refusingstructures.net

AmazonWireless currently offers more than 120 phones, including a large selection of high-end smartphones, as well as the latest budget models. Customers can use their existing Amazon accounts to upgrade their phones or shop by carrier, phone feature, price, color, and brand. You’ll also find other familiar Amazon features, such as bestseller lists, product descriptions, and customer reviews.

During this beta-testing phase, Amazon plans to expand the selection of phones and services as well as add carriers. It will also be testing features and gathering input from customers.

According to Paul Ryder, Amazon’s vice president of consumer electronics, AmazonWireless is designed for both existing cell phone customers who want to upgrade and those who want start a cell phone service.

Amazon announced Thursday its beta launch of AmazonWireless, a new Web site that offers cell phones and service plans from, for now, AT&T and Verizon Wireless. The online store features Amazon-style shopping, without the rebate hassles that cell phone carriers are notorious for, and free two-day shipping on a large selection of phones.

(Credit:
Dong Ngo/CNET)

It’s important to note that not every phone offered by the carriers is listed. For example, I checked for the
iPhone 3GS just now and it wasn’t even mentioned.

If you want to quickly buy a phone, or just check out what AT&T and Verizon Wireless have to offer, it just got a little more convenient.

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File photo: Reporters set up microphones outside of the Microsoft antitrust trial in Washington, D.C.

(Credit:
Declan McCullagh/mccullagh.org)

Microsoft’s proposed $44.6 billion purchase of Yahoo could subject the software giant to the kind of critical antitrust scrutiny from Washington it hasn’t experienced in nearly a decade.

There are plenty of obstacles — including what Yahoo shareholders and board members think of the deal — to overcome before the federal government gets involved. But there are already signs that any review will be intense.

“We will need to scrutinize the deal carefully to insure that it will not cause any harm to the competitiveness of what has been a vibrant high tech marketplace, nor negatively impact the privacy rights of Internet users,” Sen. Herb Kohl, a Wisconsin Democrat and chairman of a Senate antitrust panel, said in a statement on Friday. “Should Yahoo! accept Microsoft’s offer, the subcommittee expects to hold hearings to explore the competitive and privacy implications of the deal.”

Kohl is hardly a friend of mergers. He and the subcommittee’s top Republican, Orrin Hatch of Utah, urged strong scrutiny of the Google-DoubleClick deal. Kohl asked the Justice Department to block the XM-Sirius satellite radio merger. And he wanted conditions to be attached to the combination of AT&T and BellSouth.

In addition, a constellation of liberal privacy groups already is preparing to pressure the Justice Department or Federal Trade Commission to block the deal or, at the very least, demand privacy-related concessions. (The two federal agencies share responsibility for merger review.)

“I believe the merger needs to be closely examined, including analyzing what it means for overall competition and content diversity,” said Jeff Chester of the Center for Digital Democracy, which opposed Google’s purchase of DoubleClick. He wants “no action on the deal until consumer privacy safeguards are enacted for the entire market, especially addressing the goals and capabilities of Google/DoubleClick and a potential Microsoft/Yahoo.”

Marc Rotenberg, head of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, said “the privacy consequences for Internet users of the proposed merger should be taken into account, in addition to concerns about competition and innovation.”

Those comments represent an effort on the part of liberal advocacy groups to rewrite the traditional criteria for reviewing mergers, which involve a look at how they affect the competitive landscape and whether they would promote or harm consumer welfare. The new approach is to argue that the privacy “quality” of the combined company’s products may suffer.

For its part, Microsoft has an institutional familiarity with U.S. and European antitrust laws shared by few other companies other than AT&T and IBM. But since its antitrust trial — which began in 1998 and led to a court-supervised settlement — relations between Washington state and Washington, D.C. have become far more congenial.

No longer do Microsoft executives say “to heck with” the attorney general, and a statement from Bill Gates accusing the government of “trying to slow Microsoft down” has vanished from microsoft.com. Microsoft now outspends by far any other technology company on lobbyists, and has become secure enough in its political footing to dispatch them to use the political process to undermine its arch-rival, Google.

Harry
First, a New York University law school professor who teaches a
seminar about Microsoft’s antitrust case, said it’s “hard to know offhand”
whether an antitrust case could be made against Redmond’s potential acquisition
of Yahoo. But he said it doesn’t help that CEO Steve Ballmer has suggested, in
effect, that one reason the two companies need to get together is to compete
against Google.

“The argument that #2 and #3 have to get together to compete against #1 is usually not a good antitrust argument,” said First, who has not done legal work for any
of the three companies. “As concentration increases in the market, it could lead
to less competition, because you go from three (competitors) to two.”

There are “a lot of potential issues and a lot of potential parties that could
line up to sue them, from the Europeans to the federal government, and the
states also could be interested in that,” First said. “If this goes through, we
could be in for an interesting ride.”

News.com’s Anne Broache contribute to this report.

To his reservations, I add one. By no means am I the first to point this out, but when Wikipedia excludes most Internet users from the most populous country on Earth, it’s got a long way to go before its relative robustness in English is matched in Chinese. Of course, the billions of individuals not online around the world are also missing their say.

Vandalism on Wikipedia is a serious issue. People turn entire pages into insults directed at their subject. Others insert more insidious misinformation that’s hard to detect. The community is generally very good at catching these things, but banning open proxies was seen as a good way to reduce the number of people doing these things with impunity. If you don’t want your own IP to get banned for vandalism, maybe you’d use a service that hid your identity.

Here’s to 10 million nodes in this emerging body of knowledge, but idealists should be careful to note the limits of the project. I just hope the franchise extends more and more. If nothing else, I have a lot to learn from people who aren’t yet participating.

This means that people in China would have to display exceptional ingenuity to participate in the great compilation of information going on at Wikipedia. Some time ago, I wrote a review of now-Harvard Law School Professor Cass Sunstein’s book Infotopia. Sunstein focuses his book on the great potential, and potentially great downfalls, of online information gathering by massive communities.

That’s right, Wikipedia now has 10 million articles. But participation in this global brain-share is restricted in China.

Tor is perhaps the best known relatively robust anonymizing tool online. The Global Voices Online project promotes it in its guide to anonymous blogging. (It’s in English, but not blocked in China.) But Tor nodes, too, are usually blocked for editing.

When I want to see an article on Wikipedia, I pop it into the Anonymouse Web site, and the content comes right up. But if I see a mistake in an article, I’m unable to make my contribution.

Wikipedia being blocked is news to no one in China, but there’s a bit of a catch-22 even for those who use proxies to get around the restrictions: many proxy URLs and anonymizers are banned from editing Wikipedia to reduce vandalism.

And it helps residents of Brazil, one of Latin America’s leaders in Internet use, feel less isolated from the rest of the world, she said. As for YouTube, it started off only popular among youth in Brazil. Now, however, Falcao’s husband, a film director who is almost 50 years old, is hooked. So is her 90-year-old uncle. “His life is YouTube,” she said, adding that every day her uncle sends her a link to view.

But Falcao is totally new to making films specifically for the Web, as she did with Lacos (Ties), the six-minute short that not only made her the winner of YouTube’s Project Direct contest, it landed her a nine-day stay here at the Sundance Film Festival. Her expenses are being paid by Hewlett-Packard, which sponsored the contest. In addition to the trip, she’ll get the opportunity to meet with Fox Searchlight Pictures production executives.

(Credit:
Michelle Meyers/CNET News.com)

Never in her life did she think she’d end up at the Sundance Film Festival, said Falcao, who spoke through interpreter and friend Joana Braga, who’s also involved in the Brazilian film industry. Unlike other film festivals, Sundance, she said, is considered more on the cutting edge of new media.

It was Falcao’s 18-year-old daughter, Clarice, an actress, songwriter, singer, and YouTube aficionado, who first learned about contest. Project Direct is a followup to YouTube’s similar competitions in the music and comedy realms, said YouTube spokeswoman Jennifer Nielsen.

Project Direct was limited to filmmakers in Brazil, Canada, France, Italy, Spain, the U.K., and the U.S., for legal and other reasons, and entries had to be films created specifically for the contest. Judges included Juno director Jason Reitman and others from Fox Searchlight.

What excites Falcao about the Internet medium is that it allows anyone–her maid included–to access to film. Many residents of the poor country can not afford to go to the cinema, she said.

Missing from Sundance, sadly, is Clarice, who couldn’t get a visa in the month or so between when the contest results were announced and when Sundance began on Thursday.

Clarice, who was interested in putting together a high-caliber entry for the contest, solicited her mother’s help. Falcao said she was willing, so long as her daughter and the other cast member–a friend and former boyfriend of Clarice’s–participated in the creative process. After getting feedback from the young actors on their visions for the piece, Falcao wrote a script in a day, while Clarice wrote and recorded an English language song to go with it.

Collegue Flavia Lacerda filmed the picture in one day, and they spent one day editing.

“The whole thing cost $500 and took three days.” And it was quite a family effort. Falcao’s 15-year-old daughter handled the very modest wardrobe.

A professional author and screenwriter in her native Brazil, she’s contributed to some 15 scripts, including A Maquina (The Machine), which screened at film festivals internationally, and Ano em Que Meus Pais Sa?ram de F?rias, O (The Year My Parents Went on Vacation), which Brazil’s Ministry of Culture submitted for the 2007 Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film.

PARK CITY, Utah–Adriana Falcao, the winner of a recent YouTube film competition, is no stranger to the film industry.

Adriana Falcao readies for a night on the town on Friday night on Main Street in Park City, Utah, amid the Sundance Film Festival mania.

“This moved me and affected me so much,” Falcao said through Braga, adding that she’s now working on a film that relates to the way people use the Internet and is also planning other Web-based projects.

TI sells standalone applications processors like the 3440 to customers such as Nokia for use in high-end smartphones, but it is also talking up the potential for the 3440 as a chip for Mobile Internet Devices (MIDs). That’s Intel’s name for an evolving class of handheld computer that’s a bit more powerful than a smartphone but smaller and longer running than a notebook.

TI isn’t willing to give Intel any ground when it comes to portable handheld devices. Intel has already tried to gain ground against chipmakers like TI, Samsung Electronics, and Freescale Semiconductor with its XScale program. The XScale chip did fairly well as a standalone applications processor, but attempts by Intel to also get into the cellular modem business flopped, and the company offloaded the division in 2006 to Marvell Technology Group.

The new chip, like the Nvidia APX 2500 also unveiled Monday, can record and playback 720p high-definition video. It uses ARM’s Cortex A8 core running at 800MHz and can be used with any modem. TI hopes to have samples out for customers to start testing in phone and MID designs by the end of the second quarter.

Texas Instruments has a new OMAP chip to set upon the world, and this time around it’s eyeing more than mobile phones.

The new OMAP3440 made its debut in Barcelona at Mobile World Congress 2008. This is the latest in TI’s line of OMAP applications processors, which are the equivalent of the CPUs inside PCs.

Or would they decide that wouldn’t be good for business?

However, I understand that both comScore and its frats-in-stats at Nielsen Online are having their audits audited by the Interactive Advertising Bureau after mlb.com declared that Nielsen Online’s score for its site of 6 million was a “conScore.” The real figure, according to mlb.com, was actually 19 million. (the results of the audit’s audit are due at the end of this year.)

I try to leave discussions of numbers to intelligent people.

I have no reason to believe that the folks at comScore and Nielsen Online are anything other than well-meaning, dedicated but imperfect professionals.

Would they publicize these findings, as a declaration that they need to work harder, to find better methodologies in order to reveal more accurate truths? (Oh, there are so many inaccurate truths out there..)

But what if the conclusion of the IAB audit is that the figures from companies such as these have been wildly inaccurate?

You see, I only have a MacBook and I’m feeling ignored.

But there seems to be a big difference between 6 million and 19 million.

Wait a minute, they’re using panels? Does everyone know about this? Do the people who use their numbers know about this?

For so many people in the advertising business and beyond, who have their prejudices too, it is the headline that matters. They present in headlines. They talk about themselves in headlines. They need news.

comScore and Nielsen Online are in the business of creating some very soundbiting headlines indeed. (FACEBOOK OVERTAKES MYSPACE!!! OHMIGOD!!! I NEED TO WRITE A SONG ABOUT THIS!!!)

(Credit:
misocrazy)

What prejudices do research companies have? Is it, perhaps, important for them to have their research come up with newsworthy results? Are their methodologies actually primed to achieve that?

Mr. Manjoo performs an enjoyable analysis of some recent political controversies, such as the allegations that the elections of 2000 and 2004 were stolen by devious and surprisingly organized Republicans. (His conclusions seem to suggest that Mr. Gore was hard done by, Mr. Kerry was not.)

Being 21st Century humans whose budgets are shrinking, attention spans are short and careers even shorter, they sometimes eschew analysis for today’s news currency, the soundbite.

comScore has done a wonderful job.
Of marketing comScore results.

It’s called “True Enough: Learning to Live in A Post-Fact Society” by Farhad Manjoo.

If the Internet abacus company sees its readings suggest a significant conclusion, it releases the information in an interesting and digestible form.

There are allegations that comScore’s and Nielsen Online’s figures tend to discriminate against, for example, foreigners and MacOlytes.

What would their PR people do with that?

According to the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s CEO, Randall Rothenberg, these companies are “still relying on panels, a media-measurement technique invented for the radio industry exactly seven decades ago, to quantify the Internet”.

As I was thinking about this, a book wafted beneath my nose that tended to crystallize some human instincts about facts, something that numbers purport to be.

Why would the research companies allow for this sort of speculation?

The book is at its strongest in describing just how deeply most human beings want to find information that most closely confirms their own prejudices. And how they shut out information that counters those prejudices.

Which leads me to the headline of this post.

Why would they allow for the perception that someone on a
Mac in Krakow, Poland, is nothing more than a hanging chad?

I’m just asking.

“Yahoo’s board of directors remains committed to pursuing initiatives that maximize value for Yahoo’s stockholders. To the extent that the extension of the nomination deadline has the effect of postponing the nomination of one or more directors by any party, it will allow Yahoo’s board to continue to explore all of its strategic alternatives for maximizing value for stockholders without the distraction of a proxy contest,” Yahoo said in Wednesday’s announcement.

Full coverage
Microsoft’s big bid for Yahoo Click here for the latest on the software giant’s attempt to buy the Net pioneer.

Yahoo announced Wednesday that it is extending the deadline to nominate opposition candidates to its board of directors, a move that will likely delay a hostile proxy fight with Microsoft.

The deadline had previously been set for March 14, but now will be extended to a new deadline of 10 days after Yahoo announces the date for its shareholders meeting.

“As the company has not yet announced the date of this year’s annual meeting, the amendment will give stockholders who want to nominate one or more directors, including Microsoft Corporation, more time to do so. The amendment does not preclude any party from nominating one or more directors at any time prior to the new deadline.”

In its announcement, Yahoo stated:

My second bet: Microsoft will take that extra time.

As I predicted last week, Yahoo finds it wise to give Microsoft more time before it has to present its hostile slate of directors. The move also gives the Internet search pioneer more time to consider its options and other suitors, without putting undue pressure on Microsoft to go hostile. (See also: “Yang’s memo: Buying time in Microsoft bid”)

It’s also something that has worked for some of the industry’s most successful companies, a fact pointed out by Zack Urlocker, vice president of Lifecycle Marketing at Sun Microsystems:

Now Microsoft is being out-Microsoft’d by open source and doesn’t much like the feeling. I weep for it.

Microsoft must really love open source and want to see it succeed. Recently, Microsoft’s open-source team lead, Sam Ramji, urged open-source vendors not to compete with Microsoft on price, but instead focus on “value.”

Open source, in many ways, is doing to Microsoft and the rest of the proprietary software industry what Acer is doing to the personal computer industry, as highlighted recently in BusinessWeek:

…(Acer’s move into higher-end machines at low price points) may be good news for penny-pinching shoppers, but it will create new challenges for Lanci’s competitors. HP and Dell will have to face down Acer not just at the low end of the portable market but with higher-end products too…”They’re changing customers’ perception of what you should pay for a computer,” says Richard Shim, an analyst with the research firm IDC.

(Acer CEO Gianfranco) Lanci’s strategy? He has used Acer’s bare-bones cost structure to get extremely aggressive on price. He moved faster than HP and Dell in marketing a broad selection of the inexpensive portable computers known as netbooks. By selling basic machines for $300 to $600, Acer swiped chunks of market share while the rest of the PC business tanked…”To run a business with lower costs is good when the market is growing,” he says. “It’s even better when the market is not growing.”

No, price isn’t everything: it’s simply a fruitful way to start a conversation. The reason that commercial open-source companies are thriving in the downturn is precisely because they can make healthy profits while charging a lot less.

Why shouldn’t the open-source companies competing for market share trumpet their lower-cost offerings?

This is something to be heavily marketed, not hidden.

That’s a perfect way to describe what open source is doing to the industry, and, yes, price is a big component of that. Open source can lower the price of running e-mail (Zimbra, Open x-Change), CRM (SugarCRM), ECM (Alfresco, Drupal/Acquia, Joomla, KnowledgeTree), ERP (Openbravo, Compiere), IT management (Puppet, Hyperic, Zenoss), and other systems to $0.00.

Follow me on Twitter @mjasay.

Lower TCO and flexibility to launch and develop cost-prohibitive projects continue to be top reasons for using OSS (as open source helps) organizations cater to new opportunities for improving productivity while maintaining costs.

While I’m sure Ramji meant well, I’m equally certain that Microsoft would like nothing more than to not be reminded of how expensive its products can be compared with open-source solutions. After all, Microsoft was the company that turned the software industry on its head by introducing lower-cost solutions years ago to undermine the Unix businesses of IBM and Hewlett-Packard, and the database businesses of Oracle and IBM.

Microsoft may not like that but, well, this is competition, not charity.

commentary

If anyone knows the importance of pitching the market on low-cost, high-value software, it’s Microsoft. And if anyone knows how to stick its finger in the eye of more expensive rivals, it’s Microsoft, too, which has recently been blaring a “We’re cheaper! Buy from us!!” message to combat Apple’s in-roads against its Windows dominance.

That’s good company to be in.

While competing on price isn’t the only way to run a business, it’s worked well for Intel, Dell, Wal-Mart, Salesforce, JetBlue, et al.

Gartner recently reported that:

The HD Guru recommends basically a four-step method:

1) Research TVs online (of course, we recommend CNET’s HDTV reviews).

2) Go to a major retailer like Best Buy or Circuit City and look at your choices in person.

3) Go back online and find the absolute lowest price on your favorite HDTV.

4) Find a commission-based electronics store, and ask them to beat that price.

How cheap can you get the Editor's Choice-winning Panasonic TH-50PZ800U?

The HD Guru has had a long career in the consumer electronics business, including 30 years as VP for a chain of consumer electronics stores. The good news for you is that he’s willing to share some of the knowledge he’s picked up over the years, and his latest blog includes some sage advice on scoring the lowest price when buying a new HDTV.

The HD Guru’s article has the full scoop on why this works so well, so you’ll want to read the whole guide if you’re getting ready to buy. He also tells you how to handle the other buying issues, such as extended warranties, the ins and outs of delivery service, and where to buy cables (check out our HDMI cable guide as well).

We could definitely see some people having some ethical qualms with this method, as it seems like you’re abusing the goodwill of major retailers’ displays, then squeezing all the commission out of the other employees. On the other hand, the commission-based employees don’t have to do much work–since you already know what HDTV you want to buy–so they’re essentially getting a “free” sale.

Do you think the HD Guru’s methods are fair, or should you just go to one store and settle for a “fair” price? Let us know in the comments–we’d especially love to hear your opinion if you work in a commission-based electronics store.