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You would run MobiShow–which would be connected to your computer via Wi-Fi–and then use your mobile phone to set the proper screen resolution, as well as to easily click through various slides in a PowerPoint presentation.

SAN DIEGO–If you’re the kind of person who runs a lot of PowerPoint presentations, you probably are very familiar with trying to connect your computer to a million different projectors.

This would be extremely useful for the road warriors who until now have been forced to try to always remember to bring the various cables and connections they need to hook up to clients’ projection systems. Instead, they can rely solely on their computer and their mobile device.

But a Taiwanese company called Awind showed at DemoFall today a product called MobiShow which is designed to take the difficult and complex connection problem–what if you don’t have the right cables–folks like this face on a regular basis.

MobiShow is a mobile-phone and Wi-Fi based projection controller.

The idea is that with MobiShow running on your mobile phone, you can use that device as what amounts to a remote control for the presentation.

Fourth, I will ask our new board to offer publicly to sell Yahoo To Microsoft in a friendly and cooperative transaction.

Fifth, to the extent Microsoft does not want to make a proposal, I will ask our new board do a deal on search with Google, but only if it contains termination provisions that would in no way impede a subsequent acquisition by Microsoft.

Third, I intend to ask our new board to inform Microsoft that unless any alternative transaction can ensure a $33 or higher stock price (of which I am skeptical), all talks of alternative transactions are over.

Here’s what Yahoo had to say:

Leaving aside Mr. Icahn’s inaccurate interpretation of our retention plan, we again note that he has no credible plan to operate Yahoo. We believe that Mr. Icahn’s suggestion that we cancel our retention plan would have a destabilizing impact on Yahoo and would clearly not be in the best interests of our shareholders.

You asked, “What exactly would happen to our company if you and your nominees were to take control of Yahoo?” I will give you my perspective on that.

Yahoo, meanwhile, fired back a response that characterized as Icahn’s ideas as a no-go.

This post was updated at 9:59 a.m. PDT with Yahoo’s response.

After a one-day lull in the Yahoo-Icahn war of words, billionaire investor Carl Icahn on Friday listed his five-step game plan for the company, should his dissident slate of directors succeed in unseating Yahoo’s current board at the August 1 shareholder meeting.

Second, I intend to ask our new board to hire a talented and experienced CEO (attempting to replicate Google’s success with Eric Schmidt) to replace Jerry Yang and return Jerry to his role as “Chief Yahoo.” Indeed, it was much speculated that Jerry would serve in the CEO role temporarily until a permanent CEO was hired after the board asked Terry Semel to resign.

In a letter to Yahoo chairman Roy Bostock, Icahn states:

First, I would work to have the board replace your “poison pill” severance plan with an acceptable alternative.

Through AirBed & Breakfast, users can see what’s available in a certain area and rent a place for a few days.

The service is making its cash by charging a $5 booking fee per night. Otherwise, the rest of the money goes straight to the host and goes through an online payment system so there’s no need to deal with cash or check transactions in person. The site was started by a couple of San Francisco locals who took advantage of so many conferences taking place in the area and the need of local conference goers for one or two days’ lodging.

[via eHub]

While not a new idea, AirBed & Breakfast is a fun approach to couch surfing–a time honored tradition that encourages resource sharing between travelers who need a place to stay for a night or two, and people with open couches or a spare room.

The tool is set up like a hotel booking service, allowing people in need of a place to stay an easy way to browse open accommodations by city. As a host you can have people in your house as long as you’d like and set a fee per night or for a specific amount of time. The site also lets you post pictures, list amenities, and note all the little important things like pets, smoking, and whether you’ll have a meal ready in the morning (part of the “breakfast” in the moniker).

Related: Rent your stuff to strangers with Zilok

(Credit:
CNET Networks)

What’s also notable: the demographics. Twenty-somethings are most likely to get hit with ID theft.

The Consumer Sentinel Network is a secure online database that harvests complaints from law enforcement authorities, as well as other groups such as the Internet Crime Complaint Center and Better Business Bureau.

(Credit:
FTC)

Identity theft cases surged in 2008, according to the Federal Trade Commission.

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FTC)

Last year, ID theft was by far the biggest complaint to the FTC, representing 26 percent of total problems reported. The next biggest one–third-party and creditor debt collection scams–represented only 9 percent of complaints.

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FTC)

E-mail is clearly the preferred means of propagating fraud. Scam artists are most likely going to nail you via e-mail. Phone scams have fallen from 11 percent to 7 percent from 2007 to 2008. My hunch: as more consumers use wireless as their primary phone, it’s harder to track down victims.

(Credit:
FTC)

Here are the top 10 complaint categories, which often dovetail with the Internet.

Update at 9:30 a.m. PST: A new chart has been added to the end of the article.

The FTC’s annual Consumer Sentinel Network report (PDF), released Thursday, details that ID theft complaints totaled nearly 314,000 in 2008, up from about 259,000 in 2007 and up substantially from about 31,000 in 2000.

This was originally published in ZDNet’s Between the Lines.

The companies are working together in a number of areas, including security, virtualization, and document management as part of the extended deal, which will now run through 2011.

“If you look for that alliance or partnership to be perfect where there’s like zero areas of overlap,” Tucci said. “I’m not sure that’s physically possible with two powerful companies.”

Ballmer, noted that partnerships often either break down or prove to be irrelevant. That, he said, hasn’t been the case with EMC. Ballmer said that he was initially somewhat skeptical as to the amount of overlap the two companies would have, but said he was happy that Tucci’s optimism proved right.

Still, the partnership makes for strange bedfellows in a couple of areas, particularly virtualization. EMC, after all, bought virtualization leader VMware in 2004. Although EMC has spun VMware out as a separate public company, it still owns the bulk of the shares of VMware, Microsoft’s biggest competitor in the virtualization market.

EMC CEO Joe Tucci

Tucci and Ballmer sat down with CNET News at the Plaza Hotel in New York, where the two executives were meeting with several dozen CIOs and announcing a three-year extension of the companies’ joint sales and engineering partnership. The two companies have been partners in some areas since 2003, although the efforts have expanded significantly in recent years.

“We’re not sitting here pretending we are partnering with VMware,” Ballmer said. “There are things we try to cook up with those guys, but let’s put that aside. That’s more competition that needs to take into consideration what customers want.”

Tucci said that although it’s a win-win when customers buy both EMC and VMware, he’s also happy to sell storage gear that runs in conjunction with Microsoft’s Hyper-V virtualization product.

“To save 5 (percent) to 10 percent, you have to save a little bit on a lot of things,” Ballmer told CNET News on Tuesday, in a joint interview with EMC CEO Joe Tucci, “It’s not like there’s nothing new getting done. Some new projects are getting killed. There’s pressure on vendors to reduce prices.”

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Microsoft)

Tucci said he is seeing similar pressures due to the weakening economy. “Most of our customers are dealing with some element of their own restructuring,” he said. “They are trying to cut costs. They want quicker (return on investment).”

The storage business is being transformed also by virtualization. “While Joe may own 80 percent of VMware, he still thinks it is a good idea to sell jointly in areas where perhaps, we’ll win as opposed to VMware.”

But there is more to EMC and virtualization than its stake in VMware, Ballmer said.

NEW YORK–While tech spending has not evaporated, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said on Tuesday that most companies have mandated that their IT departments cut a significant percentage from their budgets.

This is the first of several postings coming from CNET’s interview with Tucci and Ballmer, which was conducted by Margurite Reardon, reporting from New York, and Ina Fried, reporting from San Francisco. Click here for the full interview.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer

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EMC)

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Ina Fried/CNET News)

The software maker also announced a hosted e-Journal service to allow online academic publications and conference proceedings to more easily be published.

I’ll have quite a bit more on Sphere and my visit with Wilson in a follow-up post.

The sphere-shaped, multitouch computer is similar to the tabletop Surface computer that Microsoft announced last year after years in development. This incarnation, however, remains a project within Microsoft Research and the company has no current plans to bring it to market.

As for Sphere, attendees will get to see that starting Tuesday as part of an exhibit hall at the event. However, I had a chance on Friday to sit down with surface computing pioneer Andy Wilson, who showed me some of the technology powering Sphere, which was developed in large part by Wilson’s colleague, Hrvoje Benko.

Microsoft's Andy Wilson shows off the technology behind Sphere, a globe-like surface computer developed by Microsoft Research. A group of academics gathered in Redmond this week will be among the first outside Microsoft to see the technology.

Sphere can run the same kinds of programs as Surface, such as a photo-sharing application in which multiple users can rotate, stretch, and move pictures. Its spherical shape though makes it more practical for some uses, such as gaming and mapping, and less useful for others.

REDMOND, Wash.– A group of academics will be among the first people outside Microsoft to see Sphere, a spherical surface computer developed by Microsoft Research.

The university researchers are at Microsoft as part of its yearly Faculty Summit. Also at the event, Microsoft announced a series of tools for researchers, including a plug-in for Office that lets people embed a Creative Commons license directly into their Word, Excel, and PowerPoint documents.

Bill Gates has talked about a vision for surface computing that stretches far beyond the high-end commercial applications of Surface and in several years’ time would have many, many of today’s surfaces becoming computerized, both at home and at work.

Sphere shares much in common with the tabletop Surface that is now being used in places like AT&T retail stores. At its core is a projector that beams the “screen” onto a globe-like display. As with Surface, infrared cameras are used to sense input, although the ones in Sphere are less precise than those used in the commercial Surface.

Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian announced Wednesday on the company blog that the site will be powering the news behind YourWeek, a new show on affiliates of the public broadcasting network. In a more youth-focused spin than PBS’ news is known for, the new show details the week’s headlines as chosen by Reddit users. Reddit has set up a new section of the site for discussion.

Social news site Digg has the beer-fueled Diggnation podcast, but its Conde Nast-owned rival Reddit is working on something more highbrow: a TV show on PBS.

Right now, there’s no formal debut date as the show is not completely greenlit. The show’s pilot will be broadcast online only, hitting the Web on June 6, and YourWeek will ideally launch on PBS stations in the fall.

“We’re finishing taping on the pilot this weekend and I can confirm that the Reddit alien (the site’s mascot) will be getting on-camera time,” Ohanian said to readers. The site is celebrating its new show’s user-generated spirit by throwing a contest for users to remix its theme song–”I suspect it won’t be long before we get a Rickroll remix,” he added.

Meanwhile, Reddit, which trails Digg in traffic and faces new competition from Yahoo Buzz, still has nothing against beer.

TeleNav Shotgun

Portable navigation devices (PNDs) continued to draw a lot of interest in 2008 as more and more consumers became aware of the advantages of in-car GPS and they became more affordable. We think prices will continue to drop in the new year since the market is oversaturated with these navigation aids and the GPS manufacturers compete to get new customers. However, it’s going to take more than an alluring price tag to keep the industry going.

With most PNDs offering the same core features and with the pressure and increasing popularity of GPS-enabled cell phones and location-based services, GPS manufacturers are having to step up their game by coming up with new technologies and features. That’s why we expect to see more connected devices like the Dash Express and TeleNav Shotgun in 2009, bringing the most up-to-date maps and real-time data to drivers at all times. Finally, we believe voice commands, traffic capabilities, advanced lane guidance, and 3D building/landmark renderings will continue to makes their way to more and more GPS.

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Corinne Schulze/CBS Interactive)

As such, a community effort around a network service, such as Red Hat’s Project Spacewalk, is hugely important. It’s important because it provides Red Hat a way to corral the growing commercial open-source ecosystem.

In the nine weeks or so since the debut of Spacewalk, we’ve been blown away by the level of interest, the contributions, and the excitement generated by the project…

To achieve this more effectively, however, Red Hat needs to reach out to the commercial open-source ecosystem and evangelize the benefits of building on Project Spacewalk, rather than creating silo’d “Red Hat Network-esque” offerings. To date, Red Hat seems to have taken an “If we build it, they might come” approach to Spacewalk. It needs to be a bit more proactive.

I’ve suggested before that the company that owns the heart of open-source monetization would be sitting on a massive opportunity. Yes, there are alternative ways to monetize open source (e.g., Google’s advertising model), but for many years to come vendors will make money by distributing software, not merely advertising around that software.

Back in early 2007 Red Hat let slip that it was planning to release its Red Hat Network code as an open-source project. In June of 2008, Red Hat officially announced that Red Hat Network Satellite would be open sourced.

commentary

Last week, Red Hat posted an update on the project, now called Project Spacewalk.

spacewalk-list@redhat.com : currently has over 250 members…
spacewalk-devel-list@redhat.com: currently has about 120 members…
The first patch from inside Red Hat came within three days of the opening of the mailing list.
The first patch from the community came within eight days.

Digg founder Kevin Rose, who has since gotten a much shorter haircut.

How has the current financial situation changed things at Digg? That stuff really started to unfold right after you raised your Series C round.
Rose: Nothing’s changed. One of the nice things about Digg is we’ve always run fairly lean. We have a small team and we’re a very text-heavy site, so as far as bandwidth is concerned it’s not like we’re YouTube spending a million dollars a week on bandwidth. For us it’s just always being conscious of who we’re hiring and why we’re hiring them, and do we need that person or not. We won’t be a 400-person company in a year or two years. It’s just picking the spots where we need some help and growing slowly, and staging that growth so it mirrors our own Web traffic growth…it’s always been out of necessity.

We sat down and said, okay, where do we want to be a few years from now and what are the resources that we need to make that happen? We would’ve ran out of cash had we executed on that plan to expand internationally. That raise was really, okay, let’s build the team that we need in San Francisco to continue to evolve the product, and invest in R&D and continue to scale the site, but at the same time let’s talk about international next year. So that’s what this is for.

So what about being such a cult figure (as host of the Diggnation podcast)?
Rose: There’s a lot of people that watch our podcast, and enjoy our podcast and say, hey, you know, you guys are funny because we get there and drink beers and comment on our favorite technology and geek-culture stories, so there’s that group of people who enjoy what we do as far as making the podcast. I don’t know, I’m just happy that people watch and that people enjoy what we’re doing. Alex (Albrecht, Diggnation’s co-host) and I, when we started the podcast, we really didn’t have any idea how many people were going to be into it. We were just, like, “Hey, we used to work together at TechTV, why not just do something fun and hit record?” Even if nobody watches we’ll still continue to do it because we like hanging out.

LONDON–Perhaps it’s fitting that Digg founder Kevin Rose chose the Future of Web Apps conference here as the place to elaborate on his company’s international expansion strategy. London, after all, has become the San Francisco-based Digg’s biggest hub of user activity. But with headlines dominated by financial disasters, life gets a little more complicated for a company determined to build up and keep hiring.

But there’s been no instance where you saw something really cool and wished you’d thought of it first?
Rose: I’ve seen some really interesting mashups of other peoples’ data that are really fun to play around with, and I’ve thought it would be really cool to see what Digg data looks like with that, but I can’t think of any one feature. I think some of the stuff that StumbleUpon is doing with their toolbar and providing recommendations in the toolbar is really interesting to us, but not right now. We have a very basic toolbar right now today.

CNET News caught up with Rose shortly after his presentation on Thursday morning. Here’s the first part of our two-part interview.

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Caroline McCarthy/CNET News)

What about other social news sites? Are any of them doing things that Digg isn’t that you’re hoping to emulate in one way or another?
Rose: That’s a good question. I really don’t use anybody else’s product. I’ve never used their services at all, I think I’ve maybe “buzzed” one article when (Yahoo Buzz) first came out. We don’t really base our product decisions on what anybody else is doing.

You said you’re going to stay at Digg for a while. You just raised a big Series C round. Does this mean the company’s going to stay independent (i.e. not get bought) for longer than originally planned?
Rose: The nice thing about the last raise is that it wasn’t, like “oh, we’re out of money, we need to raise more,” it was more based on the fact that we knew we wanted to expand into different languages and we knew we had to buy racks of servers over in Europe, and all that takes capital to make happen.

You said earlier this morning that Digg’s going to focus on expanding its appeal, that right now only a tenth of Digg’s visitors have registered for user accounts. Is Diggnation going to change, too?
Rose: No, Diggnation will always stay the same. It’s just kind of a fun show. Only a small percentage of the people who watch Diggnation actually go to Digg, there’s only about 250,000 people per week that watch Diggnation, and Digg has millions and millions of people. So it’s not like they’re really closely tied together.

You’re a geek hero. You’ve got a huge following. How much do you want to be “the Digg guy,” especially as Digg is expanding and moving beyond its roots?
Rose: Well, I absolutely love my job. It doesn’t feel like I’m working, ever, so that’s a nice place to be in when you’ve spent the last four years feeling like you don’t have a job and it’s just something you enjoy doing every day. So I don’t think that’s going to get old for quite some time. I’ll be at Digg for a while.

Are you anticipating a traffic drop after the election?
Rose: We don’t anticipate that, no. That’s a good question though…we’ve always seen traffic grow month over month. We’re fortunate enough to be in that position, and we’ve seen the different bumps as little things that come along. When the Olympics was going on we saw a little bump ther. When there’s big tech news or Apple events you always see bumps there. We’ll have to see. We haven’t really done any estimates on that.