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Sony is set to refresh its notebook lineup with upcoming mobile chips from Intel. Specifications posted on some reseller sites and leaked in Sony documents show a major refresh potentially in the offing.

This document posted on notebookreview.com shows a VGN-FW100 series image. One model (Vaio VGN-FW160E/H) posted on notebookreview.com is spec’d with a 2.26GHz Core 2 Duo P8400, 4GB of memory, a 250GB hard disk drive, and Blu-Ray Disc drive.

The P8400 is part of the P series of upcoming Intel processors that uses less power than current mainstream mobile processors.

(Credit:
Sony)

This may be good news for Advanced Micro Devices, too: its mobile graphics processors look to figure prominently in the new lineup.

The Vaio FW series is expected to pack AMD-ATI HD 3470 graphics as well as other graphics processors.

One reseller lists a Sony Vaio VGN-FW198U/H laptop with a 2.53GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T9400 processor, 4GB of memory, a 320GB hard disk drive, and a Blu-Ray disc drive. A price of $2,149.99 is given.

A post on Laptoping says some model will come with 16.4-inch screens. Other models include ultraportables “featuring a 13.1-inch screen,” Laptoping said. This series, as well as other Sony notebooks, will have a High Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI).

Sony said it would not comment on speculation.

A consumer notebook line with 13.3-inch LED backlit LCD is also cited with an ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3470 graphics chip on various sites. Models listed here specify an Intel Core 2 Duo P8400.

Sony Vaio laptop

The T9400 is not yet listed on Intel’s processor pricing page, but logically slots in below the T9500 (2.6GHz) listed at $530.

In April, Fogel tossed out the lawsuit Lenz filed against Universal in October. Fogel said her argument that Universal was misusing its copyright was weak.

SAN JOSE, Calif.–Stephanie Lenz is an angry Pennsylvania mother who refuses to back down from the music industry.

EFF, which advocates for the rights of Internet users, disagrees. The group has always said there is real harm caused when a media company issues take-down notices. For example, Lenz had to spend time learning why her video was taken down and convincing YouTube that she had not violated copyright law.

Even though Universal Music now says it no longer considers Lenz’s baby video to be infringing on its copyright, Lenz says just receiving the take-down letter caused her harm.

The good news for her is that U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel said he would take the matter under consideration after hearing arguments from both sides.

What Lenz and her attorneys at the Electronic Frontier Foundation want are for media companies to stop sending take-down notices in a “willy nilly” fashion and to make sure that they have a legitimate claim of copyright violation before acting. They failed do this with Lenz’s video, according to Corynne McSherry, an EFF attorney.

Lenz’s attorneys were in federal district court on Friday morning, trying to thwart a motion to dismiss her lawsuit against Universal Music Group. A year ago, the music label ordered YouTube to pull down a 30-second video she shot of her infant son dancing to Prince’s song “Let’s Go Crazy.”

A lawyer for Universal Music argued that the label isn’t liable for ordering Lenz’s video to be removed because it doesn’t have to think about Fair Use prior to sending take-down notices. There is no legal obligation to think about it in advance.

Lenz, who resides in a rural Pennsylvania area, claims that her video is protected under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and the Fair Use provision in copyright law. She fought the order, and eventually, Universal Music abandoned any claim that she violated Prince’s copyright. YouTube has since reposted her clip.

“This video is so clearly noninfringing,” McSherry said. “What we’ve seen is that Universal Music had the view that they could take down Prince content as a matter of principle. But what they were obligated to do was form a good-faith belief that the video was infringing…They may not have formed a good-faith belief at all.”

Now Lenz is out to teach the music industry a lesson.

EFF promptly filed a second complaint, arguing that Universal Music should compensate Lenz for falsely accusing her of violating the law and getting her video removed from Google’s video-sharing service. The music label has asked the judge to dismiss the case.

This is the video in question.

(Credit: Stephanie Lenz)

Fogel gave no timetable on when he might make a decision. Should he decline to dismiss the case, Lenz’s lawsuit would be allowed to move forward.

The judge did allow Lenz’s EFF attorneys, however, to try their arguments a second time.

I’m not suggesting that I personally could have stood by and watched, had I worked for Sun, but I also think it’s important not to burden Sun’s efforts to remedy some errors of its past with all the good it’s doing now. I believe in that pesky repentance thing.

commentary

Every contract that I’ve negotiated in the last few years has, at the customer’s or partner’s insistence, a section in it that prohibits disclosure of the contract. I would guess that similar wording is to be found in the partnership agreement between Sun and SCO.

Pamela Jones of Groklaw rightly takes umbrage that Sun Microsystems apparently stood by while The SCO Group attempted to foul the pedigree of Linux, but how much righteous indignation is warranted is debatable. Jones writes:

Yes, but this overlooks one convenient point: Sun was competing with Linux. Hard. Not only did it not have a legal obligation to speak out, it may well have had a legal obligation to not speak out.

Even if Sun had an obligation, legal or otherwise, to disclose Linux’s clean bill of health, why would it? We can argue that it may have had a moral obligation, but it also has a fiduciary duty to its shareholders, which arguably wouldn’t have been well-served by propping up a competitor, however unfairly maligned.

It had in the power of its hand the ability to protect Linux users. Silence. For years and years and years. While folks got sued, and the FUD campaign raged on.

And what an icky role Sun played, to judge from (Novell’s Greg) Jones’ description of the agreement. Look at all the damage that resulted from Sun’s silence, the litigation that never had to happen….And as far as Linux is concerned, why didn’t Sun speak out to help?

Sincerely,

As we wrote in an e-mail on Sept. 30, AOL(R) Journals will permanently shut down on Oct. 31. It’s never an easy decision to shut down a feature, especially one like AOL Journals that some of our members have used for a long time. But with a decline in Journals usage, we have to look carefully at all of AOL’s features to make sure we’re providing as much value to our members as possible.

AOL has begun notifying bloggers who’ve used its Journals site that they should move their content to Google’s Blogger or bid it adieu.

Krupansky also quoted a reminder letter AOL sent him:

Remember, it’s very important to save your Journals content before Oct. 31. If you choose not to move to Blogger, you’ll need to save your information manually (for example, by copying and pasting its contents into a word processor).

AOL set up a partnership with Google’s Blogger.com so that people can migrate their blogs, and Jack Krupansky is one user who made the move successfully. “It was mostly painless since I already have a Google account and a number of Blogger blogs,” he said in a blog posting. He did have to manually republish all the old blogs, though.

The company, which is winnowing down its properties to improve its financial performance, published a notice last week that it’s closing its AOL Journals blog site as well as its Hometown/FTP site for hosting Web pages on October 31. And now it’s begun sending users notices that it’s time to move.

The AOL Journals Team

Though we know this might be an inconvenience, the good news is that we’ve partnered with Blogger.com to provide a smooth transition for your journal. Blogger is a free service from Google that makes it easy to share your thoughts with friends and the world. Blogger supports most of the features you’ve come to expect from AOL Journals, and it’s easy to get started. If you wish to transfer your journal to Blogger, they will move your posts, comments and photos to your new blog on their service. When you’re ready, go to this link to get started.

AOL didn’t arrange such a smooth transition for the Hometown service. “Unfortunately, we’re not able to offer a replacement Web hosting option at this time. If you go to AOL Search and search for “Web Hosting,” you will find reviews of different services and viable options,” the company said, and members need to manually download their files stored at the site.

Again, we appreciate your patience and understanding as we make this transition, and we hope you enjoy using Blogger.com.

Dear AOL Journals user,

A Rogers representative the company told the CBC the offer is being extending through September to allow buyers of the new BlackBerry Bold to take advantage of it. The Bold was introduced only week ago.

(Credit:
Apple)

Rogers, Canada’s exclusive
iPhone carrier, will offer the 6-gigabyte data service for $30 a month for all smartphone users, including Apple iPhone users, and laptop air cards.

Because Rogers requires users to sign a 3-year contract, the mobile operator offers one of the most expensive iPhone data plans in the world. But on a monthly basis, it’s not so bad, at only about $60 a month. AT&T’s iPhone 3G plans start at $70 a month for voice and data.

CBC reports that Rogers believes that its new pricing plans should satisfy most customers, since the carrier said it has found that only 1 percent of iPhone users used more than 1GB of data in their first month, and most used less than 500MB. Rogers is also allowing customers to “tether” their smartphones or use the phone as a modem for laptops. This is not allowed by other carriers, such as AT&T in the United States.

Come October 1, Rogers will have new plans in place. A $25 plan will provide 500MB of data downloads for $25. And a $30-a-month plan will allow subscribers to download 1GB of data. These data plans must also accompany voice plans that start around $20 a month.

Canadian cell phone carrier Rogers Communications is extending its iPhone data plan promotion another month, as it tries to figure out how best to price data plans for smartphone users, CBC reported Thursday.

The promotion, which was launched with the iPhone 3G’s July 11 debut, was set to expire at the end of August. The carrier offered the special promotion after customers complained about a similarly priced plan that offered only 400 megabytes of data per month.

To help make sure that customers don’t run up ridiculously high data bills without realizing it, the company is also rolling out a “peace-of-mind protection plan” in October. This plan will send customers free text messages warning them if they are close to crossing a certain threshold of data usage. The company will also cap excess usage charges at $100, the CBC report said.

It’s interesting that both companies decided this relatively late stage would be the time to sway public opinion.

“Here’s the bottom line,” Decker wrote late last week. “Yahoo will use this agreement to help us become a stronger competitor in all aspects of online advertising; and Yahoo is not exiting the sponsored search business. We plan to remain a strong player in sponsored search.”

Sue Decker

For example, Decker goes into more depth than Google has about advertisers setting prices for keyword bids. “Where Google is getting higher bids than Yahoo today, this is because advertisers perceive that Google is delivering more value–more targeted leads, more clicks, and more conversions. That’s why an advertiser might be willing to bid more for a click on Google than for a click on Yahoo–the belief that the advertiser will get more value from Google. Google is not setting prices. Advertisers determine how to value keywords.

Early on, she takes issue with a statistic thrown around by Microsoft that the deal gives Google 90 percent share of the search-ad market, a statistic that derives from combining the two companies’ individual share. “That’s just plain wrong,” she said. “It’s important to note that the agreement is non-exclusive and gives us the option to ‘backfill’ with Google ads if and when we see fit. The reason we structured the deal this way–rather than a more typical exclusive deal with revenue commitments to us and traffic commitments to Google–was precisely to avoid the issues the critics are raising.”

First came Google, with a series of blog posts and a frequently asked questions page. Now Yahoo has also joined in with a “myth-busting” blog post from Yahoo President Sue Decker.

The deal, with an initial four-year term and two optional three-year renewals, is expected to give Yahoo $800 million in new revenue in its first year. It’s scheduled to begin in early October, and Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt has said the ad deal remains on its launch schedule in the absence of any opinions from antitrust regulators.

Perhaps in the earlier stages they didn’t want to appear to be bullying the Justice Department, the European Union, and other regulators trying to assess whether the deal is anticompetitive. Or perhaps they’re growing more concerned about whether the deal will emerge intact.

Yahoo and Google–put on the defensive by antitrust scrutiny and Microsoft agitating focused on the Internet companies’ search-ad deal–are trying their best to reclaim the initiative as the project’s launch date nears.

Decker offered a detailed explanation about how the search deal works and why Yahoo wants it–an explanation that probably should have been offered much earlier in the discussion.

The Times report, citing sources, noted Microsoft not only paid $800 million to acquire Tellme Networks but spent an additional $100 million on employee retention perks–or an average of $300,000 per employees for the 330-member workforce.

Yahoo, meanwhile, has invested millions of dollars in its own search technology, called Panama, so a partnership with Google would be a serious departure from its previous efforts–though it would not necessarily mean that the Internet company is completely killing off its entire ad infrastructure.

One potential take-away from the Wall Street Journal and New York Times stories is negotiations between Yahoo and Microsoft may be hitting a rough patch, after media reports surfaced last Friday suggesting the two companies may try negotiating again this week.

News.com’s Desiree Everts contributed to this report.

That reported truce arose following rapid-fire reports last week of potential additional buyers hovering nearby. The often-reported Time Warner-AOL suitor may find traction in teaming up with Google to enter into a Yahoo deal, while speculation surfaced that Microsoft and News Corp. are toying with the notion of potentially making a joint bid for Yahoo.

Yahoo is closer to outsourcing its core ad search business to Google,
after favorable testing of Google’s advertisements on its search pages,
according to a report in The Wall Street Journal.

Yahoo may need such help if Microsoft is concerned about the additional costs it may have to bear to retain Yahoo employees.

The Internet search pioneer has run both a Microsoft buyout scenario and a Google outsourcing deal through its antitrust viewfinder, according to sources who spoke with CNET News.com.

And while the Journal report notes that some view a Yahoo-Google outsourcing agreement, beyond the two-week test, as “mere gamesmanship” given potential antitrust issues it could pose, it may, nonetheless, seem a valid alternative to those weighing their options at Yahoo.

The WSJ cited people familiar with the matter who said that a deal between Yahoo and Google is increasingly likely given the status of the testing. The report also notes that such an outsourcing deal could give Yahoo a boost in its efforts to spur Microsoft into increasing its unsolicited buyout bid for the Internet search pioneer.

A report in the New York Times noted “the hidden cost of ‘flight insurance’ against employee defections may also be a reason Microsoft has resisted raising its bid.”

Last week, Yahoo announced it would begin a limited test of using Google to deliver some search advertising. Microsoft immediately came back with a stern warning that such a partnership would hurt competition.

And, in the Journal report, it cites sources as saying that even if Yahoo pursued an outsourcing partnership with Google, it would not necessarily nix a Microsoft deal. The report notes Yahoo, for example, could step away from its Google fling, should it hitch up with Microsoft.

Apple has released a firmware update for the iPhone that might be the fix
iPhone 3G owners have been awaiting.

The release notes accompanying the new firmware refer rather obliquely to “bug fixes,” the same term Apple used when it released the 2.0.1 firmware update a few weeks ago. If anyone out there notices an improvement in their 3G connectivity as compared to yesterday’s performance, please let us know.

I contacted Apple for more information about the update, but didn’t hear back immediately. I’ll update when and if I do hear back from the company.

Click image to enlarge.

We’re putting iPhone OS 2.0.2 through its paces at the moment, but it should be available in iTunes the next time you connect your iPhone. The Boy Genius Report reported earlier on Monday that the update was coming, although that report was unable to verify whether the iPhone 3G reception problems would be fixed with this release. Business Week reported last week that Apple and Infineon were preparing to release a software fix for the iPhone’s 3G chipset.

Such statements will help define how the two chip giants do battle at the high end of the graphics chip market in the coming years.

AMD, of course, also intends to deliver extreme graphics technology with its upcoming X2, a follow-on to the current 3870 X2 series. And AMD wants to be clear: its strategy is fundamentally different than Nvidia’s.

Nvidia’s “strategy is to design for the highest performance at all cost. And we believe designing for the sweet spot and then leveraging for the extreme enthusiast market with multiple GPUs is the preferred approach,” Skynner said.

Desai takes this argument a bit further. “They don’t have the money to invest in high-end GPUs anymore. At the high end, there is no prize for second place. If you’re going to invest a half-billion dollars–which is what it takes to develop a new enthusiast-level GPU–you have to know you’re going to win. You either do it to win, or you don’t invest the money.”

(Credit:
Asus)

“We took two chips and put it on one board (X2). By doing that we have a smaller chip that is much more power efficient,” said Matt Skynner, vice president of marketing for the graphics products group at AMD.

This applies to memory too. AMD thinks support for technologies like GDDR5 memory is another way to deliver good performance at a reasonable cost. “You don’t need a huge chip with a huge data path to get the bandwidth. You can utilize a technology like GDDR5 to get that bandwidth,” Skynner said.

Nvidia tends to favor very-fast, single-chip solutions.

“So when you add it all up, you now have the power of two GPUs, the power of the bridge chip, and the power that all of that additional memory consumes. That’s why it’s too simplistic of an argument to say that two smaller chips is always more efficient.”

“If you take two chips and put them together, you then have to add a bridge chip that allows the two chips to talk to each other…And you can’t gang the memory together,” said Ujesh Desai, general manager for GeForce products at Nvidia.

One of the largest graphics chips yet will be Nvidia’s upcoming high-end GTX 280. This is the kind of chip that high-end gaming enthusiasts crave. But great performance often means a large transistor count. And the GTX 280 is expected to have both.

Nvidia, of course, has a different take on why it chooses to develop big, fast chips.

Skynner said that AMD tries to design GPUs (graphics processing units) for the mainstream segment of the market, then ratchet up performance by adding GPUs rather than designing one large, very-high-performance chip.

Here is an Asus board using AMD-ATI 3870 X2 that will be superseded by the new X2 board.

Advanced Micro Devices’ ATI graphics chip unit doesn’t want to build “huge” chips like rival Nvidia, an executive says.

“We believe this is a much stronger strategy than going for a huge, monolithic chip that is very expensive and eats a lot of power and really can only be used for a small portion of the market,” he said. “Scaling that large chip down into the performance segment doesn’t make sense–because of the power and because of the size.”

But an Nvidia exec says smaller isn’t always better or more efficient.

(Note: Nvidia does offer GeForce 9800 GX2 technology but the GX2 uses a dual-board design–two 9800 chips, one on each board–rather than putting two chips on a single board as with AMD’s Radeon HD 3870 X2.)

(Credit:
DailyLit)

The Wikipedia-based topics DailyLit is creating “tours” of major world religions (22 installments–compared with the 260 installments for Moby Dick), “Wine 101,” presidents of the United States, “Best Picture” Oscar winners, famous poets, famous women in history, Greek mythology, famous inventors, and wonders of the world.

Each installment has a brief intro to a subcategory, such as Buddhism in the religions tour, and a link to the relevant Wikipedia page. Wikipedia’s content is available for such repurposing under the Creative Commons license.

The free service would be perfect for people who are short on time and don’t mind digesting literature and information in 5 minutes at a time on their handheld.

DailyLit, which offers entire books over e-mail and RSS in daily serialized chunks every day, is now offering information from Wikipedia on various topics.