Tech in Brief: Nokia and rivals join to create faster flash

Nokia to cooperate on flash memory cards (AP)

The technology, expected to be ready in 2009, will use the new Universal Flash Storage specification. It “reflects the industry’s need for a universal memory solution that removes the need for adaptors to accommodate different removable memory card sizes,” Nokia said.

The removable memory card would be used in handsets, digital cameras and other consumer electronic devices, and could cut the current three-minute access time for a 90-minute movie to a few seconds, according to Nokia, the world’s largest cell phone maker.

Other companies involved in the project include Micron Technology Inc., Spansion LLC, STMicroelectronics NV and Texas Instruments Inc.

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C&W leads strong telecoms performance (FT.com)

C&W shares climbed 4.5 per cent to 174.3p after Cazenove upgraded to "outperform" and increased its fair value target to 220p to reflect the improving performance of the company's domestic business.

"Recent contract wins suggest the UK recovery is more than on track," analyst Paul Howard said. "We sense that management is increasingly confident regarding the prospects of the UK business. The interim results of November 13 could provide the platform for management to indicate revenue growth from the second half of the financial year."

Traders said C&W shares had also been supported by strong second quarter results from Global Crossing UK, a close competitor.

BT Group moved up 2.9 per cent to 319p after Collins Stewart turned buyer. The broker cited valuation and its belief that the margins of BT's fast growing global services business would improve in the second half of the year.

Buying from US investors pushed Vodafone up 2.2 per cent to 169.7p after a Lehman Brothers report argued that mobile data packages would support earnings.

The strong performance of the telecoms sector and sharp gains for mining stocks combined to push the FTSE 100 up 57.7 points, or 0.9 per cent, to 6,363.9. But the FTSE 250 lagged behind and closed 47.3 points, or 0.4 per cent, lower at 11,172.4.

Market turnover was below average at 2.7bn shares.

The banking sector failed to join yesterday's advance in spite of signs of stabilisation in the money markets.

Northern Rock finished down 4.9 per cent at 639p, its lowest for four and a half years, amid rumours of an imminent profits warning. Traders reckoned the bank's decline also reflected fears about the state of the UK mortgage market and worries over rising bad debts.

A report released overnight by the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors showed the first decline in UK house prices for two years. Those concerns also weighed on Alliance & Leicester, which lost 2.7 per cent to 937½p, Royal Bank of Scotland, off 1.2 per cent at 535p, and housebuilder Persimmon, 1.3 per cent weaker at £10.88.

However, Standard Chartered, up 0.4 per cent at £15.15, held its head above water. After the market closed Temasek, the Singapore-based investment company, declared a raised holding of 17.2 per cent.

ITV was marked 4.1 per cent lower at 106.4p after Goldman Sachs removed the broadcaster from its "conviction buy" list. The broker said the expected recovery in 2008 earnings would not materialise because of increased investment in programming.

British Land slipped 1.9 per cent to £12 after Morgan Stanley downgraded to "underweight" and cut its target price to £13.50.

Analyst Martin Allen said there was an "above average" chance that British Land shares could hit its "bear case" target price of 956p if rents in the City were hit by the credit crunch.

"We believe that financial services employment in central London has already peaked and could fall materially over the next two or three years owing to fallout from the recent credit crunch," Mr Allen said.

Scottish & Newcastle, the brewer of Newcastle Brown Ale, faded 0.6 per cent to 611p after Merrill Lynch removed the stock from its "buy" list following a meeting with Jorn Jensen, chief financial officer of rumoured bidder Carlsberg.

Merrill analyst Nico Lambrechts said: "Although he did not comment on recent speculation, he indicated that he has not seen a solid business case for a full combination with S&N."

Of mid-caps, Sports Direct International rallied 2.3 per cent to 132¾p amid optimism that England would qualify for the 2008 European championship following its 3-0 win over Russia on Wednesday night. Sports Direct buys 65 per cent of all replica England football shirts manufactured by Umbro, 1.3 per cent better at 120½p.

The England victory did nothing to help JJB Sports, which fell 4.4 per cent to 164p as institutions dumped stock in the wake of Tuesday's shock profits warning.

Prince to sue Youtube, eBay over music use (Reuters)

The man behind hit songs "Purple Rain," "1999" and "When Doves Cry" said on Thursday that YouTube could not argue that it had no control over which videos users posted on its site.

"YouTube … are clearly able (to) filter porn and pedophile material but appear to choose not to filter out the unauthorized music and film content which is core to their business success," a statement released on his behalf said.

YouTube did not immediately reply to questions e-mailed to its press room.

In addition to YouTube, Prince also plans legal action against online auctioneer eBay and Pirate Bay, a site accused by Hollywood and the music industry as being a major source of music and film piracy.

The legal action is the latest bid by the music industry to wrest back control over content in an age where file sharing, mobile phones and video sites make enforcing copyright increasingly difficult.

But it is believed to be rare for an individual artist of Prince's stature to take on popular Web sites, while some up-and-coming performers actually encourage online file sharing to create a fan base and buzz around a record.

"Prince strongly believes artists as the creators and owners of their music need to reclaim their art," the statement added.

"These actions mark a historic moment for music artists in terms of the battle to regain control of their rights on the Internet."

British company Web Sheriff has been hired to help coordinate the action.

"In the last couple of weeks we have directly removed approximately 2,000 Prince videos from YouTube," said Web Sheriff managing director John Giacobbi.

"The problem is that one can reduce it to zero and then the next day there will be 100 or 500 or whatever. This carries on ad nauseam at Prince's expense," he told Reuters.

He said his company had also removed around 300 items from eBay, where whole lines of pirated goods trading on Prince's name had appeared, including clocks, socks, mugs and key rings.

Prince's latest initiative is likely to please record industry executives and music retailers, who have not always seen eye-to-eye with the 49-year-old.

He has referred to the record industry as "the speculation business" and gave away copies of his new album "Planet Earth" for free with a British Sunday newspaper.

Report: Yahoo Mistakenly Leaks New Service (PC World)

Recounting the faux pas in a New York Times blog Wednesday, Brad Stone reported that a Yahoo PR representative sent him an e-mail saying he had set up a profile for Stone in Yahoo Mash.

After Stone clicked on an e-mail link to visit the profile, he couldn't get past a log-in page. Yahoo representatives later acknowledged to Stone that the service isn't yet open to anyone outside of Yahoo, and that the invitation was sent by mistake. They didn't provide him with more details about Yahoo Mash.

Considering that the service apparently includes the creation of profiles for individuals, it would be safe to assume it is some sort of social network, an area where Yahoo officials have acknowledged the company is weak.

TechCrunch, a technology news site that focuses on the Web 2.0 space, reported in July that Yahoo has been secretly working on a new social-networking project called Mosh.

What's not a secret is that the Yahoo 360 social network, introduced in March 2005, has been a disappointment. Several times over the past year, high-ranking Yahoo executives have publicly acknowledged this and indicated the service needs a major overhaul.

Yahoo 360 doesn't appear in a top 10 list of social-networking sites in the U.S. released Thursday by Nielsen/NetRatings. That list of the most popular social-networking sites with U.S. users during August, is topped by News Corp.'s MySpace with 60.3 million unique visitors.

Facebook, which Yahoo reportedly tried unsuccessfully to buy last year for US$1 billion, came in second with 19.2 million unique visitors, a robust 117 percent increase over August of last year, outpacing MySpace's 23 percent growth clip.

Yahoo's weak position in social networking is baffling and has been a source of sharp criticism for the company's top managers. They have been blamed for being asleep at the wheel while MySpace, initially as a startup, went on a tear in the social-networking space, for launching a weak product and also for being unable or unwilling to buy Facebook or another strong competitor.

Yahoo does have other, more successful social-media sites, like social-bookmarking site Delicious, photo-sharing site Flickr and question-and-answer search engine Yahoo Answers. However, it is generally agreed that it needs a strong contender in social networking, one of the hottest types of online services in recent years.

Yahoo didn't immediately reply to a request for comment.

To The Moon! Google Launches Lunar Prize

Google sponsors $30 million moon contest (AP)

If the competition produces a winner, it would prove a major boon to the emerging private spaceflight industry and mark the first time that a nongovernment entity has flown a lunar space probe.

Google partnered with the X Prize Foundation for the moon challenge, which is open to companies around the world. The Santa Monica-based nonprofit prize institute is best known for hosting the Ansari X Prize contest that led to the first manned private spaceflight in 2004.

The race to the moon won’t be easy or cheap. Teams have to raise money to build a roaming spacecraft that will be tough enough to survive a landing and have the smarts to complete a set of tasks. Each rover must also be equipped with high-definition video and still cameras to document the journey.

The rules call for a spacecraft to trek at least 1,312 feet across the lunar surface and return a package of data including self-portraits, panoramic views and near-real time videos. Participants are also responsible for securing a launch vehicle for the probe, either by building it themselves or contracting with an existing rocket company.

Whoever accomplishes the feat by the end of 2012 will receive $20 million. If there is no winner, the purse will drop to $15 million until the end of 2014 when the contest expires. There is also a $5 million second-place prize and $5 million in bonus money to teams that go beyond the minimum requirements.

Details of the Google X Prize are to be revealed at the WIRED Nextfest technology show in Los Angeles.

The competition comes at a time of revived interest in lunar exploration among foreign governments since the Cold War space race. Governments including the United States and those in Europe and Asia are gearing up to return to the moon.

Japan’s space agency, JAXA, plans to launch its long-delayed orbiter SELENE from a remote Pacific Island on Friday. NASA next year will rocket a lunar orbiter and impactor, the first of several lunar robotic projects before astronauts are sent to the moon next decade.

Government lunar missions can cost upward of hundreds of millions of dollars, but the X Prize Foundation and Google hope the private sector can do it for considerably less.

The partnership between Google and the X Prize Foundation comes as no surprise. Earlier this year, Google co-founder Larry Page hosted a star-studded charity auction for the foundation at the company’s Mountain View headquarters. Page is a trustee of the X Prize Foundation.

Google has had previous forays into space albeit via the Internet by launching Google Mars and Google Earth, Web browser-based mapping tools that give users an up-close, interactive view with the click of a mouse.

The X Prize Foundation is also holding competitions in rapid genetic decoding and creating super-efficient vehicles, but the moon prize is by far the largest in its history since it was founded in 1995. The Google X Prize is second richest space prize, next to the $50 million pot being dangled by hotel magnate Robert Bigelow to any American team that can rocket a manned spacecraft into orbit by 2010.

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$30 million to settle Sprint fee case (AP)

Sprint’s co-defendant in the case, AT&T Corp., is not included in the settlement and will continue to face litigation.

U.S. District Judge John Lungstrum has scheduled a final hearing on the settlement for March 3.

Under the settlement, qualified business and residential customers would receive prepaid telephone calling cards worth a total of $25 million, while attorneys would receive $4.99 million for fees and costs.

The antitrust case consolidated dozens of class-action lawsuits filed across the country in Kansas City, Kan., federal court.

The suits claimed Sprint and AT&T conspired with their chief competitor at the time, MCI, to charge customers more than the regulated fee for the Universal Service Fund. The program subsidizes the cost of running phone service to rural areas, low-income customers and public facilities, such as schools, libraries and rural hospitals.

Carriers are required to contribute to the fund a percentage of their gross revenue from interstate and international calls. The Federal Communications Commission sets the contribution rate.

Sprint described the fee on its bills as “Federal Universal Service Fee” or “Carrier Universal Service Charge,” while AT&T called it a “Universal Connectivity Charge.”

While the settlement ends litigation for Sprint, the case will continue against AT&T, which faces greater exposure than Sprint because of its larger market share.

Sprint spokesman Matt Sullivan said the company was “pleased to resolve the issue” and declined further comment.

The settlement covers long-distance customers who paid into the Universal Service Fund between Aug. 1, 2001, and March 31, 2003. Because of liability rules in antitrust actions, the settlement covers not only Sprint long-distance business and residential customers but also MCI long-distance business customers, AT&T long-distance business customers and AT&T long-distance residential customers in California.

Sprint and MCI customers also will be eligible to participate in any settlements affecting AT&T.

The settlement comes days after Lungstrum approved a $57 million settlement ending another class-action lawsuit against Sprint claiming the company targeted older workers during layoffs a few years ago.

Sprint also said in a regulatory filing a month ago that it has agreed to settle a third class-action lawsuit claiming the company shortchanged investors when it combined its landline and wireless stocks in 2004.

Sprint shares were down 4 cents to $17.73 in afternoon trading Thursday.

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Information from: The Kansas City Star,

ER patients check in at computer kiosks (AP)

But Parkland Memorial Hospital has three self-service computer kiosks, similar to those used by airport passengers and hotel guests. And so do a handful of other hospital ERs, where the long wait in line to register and explain symptoms can be grueling.

True emergency cases — gunshot or car crash victims with serious injuries — are still rushed in for treatment. But patients like Rickey Washington, a diabetic concerned about numbness in his hands and feet, find it fairly simple to sign in by computer.

“Once you look and see, it’s kind of easy,” said Washington, 44.

Besides offering patients more privacy, the kiosks should help nurses identify the most urgent cases.

Newark Beth Israel Medical Center in New Jersey plans to install check-in kiosks in its ER within the next couple months.

“Patients don’t always know if their symptom is potentially bad or serious,” said Dr. Marc Borenstein, chairman and residency program director for the department of emergency medicine at Beth Israel.

Parkland’s administrators say patients have been spared the long check-in lines since the kiosks arrived. The hospital’s ER handles about 300 cases a day.

“It’s helping us find the people that we need to see right now,” said Jennifer Hay, unit manager for the ER department.

Patients spend about eight minutes at the kiosks, using touchscreens to enter their name, age, and other personal information. The computer shows the patient a list of ailments to choose from, like “pain” or “fever and/or chills” and a list of body parts to indicate where it hurts.

Previously, a nurse checked in patients and took their vital signs as lines at the ER got longer and frustration mounted.

“If it’s getting people to be able to sit down and not be in a long line, then it’s good,” said Dr. Brian Keaton, president of the American College of Emergency Physicians.

Once the patient’s problem is entered into the system, it pops up on a screen accessible to the nurses. Those with chest pains, stroke symptoms or other worrisome complaints take priority.

But for patients with lesser complaints, even computer kiosks can’t eliminate the “wait” from ER waiting rooms. It still often takes a couple of hours for a nurse to check their vital signs, and several more to see a doctor.

John Lovelock, research director for industry research firm Gartner Inc., said patients may initially hesitate to use the kiosks, but repeat customers realize they’re saving time.

“I think the public is absolutely ready for this,” he said.

One family practice and urgent care center in Cookeville, Tenn., has used computer kiosks and hand-held electronic devices to get patient information since opening just over a year ago, said Kara Hufstedler, a systems manager for Satellite Med.

“We had some people who loved it. We had some people who didn’t. The staff helps anyone who needs it,” she said.

Brandie Glover, 27, of Dallas, said she first thought the kiosks at Parkland were “weird.”

“I thought it was kind of impersonal, but at the same time, it’s a quicker process,” said Glover, who came to the ER with neck and ear pain. But after waiting for more than three hours without seeing a doctor, Glover decided to leave without getting treated.

Hays said that shortening the check-in time only addresses part of the problem. Like other hospitals, she said, Parkland is also trying to find ways to improve the overall wait time in its emergency room.

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Alcatel shares tumble on revenue outlook (AP)

In a statement, Alcatel-Lucent said it expects revenue growth in 2007 to be flat to slightly up at a constant exchange rate. The company had previously estimated its full-year revenue would grow in the mid-single digit percentage range at a constant exchange rate.

Alcatel-Lucent said the revision reflects recent discussions with wireless customers in North America.

“Alcatel-Lucent is now seeing a change in capital spending with those customers in 2007, compared to what it had anticipated,” the company said in its statement.

It also said it is “not seeing the projected volume changes that would have mitigated the ongoing pricing pressures it is experiencing.”

Alcatel-Lucent shares fell 8.7 percent to 6.62 euros ($9.20) in trading Thursday in Paris.

HPC research head Andre Chassagnol said Alcatel-Lucent has had to scale back its expectations because it has been unable to enact its restructuring plan in France and due to recent senior management departures which prevented the group from cutting costs.

The restructuring plan was approved by unions only days ago, Chassagnol said.

“Alcatel-Lucent is faced with a drop in product prices but the costs remained the same,” said Chassagnol, adding it is crucial for the group to cut its costs.

Nomura analyst Richard Windsor said he had long said Alcatel-Lucent’s full-year revenue target was “unrealistic.”

“What’s disappointing is the operating profit,” said Windsor, who has a neutral rating on Alcatel-Lucent stock.

Alcatel-Lucent said it now sees its revenue for the third quarter of 2007 growing slightly compared to the second quarter of this year at a constant exchange rate.

For the fourth quarter, Alcatel-Lucent still expects its revenue “to ramp-up strongly over the third quarter.”

On Jan. 23, Alcatel-Lucent warned investors its fourth quarter 2006 operating profit would be affected by lower sales in North America. On Feb. 9, Alcatel-Lucent said it expected a revenue decline in the first quarter 2007 due to challenging market conditions in North America and added on April 24, it expected a first-quarter operating loss of 260 million euros ($361 million).