SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Google Inc. will sell the online services of other business software makers in an effort to fill its own product gaps and persuade more companies to rely on applications piped over the Internet. The online store that was announced late Tuesday marks another step in Google’s crusade to convert the world to “cloud computing,” the idea of running applications in Web browsers instead of installing them on individual hard drives. The information entered in the programs also is stored in data centers run by third parties such as Google. More than 50 software makers have agreed to sell their Internet programs through Google, which will keep 20 percent of the sales. The prices are expected to range from $50 annually to several hundred dollars annually per user. Intuit Inc., a maker of business accounting software, and Concur Technologies Inc., a maker of expense reimbursement software, are among the best-known vendors peddling their wares in Google’s store. All the applications sold in Google’s store can be melded with Google’s own cloud-computing services, said Vic Gundotra, the company’s vice president of engineering. Google views cloud computing as a way to deepen people’s dependence on its services and generate more revenue beyond the Internet search advertising that provides virtually all its income. Cloud computing also provides Google with a weapon that could weaken one of its biggest rivals, Microsoft Corp. Although it’s introducing more online alternatives, Microsoft still makes most of its money from individual computer licenses of its Windows operating system and software programs. The applications store could also could provide fodder for the low-cost computers that will run on a Google operating system named after its Chrome Web browser. The first computers using Chrome OS won’t have a hard drive, meaning they will need Internet access and cloud-computing services to perform the tasks routinely done on Windows-powered machines. Google began offering a free online suite of e-mail, word processing, spreadsheet and calendar applications in 2006. It has been selling a more sophisticated package of online services for $50 per user for the past three years. Cloud computing can be a tough sell to corporate decision makers worried about security risks and business disruptions if a technology glitch or major meltdown blocks access to vital applications and data stored on external servers. Google has invested billions of dollars during the past five years to keep its systems up and running. Nevertheless, Google’s applications users occasionally have been cut off from their e-mail accounts and other services. About 25 million people working for more than 2 million businesses, government agencies and schools use Google’s online applications, according to the company. Google won’t say how many users pay for the service, but the number is growing rapidly. The company’s revenue from software licensing and other non-advertising sources totaled $762 million last year, more than quadrupling from $181 million in 2007.
March 10, 2010 | Posted in
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NEW YORK (AP) — Annie Leibovitz, the photographer who mismanaged her fortune so badly that she faced losing legal rights to some of pop culture’s most enduring images, has reached a long-term agreement with a private investment firm to help manage her debt and market her vast portfolio, both sides said Tuesday. Leibovitz, 60, will retain total control of her multimillion-dollar portfolio under the deal she signed with Colony Capital LLC of Santa Monica, Calif., on Monday, said Richard Nanula, a principal with the firm. Under the agreement, Colony will become the photographer’s sole creditor and help market her archive of such provocative images as a nude John Lennon cuddling with a clothed Yoko Ono hours before his death, as well as a nude and very pregnant Demi Moore. Leibovitz obtained an extension last year to repay a $24 million loan to a Manhattan firm, Art Capital Group, in a financial dispute that had threatened her rights to those images and others. The specific terms of the new deal were not disclosed, but Nanula said “it pays off all the Art Capital loan. … It cleans up the rest of her balance sheet.” The Colony loan also contains more than $20 million of real estate collateral, Nanula added – Leibovitz’s three Manhattan town houses. The Art Capital loan was repaid Monday, he said. Art Capital confirmed the repayment and said in a statement that it “is pleased to announce that its loan to Annie Leibovitz has been satisfied. We are encouraged by the results of this complex transaction and wish Ms. Leibovitz the best in all of her future endeavors.” “It’s long-term in nature,” Nanula said of the partnership with Leibovitz. “Our interest is in helping her be successful and to be her financial partner.” “Colony is a dedicated and creative team,” Leibovitz said in a statement. “We will be working on new projects, and I will have the support and freedom necessary for nurturing my work and preserving my archive.” “Colony Capital, LLC has formed a new partnership with Annie Leibovitz, one of world’s greatest portrait photographers,” the firm said in a statement. “We are delighted to be able to do that here by partnering with Ms. Leibovitz in a business relationship that allows her to continue to flourish as an artist while together we seek opportunities to enhance the value of the magnificent body of work she has created over the past 40 years.” Those opportunities, Nanula said, could involve traveling exhibitions of Leibovitz’s works, books and fine-art copies of her photographs. He stressed that any commercialization of her work would be decided by Leibovitz and that Colony would be her financial partner in any such venture. Leibovitz’s portfolio is estimated to contain more than 100,000 images and 1 million negatives. “It’s one of the most valuable and unexploited” photo archives, Nanula said. The deal between Colony and Leibovitz was first reported in the Financial Times on Tuesday. Colony Capital is a global firm that focuses primarily on real estate-related assets, securities and operating companies. Last year, it purchased a loan with a face value of $23.5 million on Michael Jackson’s Neverland in California, giving it the rights to the late singer’s nearly 3,000-acre property. In the course of her 40-year career, Leibovitz’s lens has captured such famous faces as Queen Elizabeth II and Bruce Springsteen, many for the covers of Vanity Fair, Vogue and Rolling Stone. In 2008, Leibovitz put up as collateral the three town houses, an upstate New York property and the copyright to her images to secure the Art Capital loan to repay debt that the firm said stemmed from mortgage obligations, tax liens and unpaid bills. Art Capital, an independent provider of financing for the art world, agreed at the time it extended the repayment on the loan to sell back the rights to her works.
March 9, 2010 | Posted in
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NEW YORK (AP) — Andy Richter, Conan O’Brien’s sidekick at “The Tonight Show,” is acknowledging some ill will toward NBC and Jay Leno in the wake of the network’s late-night upheaval. “Why wouldn’t I?” said Richter, who was filling in Tuesday for Regis Philbin on “Live! with Regis and Kelly.” Richter told Kelly Ripa he was frustrated that Leno was allowed to reclaim “The Tonight Show” host chair just nine months after O’Brien had inherited that plum assignment. “NBC, definitely, everybody said they were going to do something and they didn’t,” said Richter, implying the network broke long-standing commitments it made to O’Brien. O’Brien left NBC and “Tonight” in January amid complaints by NBC of low ratings. NBC had proposed reinstating Leno in the 11:35 p.m. EST slot and bumping O’Brien back a half-hour. O’Brien’s future is unclear. So is Richter’s, though he said, for now, he’s still an NBC employee, “so we’ll see if those checks keep coming.” He called a rumored live concert tour for O’Brien and Co. “a distinct possibility.” It all ended much quicker than he could have imagined, said Richter, who figured his “Tonight” job was “as good as it gets in show business.” He said he figured “I’m a tenured professor of show business now,” but quickly learned otherwise. “I guess I’m really good at getting kicked off the air, because it’s what I’ve been doing for the last 10 years.” Ripa had a suggestion for his next career move. “You and Conan should do another show on another network called ‘We Were on The Tonight Show,’” she joked. “Wouldn’t that be exciting!” — On the Net: http://bventertainment.go.com/tv/buenavista/regisandkelly/index.html
March 9, 2010 | Posted in
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NEW YORK (AP) — An estimated 41.3 million people saw “The Hurt Locker” top the popular “Avatar” for best picture in the most-watched Academy Awards telecast since 2005. Oscar viewership was up 14 percent over last year, the Nielsen Co. said Monday, keeping with a trend of bigger audiences for major events on broadcast television a month after the Super Bowl set the mark for most-watched telecast ever. In true film fashion, the Oscars built to a big climax when the Iraqi war thriller “The Hurt Locker” and its director, Kathryn Bigelow, topped “Avatar,” directed by her ex-husband James Cameron. Bigelow was the first woman to win the Oscar for best director. The audience was up from the 36.3 million who saw “Slumdog Millionaire” win best picture last year and 32 million – Oscar’s smallest audience on record – in 2008, Nielsen said. The Oscars had just over 42 million watch in 2005, when “Million Dollar Baby” was the big winner. The Oscar ratings fall in line with bigger audiences for awards shows in recent months. The Golden Globes were up 14 percent over the year before, and the performance-heavy Grammys up 36 percent, Nielsen said. The Emmys, the Tonys and the Miss America pageant all saw higher ratings. Analysts say fewer chances for Americans to gather in front of the television set for communal events may help make these events more popular. With a poor economy, more people are staying home, too. The Internet may also help draw viewers; experts say many people are online while the shows are on, and they comment about them to friends. Ratings for the New York market appeared unaffected by a business dispute between Cablevision and ABC’s parent, Walt Disney Co. ABC had been dropped by Cablevision for its 3.1 million subscribers in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut on Sunday, and the network was not restored until 13 minutes after the Academy Awards telecast began. Still, New York ranked No. 13 among among the 56 biggest media markets in the country, Nielsen said. New York’s overnight rating was 11 percent above the average for all of the big markets.
March 8, 2010 | Posted in
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LONDON (AP) — It’s the new front in the nanny state: Microchips placed in garbage bins to monitor how much people throw away. A pro-privacy group warns in a new report that more than 2.6 million of the chips have been surreptitiously installed in what is seen as a first step toward charging those who toss too much. Proponents say it’s a bid to push recycling. Opponents say it stinks. “They should mind their own business,” said Terry Williams, an unemployed Londoner who thinks the government is meddling. “I believe they have gone too far. It’s not like we are throwing away anything that is illegal.” The advocacy group Big Brother Watch found through a series of Freedom of Information requests that many local governments, called councils in Britain, are installing the microchips in trash cans distributed to households, but in most cases have not yet activated them – in part because officials know the move would be unpopular. “They are waiting for the political climate to change before they start using them,” said campaign director Dylan Sharpe, who predicted that families that produce large amounts of garbage would be fined. The trash microchips are now part of the British information grid, which already includes a heavy reliance on closed-circuit television surveillance and cameras to monitor the population, particularly on the crowded public transportation system. “This is yet another piece of surveillance that the councils are taking on in our daily life,” said Sharpe. “With this information they can tell if we are home or not, and the information is stored on their database, which is not that secure.” He said the “pay as you throw” policy councils are planning to implement would discriminate against large families that generate more waste and might encourage people to burn their refuse – or dump it illegally – rather than pay extra. “That’s what’s happened in Ireland, where they’re tried this,” he said. “Over the last 10 years we’ve seen a massive increase in CCTV, and the introduction of laws allowing police to search at random. There has been a general trend in this country toward gathering as much data as possible.” But Gary Hopkins, a councilor in Bristol, said the microchips will be a useful tool in an innovative program to reward people who reduce household waste, not part of a secret plan to charge those who produce high volumes. “It’s voluntary, not compulsory,” he said. “A compulsory plan would not work. We’ve managed to persuade the people of Bristol to participate in the recycling program. We want to encourage the people who aren’t using it to join in as well.” The government’s ambitious information-gathering plans go still further. Security officials working on counterterrorism plans have lobbied for greater powers to track every e-mail, text, and phone call made in the U.K. The country already maintains an extensive DNA database that is, per capita, the largest in the world. Then there are the alleged “nanny state” initiatives designed to use laws and regulation to modify troublesome social behavior. The government in January banned some drinking games and bar promotions in an effort to curb binge drinking, and a government-funded design effort is under way to produce a shatterproof pint glass so drunken “lager louts” will be less able to break glasses and use the shards as weapons. The government may even get involved in the effort to help young women have a better self-image by requiring advertisers who retouch photos of fashion models to print disclaimers making clear that the airbrushed models don’t look that great in real life. The thinking is that this would make women less like to try to starve themselves into perfection. The use of microchips in trash bins has spread dramatically in the last year, the new study shows. Microchips were first fitted into some British trash bins eight years ago, and the debate over whether the state has the right to weigh or otherwise analyze residents’ refuse has surfaced periodically since. In 2006, then-British environment minister Ben Bradshaw told Britons that they might someday have to pay for the amount of waste they produce – arguing that the practice would encourage people to waste less and reduce pressure on landfills while making recycling more popular. His successor, David Miliband, moved to lift a ban which prevented local officials from offering financial incentives for recycling – further clearing the way for the use of garbage-monitoring microchips. The nature of the chips and their exact purpose vary across the country: Some of the chips are intended to sense the weight of the garbage piled into a bin. Others are meant to track the whereabouts of the bin itself, or check whether it has been emptied. None of the chips are used to charge residents in so-called “pay-as-you-throw” plans – at least so far. But many believe the microchips are part of a stealth plan to increase fees and fines. “It makes me very angry,” said Nat Spencer, 35, of London. “I’ve been thinking of moving out, it’s gotten that bad.” — On the Net: Big Brother Watch report: http://bit.ly/aNIv2d — Associated Press Writers Raphael G. Satter and Chonel LaPorte contributed to this report.
March 5, 2010 | Posted in
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NEW YORK (AP) — Sean Penn has strong words for those who think he’s showing off with his aid to earthquake-ravaged Haiti. In an interview airing on this weekend’s “Sunday Morning” on CBS, the outspoken actor says he hopes any cynic who dismisses his efforts as a star turn will “die screaming of rectal cancer.” Penn has visited the devastated Caribbean nation accompanied by doctors and a U.S. businesswoman with whom he established a relief organization. He has brought water filters for distribution to villages and met with aid groups. Besides raising funds, Penn says he has contributed his own money. When asked how much, he replies with a laugh, “Enough that I’d better get a job soon.” — CBS is a division of CBS Corp. — On the Net: http://www.cbsnews.com/sections/sunday/main3445.shtml
March 5, 2010 | Posted in
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DETROIT (AP) — Michigan regulators said Thursday that a member of the Winans gospel-music family led a fraudulent, multimillion-dollar investment program by promoting bogus Saudi Arabia oil bonds. The Office of Financial and Insurance Regulation issued a cease-and-desist order, although Commissioner Ken Ross said the alleged scheme probably stopped at the end of 2008. Ross said Michael Winans Jr. told investors they could double their money in 60 days. Detroit police identified and interviewed at least 180 investors, but state regulators say the actual number is higher. “Our investigation found that Michael Winans Jr. orchestrated a scheme that resulted in hundreds of Detroit residents losing millions of hard-earned dollars,” Ross said in a release. “Promising sky-high, guaranteed returns, these scammers unscrupulously fleeced unsuspecting churchgoers who let their financial guard down.” Winans could not immediately be reached for comment. A phone number linked to his address in the Detroit area was unanswered, and numbers listed for Winans’ Detroit-based music publishing company have been disconnected. Ross said the Ponzi scheme was worth at least $2.6 million but could have been as high as $11 million. He said Winans used connections in Detroit churches to draw investors between early 2007 and late 2008. State regulators said Winans, his associates and related business entities violated the state’s Uniform Securities Act, and turned over the results of its investigation to local, state and federal law enforcement agencies. Those found violating the act face a maximum penalty of $25,000 per violation and 10 years in prison. A Ponzi scheme is a fraudulent investing technique that promises high rates of return with little risk to investors. Money provided by new investors is used to pay seemingly high returns to early stage investors, but the scheme collapses when required redemptions exceed new investments. Winans is a third-generation member of one of gospel music’s first families. He’s the grandson of Delores “Mom” Winans and David “Pop” Winans Sr., who died last year; and son of Michael Winans Sr., a member of The Winans, a quartet of brothers.
March 5, 2010 | Posted in
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SOUTHLAKE, Texas (AP) — Toyota has for years blocked access to data stored in devices similar to airline “black boxes” that could explain crashes blamed on sudden unintended acceleration, according to an Associated Press review of lawsuits nationwide and interviews with auto crash experts. The AP investigation found that Toyota has been inconsistent – and sometimes even contradictory – in revealing exactly what the devices record and don’t record, including critical data about whether the brake or accelerator pedals were depressed at the time of a crash. By contrast, most other automakers routinely allow much more open access to information from their event data recorders, commonly known as EDRs. AP also found that Toyota: – Has frequently refused to provide key information sought by crash victims and survivors. – Uses proprietary software in its EDRs. Until this week, there was only a single laptop in the U.S. containing the software needed to read the data following a crash. – In some lawsuits, when pressed to provide recorder information Toyota either settled or provided printouts with the key columns blank. Toyota’s “black box” information is emerging as a critical legal issue amid the recall of 8 million vehicles by the world’s largest automaker. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said this week that 52 people have died in crashes linked to accelerator problems, triggering an avalanche of lawsuits. When Toyota was asked by the AP to explain what exactly its recorders do collect, a company statement said Thursday that the devices record data from five seconds before until two seconds after an air bag is deployed in a crash. The statement said information is captured about vehicle speed, the accelerator’s angle, gear shift position, whether the seat belt was used and the angle of the driver’s seat. There was no initial mention of brakes – a key point in the sudden acceleration problem. When AP went back to Toyota to ask specifically about brake information, Toyota responded that its EDRs do, in fact, record “data on the brake’s position and the antilock brake system.” But that does not square with information obtained by attorneys in a deadly crash last year in Southlake, Texas, and in a 2004 accident in Indiana that killed an elderly woman. In the Texas crash, where four people died when their 2008 Avalon ripped through a fence, hit a tree and flipped into an icy pond, an EDR readout obtained by police listed as “off” any information on acceleration or braking. In the 2004 crash in Evansville, Ind., that killed 77-year-old Juanita Grossman, attorneys for her family say a Toyota technician traveled from the company’s U.S. headquarters in Torrance, Calif., to examine her 2003 Camry. Before she died, the 5-foot-2, 125-pound woman told relatives she was practically standing with both feet on the brake pedal but could not stop the car from slamming into a building. Records confirm that emergency personnel found Grossman with both feet on the brake pedal. A Toyota representative told the family’s attorneys there was “no sensor that would have preserved information regarding the accelerator and brake positions at the time of impact,” according to a summary of the case provided by Safety Research & Strategies Inc., a Rehoboth, Mass.-based company that does vehicle safety research for attorneys, engineers, government and others. One attorney in the Texas case contends in court documents that the Toyota may have deliberately stopped allowing its EDRs to collect critical information so the Japanese automaker would not be forced to reveal it in court cases. “This goes directly to defendants’ notice of the problem and willingness to cover up the problem,” said E. Todd Tracy, who had been suing automakers for 20 years. Randy Roberts, an attorney for the driver in that case, said he was surprised at how little information the Avalon’s EDR contained. “When I found out the Toyota black box was so uninformative, I was shocked,” Roberts said. Toyota refused comment Thursday on Tracy’s allegations because it is an ongoing legal matter, but said the company does share EDR information with government regulators. “Because the EDR system is an experimental device and is neither intended, nor reliable, for accident reconstruction, Toyota’s policy is to download data only at the direction of law enforcement, NHTSA or a court order,” the Toyota statement said. Last week, Toyota acknowledged it has only a single laptop available in the U.S. to download its data recorder information because it is still a prototype, despite being in use since 2001 in Toyota vehicles. Three other laptops capable of reading the devices were delivered this week to NHTSA for training on their use, Toyota said, and 150 more will be brought to the U.S. for commercial use by the end of April. By contrast, acceptance and distribution of data recorder technology by other automakers is commonplace. General Motors, for example, has licensed the auto parts maker Bosch to produce a device capable of downloading EDR data directly to a laptop computer, either from the scene of an accident or later. The device is available to law enforcement agencies or any other third party, spokesman Alan Adler said. Spokesmen from Ford and Chrysler said their recorder data is just as accessible. “We put what you would call ‘open systems’ in our vehicles, which are readable by law enforcement or anyone who has a need to read that data,” Chrysler spokesman Mike Palese said. Nissan also makes its EDR data readily available to third parties using a device called Consult, spokesman Colin Price said. The program allows access to a host of vehicle data, from diagnosing the cause of a check-engine light to downloading EDR data after a crash, he said. However, Honda does not allow open access to its EDR data. Spokesman Ed Miller said the data is only readable by Honda and is made available only by court order. In many cases, attorneys and crash experts say EDR data could help explain what happened in the moments before a crash by detailing the positions of the gas and brake pedals as well as the engine’s RPM. “Had Toyota gotten on the stick and made this stuff available early on, I think they’d be in a better position than they are now,” said W.R. “Rusty” Haight, owner of a San Diego-based collision investigation company. In congressional hearings on the recalls last week, U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said Toyota’s EDR data cannot be read by a commercially available tool used readily by other automakers. “Toyota has a proprietary EDR, which is the system that only they can read,” LaHood said. The AP review of lawsuits around the country found many in which Toyota was accused of refusing to reveal EDR and other data, and not just in sudden acceleration cases. In Kentucky, to cite one example, a recent lawsuit filed by Dari Martin over a wreck involving a 2007 Prius sought information from Toyota to bolster his claim that the car’s seatbelt was defective. Toyota refused, contending there was no reliable way to validate the EDR data and that an engineer would have to travel from New Jersey or California at a cost of some $5,000 to retrieve it. “There is simply no justifiable reason for Toyota not to disclose this information,” Martin’s lawyers said in a court filing. Lawsuits in California and Colorado have accused Toyota of systemically withholding key documents and information in a wide variety of accident cases, but no judge or jury has found against the car company on those allegations. Some crash experts say Toyota shouldn’t bear too much criticism for failing to capture large amounts or specific kinds of data, because EDR systems were initially built for air bag deployment and not necessarily to reconstruct wrecks. They also vary widely from vehicle model to model, said Haight, the San Diego collision expert. “That doesn’t mean I’m hiding something or preventing you from getting something,” Haight said. “It simply means that, in the development of a car, other considerations took priority – nothing more.” —– Anderson reported from Miami. AP Business Writer Dan Strumpf in New York, AP writer Greg Bluestein in Atlanta and AP Researcher Barbara Sambriski in New York contributed to this report.
March 4, 2010 | Posted in
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PITTSFIELD, Mass. (AP) — A Western Massachusetts funeral home is trying “bring life” to business with a chili cook-off, a murder-mystery show and free limo rides to couples on their 50th anniversaries. Terry Probst, the new managing partner of the Devanny-Condron Funeral Home in Pittsfield, hopes the events will remind people that the funeral home is a center for community life. He said if customers know that the funeral home also can be the setting for other, happier activities, they might take some comfort in the place later when dark times come. Among other other events sponsored by the funeral home are an art walk, a visit by the Easter Bunny, and monthly birthday cakes to the Pittsfield Senior Center. — Information from: The Berkshire Eagle, http://www.berkshireeagle.com
March 4, 2010 | Posted in
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NEW YORK (AP) — Facebook says it is working with Omniture, a company that measures and analyzes Web traffic, to help businesses use the world’s largest social network as a marketing channel. Using Omniture’s products, companies will be able to measure how effective their ads are on Facebook. They will also be able to buy Facebook ads using an Omniture tool for managing search engine marketing. And they will be able to compare how well their ad campaigns do on Facebook compared with other outlets. Facebook and Omniture said Wednesday they are expanding their existing partnership that began last year. Adobe Systems Inc. bought Omniture last fall for $1.8 billion.
March 3, 2010 | Posted in
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