Chinon's Avi Stylix iPod / iPhone docking station packs 7-inch LCD, streams Netflix*

It doesn't scream quality (or maybe the legion of professional stock photographers were all on vacation last week), but the June-bound Avi Stylix does have something that the vast majority of me-too iPod / iPhone docking stations do not: an embedded 7-inch LCD. The usual suspects are also here, including a Dock Connector port, twin two-watt speakers, USB port, SD card slot and a bundled remote. The kicker is its ability to stream Netflix, but there's an obvious catch; you'll need an iPhone or iPod touch with a live internet connection in order to do so. There's no actual WiFi module built into the main unit, so you'll need to rely on your connected device to pull in the content. Still, for $99.99, it might not be a bad bet for your guest room. Or your office desk, since you know you aren't getting any actual work done.

AT&T acquires T-Mobile USA in $39 billion deal

AT&T is buying T-Mobile USA. AT&T will make a $25 billion
cash payment, and $14 billion will be paid using AT&T stock.

New York (CNN) -- AT&T will acquire T-Mobile USA from telecommunications company Deutsche Telekom for an estimated $39 billion in cash and stocks, the companies said in a joint release Sunday.

The acquisition will expand AT&T's 4G network 1.2 million square miles and will be accessible to an additional 46.5 million Americans, the statement said. AT&T also expects to gain enough cell towers to increase its network density by 30%.

"This transaction represents a major commitment to strengthen and expand critical infrastructure for our nation's future," AT&T chief executive Randall Stephenson said in a statement.

The $39 billion purchase will include a $25 billion cash payment; the remainder will be paid using AT&T stock. AT&T can increase the cash portion of the price tag by up to $4.2 billion while cutting the stock portion.

As part of the acquisition, Deutsche Telekom will have an 8% equity stake in AT&T and a company representative will join the AT&T board of directors.

The agreement has been approved by the boards of directors at both AT&T and Deutsche Telekom.

CNNMoney: AT&T to acquire T-Mobile for $39 billion

The new entity would be the biggest in the US, combining AT&T's 95 million customers with T-Mobile's 34 million users for a total of 130 million subscribers.

AT&T said the transaction would quickly provide "the spectrum and network efficiencies necessary ... to address impending spectrum exhaust in key markets" due to the exponential growth of traffic on its network.

The telecom giant added that it expects to gain enough cell towers through the deal to increase its network density by 30%.

As part of the merger, AT&T committed to expand its 4G network 1.2 million square miles, making it accessible to an additional 46.5 million Americans, mostly in rural and smaller communities, the statement said.

The AT&T release notes that its 4G expansion would help achieve the Federal Communications Commission and President Obama's goals to connect "every part of America to the digital age."

The $39 billion purchase will include a $25 billion cash payment; the remainder will be paid using AT&T stock. AT&T can increase the cash portion of the payment by up to $4.2 billion while cutting the stock portion.

AT&T didn't directly address how the merger would affect the new company's pricing. But on the website it built to announce the deal, www.mobilizeeverything.com, it notes: "Historically, during periods when carriers combined to achieve efficiencies, U.S. wireless prices fell."

The company also cites a 2010 report from the U.S. General Accounting Office which found that the average cost of wireless services (adjusted for inflation) "declined 50 percent from 1999 to 2009, during a period which saw five major wireless mergers." The agreement has been approved by the boards of directors at both AT&T and Deutsche Telekom, but will be subject to regulatory approval.

Fortune: Regulatory hurdles await merger

Charles Golvin from Forrester Research said: "AT&T's acquisition of T-Mobile, if approved, brings good news and bad news. The good news: high-speed mobile broadband service will improve in quality and coverage, including ? in the long run ? those in rural communities outside the reach of terrestrial broadband today.

"The bad news: the cost of that service won't come down nearly as fast as customers would like, since AT&T and Verizon Wireless combined would own nearly three out of every four wireless subscriptions in the US. While clearly troublesome for Sprint and other mobile smaller mobile competitors, It's also bad news for cable operators, whose incipient mobility products will suffer in comparison to what AT&T and Verizon can offer."

Drones 'winning' war against al-Qaeda, says ex-CIA head

The use of the remote-controlled craft has
stirred anti-American feelings in Pakistan

More than 40 people were killed in Pakistan last week in a US drone attack near the Afghan border. The use of unmanned drones have always been controversial, but ex-CIA director Michael Hayden says they are winning the war.

Ten years on from 9/11, al-Qaeda appears to be on the back foot. One of the main reasons is that its leadership no longer enjoys untouchable sanctuary in the tribal areas of Pakistan where for many years it has been able to plot and train its recruits.

The reason? Pilotless American drone aircraft with a payload of deadly Hellfire missiles, guided to their targets by remote control from thousands of miles away in the American desert.

Not for nothing are the drones known as "Predators".

Former CIA director, Gen Michael Hayden, could not sing their praises loudly enough - although ironically the word "drone" cannot pass his lips, so sensitive and allegedly secret is the CIA's programme of targeted killings.

How can a programme be secret when its results are plain for all to see?

Gen Michael Hayden believed the results had been spectacular.

"A significant fraction of al-Qaeda senior leadership in the tribal region has been 'taken off the battlefield'," he said.

"That used to mean 'killed or captured'. In the last couple of years it simply means killed. We just aren't doing any capturing."

Ironically the CIA's drone programme was greatly accelerated under President Obama who has authorised more than 160 Predator missions - four times as many as his predecessor, President George W Bush, targeting not just al-Qaeda but Taliban leaders also hiding in the border areas.

The programme has been highly contentious and controversial.

Gen Hayden denied the attacks were state-authorised assassinations. He said the US was at war with al-Qaeda and the Taliban, and was simply acting in self-defence.

When I pointed out that legally the war was in Afghanistan not Pakistan, he said that was not how the American administration looked at it.

"No they're not assassinations. This is a war, this is action against opposing armed enemy force. This is an inherent right of America to self-defence.

"I can only fulfil my moral and legal responsibilities to the citizens of my republic by taking this war to this enemy wherever they may be."

Judge, jury and executioner

There is another side to the equation.

However effective the CIA may believe its programme to be, it has damaged America's reputation in Pakistan still further, fuelling anti-American propaganda and bringing yet more recruits to the militants' cause.
Continue reading the main story
“Start Quote


I think we'd be naive to believe the propaganda that says that firing these fantastic weapons is killing the right people”Clive Stafford SmithReprieve

Hundreds of civilians have been killed in the attacks, although it is impossible to put a precise figure on the number of innocent victims.

It is estimated by the New America Foundation that between 2004 and 2010 they may have been responsible for around 25% of those killed.

Human rights lawyers on both sides of the Atlantic have grown increasingly concerned about the US government appearing to act as judge, jury and executioner.

Jameel Jaffer of the American Council for Civil Liberties said: "This is quite an awesome power, the power to label somebody as an enemy [then] wipe them out without judicial process of any kind."

His sentiments are echoed by the director of Reprieve, Clive Stafford Smith.

"Who does get killed? Are these really Taliban people and al-Qaeda or are they random civilians who had nothing to do with it?" he said.

"I think we'd be naive to believe the propaganda that says that firing these fantastic weapons is killing the right people."

Gen Hayden has not been fazed by such arguments.

"It has been a very strong significant force in making the al-Qaeda senior leadership spend most of their waking moments worrying about their survival, rather than threatening yours or mine. And that is a war-winning effort," he told me.

But other highly-respected and experienced voices in the intelligence community do not share Gen Hayden's view about winning the war.

In her first television interview, I asked the former director general of MI5, Baroness Manningham-Buller, if she thought the war was winnable. She has spent 40 years fighting terrorism.

"Not in a military sense. There won't be a Waterloo or an al-Alamein," she said.

"The terminology about winning the war on terror was not something that I ever subscribed to.

"If we can get to a state where there are fewer attacks, less lethal attacks, fewer young people being drawn in, less causes, resolution of the Palestinian question, I think we can get to a stage where the threat is thus reduced."

At the end of the interview, given her long experience in fighting terrorism in Northern Ireland and her intimate knowledge of the secret talks between MI5 and the IRA, I asked her if we should talk to al-Qaeda as we had once talked to the IRA.

Her reply took me by surprise. "I would hope that people are trying to do so," she said.

"It's always better to talk to the people who are attacking you than attacking them, if you can.

"I don't know whether they are, but I would hope that people are trying to reach out to the Taliban, to people on the edges of al-Qaeda to talk to them."

I then asked her if she thought that al-Qaeda would listen.

"I don't know," she said. "Doesn't mean to say it's not worth trying."

Peter Taylor will report for BBC Two's The Secret War on Terror on Monday, 21 March, at 2100 GMT. Catch-up afterwards on BBCiPlayer.

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Wield the ultimate gaming weapon for greater performance in 3D gaming applications. Experience smoother and more realistic gaming made possible by distributing AI, physics, and rendering across six cores and 12 threads, bringing 3D to life for the ultimate gaming experience. And take digital content creation to a whole new level for photo retouching and photo editing. Unlock your full potential with Intel's top-of-the-line desktop processor and experience total creative freedom that's limited only by your imagination.

ICANN approves .xxx for adult sites

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers said Friday it approved the .xxx domain for adult web sites after years of nixing the idea.

A spokesman for ICANN, which holds jurisdiction over top-level domains, confirmed the go-ahead.

ICM Registry, the nonprofit organization that has been pushing to establish .xxx, will distribute it to porn sites. Even before approval, the site hosted a start-up plan pending the proposed domain's entry.

"In order to provide an orderly process for members of the registrant community and to use our resources effectively during this intervening period, ICM has decided to undertake the first phase of the Industry Reservation Period," the group's site said.

In June, ICANN's board of directors approved the top-level domain, which is the technical name for the .com, .xxx or .net part of a URL . It was sent to the next committee for approval.

In the past, ICM Registry has argued that the .xxx domain is beneficial to the public, because it indicates a clear signal that the domain contains pornography.

Courtesy of CNN.

UPDATE 1-Mizuho Bank says its ATMs in Japan stopped working

(Reuters) - Mizuho Bank said on Thursday that all of its automatic teller machines (ATM) throughout Japan and its Internet transaction system have stopped working.

A spokesman for Japan's second-largest bank said the reason for the outage was not known, although he doubted its was due to this week's power outages in the Tokyo area and eastern Japan or last week's massive earthquake.

Shares of Mizuho Financial dropped more than 4 percent to 130 yen, although they pared losses to trade down 2.2 percent at 134 yen, in line with the benchmark Nikkei 225 average which lost 2.5 percent. (Reporting by Mariko Katsumura; Editing by Edmund Klamann)

Internet Explorer 9 speeds past the competition

The latest version of Microsoft's browser is fast, lean and means business.

By Preston Gralla

Computerworld - Throw away what you think you know about Internet Explorer -- because the just-released IE9 will turn it all on its ear. Think IE is sluggish? Think again, because according to SunSpider tests, it rivals or beats the speed demons Chrome and Opera. Believe that IE sports a tired-looking interface? No longer --- it now has the same type of stripped-down look that Chrome originated, and that the latest version of Firefox uses as well.

IE9 (available only for Vista and Windows 7) also introduces other goodies, such as HTML5 support, Windows 7 integration, a double-duty address bar and more. It's clearly Microsoft's best shot at stopping the erosion of its market share by rivals Firefox and Chrome.
Moving to a clean interface

Microsoft takes a page from Google Chrome with its design for IE9 -- it's simple and clean, putting as much focus as possible on Web content and not on the browser itself.

Internet Explorer 9 sports a simple, stripped-down interface.

All unneeded buttons and controls have been eliminated, and tabs are now at the top of the browser. (For a bit of simple eye candy, the top and the sides of IE9 are transparent.) The arrangement works. Web pages take center stage, with very little to distract you. There's not even a search box; as with Chrome, the address bar does double-duty as a search box.


Three small icons on the upper-right corner of the screen give you access to IE9's options: a Home button, a Favorites button for managing bookmarks, and a Tools button shaped like a gear. The Tools button leads you to most of the browser's other features and options, such as security, privacy, add-ons, customizing search and so on.

When you open a new tab in IE9, you get thumbnails of frequently visited pages.

There's another new feature to the IE9 interface as well. When you open a new tab, it displays thumbnails of pages you frequently visit. Rival browsers have done this for some time, but IE9 adds a new twist: At the bottom of each thumbnail is a bar that shows how frequently you visit each page. The longer the bar, the more you've visited the page. And there are some very useful other things you can do from this page as well, including reopening your last browsing session, reopening tabs you've closed during the browsing session, and getting recommendations for sites you might want to visit, based on the sites you frequently visit. You can also launch an anonymous browsing session, which IE terms "InPrivate Browsing."
IE9: The new speed demon?

Among the loudest complaints against previous versions of Internet Explorer was its lack of speed. In a world in which graphics-heavy Web pages get heavier every year, videos are becoming normal elements and Web-based apps are replacing desktop-based applications, this sluggishness could have become a fatal flaw.


Microsoft was clearly cognizant of that when it went to the drawing board for Internet Explorer 9. Its new JavaScript engine, called Chakra, uses multiple processor cores to do its work, and compiles scripts in the background on one of those cores. IE9 also uses the computer's GPU to accelerate text and graphics rendering, especially HTML5 graphics.

I ran tests on IE9 and competing browsers using the SunSpider JavaScript Benchmark. I used a Dell Dimension 9200 with a 2.4-GHz Intel Core 2 Quad processor and 2GB of RAM running Windows Vista. I ran three sets of tests on each browser and averaged the results.


IE9 beat all the others. It took an average 280 milliseconds (ms) to complete the tests, followed by Opera 11.01 at 308.8 ms, Chrome 10.0.648 at 316.7 ms, Firefox 4 Release Candidate at 319.1 ms and Safari 5.0.4 at 410.2 ms.


As a practical matter, there's not much difference in these tests between the top four performers. It's not going to be noticeable by most surfers. But in previous tests I ran, Internet Explorer 8 took between five and six times the amount of time to complete the SunSpider tests as its next-slowest rival, Firefox, making this an astonishing speed improvement. And the fact remains: On this test, Internet Explorer beat all rivals.

When IE9 and competing browsers were run using the SunSpider JavaScript Benchmark, IE9 proved to be the fastest. (Lower numbers are better.)

It's an open question, though, as to whether Internet Explorer's hardware-accelerated GPU handling of processing-intensive work is superior to other browsers. The upcoming Firefox 4 also uses hardware acceleration, andMicrosoft and Firefox have been trading fire over which browser is superior in that respect. We'll have to wait until a set of agreed-upon benchmarks emerge for measuring that capability before judging.

Keeping up with standard

Past versions of Internet Explorer have been criticized for not adhering to Web standards, something that Microsoft has fixed in Internet Explorer 9. Microsoft now has an Internet Explorer Test Drive page to demonstrate embedded videos and other features.

IE9 lets you easily route your searches to other search providers rather than your default one. As you type in a search term, icons of other search providers appear underneath the list of matches. Simply click any icon to launch the search using that provider. That's all well and good. But when you do this, you're actually changing your default search provider to the alternate provider. So even if you only want to search Wikipedia once for a particular search, choosing its icon means that all subsequent searches will be done through Wikipedia as well, until you change it back -- a feature that can be very troublesome.
Making friends with Windows 7

Microsoft has tweaked IE9 for Windows 7, giving the browser some capabilities not available when it runs in Windows Vista. The most noticeable is that you can pin a Web site to the taskbar by dragging its URL to the taskbar. The site's icon then appears in the taskbar; to visit the site, click the icon. When you get to the site this way, the site will essentially "brand" IE9 -- the forward and back buttons will use the colors of the pinned site, and the Web site's icon will appear in the upper left of the browser. IE9 does this on its own; no development on the part of the site owner is required.

 Web developers can use the Windows 7 Jump List to add site navigation and additional features (such as music controls) to the pinned icon.

These features, while potentially very useful, may not turn out to be as helpful in actual practice. Adding features to the Jump List requires programming on the part of the site owner. In the past, Microsoft has added special features such as Web Slices that required site owners to do development work in order to take advantage of them -- and they rarely did so. Given that even Microsoft.com hasn't done any programming to take advantage of Jump Lists, it's not clear that this will become widely used.

 Pinning a site can also prove to be somewhat annoying, because when you launch a site in this way, it launches in its own browser, and not as a tab in an already open browser. That means each pinned site will run in its own browser instance, making it confusing to switch among them.

 IE9 also uses another Windows 7 feature, Windows Snap. Tear away a tab away from IE9 and drag it to the side of the screen, and it resizes the tab and places it in its own window, to fill half the screen.

Performance Advisor and Notification Bar

Browser add-ons can slow a browser's performance, and IE9 includes a nifty tool called the Performance Advisor to help you track down ones that might be particularly problematic. When you launch IE9, the Performance Advisor looks to see whether any add-ons might slow down the browser and then opens the Notification Bar at the bottom of the screen.

IE9's Performance Manager lets you turn off add-ons that may prove a drag on the browser's performance.

 If you click "Disable add-ons," you'll see a screen that shows name of the add-ons, their manufacturers and an estimate of how much extra time they each take when you're launching your browser, opening a new tab or navigating to a Web site. Even Microsoft's own add-ons are included. You then have the option of disabling any to speed up browsing. This is a great tool for letting you decide whether the capabilities of an add-on are worth the browsing delay it exacts.

The Notification Bar offers other info as well. It tells you, for example, if you're visiting a Web page that includes both secure and nonsecure content, such as an online store that uses an HTTPS/SSL secure connection, but also displays ads, images or scripts from a non-HTTPS server. At that point, the Notification Bar warns you that IE9 is displaying only secure content and gives you the option of displaying both types of content by clicking the "Show all content" button. This is useful but potentially annoying, because this notification appears every time you visit the Web site; you have to click the button each time.

The Notification Bar pops up relevant warnings and notifications.

 Improved security and a download manager

IE9 also includes a variety of security improvements. One of the most important is to the SmartScreen Filter, which is designed to protect you from visiting phishing sites, and whose capabilities have been expanded to protect against malicious downloads.

 When you download a file in IE9, the SmartScreen Filter uses a new "download reputation" feature to examine the file's reputation -- how many other people have downloaded the file, and if they have found it to be safe or malicious. If the SmartScreen Filter determines it's safe, you simply download the file. But if the file has a malicious reputation, or if very few people have downloaded it so that it has no reputation to check, you're warned. You can then decide whether to download.

This feature won't replace your existing anti-malware program. It's designed for protection against malicious files so new that anti-malware software may not have had a chance to flag them as malicious. Some anti-malware software has begun to use similar technology to this, but still, it's nice to have this built into IE9 -- multiple means of protection are always a good idea.

IE9 includes a well-designed Download Manager that tracks all of your downloaded files and lets you search through them. In addition to the download reputation feature, the manager will warn you when it detects that you're downloading a file from a malicious Web site.
What's missing

Internet Explorer still trails Firefox and Chrome in one area: add-ons. Both those browsers have thriving ecosystems of third-party developers writing add-ons; Internet Explorer doesn't.

Through the years, Microsoft has tried to get around this by creating technologies that Web sites and others can easily plug into, such as the aforementioned Web Slices and Accelerators, as a way to send information from another Web site directly to your current browser page.

Despite Microsoft prodding and promotion, neither of those technologies ever took off. At this point, there doesn't seem to be a way for Microsoft to build that same ecosystem. If you're a fan of plug-ins and add-ons, you likely won't be a fan of Internet Explorer.

 Another issue is that Microsoft has no plans to develop IE versions for mobile platforms other than Windows Phone 7. This may put it at a disadvantage in a mobile future when people want to sync browser information among their computers and mobile devices.
The bottom line

If you've stopped using Internet Explorer because of speed problems or a tired-looking interface, you should give IE9 a try (assuming you use Windows 7 or Vista, of course). You'll be surprised by its dramatic speed improvements and slicker interface. Improved adherence to Web standards is a plus as well, as are new features such as a double-duty address bar and the Performance Advisor. Existing IE users will want to upgrade right away -- it's hard to argue against a faster, cleaner-looking browser with a host of other nice extras.

Preston Gralla is a contributing editor for Computerworld.com and the author of more than 35 books, including How the Internet Works (Que, 2006).

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