科技新聞

2002/12/06

SYDNEY, Australia (CNN) -- Australian broadband wireless service provider SkyNetGlobal says it has lifted the number of its wireless hotspots worldwide to 660, with many of them in Asia.

Hotspots are in public areas such as airports, hotels and coffee shops where travellers can connect to the Internet via broadband wireless technology known as WiFi.

The hotspot number is up from 440 two months ago and just 50 in August, when Australian telecom giant Telstra bought SkyNetGlobal's wireless network infrastructure for A$3.3 million.

The latest 220 hotspots are spread between Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan.

SkyNetGlobal already has hotspots in China, the Philippines, the United States, Europe, Australia and New Zealand.

Some of the latest Asian ones include Starbucks and Coffee Club cafes in Singapore, Pacific Coffee cafes in Hong Kong, Narita airport in Japan, and Taipei Sungshan airport and International Convention Center in Taiwan.

SkyNetGlobal founder and CEO Jonathan Soon announced the increased coverage in a statement to the Australian Stock Exchange on Wednesday morning.

Shares in the company are down 9 percent to Aust. 2 cents Wednesday.

SkyNetGlobal listed on the ASX on November 15, 2000 at a high of Aust. 54 cents but by late 2001 had drifted down into single digits as the market's appetite for technology startups waned. The shares touched a record low of Aust. 1.5 cents last week.

　2002/12/16

LONDON (Reuters) -- An Australian mathematician has solved a problem that has confronted generations of youngsters and stumped a few adults -- lacing shoes.

Most people use the crisscross or the straight lace technique but Burkard Polster, of the Monash University in Victoria, Australia, has shown that although they are the strongest, neither is the most efficient method.

"We demonstrate mathematically that the shortest lacing is neither of these, but instead is a rarely used and unexpected type of lacing known as bow-tie lacing," Polster said in research reported in the science journal Nature.

How it works

The bow-tie technique, in which the laces go across from one eyelet to another, down to the next one and then crisscross in a repeating pattern, uses all of the shoe's eyelets but the least amount of lace.

"When you think about it, learning to lace and tie shoes is a major hurdle that we all had to overcome while growing up," Polster said in an interview.

He incorporated friction, eyelet alignment and the material of the laces in his equation, but he doesn't expect his findings to change the way people lace their shoes.

"For me it was a fun, quirky problem to think about for a while," he said.

Comes down to choice

Polster's preferred method is the crisscross, although he does admit to sometimes straight-lacing one shoe and crisscrossing on the other.

But he has no doubt about the best knot to use. Although people prefer the granny knot, the square, or reef knot, is better and tests have shown that it is unlikely to come undone.

If knots, lacing techniques and mathematical formulas are just too complicated, there is always Velcro.

"I think it is conceivable that now there might be a few kids who will never master these tasks," Polster added.

2002/12/17

HONG KONG, China (CNN) -- Boxes at Lik-Sang.com's warehouse in Hong Kong hold everything a hard-core gamer would want -- video game software, controllers, cables.

"Since this morning actually the orders are coming back to us, and the payments also. So things are improving," says Pascal Clarysse, marketing manager of Lik-Sang.com.

Improving, since the online retailer was shut down. On September 16, Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony filed a lawsuit against Lik Sang in the High Court of Hong Kong.

The offense? Selling mod chips, a device used to play copied games. "Modification," tinkering with a game console to play legally and illegally copied software, is a practice that has turned into a legal landmine for the video game sector.

Back in business

Lik Sang, one of the world's leading distributors of mod chips, is now back in business, under new management and no longer selling the controversial product.

But as Clarysse braces for the holiday rush, founder Alex Kampl is on the sidelines -- prepping his legal defense.

"This is an absolute crackdown on the technology," says Kampl.

"And it doesn't only happen to Lik Sang International Limited in Hong Kong now. It happens everywhere all around the world."

The use of mod chips has bothered the video game business for years. Some believe it encourages game play, others view it as a violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, or DMCA.

Losing sales

Under the DMCA, if a game maker uses a technological measure to protect a copyrighted work, it is illegal to try to break it.

Sony and Nintendo declined to comment on the issue, but Microsoft told CNN: "Entertainment software piracy and the modification chips ('mod chips') that enable it, pose a serious problem for the video game industry."

A problem that can translate into millions of dollars of lost software sales.

"They've set a business model that relies on making money on game sales rather than box sales. That's part of their problem," says Dan Gillmor, tech columnist at San Jose Mercury news.

"It's as if the TV was sold to you at a loss and they're going to somehow make up the money on the programming. They'll be very anxious to make you watch only the certain kind of programming."

'Regarded as a pirate company'

For Lik Sang, there is cause for hope. Earlier this year Sony sued a mod chip retailer in Australia under the country's version of the DMCA. The court ruled in favor of the retailer.

But Kampl is confident he can fight the video game Goliaths, while Clarysse gets the shipments out.

"At the moment, we're more regarded as a pirate company or something, which we are absolutely not," says Clarysse.

"And the fan base we had was already there before the mod chips, before the court case, before all the press interviews and all that stuff."

It also has a reputation to maintain. Lik Sang has serviced 200,000 customers, die-hard gamers who want their consoles in time for Christmas.

HONG KONG, China (CNN) -- This year will most certainly not go down in the record books as one of Asia's best. The deep freeze of the tech slump has claimed hundreds of startup firms, although a stubborn few keep hanging on.

In 1999, She.com was a portal targeting hip Chinese women, but these days it is launching cosmetics instead.

"Sometimes even the client gets confused what we are. We present ourselves as a dot.com, and they always think dot.com is Internet, Internet is something electronic," says Derek Yeung, CEO of She.com.

She.com is a start-up with a split personality. The company is now a hired hand for consumer brands like Max Factor, arranging everything from product packaging to photo shoots -- a strategic shift to save the company.

"I think one of the reasons why we are still [here] today is we changed early enough when we still [had] enough cash there to give us the comfort to basically start a new line of business," says Yeung.

Staying alive

She.com is just one of hundreds of startup companies refusing to let go, clinging to the hope there's still enough business out there to stay alive.

But are there companies that refuse to throw in the towel when in fact, they should?

"Yes there are. And they will be fading away," says Scott Thoreau, general manager at Asian Venture Capital Journal.

Especially when there's simply no funding out there to keep a startup on life support.

"The venture capital investment into seed and start-up companies, the percentage of the overall investment number has dropped from 26 percent from last year to two percent this year," says Thoreau.

Collapse

Hundreds of startups have perished in the last two years, and many are on the brink of collapse. Yet they keep going -- finding hope in the odd success story.

Earlier this year, auction giant eBay said it would pay $30 million for a 33 percent stake in the Shanghai-based company, Eachnet.com, stoking hopes that big buyers are still out there.

China's Nasdaq-listed portal, Netease, was suspended from trading last year. But its stock is now among the best performers in 2002. While it didn't succeed as a pure dot.com, it is now thriving as a PC game and wireless service provider.

While reinvention may not always be the answer it has been a key factor in the survival of many companies.

"If they're adapting to the economic situation or the particular category of technology that they're in, and have the wherewithal to do that, then that's smart," says Thoreau.

She.com says it is breaking even, thanks to key contracts and a campaign to reduce the stigma from its name.

"We changed it to 'she.com-mmunications' to better explain what we're doing," comments Yeung.

2002/12/25

TOKYO, Japan (CNN) -- Canon Inc. shares are rising on Tuesday on a report it is set to post record profits this year.

Group net profit is set to rise 13 percent to almost 190 billion yen ($1.58 billion) for the year, according to the Nihon Keizai Shimbun, thanks to strong sales of digital cameras, printers and photocopiers.

That would be the third year in a row the camera and office-equipment maker has set a new high-water mark. Unlike most Japanese companies, whose year ends in March, Canon operates on a calendar business year.

It would also make Canon the most profitable electronics maker in Japan, beating Sony Corp., which expects a net profit of 180 billion yen for the 2002 business year.

Canon shares closed up 4.69 percent at 4,460 yen on Tuesday, and was the most active stock by value. That helped the Nikkei index to a 1.25 percent rise on a thin day's trading.

Sales not likely to leap

Canon's total sales are expected to rise less than 1 percent, to 2.93 trillion yen ($24.3 billion), meaning most of the profit increase has come through better operations.

Better parts buying and more efficient production helped trim costs by more than 50 billion yen ($415 million) this year, the Nikkei stated.

But sales of Canon's popular Eos and Ixus digital cameras are helping fire sales in that area, with total cameras sold rising around 50 percent to 4.5 million.

Canon said in November that it expected sales to grow between five to 10 percent in 2002 and by 10 percent in 2003.

The company gets 70 percent of its sales outside of Japan. China is its fastest-growing market, though the United States is its largest, accounting for 35 percent of sales.

2002/12/26

BALTIMORE, Maryland (AP) -- Microsoft must include rival Sun Microsystem's Java programming language in its Windows operating system, a federal judge ruled Monday, handing Sun a victory as it pursues a private antitrust case against Microsoft.

Sun argued earlier this month before U.S. District Judge J. Frederick Motz that Microsoft has gained an unfair advantage by shipping Windows -- used by more than 90 percent of the world's personal computers -- with an outdated version of Java that's inconsistent for its users.

"In the final analysis, the public interest in this case rests in assuring that free enterprise be genuinely free, untainted by the effects of antitrust violations," Motz said in his ruling.

Java is designed to let programmers write software to run on all types of computers, whether they use Windows, Apple's Mac OS or some other operating system. Users may run into Java without knowing it when they visit Web sites that feature games or other applications.

Sun attorneys had argued that software developers are turning to Microsoft's .NET platform instead of gambling on Microsoft's spotty distribution of Java. Microsoft attorneys countered that at least half the world's software developers already use Java, which was designed to run small applications independent of any particular operating system.

In asking for the injunction, Sun said that if it waited until its $1 billion antitrust lawsuit against Microsoft was settled, it would be too far behind to compete.

Motz wrote that if Microsoft's system was to remain dominant, "it should be because of .NET's superior qualities, not because Microsoft leveraged its PC monopoly to create market conditions in which it is unfairly advantaged."

"Competition is not only about winning the prize; its deeper value lies in giving all those who choose to compete an opportunity to demonstrate their worth," he wrote.

In the antitrust suit, Sun accuses Microsoft of intentionally creating incompatibilities with competitors' products. It also charges that Microsoft forced other companies to distribute or use products incompatible with Java.

The case is one of four private antitrust lawsuits that followed a federal judge's ruling in a lawsuit filed by the Justice Department and 18 states. The court found that Microsoft acted as an illegal monopoly based on its dominance in desktop operating systems.

In November, U.S. District Court Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly approved a settlement in that case barring Microsoft from retaliating against or threatening computer manufacturers. The settlement, which two states are appealing, also compels Microsoft to share key technical data with competitors that allow their programs to run more smoothly with Microsoft operating systems.

2002/12/31

NEW YORK (Reuters) -- Suppose you endured the checkout line at the grocery store only to find that you were short on cash, or you'd forgotten your wallet. What if you could settle the bill with just the touch of your finger?

Kroger Co., the largest U.S. supermarket chain, is offering some customers just that opportunity, testing finger imaging as a method of payment in three of its Texas stores.

A machine scans the index finger, matching the customer's unique fingerprint with the individual's account.

Registering for the program

The company avoids the term "fingerprinting" because of its law enforcement connotation -- the same reason the technology is applied to the index finger, rather than the thumb.

Customers can register for the voluntary program by presenting a drivers license, an index finger and a method of payment -- either credit card, debit card or electronic check.

"Early indications are that it's being well received by the customer, the new technology is performing well, and it is saving both time and money," said Gary Huddleston, manager of consumer affairs for Kroger's Southwest division.

Students receptive

The company has been testing finger imaging in the Texas towns of Bryan and College Station for about nine months. About 10,000 customers are currently participating.

Students from nearby Texas A&M University have been particularly receptive, as have "surprisingly, many of our seniors," Huddleston said.

Cincinnati-based Kroger has not yet made plans to roll finger imaging out to more stores, as it is still in the test phase, Huddleston said.