geinimi" apparently is able to sneak into Android phones by way of pirated apps available through third-party China-based Android apps stores. It appears the original versions of the malware-riddled apps are not infected.

A new Trojan that can create botnets has emerged in China, according to Lookout Mobile Security.

This Trojan, dubbed "Geinimi," is the most sophisticated Android malware so far, the company said.

Once it's installed on a user's phone, Geinimi can receive commands from a remote server that lets that server's owner control the smartphone.

Geinimi is apparently being spread through pirated versions of legitimate Android apps, mainly games, and is being distributed in third-party Android app stores in China.

How Geinimi Works

When a smartphone user launches an infected application containing Geinimi, the Trojan collects information in the background.

This information includes location coordinates and unique identifiers for the device and its SIM card, Lookout Mobile said.

Every five minutes, the Trojan tries to connect to a remote server using one of 10 embedded domain names. These domain names include www.widifu.com; www.udaore.com; www.frijd.com; www.islpast.com and www.piajesj.com, according to the security company.

If Geinimi manages to connect to the remote server, it will upload information it collected. The Trojan also prompts the user to uninstall an app, and it sends a list of installed apps to the remote server, Lookout Mobile said.

The malware's creators have used an off-the-shelf bytecode obfuscator to hide the code and have encrypted some of the command-and-control data. This data comes into play when the Trojan connects back from a victim's smartphone to the remote server.

Where the Virus Lurks

Pirated applications that include the Trojan that are available in Chinese app stores include "Monkey Jump 2;" "Sex Positions;" "President vs. Aliens;" "City Defense;" and "Baseball Superstars 2010," Lookout Mobile said.

However the original versions of these apps that are in the official Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) Android Market have not been affected, Lookout Mobile said.

"The Trojan is an add-on, so it could be uploaded to any app on the Android Market, but so far the infected apps have only shown up in the Chinese app markets," Kevin Mahaffey, chief technology officer at Lookout Mobile, told TechNewsWorld.

"We contacted the developers, and they didn't know this was going on or that their games were being pirated," Mahaffey added.

Green Isn't Always Good

"We see the exact same thing with software for Windows in China all the time," Chester Wisniewski, a senior security adviser at Sophos, told TechNewsWorld.

"The malware authors convert legitimate Windows apps into adware and offer it for free, and it wouldn't surprise me if they took the same approach with Android," Wisniewski explained. "There's a term in Chinese that translates to something like 'green software,' and that refers to pirated versions of software."

About 80 percent of so-called green software on websites in China contain malware, Wisniewski said.

No Sailing the 7 Seas Yet

Geinimi was discovered on a user forum in China, Lookout Mobile's Mahaffey said.

While the malware currently affects only users in China, it could well spread elsewhere.

"Mobile devices have a fairly international user base, and there's a lot of cross-pollination of apps," Mahaffey pointed out. "But so far, the market is still localized."

Google can easily prevent the spread of the Trojan by kicking the app off Android, Randy Abrams, director of technical education at ESET, pointed out. "Why hasn't Google done anything yet?" he asked.

Google didn't respond to requests for comment by press time.

A Smartphone Is Not Just a Phone

Smartphone users need to realize that their devices are "really powerful little computers," ESET's Abrams told TechNewsWorld.

For example, Android-based smartphones can be used to launch distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks against websites, Abrams said.

"Right now, people are constantly installing apps that tell you they will access the Internet, or send and receive text messages, or send and receive email," Abrams pointed out. "These apps are paid for by advertising. The Trojan takes things one step further in that it can create a botnet. But in terms of giving up privacy, people are already doing that by installing free games and apps."

Android offers users two types of protection, Lookout Mobile's Mahaffey said. One is that the apps users download must ask for permission if they want to access any of the operating system's features.

The other type of protection blocks sideloading, which is the technical term for users downloading apps from unknown sources. In order to download pirated apps, which may contain the Geinimi Trojan, Android smartphone owners need to turn off sideloading protection, Mahaffey said.

That's exactly what they shouldn't do; after all, they don't turn antivirus off on their PCs before downloading applications.

"Treat your smartphone like you would your PC, and make sure that all the things you safeguard on your PC you safeguard on your smartphone," Mahaffey stated.

ISRO rocket explodes

Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) suffered a major setback on Saturday when the Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle-F06 launch vehicle failed to put communication satellite GSAT-5P in orbit.

GSLV-F06, powered by Russian cryogenic engine, lifted off from the second launch pad at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota at 4:04 PM on Saturday evening after the 29-hour countdown. But the rocket deviated from its intended path and exploded mid-air destroying the Rs 125 crore communication satellite GSAT-5P.

ISRO sources said the rocket failed due to a techinical glitch in the first stage of the lift-off.

GSAT-5P, weighing 2,130 kg, with 24 C-band transponders and 12 extended C-band transponders was to ensure continuity of telecom, television and weather services. The satellite was scheduled to replace the INSAT-2E satellite, which was put in orbit in 1999.

The satellite, developed by ISRO Satellite Centre, Bangalore, was the fifth in the GSAT series. It had a designed mission life of 12 years.

The launch of the satellite, which was originally scheduled for December 20, had been postponed after a leak in the Russian cryogenic engine on board the launch vehicle.

This is the second failure this year for ISRO after the previous GSLV mission with the country's maiden cryogenic engine hit a snag and the rocket plunged into the Bay of Bengal on April 15 this year.

Browser to free the Web of suffixes

A Dutch technology company has emerged as a front-runner in a project to rid the Internet of limited number of suffixes such as .com, and offer single names which can be countries, company names or fantasy words.

Such a system, which enables countries, individuals and firms to have a Web address which consists of a single name, offers flexibility and is language and character independent.

Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), which operates the root servers of the Internet guiding all Web traffic, has been working for years on a similar plan as it determines which suffixes, known as top-level domains (TLDs), are recognized by those root servers.

A root server is a master list of all top-level domain names, such as .com, .net, .org, and individual country codes, made available to all routers.

Earlier this month ICANN said there was pent-up demand for freeing suffixes, but delayed the plan to approve them into 2011.

To bypass the ICANN system Amsterdam-based UnifiedRoot has created browser SunDial, which enables web users to visit web sites associated with Unifiedroot TLDs, as well as all web sites registered in the ICANN system.

"We expect in short term that other browsers will also adopt our solution," Erik Seeboldt, managing director of UnifiedRoot, said in an interview.

So far free SunDial browser has been downloaded more than 15,000 times directly from UnifiedRoot, but Seeboldt said due to different other firms distributing the browser total downloads were unknown.

Seeboldt said he was convinced leading browser providers - such as Microsoft, Mozilla and Google - would tweak their software to allow access to UnifiedRoot domains.

"When there is traffic other browsers start to come to us," he said.

UnifiedRoot offers practically unlimited numbers of suffixes, unlike the short list of suffixes currently in use.

Seeboldt said first 7-8 new root domains using new suffixes would open in early 2011.

Its offer is different from other "alternative root" providers such as New.net which offers to register names in front of a small range of new suffixes, such as .golf or .law.

Critics argue alternative root companies such as UnifiedRoot introduce ambiguity because they bring a new set of traffic rules to the Web which are, certainly in the beginning, only recognized by a limited number of computers around the world.

To avoid conflicts between top level domains from UnifiedRoot and ICANN, the Dutch company will not register existing ICANN TLDs, and it informs ICANN of any names registered into its system.

Seeboldt said the communication between UnifiedRoot and ICANN has been mostly one-way.

"It seems they are not taking us very seriously," he said.

A spokesman for ICANN said parallel platforms like UnifiedRoot had a limited scope.

"While these systems might indeed function, it's important to note that many are not part of a single root, which to a large extent defines the Internet, its global reach and true value," he said.

Microsoft Opens HTML5 Proving Ground

Web developers will have a chance to explore and tweak emerging yet unstable standards in Microsoft's new HTML5 Labs site. "At this point, HTML5 standards are moving targets," Pund-IT's Charles King stated. "But it's better for developers to get involved early and tweak their offerings along the way than to start late and deliver half-baked offerings."

Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) launched an HTML5 laboratory for developers on Tuesday. The company intends the project to be a site where Redmond prototypes early and unstable Web standard specs from standards bodies such as the W3C and shares them with the developer community.

One reason for establishing the lab could be that Microsoft wants to leverage its strong relationship with developers for the Web.

Microsoft could also be playing catch-up with Google (Nasdaq: GOOG), which launched its HTML5-based Body Browser last week, and with Mozilla's Firefox browser.

About the HTML5 Labs site

The HTML5 Labs site is managed by the Microsoft Interoperability Strategy Group. Currently, it has two prototypes available -- IndexedDB and WebSockets

IndexedDB is a draft Web specification for the storage of large amounts of structured data in the browser. WebSockets simplifies bi-directional, full-duplex communications channels over a single TCP socket.

"WebSockets and IndexDB were chosen because the specifications have great potential to provide benefits to a broad audience, but they are currently unstable," Microsoft spokesperson Anna Imperati told TechNewsWorld.

The WebSocket API (application programming interface) is being standardized by the W3C, and the protocol is being standardized by the IETF, while IndexedDB is a "developing W3C Web standard," Imperati added.

Microsoft set up the lab to separate prototype implementations from mainstream browser product implementations. For example, in IE9, it's only delivering on the key parts of HTML5 that are site-ready.

The New Face of Microsoft

With the HTML5 Labs, Microsoft is apparently changing its approach to testing apps -- instead of throwing betas out to users, it will offer only relatively stable products.

"Microsoft is focusing much more on finishing products before they send them out these days, largely to both address past bad practices and to more sharply differentiate themselves against Google, which aggressively uses first releases as beta tests," Rob Enderle, principal analyst at the Enderle Group, told TechNewsWorld.

"Microsoft recognizes that IE9 is a critical product for the company upon which much of its infrastructure resides," Enderle pointed out.

"They messed IE up once and they intend to never do that again," he added.

Redmond "historically has had a very strong relationship with developers in other areas, and it looks like it's trying to apply some of those practices to the Web development community around HTML5," Ray Valdes, vice president of Web services at Gartner (NYSE: IT), told TechNewsWorld.

"This highlights Microsoft's recognition of how critical a role developers will play in the success of IE9 and other HTML5-related products," Charles King, principal analyst at Pund-IT, told TechNewsWorld. "But one goal here is to ensure that IE9 add-ons and services are robust from the beginning."

Web Standard Specs Are a Gamble

Web standards are hammered out over time by members of the computer industry, and they're not always stable until they've been finally ratified. Sometimes, only parts of a standard are stable. Such is the case with HTML5.

"There are certain subsystems of HTML5 that are more volatile than others," Gartner's Valdes stated. "Some go through a trajectory that looks good but they reach an impasse."

WebSQL is one such specification. It's supported by Safari, Chromium 4 and Opera.

"For the last three years, WebSQL was gong to be the primary mechanism for offline storage, then the committee reached an impasse and work stopped," Valdes remarked.

IndexDB is "the presumed replacement for HTML5," Valdes said. However, it's fairly new, having only emerged over the past couple of months, and browser vendors haven't been able to incorporate it into their products, with the exception of Mozilla, which has implemented it in Firefox 4. It's also scheduled to be supported by Chromium Milestone 9.

"At this point, HTML5 standards are moving targets," Pund-IT's King stated. "But it's better for developers to get involved early and tweak their offerings along the way than to start late and deliver half-baked offerings."

Catching Up to the Competition

Perhaps Microsoft is also trying to make sure IE9 can compete with other browsers on the market.

The Internet Explorer browser, which once had well over 90 percent of the browser market, had only 42.5 percent at the end of November, according to W3Counter's statistics.

Firefox came in a reasonably close second with 32 percent of the market, and Google's quickly growing Chrome came in third with a tad over 13 percent.

"HTML5 isn't prevalent enough to exert a significant commercial impact, but Google's launch last week of its Body Browser caused quite a stir, and gave the company something of a leg up in HTML5 thought leadership," Pund-IT's King remarked. "Though it isn't anywhere near as high profile as the Body Browser, the Microsoft Labs does reflect a similar sort of effort."

Court Ruling Grants Email the Cloak of Privacy

"Just because we now use modes of communications not contemplated by the framers of the Constitution does not mean that government gets a free pass to intercept and listen in without following constitutionally mandated process," said Jonathan Askin, a professor at Brooklyn Law School. "As our modes of communications evolve, so should the legal processes affecting them."

The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals has handed down a ruling that delights privacy advocates and Fourth Amendment purists: In U.S. v. Warshak, it found that the government should have obtained a search warrant before seizing and searching defendant Stephen Warshak's emails, which were stored by email service providers.

In the criminal case, Warshak was being investigated by the Justice Department for fraud and related crimes associated with his marketing of "male enhancement" pills.

During the investigation, the Justice Department ordered the email provider to prospectively preserve copies of Warshak's future emails, using a subpoena and a non-probable cause court order. The government based its actions on the Stored Communications Act, which allows it to obtain emails already in storage with a provider.

The Court of Appeals agreed that the government did act in good faith by relying on the Stored Communications Act. However, it continued, a warrant was in order.

"If we accept that an email is analogous to a letter or a phone call, it is manifest that agents of the government cannot compel a commercial ISP to turn over the contents of an email without triggering the Fourth Amendment," the decision reads. "An ISP is the intermediary that makes email communication possible. Emails must pass through an ISP's servers to reach their intended recipient. Thus, the ISP is the functional equivalent of a post office or a telephone company."

Calls for New Laws

It is an important ruling, because it is the first time a federal court of appeals has extended the Fourth Amendment to email with such careful consideration, and it is likely to be influential on both legal and practical levels, Alexander H. Southwell, a partner with Gibson Dunn's white collar defense and investigations practice, told the E-Commerce Times.

"This will likely lead to re-invigorated calls for legislation," he predicted.

The decision is particularly important because the Stored Communications Act does allow the government to secretly obtain emails without a warrant in many situations, according to the EFF, which filed an amicus brief in the case.

The Department of Justice was unable to return a call from the E-Commerce Times in time for publication.

"It's reassuring to see that the Sixth Circuit recognizes that the Fourth Amendment should be technology-agnostic," Jonathan Askin, a professor at Brooklyn Law School, told the E-Commerce Times.

"Just because we now use modes of communications not contemplated by the framers of the Constitution does not mean that government gets a free pass to intercept and listen in without following constitutionally mandated process," he pointed out. "As our modes of communications evolve, so should the legal processes affecting them."

More Needs to Be Done

It is important to remember, though, that this is one circuit court out of eleven, said Jim Dempsey, VP for public policy at the Center for Democracy and Technology.

"If anything, it heightens the issue and gives credibility to the notion that the courts are all over the map on this issue, and that inconsistent rulings don't provide customers or businesses or the government with the kind of certainty that they should all want," Dempsey told the E-Commerce Times.

Dempsey is a member of the Digital Due Process coalition, formed earlier this year by such companies as Google (Nasdaq: GOOG), the ACLU, Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) and Salesforce.com (NYSE: CRM). The coalition is calling for the federal government to update laws on government access to email and private files stored by third-party service providers in the cloud -- or any other storage system.

Currently, the coalition holds, third-party storage of digital data is a legal gray area, which has allowed the Department of Justice to prevail with the argument that all it needs is a subpoena or court order to obtain customer data from companies. The coalition would like to see clear laws requiring warrants for such requests.

Cybervigilantism

Controversy over Wikileaks so-called Cablegate release last month led to a series of attacks and counterattacks over the Web, as Wikileaks supporters attempted to cripple the sites of organizations seen as working against the whistleblower website. Those attackers were in turn attacked themselves. Some see the attackers as political protesters; to others, they're criminals.

Things took an interesting turn in the aftermath of Cablegate, which saw 250,000 documents, many of them sensitive, put on the open Web by WikiLeaks.

Julian Assange, the founder of the site, has been charged by Swedish police with a sex crime; the U.S. government is seeking to try Assange, who's currently out on bail; hundreds of mirrored WikiLeaks sites have sprung up around the world; WikiLeaks supporters have launched DDoS attacks on the websites of anyone taking action against the whistleblower site; and free speech advocates have criticized actions against WikiLeaks.

Wre the WikiLeaks supporters who attacked the Web sites of various organizations perceived as acting against the whistleblower site really cyber-vigilantes, or are their actions really an online version of public protest?

Further, is cyber-vigilantism wrong? What about cyber-vigilantes like the hacker th3j35t3r, (The Jester), who take down Jihadi websites on their own?

A Litany of Online Ills

In the weeks following Wikileaks' release of Cablegate, MasterCard (NYSE: MA), Visa (NYSE: V) and Paypal, who refused to process contributions to WikiLeaks, all saw their sites hindered to some degree by online attackers.

The websites of PostFinance and even Senator Joe Lieberman, who spoke out against WikiLeaks over Cablegate, were also attacked. The attackers were the groups Anonymous and Operation Payback, and you can see a partial list of the attacks on Panda Labs' security blog.

Hundreds, if not thousands, of people worldwide have joined in the DDoS attacks on organizations that cracked down on WikiLeaks, and a Dutch teenager has been arrested for participation in the attacks.

The attackers used the Low Orbit Ion Cannon (LOIC), an open source DDoS tool. This lets users start up or join a voluntary botnet to launch their attacks in concert.

LOIC lets users insert the address of a command and control server. The application will then automatically connect the users' computers to the C and C server, creating an ad hoc botnet, and launch synchronized attacks against a predetermined target. Some botnet operators were reportedly recruited by WikiLeaks supporters.

Anonymous and Operation Payback disclaimed any connections with each other, and if they're to be believed, they're just independent Web users who have a common cause -- targeting big business and government organizations perceived as trying to shut down free speech.

Senator Joe Lieberman's office did not respond to requests for comment by press time.

We Are What We Do

When a group of people get together to attack the website of a group they disagree with philosophically or politically, or to avenge the crushing of an ordinary person by a large organization, is that cybervigilantism or an attempt to protect free speech?

There is no standard definition for the terms "cyber-vigilantism" or "cyber-attacks" in state and federal laws addressing wrongful conduct on the Internet, Julie Machal-Fulks, a partner in law firm Scott and Scott Partners, told TechNewsWorld.

"How we may classify different kinds of cyber-vigilantes is less important than the specific actions taken by those groups or individuals," Machal-Fulks pointed out. For DDoS attacks and other similar activities, "there is no legally meaningful distinction between violation of a law applicable to online activity and violation of a law applicable to offline activity," she stated.

The claim that DDoS attacks are a form of political protest may not hold water.

There's a difference between legal and illegal political protest, whether the protests are conducted in the street or in cyberspace, George Pike, an assistant professor of law at the University of Pittsburgh's School of Law, told TechNewsWorld.

"A protest event that results in deliberate property damage or injury does not become legal simply because the intent was political," Pike explained.

Civil Disobedience or Incivility?

Could the spontaneous emergence of people worldwide who launched these DDoS attacks be considered civil disobedience instead?

"I am aware that civil disobedience is often claimed as a justification for some illegal activities, but the role or purpose of civil disobedience is generally oriented to changing public opinion about the law," Pike said. An act of civil disobedience, he contended, is "public and acknowledged by the actor, and not hidden and anonymous."

At the height of the attacks, the Electronic Frontier Foundation tweeted its condemnation of cyber-vigilantism.

"DDoS attacks are just that -- attacks," Chris Palmer, technology director at the EFF, told TechNewsWorld. "Like all attacks, they may have collateral damage, and may thus be counter-productive."

As the Internet becomes ever more densely connected and as people depend on it more and more, collateral damage "will become increasingly counter-productive and unsustainable," Palmer warned

Ours Are Good Guys, Theirs Are Bastards

The pro-WikiLeaks attackers didn't necessarily go scot-free -- Operation Payback's own website came under DDOS attack in what seemed to be retaliation for the group's actions over WikiLeaks.

The attackers were described in the Panda Labs blog as "a group of patriots attempting to protect the greater interests of the United States of America."

Indeed, some self-proclaimed cyber-vigilantes in America have launched cyberattacks against websites of people perceived as the enemy.

Perhaps one of the best known is a hacker calling himself "th3j35t3r," ("The Jester"). He specializes in taking down Muslim extremists' websites. Others include Bill Warner, a private investigator who shut down three extremist websites hosted by an ISP in Tampa, Fla., in 2008.

Where do we draw the line? Is it wrong for cybervigilantes to attack the websites of governments, government officials and large corporations? What about those of extremist religious groups?

Yahoo's job Cuts

Yahoo has undertaken a series of mid-December layoffs and other cutbacks, axing about 650 workers right before the holidays. Hardest hit will be its product groups. It's also nixing several Web properties, including Yahoo Buzz, AltaVista and bookmark site Delicious. Meanwhile, hackers hammer Gawker, spooks hit OpenBSD, and Microsoft winds up for another swing at tablets.

For a long time now, Yahoo (Nasdaq: YHOO) has suffered a bit of an identity problem. What does it want to be? King of search is Google's (Nasdaq: GOOG) thing, and Facebook owns the social network scene, so what is Yahoo's identity, besides being a really big email provider?

This week, Yahoo apparently started looking toward a new role model: The Grinch. It's started dealing out a fresh deck of pink slips, and its timing is so God-awful that you almost have to think it was on purpose, or that the company is so strapped for cash and credit that it couldn't scape together another two weeks' pay for a tiny percentage of its workforce.

The total number of employees given Yuletide Yahoo layoffs will be around 650, or 4 percent of the company. The company's product groups will be the worst hit.

On top of the personnel cutbacks, Yahoo's also kicking a few websites and technologies to the curb. The company's confirmed that Yahoo Buzz will be laid to rest, as will the traffic APIs related to its mapping services. Also reportedly on the chopping block are one-time search contender AltaVista, Yahoo Picks, Yahoo Bookmarks, MyM, MyBlogLog and AllTheWeb. Last but not least, Delicious is apparently on its way out too.

Of course, a leaner Yahoo may be better able to compete with its rivals. The company's been growing in a hodgepodge of different directions over the years, and if this cost-saving measure is accompanied by a renewed effort to focus its direction and vision, then maybe things will work out. A little pruning can be good for a company in the long run.

That's not very comforting for the employees who lost their jobs, of course, and it's especially stinging to see Yahoo rivals like Google giving their workers across-the-board raises just to keep them on board. Those at Yahoo who get to keep their jobs may feel relieved, but a round of mid-December layoffs sounds like something that could really undermine the morale of the entire remaining staff.

In the wake of this news, though, Yahoo's figurative image problem became very literal. On Tuesday, the day news of the layoffs hit, Yahoo Search users discovered a rather odd bug. Innocuous search terms -- anything from puppies to sweet potatoes to wrenches, whatever -- would result in a set of related thumbnail images at the top of the screen. That's normal. What wasn't so normal was what you'd see if you clicked on those images. Users who did so were shown hardcore porn.

No word on whether that little trick was the work of a recently pink-slipped employee. Or it could have been done by a worker who's job wasn't in danger at all -- maybe they just didn't like Yahoo's holiday spirit and figured out a way to pull a prank without getting caught. But if it was just a coincidence ... well, that's one hell of a coincidence.

Google Gets Under People's Skin

Google's new Body Browser could be a valuable tool for physicians -- helping them explain medical conditions and surgeries to patients, among other things. It will also be of value to medical educators and students. One possible drawback, though, is that some people might be tempted to use it for self-diagnosis, which could be dangerous. "Information from the Internet nearly killed my daughter," warned author Robert Goldberg. "Twice."

With Google's (Nasdaq: GOOG) announcement Thursday of the Body Browser, online mapping technology finally caught up with the medical crew of "Fantastic Voyage," miniaturized in the 1966 sci-fi flick to enter a renowned scientist's bloodstream and save his brain from a life-threatening blood clot.

A Chrome-OS driven online Gray's Anatomy, Body Browser continues Google's quest to map everything, now including the human body.

"Body Browser is a detailed, interactive 3D model," Google representative Jason Freidenfelds told TechNewsWorld. "You can search, explore different layers of human anatomy, rotate, and zoom in on parts you're interested in. Perhaps it's analogous to the way geospatial imagery has made it easier to explore the world in engaging and informative ways."

To view the publicly available demo at Google Labs, users will need a WebGL-enabled browser, "such as the just-updated version of Google Chrome Beta," Freidenfelds explained. "WebGL is a standard that allows you to visualize complex 3D graphics in the browser without a plug-in."

After visualizing it himself, Samieh Rizk, M.D., said Body Browser is "a fascinating tool."

"As a facial plastic surgeon, I can see using Body Browser to educate patients," said Rizk, who directs Manhattan Facial Plastic Surgery, and on his website offers a 3D tour of his office and surgical suite. "For example, when I explain to a patient that his nasal septum is deviated, or the smoker's lines around a woman's mouth are caused by the obicularis muscle contracting, I can show them, and they will get it."

Internet body meets to expand list of domain names and IP addresses

ICANN, the international regulatory body for Web architecture, met here Monday to discuss expanding the list of top level domain names and a new generation of Internet protocol addresses.

"We are a thousand individuals from all over the world convening in Cartagena to adopt fundamental decisions on the biggest issues facing the Internet industry on a global scale," said ICAAN chairman Peter Thrush.

A California-based non-profit corporation, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers manages the Domain Name System and Internet Protocol addresses that form the technical backbone of the Web.

Every device connecting to the Internet needs an IP address and Thrush said ICANN's board meeting was to help prepare the transition from IPv4 (Internet Protocol version 4) to IPv6, which already exists but is rarely used.

Less than 150 million IPv4 addresses are still available, and "will come to an end by mid-2011, which necessitates an urgent adoption of a new generation of the respective protocols," he said.

During its meeting here, ICANN is also expected to discuss expanding the list of what are known as generic top level domains such as .com, .net and .org.

Thrush said an expansion of domain names would herald "the beginning of a new era of change for completion of the map of the Internet."

Tumblr blogging site back up after massive outage

The popular blogging site Tumblr is recovering from an outage that had left it out of service for about 24 hours.

Tumblr says the problem was in one of its database clusters, or collection of databases. On Twitter, the company says the databases are up and running. Tumblr says it is slowly opening up access to people's blogs and monitoring site performance.

New York-based Tumblr lets users post photos, text, videos and other content in short updates. It bills itself "the easiest way to blog," though on Monday morning that wasn't the case.

While both Facebook and Twitter have suffered big outages in recent years, the length of Tumblr's problem is unusual.

Twitter users complained about the outage in English, Spanish and Japanese among other languages.

Google e-book store

Google Inc. is making the leap from digital librarian to merchant in a challenge to Amazon.com Inc. and its Kindle electronic reader.

The long-awaited Internet book store, which opened Monday in the U.S., draws upon a portion of the 15 million printed books that Google has scanned into its computers during the past six years.

About 4,000 publishers, including CBS Corp.'s Simon & Schuster Inc., Random House Inc. and Pearson PLC's Penguin Group, are also allowing Google to carry many of their recently released books in the new store.

Those publishing deals will ensure that most of the current best sellers are among the 3 million e-books initially available in Google's store, said Amanda Edmonds, who oversaw the company's partnerships. Millions more out-of-print titles will appear in Google's store, called eBooks, if the company can gain federal court approval of a proposed class-action settlement with U.S. publishers and authors.

The $125 million settlement has been under review for more than two years. It faces stiff opposition from rivals, consumer watchdogs, academic experts, literary agents and even foreign governments, which worry that Google would get too much power to control prices in the still-nascent market for electronic books. Amazon.com, which started its business as a seller of books over the Internet, is among the competitors trying to squelch the settlement. The U.S. Justice Department has advised the judge overseeing the case that the settlement probably would violate antitrust and copyright laws.

Books bought from Google's store can be read on any machine with a Web browser. There are also free applications that can be installed on Apple Inc.'s iPad and iPhone, as well as other devices powered by Google's own mobile operating system, Android.

But Google's eBooks can't be loaded on to the Kindle.

Electronic books are expected to generate nearly $1 billion in U.S. sales this year and climb to $1.7 billion by 2012 as more people buy electronic readers and computer tablets such as the iPad, according to Forrester Research. The research group expects a total of 15 million e-readers and tablets to have been sold in the U.S. by the end of the year.

Google believes it's already offering the broadest selection of digital titles in the world, and it plans to keep adding to the inventory if it can gain the necessary copyright clearances. The company, based in Mountain View, Calif., believes it eventually will be able to make electronic copies of the estimated 130 million books in the world. It's also planning to start selling books outside the U.S. next year.

Google's eBooks store, originally to be called Editions, has been in the works for more than a year. The company already had been showing books no longer protected under copyright in their entirety and displaying snippets of other titles through its widely used search engine.

The company is trying to position its new sales outlet as an ally to publishers, merchants and consumers looking for alternatives to Amazon's electronic book store, which feeds Amazon's hot-selling Kindle, but not other e-readers, including Barnes & Noble Inc.'s Nook.

Google's e-books will work on the Nook, Sony Corp.'s Reader devices and practically every other e-reading device except the Kindle. Google achieves this with the help of Adobe Inc.'s copy-protection system for e-books. That system is already used by public libraries and smaller online bookstores, but hasn't seen much interest from the major players. Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble and Apple all have their own copy-protection systems.

Google plans to offer sharp discounts on many of its e-books but it will still pay publishers 52 percent of the list price for sales made on its site, unless another arrangement has been negotiated with an outside agency. The formula means that even if Google elects to sell a book with a $10 list price for $6, the publisher would still be entitled to $5.20.

Forrester Research analyst James McQuivey described Google's latest effort as a "game expander" rather than a game changer.

The growing embrace of digital sales by the publishing industry is expected to result in the closure of hundreds more book stores during the next few years, adding to a media mortuary of music and video merchants killed by electronic distribution.

Google's announcement comes on the same day that activist investor William Ackman, who owns a 37 percent stake in Borders Group Inc., offered to finance a Borders-led takeover bid for rival bookseller Barnes & Noble Inc. If successful, it could ultimately lead to closures of overlapping stores.

In a move that could delay closures of other retailers, Google is allowing independent book stores to sell its inventory through their own sites. More than 100 book retailers in 36 states already have agreed to team up with Google. They include Powell's in the Portland, Ore., area and online-only merchant Alibris.com.

Opening the door to book merchants who can't afford to invest heavily in technology could help some of them survive the digital transition, McQuivey said. "At least this gives them a fighting chance."

Although Google expects the lion's share of its eBooks revenue to be funneled to its partners, its portion of the sales could help the company develop another way to make money besides the Internet ads that bring most of its income. The availability of eBooks also could help boost advertising sales by giving people another reason to come to Google's website.

Google shares edged up $5.36, or nearly 1 percent, to close Monday at $578.36.

To allay concerns that it will exploit the dominance of its Internet search engine to spur e-book sales on its own site, Google plans to include links to several other places where people can buy a book mentioned in a search request. And when visitors come to the book section on Google's website, they will be asked if they are interested in buying or just doing general research.

chrome OS laptops

The first crop of computers powered by Google Inc's Chrome operating system will start selling in mid-2011 and come with free Verizon Wireless connections for two years, opening another front in its rivalry with Microsoft Corp and Apple Inc.

The new Chrome-based notebooks will come with 100 megabytes of free wireless data transfers per month for two years courtesy of Verizon, executives told reporters on Tuesday.

They are designed to promote Web-centric computing, in which consumers use online applications instead of downloading software to their PCs. To support that, the company started up on Tuesday a Web store selling some 500 games, news and other software applications, carving out a bigger role in the next generation of Internet media and entertainment.

Electronic Arts demonstrated a game that will go on sale on the Chrome software store later Tuesday. The online store will also sell applications to run news, from National Public Radio to the New York Times.

Google executives also told a news conference in San Francisco that the Chrome Internet browser, on which the similarly named operating system is based, has 120 million users. In May, it had 70 million.

Apple Inc in October said it would open an applications store for its Macintosh computers as it tries to replicate the success of apps sold for its iPhone. That store is expected to go live early next year.

Shares in Google, which had performed strongly all session, were up 2 percent at $ 589.40 in afternoon trading on the Nasdaq.

More details about the Google Chrome OS can be found at http://www.google.com/chromeos/

Facebook's new Face

Facebook on Sunday unveiled new profile pages that give photos centerstage, allow users to highlight important friends and go into far more detail on their jobs.

Previous changes on the world's largest social networking site have sometimes resulted in criticism on how the company handles privacy issues, generating occasional backlashes against Facebook. The revamp comes amid ongoing speculation about when Facebook will launch an initial public offering.

In a blog post, Facebook software engineer Josh Wiseman said the overhaul would make it "easier for you to tell your story and learn about your friends."

Users with the new profile get a strip of photos at the top of their profile pages. Under the old system, users keep photos under a separate tab.

Bigger photos accompany lists of interests, such as favorite television shows and sports teams, helping them pop out from the screen.

Users can also list their friends by relationship, grouping family members together and highlighting their best friends.

The changes make it easier for Facebook users to integrate details about their work lives into their pages, a shift for a service used largely for social activities.

There is much more room for job information such as specific projects a user has worked on. The move highlights Facebook's potential to compete with LinkedIn, a career-networking Web site with 85 million members. It too is considered a strong IPO candidate.

Wiseman said Facebook would gradually roll out the redesign over the next year, giving users the option to switch to it immediately if they like.

Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg was set to discuss the changes on CBS's "60 Minutes" on Sunday night.

UK developing cyber weaponry

Britain is devoting more energy to understanding and developing "weaponry" for cyber warfare than any other military area, armed forces chief General David Richards said on Monday.

"It's very genuinely a huge priority for us," Richards said.

"Along with like-minded nations in NATO for example, we are more actively expanding our understanding and weaponry in this area than in any other area," he told an audience during questions that followed his first public speech since taking over as Britain's Chief of the Defence Staff.

Britain announced last month it would spend an extra 650 million pounds ($ 1 billion) on cyber security after a new National Security Strategy highlighted the area as one of the top threats the country faced.

The issue came to the prominence in September when security experts suggested that the Stuxnet computer worm that attacks a widely used industrial system could have been created by a state to attack nuclear facilities in Iran.

Last month the head of Britain's communications spy agency also warned that countries were already using cyber techniques to attack each other.

"I often say to people, even today you might take out a country's infrastructure by bombing the hell out of it. Within no time at all you'll do it through cyber attack," Richards said. "It's a huge area of risk."

Richards also said that NATO's timetable for handing over responsibility for security in Afghanistan to Afghan forces in 2014 and ending combat operations by the following year was "very achievable".

"This has not been plucked from thin air," he said, adding that Mullah Mohammad Omar, the leader of the Afghan Taliban, did not like the message that the withdrawal would not be sooner.

"Four years, given the punishment that they are receiving and the very steady growth in the ANSF (Afghan National Security Force), is not something they are obviously very happy about," he said. "We can be cautiously optimistic about hitting that timeline."