FCC Delays Its Wireless Network Plans

The Federal Communications Commission’s plan to offer free high-speed wireless Internet all across the country has reached its first speed bump, as the FCC’s Chairman Kevin Martin announced that the proposal will not be voted as initially scheduled during the June 12 meeting and will be postponed until July.
According to the Associated Press, Mr. Martin added that his announcement must not be misunderstood, as the wireless network plan is still considered to be a priority and an excellent technological opportunity for everyone and also that he is very supportive of the cause.
Apparently, the decision was made in order for the commission to investigate and respond to a series of concerns raised by several wireless carriers and also for the commissioners to be fully informed with the proposal’s details.
The plan consists in setting up an auction for a 25 MHz piece of spectrum in the 2155 MHz band and its winner would be required to offer free wireless-Internet access across the United States territory. The process would be completed over the next few years.
According to FCC’s Chairman Kevin Martin, the buyer would also have to build the network for at least 50 percent of the population during the first 4 years and should reach 95 percent in 10 years at the most. Internet would be offered free, but restricted and verified through a content filter for any kind of obscene materials.
The auction procedures are expected to require at least six months, so the postponement of June 12’s meeting will significantly delay the process to set up the pricing plans, minimum data rates, content filtering and many other issues.

Bhutto's death likely to roil Pakistan markets

Bussiness stopped!!! plitical stablity reached 0 in Pakistan,
The assassination of Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto will likely rattle the country's equity markets, eroding confidence at least in the short term in a market that's been one of the best performers in Asia, observers said.
Bhutto, a former prime minister of Pakistan, was killed Thursday in an attack that also killed at least 20 others at the end of a political rally in Rawalpindi. Read full story.
World leaders condemned the assassination, which sent shock waves through the Pakistani political system ahead of Jan. 8 parliamentary elections. It immediately raised questions about whether the elections would proceed on schedule and whether President Pervez Musharraf would reimpose a recently lifted state of emergency.
'The big takeaway from this horrible event is that Pakistan could slide into a civil war of sorts.'
— Win Thin, Brown Brothers Harriman
News of the assassination left U.S. financial markets unsettled, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average ($INDU:
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Bhutto's death will likely also destabilize Pakistan's equity market, among the best-performing bourses in the region.
"In the very short term, there will be a knee-jerk reaction as you saw at the time of the imposition of the rule of emergency by Musharraf earlier this year," said Rupert Neil Bumfrey, an advisor to emerging markets asset-management companies, in a phone interview from Dubai.
"Again, the knee-jerk reaction will be don't go Pakistan," said Bumfrey, who travels often to Pakistan. "However, as we've seen with the stock market since the imposition and abandonment of emergency rule, the stock market has continued to be positive. In the long run, Pakistan remains an excellent investment. It has good value."
In Karachi, the benchmark KSE-100 stock index closed down 0.3% on Thursday. See the Karachi Stock Exchange's Web site.
It has rallied 47% year to date. By comparison, India's Sensex index has gained 46.6% year to date.
Another key indicator showed a similar advance. The MSCI Pakistan index's year-to-date gain has been 40.7%, while MSCI India has surged 70% and MSCI China has rallied 65%.
"This is going to be the first big test of sentiment since fund managers started focusing on this market in the middle of last year," said Cameron Brandt, global markets analyst at EPFR Global.
Economic growth story
"Pakistan was on the front edge of the frontier market phenomenon -- the quest for untapped value in emerging markets," Brandt said. "Pakistan is on the front end of that because its economy has been doing reasonably well with almost no fanfare."
Indeed, Pakistan's gross domestic product has averaged 6.9% growth over the past five years.
That strong economic growth, however, might be overshadowed now that Bhutto's killing thrust the volatile region, which many observers consider a breeding ground for violent Islamic extremism, back into the global spotlight.
Pakistan, which borders Afghanistan, is the recipient of billions of dollars of U.S. aid and a key front in the U.S.-declared war on terrorism. The death of Bhutto, who was expected to be a force in Pakistani politics following the election, cast U.S. policy toward the region into turmoil.
"The big takeaway from this horrible event is that Pakistan could slide into a civil war of sorts," said Win Thin, senior currency strategist at Brown Brothers Harriman, in a research note. "Such a development would upset the delicate balance in the region. India, for instance, has benefited from improved relations with Pakistan under Musharraf."
Pakistan equities and rupee are likely to come under pressure when markets reopen, Thin said.
Investors with a long-term perspective and mettle, however, may well find lucrative opportunities in Pakistan.
After Egypt, Pakistan is one of the first emerging markets where Persian Gulf investors look to for opportunities, Brandt noted.
Echoing this, Bumfrey said that the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia have been investing a lot of money in Pakistan.
"The biggest support for Pakistan will continue to come from this region," Bumfrey said. "New refineries are being financed by Abu Dhabi. All of that will continue."
Temasek, one of Singapore's sovereign wealth-management funds, for example, also has holdings in Pakistan, he said.
Under Musharraf, the Pakistani economy has boomed in comparison with its performance in the past. The government has introduced major macroeconomic reforms since 2000, such as privatization of the banking sector.
"But it is not India. India has surged well ahead," Bumfrey said.
For Pakistan to reach India's pace of growth, "you need the liquidity. You need the external international capital. There's offshore funds that are being crated now as we speak to garner that liquidity," he said.
Bumfrey conceded that Pakistan hasn't marketed itself very well: "The big problem is one of perception by the western world."
Goldman Sachs, which coined the BRIC term to refer to Brazil, Russia, India and China, has also come up with the term "Next 11."
The list of those eleven countries that have the potential to offer tremendous investment opportunities, akin to the BRIC countries, includes Pakistan, as well as Bangladesh, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, South Korea, Mexico, Nigeria, the Philippines, Turkey and Vietnam.
"It's a question of people getting the liquidity and investing," Bumfrey said. "They've got to be brave. Not everyone will want to invest in Pakistan, but not everyone wanted to invest in India [back in the early 1990s

Berkshire Hathaway to buy reinsurer from ING

Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway on Friday reached a deal to buy a reinsurer from Dutch financial-services giant ING for $433 million (300 million euros), part of a busy week in which the Omaha, Neb.-based investment group is opening a bond insurer and buying an industrial group.
As the Dutch firm wants to concentrate on its core insurance, banking and asset management business.
ING is taking a capital loss after tax of 100 million euros this year on the sale. Berkshire Hathaway didn't immediately issue a statement on its side of the deal.
NRG, formerly called Nederlandse Reassurantie Groep, hasn't taken on new business since 1993. NRG's life reinsurance subsidiaries have been sold and a number of the remaining insurance liabilities were successfully settled, ING said.
The deal comes on the same day that Berkshire Hathaway is opening Berkshire Hathaway Assurance, a bond insurer for cities, counties and states that issue bonds to finance sewer systems, schools, hospitals and other public projects, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Many bond insurers have run into difficulty with their triple-A credit ratings in jeopardy because of the increased risk from the mortgage-related bonds they insure, which could potentially erode their capital.
The bond insurer unit will begin operations in New York before moving to California, Puerto Rico, Texas, Illinois and Florida, Buffett told the Journal.
"Ideally we'd be licensed in every state, but there's a limit to what we can do," Buffett told the newspaper.
On Christmas, Berkshire Hathaway announced a deal to buy 60% of Marmon Holdings, an industrial group owned by trusts benefiting members of the Pritzker family of Chicago, for $4.5 billion. The investment firm will buy the rest of the company over the next five to six years.
Marmon, with annual revenue of around $7 billion, holds more than 125 manufacturing and service businesses worldwide,

Berkshire Hathaway
Berkshire Hathaway is a conglomerate holding company headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska, U.S., that oversees and manages a number of subsidiary companies. Berkshire Hathaway's core business is insurance, including property and casualty insurance, reinsurance and specialty nonstandard insurance. The Company averaged a 25%+ annual return to its shareholders for the last 25 years while employing large amounts of capital and minimal debt.
Warren Buffett is the company's chairman and CEO. Buffett has used the "float" provided by Berkshire Hathaway's insurance operations (a policyholder's money which it holds temporarily until claims are paid out) to finance his investments. In the early part of his career at Berkshire, he focused on long-term investments in publicly quoted stocks, but more recently he has turned to buying whole companies. Berkshire now owns a diverse range of businesses including candy production; retail, home furnishings, encyclopedias, vacuum cleaners, jewelry sales; newspaper publishing; manufacture and distribution of uniforms; and manufacture, import and distribution of footwear.

Toyota announces plan to sell 9.85M vehicles in 2008

Toyota (TM - Cramer's Take - Stockpickr) said Tuesday that it expects to increase worldwide vehicle sales by 5% to 9.85 million in 2008.

That figure includes the company's Daihatsu and Hino units. Toyota estimates that total worldwide production also will rise by 5%, to 9.95 million vehicles.
In a news release, Toyota also published expected results for all of 2007 and estimated worldwide sales of 9.36 million, up 6% from 2006.

Toyota plans to sell 9.85 million vehicles worldwide in 2008, the company said Tuesday, setting itself an ambitious target despite worries about a slowing U.S. car market as it tries to become the world's top automaker.
Toyota also said it plans to produce 9.95 million vehicles worldwide next year, up 5% from this year — the same projected on-year percentage jump for Toyota's global sales.
Its recent growth has put Toyota Motor Corp. on track to beat U.S.-based General Motors to become the world's biggest automaker by sales. GM has said it estimates this year's sales to total 9.3 million vehicles, against Toyota's estimate of 9.36 million sales.
Toyota's growth has been based in large part on the popularity of models such as the Camry sedan, Corolla subcompact and the Prius gas-electric hybrid.
Soaring gas prices have dramatically boosted the appeal of smaller fuel-efficient models that are Toyota's main strength.

General Motors has been fiercely fighting back, boosting its overseas business and could yet maintain the top industry spot which it has held for 76 years.
GM has not given a forecast for the number of vehicles it expects to produce or sell in 2008. But the Detroit automaker has the industry record for annual global vehicle sales at 9.55 million vehicles, sold by GM in 1978.
Toyota executives acknowledged Tuesday worries about the U.S. market, which has been hit by the subprime mortgage crisis and soaring oil prices. But they remained upbeat about increasing sales in the key U.S. market — projecting 2.64 million vehicles, edging up 1% from this year.
They were also bullish about prospects for emerging markets such as China, Russia and South America, while being conservative in expectations for Europe at a 2% increase to 1.27 million vehicles, and seeing sales in Japan remain flat at 1.6 million next year.
But Koji Endo, auto analyst with Credit Suisse in Tokyo, said next year will likely prove a challenge even for Toyota, as U.S. economic woes weigh on sales and profits.
But he said the overall optimism for sales growth was "reasonable," given Toyota's recent performance.
"These are targets Toyota is giving, not forecasts, and so they are reasonable," he said.
After the first nine months of this year, Toyota was — at 7.05 million vehicles sold worldwide — trailing GM's sales of 7.06 million vehicles for the same period. The final tally for this year's numbers won't be out until January next year.
GM's spokesman in Tokyo Michihiro Yamamori declined to comment, citing company policy to refrain from commenting on its rivals' targets.
Toyota also said it was preparing to start mass producing lithium-ion batteries for low-emission vehicles.
Lithium-ion batteries, already widely used in laptops and other gadgets, are smaller yet more powerful than the nickel-metal hydride batteries used in gas-electric hybrids like the Prius now.
Lithium-ion batteries will not be used in the Prius, on sale for a decade and the most popular hybrid on the market, according to Toyota.
The lithium-ion battery will be used in a plug-in hybrid, which would recharge from a regular home socket, and travel longer as an electric vehicle than the Prius. Toyota has started tests on its plug-in hybrid, but has not shown a model using the new battery.
Executive Vice President Masatami Takimoto, who oversees technology, said Toyota had developed the lithium-ion battery to a level that it is almost ready for mass production, although that won't start until sometime after next year.
Toyota President Katsuaki Watanabe said the hybrid will be a pillar of Toyota's growth in the years ahead, and he reiterated the plan to offer hybrid versions of all its models sometime after 2020.
As part of its strategy to be ecological and super-efficient in manufacturing — as well as with its products — Toyota will use solar energy and wind power to reduce global-warming emissions at what it called five "sustainable plants." The facility being built in Mississippi, set to be up and running in 2010, will be one such plant, Toyota said.

Weekend Surge May Not Rescue Retailers' Holiday Slump

American consumers, uneasy about the economy and unimpressed by the merchandise in stores, delivered the bleak holiday shopping season retailers had expected, if not feared, according to one early but influential projection.
Spending between Thanksgiving and Christmas rose just 3.6 percent over last year, the weakest performance in at least four years, according to MasterCard Advisors, a division of the credit card company. By comparison, sales grew 6.6 percent in 2006, and 8 percent in 2005.
“There was not a recipe for a pick up in sales growth,” said Michael McNamara, vice president of research and analysis at MasterCard Advisors, citing higher gas prices, a slowing housing market and a tight credit market.
Strong demand at the start of the season for a handful of must-have electronics, like digital frames and portable GPS navigation systems trailed off in December. And robust sales of luxury products could not make up for sluggish sales of jewelry and women’s clothing.
What did eventually sell was generally marked down — once, if not twice — which could hurt retailers’ profits in the final three months of year. “Stores are buying those sales at a cost,” said Sherif Mityas, a partner at the consulting firm A.T. Kearney, who specializes in retailing.
A surge in spending during the weekend before Christmas may not have been enough to rescue Target Corp., Sears Holdings Corp. and Macy's Inc. from the slowest holiday spending season in five years.
MasterCard Inc.'s consulting unit said today that sales from Nov. 23 to Dec. 24 gained 3.6 percent. Spending in the week through Dec. 22 declined 2.2 percent, the fourth week of declines, even after sales increased almost 20 percent over the last weekend before Christmas, Chicago-based ShopperTrak RCT Corp. said yesterday.
``It's not going to overcome the negative forecasts,'' Frederick Crawford, managing director at Southfield, Michigan- based AlixPartners LLP, said of the weekend in a Bloomberg Television interview. ``It's going to be a good start, a very weak midsection, and a strong finish.''
Gasoline at $3 a gallon and rising food prices have discouraged shoppers from spending during November and December, which account for 20 percent of retailers' annual revenue, according to the National Retail Federation in Washington. Target, the second-biggest U.S. discounter, said yesterday that sales at stores open more than a year may decline in December after customer visits slowed in the weeks after Thanksgiving.
Five-Year Low
Sales in November and December this year may rise 4 percent, the slowest growth since 2002, according to the National Retail Federation. ShopperTrak has predicted a 3.6 percent increase. MasterCard's holiday growth figure was the lowest in at least three years.
Costco Wholesale Corp., the largest U.S. chain of wholesale clubs, said the holiday season ``went well,'' the Wall Street Journal reported today. Costco Chief Financial Officer Richard Galanti didn't immediately return a call left at his Issaquah, Washington, office today.
Sales rose 19 percent from Dec. 21 to Dec. 23 as U.S. shoppers took advantage of discounts and extended hours, ShopperTrak said.
Less than one-fifth of consumers had finished their holiday shopping as of Dec. 16, according to the International Council of Shopping Centers in New York. J.C. Penney Co., Sears and Toys ``R'' Us Inc. tried to lure late buyers with discounts over the weekend, helping boost U.S. retailers' sales by 7.6 percent on Dec. 22, the Saturday before Christmas.
Chris Lewis, a cleaning-franchise owner, began shopping for his two children on Dec. 21, and may buy more items after Christmas.
Staying Frugal
``I try to stay kind of frugal,'' the 35-year-old resident of Silver Spring, Maryland, said. ``I'm not going to give everything I have in one day.''
Shoppers buying online led the growth in spending, with Internet sales gaining 22 percent from Nov. 23 though Dec. 24, Michael McNamara, vice president for research and analysis at MasterCard Advisors, said in an interview today.
``If you were expecting this holiday season to stimulate a new ramp-up in growth, I think you'd be disappointed,'' McNamara said. said. ``I think the vast majority of people in the marketplace had modest expectations.''
Apparel rose 1.4 percent from a year ago, McNamara said. Men's clothing climbed 2.3 percent, while clothes for women fell 2.4 percent.
Luxury Gains
Luxury goods, excluding jewelry, rose 7.1 percent compared with the same period last year, and footwear sales increased 6 percent.
MasterCard Advisors' SpendingPulse surveys retailers across the U.S. Its figures are based on sales in the MasterCard network and estimates of other forms of payment, including checks and cash. MasterCard is the second-biggest U.S. credit- card company.
Last year's holiday season grew 6.6 percent over 2005's holidays. Two years ago, retail sales grew 8 percent from the previous year, MasterCard said.
Although Target's customer visits increased for the week ended Dec. 22, ``this increase was not sufficient to compensate for the unfavorable traffic trends that carried over into December from the week following Thanksgiving,'' the Minneapolis-based retailer said on a recorded call.

Venezuela, Cuba Sign Accords to Increase Oil Refining, Mining

Venezuela and Cuba to increase oil refining capacity and petrochemical output in Cuba, according to a statement today from Venezuela's information ministry.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez signed 14 economic cooperation agreements yesterday with Cuba's acting leader Raul Castro, deepening Venezuela's ties with the communist country.
The accords will increase oil refining capacity and petrochemical output in Cuba, according to a statement today from Venezuela's information ministry. Chavez and Castro also agreed to jointly develop mining deposits containing gold, zinc, copper, lime and chromium.
Chavez, a self-proclaimed socialist revolutionary who often refers to Cuba's convalescing President Fidel Castro as a father figure, has increased trade and investment in Cuba over the past eight years, providing economic relief to the island nation after it lost economic support from the former Soviet Union in 1991.
Trade between the two countries has risen to $7 billion a year, up from $388 million when Chavez was elected in 1998, Cuban Vice President Carlos Lage Davila said, according to the Venezuelan state news wire Agencia Bolivariana de Noticias.
Chavez and Raul Castro, Fidel's brother who took over governing duties last year when the president underwent surgery for intestinal bleeding, also signed agreements to increase food and industrial production in the two countries, according to the Venezuelan government statement.

Goldman's Blankfein collects $67.9M bonus

Goldman Sachs Chairman and CEO Lloyd Blankfein will take home nearly $68 million in restricted stock, options and cash, making it the largest bonus ever given to a Wall Street CEO.
Blankfein was awarded $26.8 million in cash and $41.1 million in restricted stock and stock options, according to a company filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission issued Friday.
Lloyd Blankfein, Goldman Sachs Group Inc's CEO has been given a $67.9 million bonus for 2007, the firm said on Friday. This news comes in a period throughout which other top rival CEO’s lost their jobs or didn’t get any bonuses after losing billions of dollars on sub-prime mortgages.Goldman, one of the world's largest global investment banks, managed to steer clear of a meltdown and capped its fiscal year with outstanding financial results. Consequently, Blankfein’s reward for keeping the form on its right track included $41.1 million of restricted shares and options, as well as $26.8 million in cash.The CEO wasn’t the only member of Goldman’s management to be rewarded for the job well done. Co-Presidents Gary Cohn and Jon Winkelried will also receive a restricted shares and options valued at about $40.5 million each, up from $25.7 million last year.Cash payments weren't disclosed for anyone other than Blankfein, who reaped a record-setting $53.4 million last year.Goldman Sachs Group Inc. exceeded Wall Street profit records for the fourth-consecutive year and this in a period throughout which even banks and securities firms like Citigroup Inc. and Merrill Lynch & Co. had no choice but to take at least $96 billion of write-downs.Goldman also increased its employee’s salaries and set aside $20.2 billion for the benefits and bonuses which increased 23 percent compared to last year.“There are successful people and then there's extraordinary success, and they're trying to show as a firm that they're really extraordinary. They're rewarding him for leading such a fabulously successful ship,'' said Jeanne Branthover, managing director of Boyden World Corp., for Bloomberg.Blankfein, 53, earned a total of $53.4 million in 2006, thus becoming one of the highest paid executives on Wall Street. His bonus reflected the performance of Goldman Sachs, which reported record net earnings of $9.5 billion.
With this year's bonus, Blankfein shatters the record he set a year ago, when he was awarded $54 million.
News reports had originally projected that Blankfein will take home as much as $70 million, after helping to lead the company through this summer's market meltdown and the ongoing credit crisis.
Unlike some of its rivals, which have witnessed billions of dollars evaporate from their balance sheets, Goldman Sachs has proved unshakable. Just this week, the company reported better-than-expected fourth-quarter earnings, while peers like Morgan Stanley and Bear Stearns recorded steep losses.
As it stands right now, Blankfein will be among the few Wall Street CEOs to collect a bonus this year. After this week's dismal results, Morgan Stanley (MS, Fortune 500) Chairman and CEO John Mack and Bear Stearns (BSC, Fortune 500) chief James Cayne both announced they would forsake their 2007 bonuses.
While bonuses are common throughout corporate America, they are a far bigger part of overall compensation for all levels of employee pay on Wall Street than they are at a typical corporation.
Tom McMullen of the Hay Group, a human resources and management consultant, estimates that cash bonuses typically equal between 40 and 100 percent of base salary for top executives on Wall Street, while senior managers receive between 15 to 30 percent of base pay as bonus payments. Even entry-level employees might see 10 to 20 percent of their base pay in the form of a bonus.
This year was expected to be a difficult one for finance pros given the recent market turmoil and the ongoing credit crisis. Overall, financial firms were expected to cut bonuses up to 10 percent from a year ago, according to industry projections.
A year ago, bonuses on Wall Street reached a record $23.9 billion, averaging more than $136,000 per employee, according to the New York State Comptroller's office.
Facing the biggest bonus squeeze were those individuals working in mortgage-related areas, with their bonuses declining by as much as 50 percent from a year ago, according to a report published last month by the compensation research firm Options Group.
Even though dealmaking has slowed considerably on Wall Street, investment bankers are still expected to enjoy a bump in their annual bonus from a year ago given the frenetic pace of merger-and-acquisition activity in the first half of 2007.
With so many banks underperforming, many financial firms were widely expected this bonus season to shift from cash to stock in an effort to compensate employees while retaining talent. Some firms have already said they would cap their cash compensation, including UBS, which announced a limit of $750,000 for its workers.
Goldman Sachs (GS, Fortune 500) stock finished more than 3 percent higher in Friday trade

MIT finds new role for well-known protein

Research could lead to treatments for Alzheimer's, Parkinson's,

Fluorescent micrograph (scale bar: 10 micrometers) shows yeast cells (red) with septin (green), which enables the budding of daughter cells. MIT researchers have found septin also helps neurons sprout the branch-like protrusions used to communicate with other neurons. Image / Philippsen Lab, Biozentrum B

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In a finding that may lead to potential new treatments for diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's, researchers at the Picower Institute for Learning and Memory at MIT report an unexpected role in the brain for a well-known protein.

A study by Morgan H. Sheng, Menicon Professor of Neuroscience and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator, and colleagues appearing in the Oct. 23 issue of Current Biology shows that the same protein that enables a yeast cell to bud into two daughter cells also helps neurons sprout the branch-like protrusions used to communicate with other neurons.

The work revolves around septins--proteins known since the 1970s to play an essential function in the process through which the cytoplasm of a single yeast cell divides. "In yeast, septin is localized exactly at the neck between the yeast mother cell and the bud or emerging daughter cell," Sheng said. "Amazingly, we found septin protein localized at the base of the neck of neuronal dendritic spines and at the branchpoint of dendritic branches."

Nine of the 14 septins found in mammals are found in the brain. One of them, Sept7, appears the most, but its role was unclear. Septins form long filaments and act as scaffolds, recruiting other proteins into their assigned roles of builders of the cell infrastructure.

While neurons don't divide, they do form protrusions that eventually elongate into dendritic branches. Dendrites, from the Greek word for "tree," conduct electrical stimulation from other neurons to the cell body of the neuron from which the dendrites project.

Electrical stimulation is transmitted via synapses, which are located at various points along the dendritic branches. Dendrites play a critical role in receiving these synaptic inputs. "Because dendritic spines are important for synaptic function and memory formation, understanding of septins may help to prevent the loss of spines and synapses that accompanies many neurodegenerative diseases," said co-author Tomoko Tada, a postdoctoral associate in the Picower Institute. "Septin could be a potential target protein to treat these diseases."

Moreover, in the cultured hippocampal neurons the researchers used in the study, septin was essential for normal branching and spine formation. An abundance of septin made dendrites grow and proliferate while a dearth of septin made them small and malformed.

"Boosting septin expression and function would enhance the stability of spines and synapses, and therefore be good for cognitive functions such as learning and memory," Sheng said. His laboratory is now exploring ways to prevent septin degradation and loss.

In addition to Sheng and Tada, authors are MIT affiliates Alyson Simonetta and Matthew Batterton; Makoto Kinoshita of Kyoto University Graduate School of Medicine; and Picower postdoctoral associate Dieter Edbauer.

This work is supported by the National Institutes of Health and the RIKEN-MIT Neuroscience Research Center

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Nobel Awarded in economics for "mechanism design theory,"

"WHAT on earth is mechanism design?" was the typical reaction to this year's Nobel prize in economics, announced on October 15th. In this era of "Freakonomics", in which everyone is discovering their inner economist, economics has become unexpectedly sexy. So what possessed the Nobel committee to honour a subject that sounds so thoroughly dismal? Why didn't they follow the lead of the peace-prize judges, who know not to let technicalities about being true to the meaning of the award get in the way of good headlines?

In fact, despite its dreary name, mechanism design is a hugely important area of economics, and underpins much of what dismal scientists do today. It goes to the heart of one of the biggest challenges in economics: how to arrange our economic interactions so that, when everyone behaves in a self-interested manner, the result is something we all like. The word "mechanism" refers to the institutions and the rules of the game that govern our economic activities, which can range from a Ministry of Planning in a command economy to the internal organisation of a company to trading in a market.

The real world rarely behaves like economics models do, so mechanism design is used to design markets and auctions that will better reflect the actions of the participants. Mechanism design is also used to look at how companies behave and to consider how governments can best provision public goods like defense or infrastructure. In general, mechanism design is applied to interactions where people or companies participating in the mechanism may have reasons to behave in a non-truthful or less than optimal way, and attempts to create rules and incentives to discourage this unwanted behavior.

The winners of the 2007 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics, announced yesterday, are Leonid Hurwicz, Eric Maskin, and Roger Myerson. The three men received the prize for their work on "mechanism design theory," a field of economics that focuses on creating incentives and rules for an economics interaction such that the desired outcome or some desirable properties are achieved.

Hurwicz began working on mechanism design over 50 years ago by applying mathematical analysis to companies and economics systems like capitalism and socialism. His major theoretical contribution is "incentive compatibility," where participants in a mechanism will want to vote or play honestly. It's an important result, since we tend to want mechanisms like voting systems to encourage truthful voting, rather than encouraging people to disguise their true opinions.

Although "mechanism design theory" may not sound like something you or I would need to interact with very much, it pops up in quite a few places. Take the upcoming 700MHz spectrum auctions, for example. For this auction, the government has some set of goals, including perhaps getting some payment and fairly allocating the spectrum. The companies also have goals, which may be to gobble up as much of the spectrum as possible. By applying some mechanism design theory to the situation, economists can then design an auction mechanism that best meets the goals of all the parties. This type of game theoretical analysis of auctions has been done by Roger Myerson, whose work has influenced these types of spectrum auctions.

Software patents are another area where mechanism design comes into play. One of the Nobel laureates, Eric Maskin, has done some work on patent valuation. In particular, Maskin is critical of the software patent system, which he believes is harmful to innovation when new inventions are closely related to old ones. His (very) basic argument is that in many technology fields, competition is actually better for firms in the long run. Patents generally lead to less innovation in a particular field, and also lead to less competition since companies can't work on the same types of products. Thus, in the end, patents are bad for software and technology companies, because of how they limit competition.

If you're at all interested in mechanism design theory, I would highly recommend checking out the scientific background for the prize, since it provides a nice overview of the key results from the work of Hurwicz, Maskin, and Myerson. It can be a bit daunting to delve into, particularly since it's not a field of economics that gets talked about at your average cocktail party, but it's worth a look due to the sheer number of social and governmental situations that rely on mechanism design to operate more efficiently

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New frontier for DNA team: A bar code for every animal

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Step into a forest in southern Ontario and a dizzying array of diversity pummels the senses: ferns line a stream, songbirds flit overhead, lichen pepper a tree stump, a mosquito finds the soft flesh on your arm.

Unless you have a degree in taxonomy, identifying all of the flora and fauna is an insurmountable task.

University of Guelph scientists hope to change that using something retail stores have relied on for years: bar codes. Researchers at the Biodiversity Institute of Ontario are starting to assign a unique DNA identifier in the form of a genetic bar code to every animal species on the planet.

They are not alone in their quest. Since the idea was first published in 2003 by University of Guelph professor Paul Hebert, DNA bar coding has been adopted by 160 organizations in 50 countries and more than 31,000 species have been coded.

Experts believe it has a host of applications, from catching agricultural pests at the border to quickly identifying disease-carrying mosquitos.

It will help researchers discover species and trace evolutionary patterns, says David Schindel, executive secretary of the Consortium for the Barcode of Life, at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. and host of next week's second international Barcode of Life conference in Taipei.

Scientists are bar-coding as many species as possible in an effort to create a global reference library, says Schindel.

Much like a fingerprint database, DNA bar-coding only works if there is a comprehensive catalogue from which to compare samples.

Barcoding will soon allow scientists to quickly identify hard-to-distinguish species within hours, rather than days. Taxonomists usually use physical characteristics, such as colour markings, to classify an animal. But that won't always work; scientists may only have a small piece of an organism to work with.

When dead birds carrying avian flu washed up on the shores of Scotland, it took weeks to identify the species as swans because they were so decomposed, Schindel says.

"If we could have bar-coded the species, we would have known what they were within a day and, possibly, where they came from," he says. "It would have been a big help for public health officials."

Hebert, who holds a Canada Research Chair in molecular biology, had long thought DNA could be used to identify species.

Scanning an animal's entire genome would cost too much and take too long, so he pinpointed a short piece of DNA - a section of a gene called cytochrome c oxidase 1, or CO1 - that could distinguish one animal from an other. It was a successful hunch, though it can't be used for plants.

"The results of the first wave of studies have been so positive that the plan to bar code all life is simply irresistible," Hebert wrote in an email while travelling in Korea.

He believes 500,000 animal species will be bar-coded within five years.

The Biodiversity Institute of Ontario, which opened in May, houses the world's leading DNA bar-code facility. Robert Hanner, an assistant professor at the University of Guelph and co-ordinator of the Fish Barcode of Life Campaign, says the lab is able to code between 12,000 and 20,000 samples a month, for $2 a sample.

Agricultural groups have approached them to bar-code insects that affect Ontario crops, he says.

Critics say DNA bar-coding isn't nearly as accurate as promised.

Felix Sperling, a biology professor at the University of Alberta, points out bar coding seems to work best for identifying species, such as birds, that are easy to distinguish by physical characteristics.

It does not work as well for other plant and animal groups, such as lichen, fungi and parasitic insects, he adds.

That doesn't bother Spencer Barrett, a University of Toronto professor of evolutionary biology, who is looking for a piece of DNA that can be used to distinguish plant species.

"The next big frontier, the next big scientific question, is to identify all of the biodiversity on Earth," he says, noting only 1.7 million species have been named of some 20 million to 30 million species.

HOW IT WORKS

Scientists only need DNA from a single gene to identify most species of animals on Earth.

• First, a tissue sample is collected and sent to a lab, where DNA can be extracted.

• The target piece of DNA - a portion of a gene called cytochrome c oxidase 1 (CO1) - is copied many times, using a technique called polymerase chain reaction.

• The copies are sequenced to determine the exact order of the four base pairs (A,T,C,G) within the strand of DNA, which generates the specific barcode for that species.

• The barcode information, along with the animal's taxonomic name, photos, GPS co-ordinates of where it was found, and other distinguishing characteristics, are entered into the Barcode of Life data system. It's accessible to anyone at www.barcodinglife.org.

PROMISING APPLICATIONS

• Quickly identifying species of mosquitos that carry diseases, including those that carry West Nile virus or malaria.

• Checking for consumer products made from endangered plants or animals.

• Identifying invasive insect pests on agricultural shipments going in and out of Canada

• Environmental monitoring - mapping how birds shift breeding territories in response to global warming, for example.

• Tracing unwanted plant and animal ingredients in foods.

Technorati : DNA bar code

The ecosystem of the mobile phone and iPhone,

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Just 74 days after launching its iPhone, Apple announced it had already sold 1 million of the things - a milestone that its previous blockbuster product, the iPod, took almost two years to reach.

And yet, to judge by the industry's chatter, the iPhone is already old news. More excitement swirls around rumours that Google, the Web-search giant that is Apple's neighbour in Silicon Valley, could enter the market with its own "gPhone." Google's boss, Eric Schmidt, has already said that the firm plans to bid for a prime slice of the wireless spectrum in a forthcoming auction, something Apple is also said to be considering.

In short, both mobile operators and handset-makers could soon be confronted with two of the world's sexiest brands as direct rivals. Publicly, Apple and Google are being diplomatic.

The industry is a stool with three legs - network service, devices, and the software and content that goes on them - and "I don't think any player in the ecosystem trying to glue it all together will be very successful," says Dipchand Nishar, who leads Google's mobile-phone strategy.

By this he may simply be conceding the obvious, which is that Google would not build hardware, even if it made the other two legs.

But Google seems to be up to something. It bought a company called Android in 2005 that specializes in mobile-phone software. It has Google Talk, a free Internet-calling service. In July it bought GrandCentral Communications, a firm that gives users one single phone number for life. And it recently filed a patent application for a new mobile-payment technology.

It would certainly be tempting to tie all these bits together into a new software "platform" for mobile phones and offer it to handset-makers as an alternative to existing smart-phone operating systems such as Symbian, Palm or Microsoft's Windows Mobile.

Naturally, Google's search, email and document services would be tightly integrated, along with its advertising technologies, which might pave the way for mobile service that is partly or wholly subsidized by advertising.

As a strategy, this might be just different enough from Apple's to assure harmony with its ally.

It would suit neither firm to open hostilities. So Google may concentrate on software for cheaper, mass-market devices, leaving Apple to make elegant, high-end hardware.

Technorati : ecosystem

International Privacy Standard proposed by Google

This seems to me like it will be good for global businesses as a universal standard will allow a more streamlined approach to how to handle individual data.The world's largest Internet search company wants to create new ways to help keep Internet users safe.

Search giant Google Inc. will propose on Friday that governments and technology companies create a transnational privacy policy to address growing concerns over how personal data is handled across the Internet.

Google's global privacy counsel, Peter Fleischer, will make the proposal at a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization meeting in Strasbourg, France, dealing with the intersection of technology with human rights and ethics.

Fleischer's 30-minute presentation will advocate that regulators, international organizations and private companies increase dialog on privacy issues with a goal to create a unified standard.

Google envisions the policy to be a product of self-regulation by companies, improved laws and possible new ones, according to a Google spokesman based in London.

"We don't want to be prescriptive about who does that and what those standards are because it should be a collaborative effort," the spokesman said.

Other organizations have already made progress on privacy standards, he said. For example, Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) created a nine-point Privacy Framework designed to aid countries without existing policies.

Google today proposed that governments and technology companies need to work together to create an international method that details how the personal information of users should be handled on the Internet. Google's Peter Fleischer, chief privacy officer, challenged members of the United Nations to help make sure user privacy remains safe.

"People look to us to show some leadership and be constructive," Fleischer said before speaking before the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization. "By supporting global privacy standards, there will be a debate and part of that debate will be what are motives our."

A large problem is that privacy standards can vary greatly among countries, something that can cause issues for companies that operate in many countries. Along with not having a federal privacy law to protect consumers, laws in the United States often vary state-by-state: another roadblock that will likely need to be fixed.

Another problem facing companies such as Google is that many of the laws are extremely out of date when compared to how the Internet has progressed. An Internet law created by lawmakers just 10 years ago cannot fairly be used today.

"Privacy laws have not kept up with the reality of the internet and technology, where we have vast amounts of information and every time a credit card is used online, the data on it can move across six or seven countries in a matter of minutes," Fleischer said.

Assuming that data is passed through a small handful of information in a short amount of time, companies need to create a safeguard to make sure the data remains safe -- especially since a lot of nations have minimal data protection laws, Fleischer added.

The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) recently created a privacy framework that organizers hope will help nations modify existing laws that deal with user privacy and protection. However, much work must be done due to legal gray areas and loose translation of the privacy framework - for example, general principles are highlighted, but nations are responsible for their own enforcement.

Google already has spoken with Yahoo! and Microsoft over privacy standards, and now plans to speak with regulators from a number of different nations.

At a time when Google is worried about government regulation and laws over privacy, critics of the search engine company claim its recent acquisition of DoubleClick Inc are concerned Google now has the ability to store too much user data. Due to rising pressure from European officials, Google agreed to hold cookies up to two years only - the company originally scheduled cookies to be deleted in 2038.

Some other privacy standard

The P3P standard

The P3P specification has a double nature. On the one hand it is standardizing technical issues to facilitate the exchange of privacy meta information. On the other hand it requires the website to provide certain information necessary to enable the user of do-it-yourself privacy protection (e.g. the entity processing the data, types of collected data, purpose of collection and the type of processing). Requiring this information P3P sets a (minimum) privacy standard.

By offering a P3P policy, websites are giving a binding promise to their users that they will follow the P3P standard as a whole. It is part of the promise to provide the information required by the P3P specification truly and comprehensively. It also includes a careful interpretation according to the P3P specification of what personal identifiable data actually is. All things considered using P3P means agreeing on a legally binding (minimum) privacy standard between the parties.

Legal Privacy Standard

Some countries have their own data protection laws requiring i.e. special user information or allowing data use for special purposes only. These legal privacy standards are especially within European Union member states higher than the P3P specification's requirements (e.g. which information has to be provided in the P3P policy).

The relations between the P3P privacy standard, other legal privacy standards and the parties involved are illustrated in the following chart.

Technorati : International Privacy Standard

Binocular vision gene :Research could lead to treatments for some visual disorders

In work that could lead to new treatments for sensory disorders in which people experience the strange phenomena of seeing better with one eye covered, MIT researchers report that they have identified the gene responsible for binocular vision.

Unlike horses and eagles, whose eyes on the sides of their heads provide two different scenes, humans see a single, in-depth view. Now researchers from the Picower Institute for Learning and Memory at MIT have identified the gene responsible for melding images from two eyes into one useful picture in the brain.

The work, which appeared in the Sept. 4 issue of the Public Library of Science (PLoS) Biology and in the journal Cerebral Cortex, shows that a novel gene is necessary for binocular vision.

"There are other instances in the brain where two different inputs have to be properly aligned and matched--such as auditory and visual projections to the midbrain that enable us to orient to sound," said lead author Mriganka Sur, Sherman Fairchild Professor of Neuroscience at the Picower Institute and head of the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at MIT. "This is the first study to pinpoint a gene with this kind of job."

Two points of view

Binocular vision allows us to perceive depth and carry out detailed visual processing. The images projected by each eye are aligned and matched up in brain regions called the visual thalamus and cortex.

The MIT researchers discovered that the genes Ten_m3 and Bcl6 have a key role in the early development of brain pathways for vision and touch. Ten_m3 appears to be critical for the brain to make sense of the two disparate images from each eye.

In mice that had the Ten_m3 gene knocked out, projections from their two eyes were mismatched in their brains. Because each eye's projection suppresses the other, the mice were blind, even though their eyes worked normally.

Remarkably, the researchers found that when the output of one eye was blocked at a molecular level, the knockout mice could see again. With one eye's conflicting input shut down, the other eye was able to function, though only with monocular vision.

"This is an amazing instance of 'gain of function' that proves immediately that the gene is directly responsible for creating matched projections from the two eyes," Sur said.

Human disorders in which the Ten_m family of genes is affected are often accompanied by visual deficits. "There are reports of human visual conditions in which simply closing one eye allows a person to see much better," Sur said. "We believe that genes such as Ten_m3 are at the heart of these disorders."

Co-authors include Catherine A. Learney, former MIT postdoctoral associate now at the University of Sydney; Atomu Sawatari, Kelly A. Glendining, Sam Merlin, Paul Lattouf and Natasha Demel of the University of Sydney; MIT affiliates Gabriel Kreiman, Kuan H. Wang and Ning-Dong Kang; Reinhard Fassler and Xiaohong Zhou of the Max Planck Institute for Biochemistry in Germany; and Susumu Tonegawa, Picower Professor of Biology and Neuroscience at MIT.

This work was supported by the National Institutes of Health, the Simons Foundation and Australia's National Health and Medical Research Council.

Basic of Binocular vision

Binocular vision is vision in which both eyes are used together. The word binocular comes from two Latin roots, bin for two, and oculus for eye. Having two eyes confers at least four advantages over having one. First, it gives a creature a spare eye in case one is damaged. Second, it gives a wider field of view. For example, a human has a horizontal field of view with one eye of about 150 degrees and with two eyes of about 180 degrees. Third, it gives binocular summation in which the ability to detect faint objects is enhanced. Fourth it can give stereopsis in which parallax provided by the two eyes' different positions on the head give precise depth perception. Such binocular vision is usually accompanied by singleness of vision or binocular fusion, in which a single image is seen despite each eye's having its own image of any object.

Other phenomena of binocular vision include utrocular discrimination, eye dominance, allelotropia, and binocular rivalry.

Technorati : Binocular vision

Tata Tele launches Web browser Moblie

Tata Teleservices has launched a Web browser mobile phone 'Samsung Explore' that is customised to access the Internet.

At Rs 5,499, the phone has other features such as 0.3-mega pixel digital camera, FM radio, MP3 player, mobile tracker, SOS alert and provision to insert external memory cards.

Starter kits and SIM cards would be additionally charged. Tariff plans for Internet access include Rs 10 a day, Rs 30 for 7 days and Rs 99 for a month - all offering unlimited access at speeds of about 156 kbps, Mr Srinivas Rao Sarapalli, Chief Operating Officer, Tamil Nadu Circle, Tata Teleservices, said at a press conference.

Both pre-paid and post-paid consumers can use this phone. The company currently has over 1.9 crore subscribers, about 60 per cent of who access the Internet via mobile phones.

The company expects to sell about 4,000 'Samsung Explore' handsets this month, Mr Sarapalli said.

Subscriber base

Tata Teleservices has about 9 lakh subscribers in Chennai and Tamil Nadu telecom circles and is investing about Rs 400 crore this year to expand network in the State.

It expects to add about 60 lakh subscribers pan India and is investing about Rs 4,000 crore in network expansion and other activities.

More

Tata Teleservices, in association with Samsung Telecommunications, unveiled a web browser fully optimised for mobile Internet here on Thursday.

The web browser is being introduced on the Samsung 'Explore' handset.

"This innovation opens up the Internet to those without access to a personal computer," said Pankaj Sethi, President (Value Added Services), Tata Teleservices. The access speed will be between 40 to 80 kbps, enabling viewers to open any web page in 20-30 seconds, he added. The browser, which is expected to be three to four times faster than GPRS (General Packet Radio Service), will enable the user to browse all websites, search and email. It will, however, not be possible to show videos in the current devices. The browser is based on the QSC6020 product from the Qualcomm single chip family. The Samsung 'Explore' handset, which also has a camera, FM radio and MP3 player, is priced at Rs. 5,499. Mobile Internet will come at prices ranging from Rs. 10 a day to Rs. 99 a month with unlimited access.

Chennai Correspondent writes:

According to Srinivas Rao Sarapilli, Chief Operating Officer, (Tamil Nadu Circle), Tata Teleservices, the web browser, powered by Novarra Inc., can be downloaded on a handset enabled with Binary Runtime Environment for Wireless (BREW).

Mr. Sarapilli said Tata Indicom aimed at expanding its subscriber base in Tamil Nadu from nine lakh to a million users by the year-end. Its country-wide user base is estimated to be around 19 million, which the company wants to expand to 25 million in the next few months.

Technorati : Tata Tele

Web TV show

MySpace still has a few cards up its sleeve -- including the connections it has to some of the top names in traditional media, thanks to its parent company, media and entertainment giant News Corp.

The social-networking site announced today that it has signed an exclusive deal with Ed Zwick and Marshall Herskovitz, the Hollywood duo that produced such hit TV shows as Thirtysomething and My So-Called Life, for the rights to a new Internet drama the pair are working on, called Quarterlife.

Episodes -- or webisodes -- of the show, which follows a group of twentysomethings through the eyes of one young girl with a video-blog, will appear first on MySpaceTV, and then on the Quarterlife.com website.

Jeff Berman, the general manager of MySpaceTV, said in an interview that the show was a "landmark moment" for MySpace, and that it would be "the highest-quality serialized content ever to appear on the Internet. We're talking about the same production values as 24 or Prison Break."

There have been a number of episodic TV-style shows created for the Internet, including the popular Lonelygirl15 show, which was developed by a trio of unknowns and also appears on MySpaceTV. More recently, former Walt Disney CEO Michael Eisner's company created a show called Prom Queen, which aired on MySpaceTV and drew a large following.

Entertainment websites have been speculating for several months about a possible Internet offering from Mr. Zwick and Mr. Herskovitz, after a number of reports leaked out about TV writers and production staff working on something called Quarterlife. The Hollywood duo had a traditional TV show of the same name that ran briefly in 2005.

"We've been talking to [Zwick and Herskovitz] for the past several weeks, and we're delighted to be able to announce this," Mr. Berman said. The first "webisode" will be posted on MySpaceTV on November 11, he said.

Under the terms of the deal, the social-networking site has a 24-hour window during which the webisode will only be available on MySpaceTV. After that, it will appear on Quarterlife.com. Both sites will have interactive features, Mr. Berman said, but on MySpace viewers will be able to interact with the cast through their MySpace pages.

MySpace users and bloggers on other sites will also be able to "embed" the webisodes in their pages by pasting in a small chunk of code, as they can with video clips on other sites such as YouTube, Blip.tv and DailyMotion.

When asked whether the new show would have a mobile component involving cellphones, Mr. Berman said "stay tuned." He also said that MySpaceTV was working on several other projects with content creators in the entertainment community.

According to Mr. Berman, more than 50 million users stream video each month from their MySpace webpages, and the social-networking site as a whole produces 500 million individual video streams

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Faced with Facebook's exponential growth, MySpace hopes to keep its users onside with what it says is the first network-quality television series produced directly for the internet.

The social network announced today it had secured the exclusive international distribution rights for Quarterlife, a new series from Emmy award-winning producers Marshall Herskovitz and Edward Zwick.

MySpace Australia spokesman Darain Faraz said the deal was just the first of many shows it planned to offer through MySpace TV, which up until now has consisted mainly of user-submitted clips.

He said within the next few weeks the site would announce a number of "local content sharing deals" with Australian content providers.

"We are on the verge of announcing some fairly huge stuff," he said.

MySpace has 3.8 million registered Australian users but its growth rate now lags well behind Facebook's, which earlier this year surpassed 200,000 Australian users.

But where Facebook's expansion is now being driven by third-party applications, which have rapidly expanded the functionality of the site, MySpace is looking to hold on to its users through new features such as MySpace TV and Instant Messenger.

Quarterlife, which will premier in seven languages on MySpace's global sites on November 11, delves into the lives of six people in their 20s and charts their "coming of age as a part of the digital generation".

The show was unashamedly written to appeal to today's tech-savvy youth - the central character, a young woman named Dylan, is a blogger whose video diary divulges a few too many of her friends' closest secrets.

It purports to be a "truthful depiction of the way young people speak, work, think, love, argue and express themselves".

To that end, Herskovitz and Zwick - the force behind My So-Called Life, thirtysomething, Legends of the Fall and Blood Diamond - will invite their audience to participate in the ongoing development of the series "through writing and video submissions".

There will be 36 episodes in total and the producers plan to create a mini social network around the show through a website, quarterlife.com. It will also have its own profile page on MySpace, which MySpace says will include bonus content such as character profiles, behind-the-scenes video footage and storyline secrets.

Herskovitz and Zwick said the fact Quarterlife was an independent project meant they had full "creative autonomy", which isn't always possible when producing shows for traditional TV networks.

"For better or worse, Quarterlife is truly our own vision," Herskovitz said.

The Quarterlife concept was originally conceived three years ago as a TV pilot called "¼ life", developed for the US network ABC. The project was axed due to "creative differences" between the producers and ABC, after which the script was completely rewritten for an internet audience.

"When Emmy award-winning producers come to MySpace TV - you know this is reaching a whole new level," Myspace CEO Chris DeWolfe said in a statement.

In the US, MySpace has already dabbled extensively in digital broadcasting, securing the rights to a number of smaller series and short clips including the web series Prom Queen, a teen-oriented serial drama made by a US studio owned by former Disney boss Michael Eisner.

Technorati : Myspace, Web TV

Palm decides not to release Foleo

NEW YORK - Treo maker Palm Inc. will not release its smartphone companion product, the Foleo, Chief Executive Edward Colligan said in a posting on the company's blog.

The product, which was announced in May and was supposed to be released during the summer, looked like a small laptop and was said to incorporate a 10-inch (25.4-centimetre) screen, full-sized keyboard and Bluetooth and Wi-Fi capabilities. The Foleo was to use a Linux-based operating system and did not have a hard drive.

In a post on The Official Palm Blog late Tuesday, Colligan said the company decided to cancel the product and focus instead on its next-generation operating system and the initial smartphones that will work with it. He said the company will take a charge of less than $10-million (U.S.) for not releasing the product.

"Because we were nearly at the point for shipping Foleo, this was a very tough decision. Yet I am convinced this is the right thing to do," Colligan wrote.

Enlarge Image

Palm founder Jeff Hawkins uses Palm's new Foleo in this undated photo. Seeking to recapture its innovative streak in mobile computing, Palm Inc. unveiled the laptop-like gadget with a full-size keyboard and 10-inch display to serve as a companion for smartphones. But the Foleo, which garnering dismal critiques from some analysts may never make it to stores. (Palm/AP)

He said the company's evaluation and early market feedback indicated there was still work to be done to make the Foleo a strong product, and Palm "can not afford to make those improvements on a platform that is not central to our core focus."

The Foleo may not be gone for good - Colligan noted that he and Palm co-founder Jeff Hawkins think the Foleo's product category has "enormous potential" and wrote that when a Foleo II emerges it will work on the company's new platform. Colligan didn't give a timeline for a new Foleo.

In a note to clients Wednesday, Morgan Keegan analyst Tavis C. McCourt, who has a "market perform" rating for the stock, said the company's decision is positive, because it lets Palm focus its limited resources on the smartphone market, which is large and growing quickly.

"We believe a new operating system combined with better hardware form factors are the key to accelerating growth in Palm's smartphone business, and we believe the transition of resources from the Foleo to the new operating system will prove a wise decision," he wrote.

Technorati : Foleo

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