Internet aiding hunt for US adventurer Steve Fossett (AFP)

Fossett has not been heard from since September 3, when he failed to return after taking off on a solo flight from a private airstrip 80 miles (130 kilometers) southeast of Reno, Nevada.

An intensive search and rescue operation involving dozens of aircraft has so far found no trace of the world-record-breaking aviator.

Nevada State Police spokesman Chuck Allen told AFP that volunteers were helping scour more than 10,000 square miles (25,900 kilometers) of rugged Nevada terrain via Internet applications.

"We're continuing to get a number of leads from people searching on the Internet with Google/Yahoo!," Nevada State Police spokesman Chuck Allen said. "We're looking at all those leads but we haven't found anything yet."

A parallel Internet search is also being co-ordinated by administrators of Fosset's official website, , using analysis of 's Amazon Mechanical Turk.

Allen meanwhile told AFP that a hotline had been established for people to pass on information about possible sightings and said rescuers were still optimistic of finding Fossett.

"The general mood is still very positive. I took a lead last night that I thought that was extremely credible and we're chasing it down today. As yet nothing has transpired."

Meanwhile rescuers have expressed concern about the possibility of participants in an annual air show straying into airspace being patrolled by rescue planes.

More than 150 aircraft are due to participate in the Reno Air Races which get underway Thursday, giving searchers a potential headache.

"We're asking the flying public to give us a wide berth and don't come in and try to assist," said Civil Air Patrol Major Cynthia Ryan, adding that rescuers remained optimistic of finding Fossett.

"It starts to take its toll on our people as well as others watching the search," Ryan said. "We keep hoping today is going to be the day."

Fossett has survived numerous near-misses and harrowing crash landings over the years, including a 29,000-foot (9,000-meter) plummet into the Coral Sea off Australia because of a storm-shredded balloon.

Fossett's single-engine Bellanca aircraft was equipped with an electronic tracking device designed to be triggered in the event of a rough landing, but it has not been activated.

Fossett made the first solo nonstop, non-refueled circumnavigation of the globe in 67 hours in the Virgin Atlantic GlobalFlyer. In 2002, he was the first person to fly solo around the world in a balloon.

Apple Passes the Million-iPhone Mark (NewsFactor)

On Monday, Apple announced it had sold one million iPhones as of September 9, 2007. The iPhone combines three devices — a mobile phone, a widescreen iPod, and a mobile Internet device — into one handset that is controlled with Apple's multitouch interface and software that allows users to launch functions with just a tap, flick, or pinch of their fingers.

"One million iPhones in 74 days — it took almost two years to achieve this milestone with iPod," Apple CEO Steve Jobs said in a statement. "We can't wait to get this revolutionary product into the hands of even more customers this holiday season."

An iPod or an iPhone?

The news of the iPhone's millionth sale comes just five days after Jobs unveiled the iPod touch, which features the same multitouch interface that has helped make the iPhone so popular.

The iPod touch also includes Wi-Fi wireless networking, the first on any iPod. A new iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store lets users wirelessly browse, preview, and buy songs and albums. The iPod touch is priced starting at $299.

"The iPod touch is a landmark iPod, ushering in a whole new generation of features based on its revolutionary multitouch interface and built-in Wi-Fi wireless networking," Jobs said. "People are going to be amazed at how thin it is and how much it does."

What Price Cut?

For all the hoopla last week about the iPhone price cut, the memory seems to be fading quickly in the face of Apple's string of good news, according to Marc Pado, a stock analyst at Cantor Fitzgerald.

Apple shares fell to the $130 range last week on the price cut news, but rebounded on the million-mark news, despite reports of iPhone knock-offs hitting the streets in Asia.

"Hitting the one million mark a couple of weeks ahead of time is good news for investors who were worried Apple was cutting prices in order to spur sales. This alleviates concern that perhaps things were not going as well as had been projected," Pado explained. "How quickly Apple gets to the next one million may depend on how well those spoofed phones in Asia actually work, among other things."

The FCC Rumors

With a string of good news and a high stock price, why would Apple even consider bidding for the 700-MHz bandwidth that TV broadcasters are turning back over to the FCC? Various news outlets on Monday reported the possibility of Apple bidding on the spectrum.

Apple could indeed make a bid. The company boasts about $14 billion in cash reserves. But many analysts are saying Apple would be foolish to build its own wireless network, despite the popularity of the iPhone.

"It would not make much sense to build a cellular business from the ground floor," Pado said. "The cost of putting in new towers or buying small cellular companies to get a foothold takes years. At this point I don't think it would be wise because prices have come down so much that it just wouldn't be very cost effective."

Apple did not immediately return calls seeking comment.

Nokia says maps service downloads hit one million (Reuters)

The Nokia Maps service offers maps and routing in more than 150 countries, and is the handset maker's first step into potentially lucrative real-time positioning services, which it sees as crucial for its core business.

Nokia also said it has updated Nokia Maps with an improved user interface and search functions, and a faster map download.

Big Blue Joins Forces with OpenOffice.org (NewsFactor)

Mike Rhodin, general manager of IBM's Lotus division, said IBM expects the collaborative effort to "provide tangible benefits to users of OpenOffice.org technology around the world" through the creation of "an even broader range of ODF-supporting applications and solutions." He said that by leveraging OpenOffice technology in its own software products, IBM hopes "to deliver innovative value to users of IBM products and services."

OpenOffice.org marketing project lead John McCreesh welcomed IBM's future commitment to package and distribute new works that leverage the OpenOffice.org technology supporting ODF. "ODF is a once-in-a-generation opportunity for the I.T. industry to unify round a standard, and deliver lasting benefit to users of desktop technology," McCreesh said.

Improving Accessibility

Initially, IBM will be contributing the code that it has been developing as part of its Lotus Notes software product, which includes accessibility enhancements that just might help OpenOffice.org reach parity with what rival Microsoft currently offers handicapped workers through its Office business productivity suite.

Accessibility is still a huge issue, especially with governments, noted Gartner Client Computing vice president Michael Silver. "There were a lot of eyes on accessibility during the development of OpenOffice.org version 2 and the improvements were big, but not sufficient for many," Silver explained.

Silver said he thinks IBM should have become an official part of the OpenOffice effort long before now. Still, "having IBM's help with this will surely help OpenOffice.org," he said.

Rhodin indicated that, over the long haul, IBM would be dedicating software engineering resources that would be making ongoing contributions to the feature richness and code quality of the ODF-based productivity suite. The collaboration effort might be just what OpenOffice.org needs to encourage more organizations worldwide to embrace its ODF-based technology.

Emphasis on Pragmatic Issues

"ODF has been an ISO standard for some time now, but adoption is still very slow," said IDC Nordic Group managing director Per Anderson. "There are a limited number of companies and organizations looking at ODF, and most of them are just considering it."

By contrast, IDC's latest survey shows that several companies and organizations are actively implementing Microsoft's competing Open XML format, particularly in Europe. "Our recent survey shows that commercial companies put more emphasis on pragmatic issues like long-term document viability and backwards compatibility rather then whether the standard is a formal open standard," Anderson explained.

IBM's commitment to ODF might actually represent a greater blow to Microsoft's ambitions than its recent defeat at the ISO in a vote that would have put Open XML on the fast track for becoming an international standard for documents, said Anderson.

Anderson also said he believes losing the ISO vote to be minor setback with respect to the private sector. The defeat could be more significant in the public sector, but this will be dependent on the ISO's next voting round, Anderson explained.

Nevertheless, a considerable number of obstacles to ODF's adoption still need to be addressed. "What will help will be the potential results, not just having the IBM name in the mix," Sliver said.

BEA, Adobe forge rich Internet apps partnership (InfoWorld)

The deal is being announced Tuesday at the BEAWorld San Francisco conference. BEA will bundle Adobe Flex Builder 2 software with the BEA Workshop Studio Java development environment. Through this bundling, developers can build cross-platform rich Internet applications that integrate with SOA and Web 2.0 infrastructure. Enterprise mashups also can result.

"[The agreement] gives our developers access to the most innovative, rich Internet application platform," said Bill Roth, vice president of BEA's Workshop business unit.

In the second part of the announcement, Adobe will distribute evaluation licenses of the BEA WebLogic Server Java application server with Adobe LiveCycle Enterprise Suite software for building customer engagement applications.

Combining Flex Builder and Workshop Studio is intended to give developers a workflow for building applications like interactive dashboards, customer and employee self-service applications, and business-to-business systems, BEA said. Applications are deployed using the Adobe Flash Player runtime.

BEA's Workshop Bundle includes Flex Builder 2, Adobe's Eclipse-based IDE, and the Adobe Flex SDK, which is slated to be released under the open-source Mozilla Public License. The bundle is to enable developers to add rich interactivity to enterprise applications.

While Workshop already features an SDK and IDE, Roth insisted there was no redundancy. Both Adobe and BEA have built on the Eclipse platform. "That allows both Workshop and Flex Builder to exist in one IDE." Roth said. "Eclipse provides the basic IDE framework. Workshop and Flex fill it out."

Rich Internet applications developed with Workshop and Flex can be integrated with other BEA products, such as offerings from the WebLogic and AquaLogic families. This provides enterprise benefits pertinent to Web 2.0 and SOA, BEA said. Applications can be deployed using the planned Adobe Integrate Runtime technology for extending rich Internet applications to the desktop.

"The Web 2.0 angle is, I think, really where Flex is really strong in allowing a more focused user interface and allowing a richer environment," Roth said. "Web 2.0 is about collaboration," and interacting with the customer, he added.

For SOA, Adobe's architecture offers the notion of presentation services as well a framework for Flex applications to integrate with standard enterprise Java applications and SOA, Roth said.

BEA's endorsement of Flex does not necessarily mean the company is choosing it over the popular AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) technique for Web development.

"In fact, we view both AJAX and Flex as being important rich Internet options, and our customers are looking for that," Roth said. "We found that segments of the customer base that are more developer-centric have a preference for AJAX while those who are more concerned with the interaction and have fairly significant interaction needs in terms of flexibility and creativity tend to go with Flex," especially in an enterprise context, he said.

AJAX leverages HTML and JavaScript while Flex runs in the Flash Player, extends the browser, and has capabilities around graphics rendering, animation, and client code performance, said Adobe's Phil Costa, director of product management for Adobe Flex and ColdFusion. The Flex programming model focuses on data-driven applications as opposed to HTML, which was developed primarily around a documents paradigm, Costa said.

Workshop bundled with Flex Builder 2 is due to be available by the end of the year with pricing starting at $899 retail.

Also under the agreement, customers can deploy LiveCycle ES applications that leverage characteristics of WebLogic Server including Java Message Service to support business events, clustering and failover. Web services interoperability technologies are supported such as WS-I Basic Profile 1.1. While LiveCycle has worked with WebLogic Server before, users with this announcement will be provided with turnkey infrastructure for enterprise deployments.

LiveCycle with WebLogic Server will available as a turnkey product early in 2008.

DoCoMo eyes regional units shake-up (FT.com)

The mobile phone company declined to comment on how many jobs could be culled from merging its eight regional units, which together have about 6,000 employees.

Analysts said the move would help streamline DoCoMo's operations at a time when the company is losing subscribers to Softbank, its new competitor, and KDDI, Japan's second-biggest carrier.

DoCoMo still has a 54 per cent market share, but its position has steadily eroded in Japan's Y9,000bn ($79bn) mobile phone market. "Cleaning up back-office operations will have minimal impact on DoCoMo's bottom line, but tidying up the regional sales divisions will have a material impact," said one analyst in Tokyo. "Sales people at DoCoMo enter forecasts of how many handsets they are going to sell in a month - obviously these are bullish - and if they didn't sell then it was a big overhead for DoCoMo." Observers say the over-orders account for as much as a third of all operating expenditures at DoCoMo.

DoCoMo has suffered since customers were allowed last year to keep their mobile phone numbers when moving their accounts between providers. It lost a net 22,900 users in August to KDDI and Softbank.

Last year, Softbank bought Vodafone's Japan operations and has since sparked a pricing war with rock-bottom rates.

In order to compete with Softbank, which has attracted new users with a flat monthly fee programme, DoCoMo and KDDI are halving their basic fees this month.

DoCoMo is also looking to invest in overseas markets. The mobile phone operator is seeking to make a sizeable investment in the booming markets of Vietnam, China or India, reversing a long-held stance to stay away from overseas markets after losing $9bn in botched investments six years ago.

DoCoMo has already acknowledged weakness in marketing by announcing a new "corporate branding" division that will group the marketing department with related divisions. The company has spent heavily on marketing this year but still trails its rivals in the battle for new customers. It won only 225,000 new users during the three months ended June - trounced by Softbank, which added 532,000, and KDDI, with 521,000.

Smart Online chief, brokers accused of stock fraud (Reuters)

Dennis Michael Nouri, the CEO, and his brother, Smart Online employee Reeza Eric Nouri, are accused of bribing brokers for several months in 2005 to sell the company's stock to their customers so the share price would rise, the U.S. Attorney's Office in Manhattan said.

Also arrested were brokers Ruben Serrano, Anthony Martin, James Doolan and Alain Lustig, prosecutors said.

Martin, Doolan and Serrano are all current or former brokers at Maxim Group LLC in New York, while Lustig is a broker at Jesup & Lamont Securities Corp, also in New York, according to a separate civil complaint against the six individuals and Smart Online brought by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

In court papers, prosecutors said the defendants wanted to boost the company's share price before it was listed on Nasdaq. In conversations recorded after the SEC suspended trading of the stock on Nasdaq, Dennis Nouri described how to lie to investigators to cover up the scheme, prosecutors contend.

The stock is traded on the OTC-Bulletin Board.

The names of the defendants' attorneys were not immediately available. A spokesman for the company, based in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, was not immediately available.

Each defendant was charged with one count of conspiracy to commit securities fraud and one count of securities fraud, prosecutors said.

The conspiracy charge carries a maximum prison term of five years, and the securities fraud count carries a maximum sentence of 20 years.

The FBI and the SEC aided in the investigation, prosecutors said.

(Reporting by Martha Graybow)

S. Korean regulator wraps up Intel probe (AP)

The Korean Fair Trade Commission has been investigating Santa Clara, Calif.-based Intel, the world’s largest chip maker, since June 2005. South Korean media have reported the inquiry has centered on allegations Intel abused its market dominance by pressuring computer makers to avoid using chips made by Intel’s rivals.

Chuck Mulloy, legal affairs spokesman for Intel in Santa Clara, said the company received last week what he described as a “statement of objection” from the commission.

Mulloy said he could not discuss allegations against the company or divulge the contents of the statement due to the confidentiality of the document.

Intel has the right to respond to the findings and can request a hearing. If it remains unsatisfied, the company can take the issue to court in South Korea, Mulloy said.

“We’re hopeful that we’ll be able to show the commission that the microprocessor market is functioning normally and that this is an extremely competitive market and that our conduct has been pro-competition and beneficial to consumers,” he said.

Korean Fair Trade Commission officials could not immediately be reached for comment.

South Korea’s Yonhap news agency, citing sources it did not identify, reported Tuesday that the regulator was expected to reach a decision on a penalty by October at the latest.

Intel sells more than three-quarters of all microprocessors that run computers using Microsoft Corp.’s Windows operating system.

The company has faced numerous legal battles over how it maintains its market position. Intel has repeatedly denied breaking any laws.

European Union regulators charged Intel in late July with alleged monopoly abuse for customer rebates and below-cost pricing, saying those actions undercut smaller rival computer chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices Inc.

Intel responded to the charge by arguing that its conduct had been lawful, good for competition and beneficial to customers.

Mexico leader visits India’s tech hub (AP)

Several Bangalore-based information technology companies are either already operating centers in Mexico or looking to expand there, hoping it would help them provide better services to U.S.-based clients.

Wipro Ltd., India’s third-largest software company, said it would open a development center in Monterrey, Mexico, catering to clients in North America, Latin America and Europe with bilingual staff. It was not immediately clear when the center would open.

The announcement coincided with Calderon’s visit to Wipro’s headquarters Tuesday.

“I am sure that this relation that has now begun will also enhance the partnership between the people of India and Mexico,” a Wipro statement quoted Calderon as saying.

Calderon’s trip to Bangalore came a day after he held talks with political leaders in New Delhi to strengthen ties between the countries. During the talks Monday, they agreed to boost economic and political ties and set a target to more than double trade to $5 billion by 2010.

Mexico and India are both emerging economies that have seen rapid expansion in recent years, but few businesses in either country have seized the opportunity to invest in the other. Two-way trade totaled only $1.8 billion in 2006 — less than 1 percent of each country’s trade with the rest of the world.

Calderon is the first Mexican president to visit India in 22 years.

On Monday, he told business leaders in New Delhi they would benefit from investing in Mexico because of the access it has to some of the world’s biggest markets, including the United States.

In Bangalore on Tuesday, he also toured the facilities of Infosys Technologies Ltd. and Biocon Ltd., India’s top biotechnology company.

Last month, Infosys Technologies set up a Latin American subsidiary and opened a software development center in Monterrey that can accommodate more than 250 engineers in a single shift.

Wipro said Tuesday its center in Monterrey will have 100 seats to start. The company did not give financial details.

“This facility will help establish our capabilities in the central time zone, which allows us to better serve our North American clients and their operations in Latin America,” Chief Operating Officer A.L. Rao said in the statement.

He said it would also strengthen Wipro’s market presence in the region.

NewsCorp won't pull videos from iTunes (Reuters)

Many sector watchers expected News Corp. and other media groups to follow NBC Universal, which said last month it would no longer sell television shows on iTunes because it wanted more flexibility in offering different packages and pricing.

But Chernin, News Corp's president and chief operating officer, said Rupert Murdoch's media group was not in a dispute with Apple, though it would like a bigger voice in pricing its shows.

"Right now we have a perfectly good relationship with Apple," Chernin told Reuters. "But let me say this, we're the ones who should determine what the fair price for our product is, not Apple."

Chernin's decision to keep popular Fox shows such as 24 and Prison Break on iTunes should be welcomed by Apple CEO Steve Jobs, who is facing a growing revolt by some media companies over the pricing policies for audio and video downloads.

Earlier this summer, Vivendi's Universal Music Group declined to sign a long-term deal, leaving open the possibility of exclusive deals with another services.

Chernin spoke with Reuters during his visit to Poland, one of Europe's fastest-growing media markets, where News Corp is about to relaunch a television channel in which it has a 35 percent stake and managerial control.

"This is a market with tremendous opportunity for us," he said. "This is where News Corp tends to thrive. You have a reasonably entrenched competition that hasn't been challenged as much as it should."

EMERGING MARKETS

Chernin declined to say how much News Corp. would invest to modernize Puls, which he expects to become a market leader. Murdoch said earlier this year it had spent $50 million so far.

While blockbuster deals to buy Dow Jones and social networking site MySpace have dominated the headlines, News Corp also has been building its TV presence in Europe's emerging markets.

In Turkey, the media conglomerate is considering a bid for broadcaster ATV and Sabah newspaper, which is expected to fetch at least $1.1 billion.

ATV and Sabah along with other media assets are set to go on sale in November after being seized from Turkish conglomerate Ciner Group by the state Savings Deposits Insurance Fund (TMSF) for alleged irregularities.

"We will certainly take a look at it … Whether or not we will do this (bid), we will decide within a month or so," Chernin said.

Chernin, who oversees the operations of News Corp's top social networking site MySpace, also does not expect its fast-growing rival Facebook to be put up for sale any time soon.

Facebook, headed by 23-year-old founder Mark Zuckerberg, has been steadily gaining ground on MySpace, prompting speculation that News Corp. may be interested in combining the two sites.

"I think Mark Zuckerberg is doing just fine. I don't think he has any intention of selling it, IPO'ing it or anything else," Chernin said.

Chernin also denied holding talks with Yahoo about capital ties, despite Murdoch's comments that he would consider swapping MySpace for a 25 percent stake in Yahoo.