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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Portable media players such as iPods are unlikely to interfere with heart pacemakers, a U.S. Food and Drug Administration researcher reported on Thursday.

His tests of a variety of iPods showed they did not produce enough of an electromagnetic field to interfere with the devices.

FDA researcher Howard Bassen and colleagues set up a complex experiment using a saline-filled bag to simulate the human body and a coil sensor designed to pick up electromagnetic emissions.

They measured the magnetic fields produced by four different iPod models: a fourth-generation iPod and an iPod with video, and an iPod nano and an iPod shuffle. They also restricted the voltages delivered to the inside of the pacemaker by the magnetic fields from the iPods.

All their measurements indicated the iPods could not affect cardiac pacemakers, they reported in the periodical BioMedical Engineering OnLine.

“We measured magnetic field emissions with a 3-coil sensor

placed in the limits of 1 cm (half an inch) of the surface of the player. Highly localized fields were observed (only existing in a one square cm area),” they wrote.

“Based upon the body the observations of our in-vitro study we conclude that no interference effects can occur in pacemakers exposed to the iPods we pure,” they concluded.

Two reports had suggested otherwise. Last year cardiologists operated an iPod during a patient’s examination, and reported in the journal spirit Rhythm that they had seen interference with the pacemaker. 

 ’BACKYARD FOOTBALL 2008′ Score: 8 stars (out of 10) Best for ages: 6 to 10 Platform: Nintendo Wii Publisher: Humongous Price: $39.99 Kids be able to learn basic plays and strategy.
For many families, Super Bowl Sunday spikes an interest in football video games. For the youngest gridiron fan who isn’t willing for the complexities of Madden NFL 08 or NFL Tour,Backyard Football 2008 upon the Nintendo Wii may be a good fit.

The Backyard Sports franchise has been around for more than 10 years and Backyard Football 2008 is the sixth iteration of this children’s football simulation game. This is the first time it is offered on the Wii.

The idea behind this series is that kids play sports with other backyard kids, including child-versions of professional players. This year’s edition features Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, LaDainian Tomlinson, Brian Urlacher, Reggie Bush, Michael Strahan, and nine other NFL pros. Each backyard cartoon kit will talk to you, encouraging you to pick him or her while you draft your seven-person team. During this draft, the backyard kids’ strengths and weaknesses are displayed on simple charts.

The game offers three levels of difficulty. On the easiest, you hike the ball by pulling up on the Wii Remote, and throw it by mimicking that series of events with the controller. On defense, you tackle by flicking both the Wii Remote and Nunchuk Controller from the top to the bottom of; to jump, you flick the controllers up. Other more sophisticated moves incorporate the other buttons on the controllers.

To learn how to play the game, there’s a practice mode, and the manual explains the basics of the game. Backyard Football 2008 would be better if it had a tutorial because, even after exploring the practice mode, the game can seem complicated to young children who have never played a football video game. Kids must select plays to run, and if they have never seen these before, the practice mode doesn’t do a good job of explaining how they act.

While you can choose to run realistic NFL plays, what makes this game so plenteous fun for kids is that you can also throw in wild arcade-style power moves, which create funny scenarios that you would never see in a pro game. For example, one power-up available to you on defense is to make the ball sticky so that the offense can’t sling it. Plus, watching pint-size cartoon versions of famous pros is entertaining in itself.

Kids can jump right in with a pickup game or opt with a view to the more robust season mode. In the pickup game mode, they can play alone in countervail to the computer or with a friend. Kids can control the length of the game and choose the location, the team and players. While playing, kids earn unlockables including new pro players, stadiums and power-ups.

For children who are new to football, playing this game will help them to understand how professional teams run offenses and defenses. Unlike other football video games, it makes playing the game simple, since most of the main actions are tied to intuitive motion-controls using the Wii Remote. But since the game does not offer a tutorial, parents may need to explain some of the nuances of both football and this video game.

Because Backyard Football 2008, even on the hardest level is streamlined and easy to play, choose this adventure for video game rookies, not for seasoned players.

Gudmundsen is the editor of Computing With Kids magazine (www.ComputingWithKids.com). Contact her at gnstech@gns.gannett.com.

Gateway has two new quad-core computers — and one of them features a dual HD/Blu-ray optical coerce and a terabyte drive.

The GM5664 and GT5662 will bring AMD's Phenom processor, as well as DirectX 10 Technology, to the company's GM and GT series. Just as the high-definition DVD format war may be winding down, the GM5664 offers what the company calls a Hybrid-SuperMulti drive so users can enjoy either Blu-ray or high-definition (HD) DVDs. It also can write any kind of DVD or CD.

Entertainment Hubs

Glenn Jystad, Gateway's senior manager for consumer desktops, said the new quad-core machines marry "high-performance with affordability." The new models are designed as entertainment hubs for watching live TV and offer heightened realism for video games. Both machines feature the ATI Radeon HD 2400XT graphics card with HDMI high-definition output, and both ship with the Windows Vista Home Premium operating system.

The GM5664 is being touted by Gateway as an entertainment powerhouse as being extreme gaming, digital photo and video editing, vigilance TV or movies, and storing media assets. Sporting an AMD Phenom 9600 Processor at 2.3 GHz, 3GB of memory and a 2MB L3 cache, it also contains an integrated TV tuner with remote control and HD capability. It can operate as a TV or digital video recorder with viewing, pausing and recording.

A standard one-terabyte hard drive gives even the biggest collector a lot of space to fill up, and a SmartCopy button enables easy photo filing and transfers.

Commonplace Terabyte Drives?

The GT5662 isn't exactly a slouch, either. It has an AMD Phenom 9500 at 2.2 GHz, 3GB of memory a 2 MB L3 cache and a half-terabyte SATA II hard aim running at 7200 RPM. Both Phenom processors are part of the AMD LIVE series designed for entertainment.

With the GT5662 retailing at with reference to $750 and the GM5664 at $1,150, both without monitors, IDC analyst Doug Bell praised the machines for price, action and multimedia capabilities. He also gave thumbs-up to the hybrid DVD drive, since it "will give consumers an option," important for consumers who have HD players. In recent weeks, a decision by Warner Bros. studios to back Blu-ray and other developments have led observers to conclude that the HD DVD format strongly favors Blu-ray.

The standard terabyte drive on the GM5664 could indicate a new level in out-of-the-box storage for high-end consumer machines, Bell said. "It wouldn't surprise me if it becomes quite common in the next year or two," he added. Businesses may exist slower in adopting such huge capacities on individual machines, he said, because in the enterprise much of the storage is on servers.

 TIPSAsk Kim Komando
Tired of dealing through your portable music player’s headphone or earbud cords? Bluetooth will set you free. You just need to add the right gear.

Cellphones have featured Bluetooth for some time. The short-range wireless system is used on the ubiquitous Bluetooth headsets. But now, some gadgets can stream music wirelessly — in stereo.

For example, you can stream music from an MP3 player to headphones if both are Bluetooth-enabled. Bluetooth has a pass over of 33 feet, and up to 330 feet with a power boost, depending on the Bluetooth scheme class.

Not the whole of Bluetooth gadgets are created equal

When looking at Bluetooth, you’re bound to run into some alphabet soup. Look for A2DP and AVRCP.

A2DP stands for Advanced Audio Distribution Profile. It is required for stereo audio. Increasingly, recent cellphones and other gadgets support A2DP. However, older gadgets may not support it.

The Windows Vista and Mac OS X Leopard computer operating systems also support A2DP. It can be added to older systems with a USB dongle.

AVRCP (Audio/Video Remote Control Profile) adds remote control functions to Bluetooth gadgets. For example, you can control music via headphones.

To find out if your gadgets be possible to stream audio in stereo, check the manufacturer’s website.

Headphones

Many manufacturers make Bluetooth headphones. They’re ideal for working out at the gym or listening to music on your home computer from across the room.

If you like larger headphones, consider Logitech’s FreePulse Wireless Headphones ($100). A behind-the-neck band connects the earpieces. The headphones have volume controls.

Logitech includes a wireless receiver. It plugs into an iPod’s dock connector. You can connect it to other players via the headphone jack.

Motorola’s Motorokr S9 ($130) earbuds are smaller than the Logitech headphones and fit inside your ear. They’re connected with a behind-the-neck band. The S9 has built-in touch-sensitive controls.

The S9 works with Bluetooth cellphones and doubles as a cellphone headset. You’ll need to buy a Bluetooth adapter in favor of music players.

Want a traditional wireless headset in addition to wireless headphones? Jabra’s BT8010 ($150) is a convertible Bluetooth headset with built-in controls. A second earpiece connects via a cable for stereo listening. You need to buy some adapter for non-Bluetooth gadgets.

Adapters

You don’t need to buy a new music player or cellphone to get Bluetooth. You’ll find Bluetooth adapters that work with many different gadgets. Of course, adapters for the iPod are most common.

ISkin sells the Cerulean TX + RX ($150). The TX attaches to an iPod or computer. The RX snaps to your iPod dock. You control the symphony remotely.

Belkin’s TuneStage 2 ($150) includes a Bluetooth adapter for your iPod. A wireless receiver connects to any stereo via RCA or minijack cables. You control the music from your iPod.

Some iPod docks also include Bluetooth adapters. They allow you to dock your iPod and listen to it with Bluetooth headphones or stream music from your cellphone. ILuv and iSymphony make Bluetooth-enabled docks starting at $130.

Jabra, Anycom and Sony make Bluetooth adapters for iPods. You can also buy adapters for adding Bluetooth to phones and other music players. Jabra and IOGEAR make adapters that connect via the earphone jack. Expect to pay about $50.

Numerous companies make USB Bluetooth dongles for your computer. Prices start around $20. Before buying, make sure the dongle supports A2DP.

Expect to see more products that stream score with Bluetooth. For example, Pioneer and Sony make car stereos that support A2DP. At about $400, these stereos are pricey.

Kim Komando hosts the nation’s largest talk radio show about computers and the Internet. To get the podcast or find the station nearest you, visit: www.komando.com/listen. To subscribe to Kim’s free e-mail newsletters, sign up at: www.komando.com/newsletters. Contact her at gnstech@gns.gannett.com.

SAP AG posted up fourth-quarter revenue of $3.65 billion from software and software-related services — a 13 percent rise from the year-ago period. moreover the business software maker saw its net profit deteriorate by 6 percent year-over-year to $1.12 billion, due in part to its $59.1 million investment in the launch of its Business ByDesign platform.

The results also reflected $90.16 million in expenses relating to the software maker's $7.1 billion acquisition of Business Objects, but did not include at all incoming revenue from the deal what one. closed in mid-January. SAP expects to begin melding Business Objects' results with its own in its next quarterly report.

"We expect new innovations like SAP Business ByDesign to withstand us capture tremendous opportunities in untapped segments in the midmarket," said Chief Executive Henning Kagermann. "In addition, the recent acquisition of Business Objects makes us the clear first fiddle in business entertainment optimization products, which enjoin help us further penetrate the fast-growing business user segment and will be another driver of growth as we move ahead."

Growth Across All Regions

In both the fourth quarter and all of 2007, SAP realized double-digit growth across all world regions — strange to say in the economically challenged U.S. market, noted Leo Apotheker, deputy chief executive. However, the Asia-Pacific area remained SAP's major "growth engine" by racking up fourth-quarter and full-year revenue increases of 32 and 24 percent, respectively, he said.

For the entire year, SAP's software and software-related service revenues amounted to $10.98 billion — a 13 percent increase in comparison with year-earlier results. Net profit, which grew by 3 percent year-over-year to $2.87 billion, was impacted by $184.76 million spent fabric and launching Business ByDesign.

SAP, which has about 150 customers using its new software as a service platform (SaaS), "hopes to have about 1,000 customers by the end of 2008, and by 2010 they would like to be at a run rate of 10,000 per year," noted AMR Research Vice President Jim Shepard. "But its go-to-market and delivery models are unproven, and therefore its difficult to really say whether these are realistic targets."

AMR surveyed midmarket Enterprise Resource Planning buyers last October and found that 39 percent of respondents said they would like to buy their ERP software in the future on an SaaS basis, Shepard noted.

"It was remarkable because there weren't any take advantage of products at that moment," Shepard said. "If you are SAP you would be obliged to view that as a very positive sign."

Moving Forward

Looking ahead, SAP expects software and software-related service income to increase in a pass near of 24 to 27 percent in 2008, excluding a $266.1 million deferred support income write-down from Business Objects. And SAP's organically grown business is expected to contribute 12 to 14 percentage points to the upswing when Business Objects' contribution is excluded from the mix, CFO Werner Brandt said.

In a transparent dig at rival Oracle, Kagermann said SAP will attain a strategic and competitive advantage in the long run from not having bought its integrated product portfolio "piece by piece," excepting only Business Objects and a few small tuck-in acquisitions.

SAP's customers have responded positively to having a very broad suite built by a single company that has a consistent look and experience, Shepard said. Still, it would be hard to say that Oracle's acquisition strategy isn't working, he said.

"What you've got is a situation of couple market leaders doing extremely source with quite different strategies," Shepard explained. "Both are growing rapidly at everyone else's expense."

On Wednesday, Garmin International unveiled the nuvifone, a slim, all-touch-screen device that combines a 3.5G phone, a Web browser and a personal navigator with an appearance similar to Apple's iPhone.

"The nuvifone is an all-in-one device offering unmatched integration of utility and function in a single mobile device," before-mentioned Cliff Pemble, Garmin's president and COO. "This is the breakthrough product that cell-phone and GPS users around the world require been longing considered in the state of being — a single device that does it all."

Personal-Navigation Features

When powered on, the 3.5-inch screen displays three chief icons — Call, Search and View Map. Users commence a call by tapping the Call button and selecting a name from the juxtaposition list or using the on-screen keypad.

When the nuvifone is docked onto its vehicle mount, it automatically turns on the GPS, activates the navigation menu, and enables hands-free calling so the user can begin routing to a destination.

The nuvifone's personal-navigation features include preloaded maps of North America, Eastern and Western Europe, or both, and allows drivers to declare by verdict a specific street address, an establishment's name or search for a destination by category using the nuvifone's built-in database with millions of points of interest.

Turn-by-turn, voice-prompted directions guide the user to a destination. If the user misses a fashion along the route, nuvifone automatically recalculates a passage and gets the user back on track, speaking the names of streets along the habit.

The nuvifone includes Google local search capability. Nuvifone users can search for locations like "coffee shops" and Google will sort the results based on the user's current location and relevance. The nuvifone also provides e-mail along with text and instant messaging.

Where Am I?

A "Where am I?" feature lets users touch the screen at any time to display the exact latitude and longitude coordinates, the nearest address and crossing, and the closest hospitals, police stations and gas stations. The nuvifone in like manner helps drivers find their car in an unfamiliar parking spot by automatically marking the position in which it was last remote from the vehicle mount.

The nuvifone has mobile entertainment applications, such as a built-in camera that automatically tags images with the exact latitude and longitude reference. The user can save the image to navigate back to the location, or e-mail the image to a recipient who can navigate to the location.

Nuvifones vs Apples

Nuvifone isn't the first GPS phone, nor is it the first touch-screen phone. Though many are calling nuvifone an iPhone copycat, it's really more indicative of the move to a new form factor, said Avi Greengart, a wireless analyst at Current Analysis.

"Touch screens are not strange and GPS navigation phones are not new," Greengart said, noting the evolution of mobile phones from bar phones to clamshell phones to super-thin clamshells, and now to touch screens.

Where the iPhone stands out, he noted, is in the user interface. "The iPhone boasts a spectacular, extraordinarily well-implemented user interface in stipulations of the details, the ease of use and the fun factor," Greengart said. "By all means the iPhone is deserving of the hype it's admitted, but at the same time the touch-screen phone is definitely something you are going to be seeing an awful lot of going forward."

Garmin expects the nuvifone to be available in the third region of 2008. Specific details about pricing and sales partners will be announced later.

If you don't like the way the e-mail program on your PC works, you can replace it with one you like better. And when you need to add a new capability to Firefox, you can simply install an extension. if it be not that such flexibility doesn't apply to most cell phones, since cellular providers restrict how you use a device that's in your face–or pressed to your face–for sometimes hours a day.

That's about to change. In the coming year cell phones will start opening up, allowing users to customize their handsets' interfaces, run any program, and, most important, gain access to underlying hardware for finding directions, making calls over Wi-Fi, and taking pictures.

Eventually, experts say, you'll also see devices such as cameras, camcorders, and other gadgets emolument access to cellular data networks, even though they'll never be used to make a phone call.

Google Leads the Way

Sparking the move toward cell phone pleasantness is Google, flexing its billion-dollar muscles. Google's primary motivation, not surprisingly, appears to be putting more advertisements in front of more eyeballs. In a closed cellular world, wireless carriers can control what their subscribers see. Open up the system, and Google and other parties can dive in and begin to compete for your attention.

By mid-2007 Google and other Internet giants had convinced the Federal Communications Commission to request that any company that won a January auction for a set of national cellular wireless licenses must allow consumers to use any device and any legal appliance on that company's network. Furthermore, late in the year Google, along with three dozen partners, unveiled plans to construct an open-source cellular phone platform known as Android.

At least initially, Android is apparently what you'll hear most relating to when the topic of cell-phone openness arises. Because Android is open source, and because the Open Handset Alliance that is behind the platform has agreed to permit remarkably deep access to the OS, any two Android-based devices could have existence quite dissimilar.

unaffected Android applications and the standard interface will be common among such devices. But Android developers can produce unique approaches to navigating through menus and options, or they can allow you to choose from, or later install, dramatically distinct graphical user interfaces.

The approach is deeper than the "skins" often used to put a thin interface overlay over a piece of software. Instead, the experience will be as if you could boot up Windows Vista and replace Aero with any iPhone interface while still accessing the same programs and data.

Android will also allow application developers easy access to all of the hardware that may be installed in continuance a phone, including GPS chips, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and cell radios, cameras, and other less common options.

Open to the Outside World

Another advantage of an open phone platform: It enables easier interaction with remote services that store or provide information. Consider a phone with a GPS chip, a camera, and a persistent cell or Wi-Fi network connection. Flickr, for example, could release a simple program that would stamp your photos with geographic coordinates stored in the picture's metadata, and automatically upload photos as they're taken. Certain cameras and hacks have like functionality today, but no cell phone supports such a mashup out of the box.

But that sort of application won't approach first. The initial wave of new software will likely tie together basic components–features like contacts, calendars, notes, ado lists, alarms, ring tones, and other media. The Android software development kit (SDK), for instance, includes standard, accessible formats for basic contacts, calendar functions, and media. Contrast that to many current phones, in which the data sits in separate and often incompatible databases or proprietary formats.

Hate the programs that ship with your Android model? You can probably install new ones while making no other data changes.

The iPhone SDK may allow such access, given that the iPhone runs a version of Apple's Unix-based OS X operating system that's much like the desktop release, which lets program developers work with similar types of underlying user information, databases, and file storage.

As Charles Golvin, a wireless analyst with Forrester Research, observes, integrating tasks with today's phones is practically impossible. "You're listening to your voice mail, [and] you'd like to use the note-taking application on your phone to write notes to yourself, all in one standard workflow [as] if you were sitting at your desk," he says. "But nobody, bar none, has done an implementation of that workflow that an average person could figure out and use."

New Services

The next offerings will be new paid services. In most cases now, only your service provider–or its partners–can offer you paid cell phone services such as directions. An open platform allows any company to do so, which should lead to lower rates.

Location-based services, including navigation cure, are controlled almost entirely by the agency of cell carriers. All cell phones are required to provide coordinates in opposition to E911 operators, but each carrier has chosen a different approach. Verizon built GPS chips into many of its handsets; however, only subscribers to its VZ Navigator service can access that data.

With an Android or other clear phone running a GPS chip, cell-tower-based location mapping, or Wi-Fi, you could choose among several services that provide customized information. And Google, Yahoo, and other mapping and search sites will compete for your dollars.

Having decent cameras on cell phones becomes possible, too. Carriers generally include only relatively low-resolution cameras, and hereafter downgrade the quality of images sent over their data networks. To get a full-res likeness, you must connect the camera via USB to your PC or swap out a memory card.

With an open platform, handset makers will be motivated to include better cameras, and to make allowance the user to choose the image transfer method. It's slightly ridiculous that even a phone with Wi-Fi installed must exercise a USB connection to move a picture to a computer on a local network.

Finally, an open phone platform will give users access to such VoIP applications as Skype or The Gizmo Program operating natively and with few or no restrictions over either the Wi-Fi or cell facts connection. Heavy callers could for this reason avoid paying instead of expensive cell-calling minutes.

Many Wi-Fi-equipped phones, including a large number of Nokia models, can already make VoIP calls over Wi-Fi. Few, though, can yet use the cellular data network to make VoIP calls.

New Hardware Ahead

Such new software options sound great, but what about hardware? The "elevator pitch" on openness promises that any device will be able to access networks. That means you won't be stuck with your service provider's phones; if a phone doesn't wickedness a network, you can use it.

In the short term, handsets from outside the United States give by will likely see a growing presence on U.S. airwaves. The Nokia-dominated Symbian smart-phone platform, for example, owns the market worldwide but is installed on just a small percentage of U.S. cell phones.

Handsets won't be the only beneficiary. We will see gaming consoles, cameras, minstrelsy players, and other consumer electronics being equipped with cell chips and cell access–even if they never make a phone call.

The Amazon Kindle is the first major example of such a device. The e-book reader includes a cell data modem that works only with Sprint's netting, and its service bundles in the cost of network access as part of each item purchased.

"The folks from the consumer electronics side have been pretty vocal" about the benefits of such connectivity, says Forrester's Golvin.

Device manufacturers haven't bothered to integrate cell chips so far because if they did so they would have to moil out complicated deals with a work provider and probably have to share their profits. But in an open-access world, Microsoft could build cell data access into a Zune, for instance, and simply prepay a carrier for airtime rather than execute the carrier a full partner.

With the higher bandwidths to come from WiMax and the 700-MHz band, the inclusion of a cell radio in a camcorder or digital camera makes perfect sensation. Instead of your having to offload pictures or video later, your files would transfer while or after you capture them.

"You'd never have to worry about the storage on your device," Golvin notes, and you could also become a live broadcaster "any time you felt probable it."

Of career, if you have five or ten devices with cell phone chips, you won't want to pay $40 to $80 per month in access fees for every one of them. Network providers will have to be more flexible about the way they charge consumers.

The transition to a more open cell phone world will take a while–it'll be late 2008, even into 2010, before most of the benefits become full available. Still, the device in your pocket certainly won't be like the average clamshell phone sold today. And if that phone doesn't do exactly what you want, you can change it.

The iPhone's Not-So-Thrilling Jailbreak

Currently the iPhone is the most famously locked cell platform, allowing no third-party programs to be installed. That should change by the time you read this, upon the release of Apple's iPhone software development kit (SDK).

Intrepid iPhone users are enjoying software released by crackers to "jailbreak" the phone–that is, install non-Apple-approved applications.

utmost early jailbreak apps are free or fee-based and easy to install under Windows Mobile or on a BlackBerry. One more-sophisticated offering, the Navizon service, uses Wi-Fi access-point information and cell-tower information uploaded by users who carry GPS units to provide rough triangulation for others. It's closer to a next-gen, open phone app, since it uses a third-party application with access to location data both on the phone and from the Navizon servers.

What will become of jailbreaks once the SDK appears? Hard to tell. Apple hasn't detailed how it will allow programs to be installed, or to which features it will permit access.

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SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) — Google’s (GOOG) fourth-quarter gain advantage missed analyst expectations, signaling the crumbling U.S. economy has dented the Internet search leader’s moneymaking machine.

The Mountain View, Calif.-based company said Thursday that it earned $1.21 billion, or $3.79 a share, during the final three months of 2007. That’s up 17% from net income of $1.03 billion, or $3.29 a share, in the identical period a year earlier.

If not beneficial to stock awards given to its employees, Google said it would have made $4.43 a share — a penny below the average estimate among analysts polled by Thomson Financial.

Revenue totaled $4.83 billion, a 51% improvement over $3.21 billion in the previous year.

In a greater quantity important measure to investors, Google retained $3.39 billion in revenue after paying commissions to its thousands of advertising partners across the Web.

The net revenue missed analyst estimates by about $60 million, or just under 2%.

The disappointment will convenient amplify concerns that Google won’t be able to sell as much online advertising — the main originator of its profit — as consumers clamp down on their spending amid ominous signs of a recession in the U.S.

Those worries already have contributed to a nearly 20% decline in Google’s stock price this month.

Google shares rose $16.03 to finish at $564.30 in Thursday’s regular session then plunged more than $41, or 7%, in extended trading after the fourth-quarter results came out.

Although Google’s profits are allay rising, the fourth-quarter gain was the smallest in the company’s 14 quarters as a publicly held company. And this was just the third time Google’s earnings haven’t exceeded analyst estimates.

Google Chairman Eric Schmidt nevertheless said he was pleased with the company’s showing.

In addition to the U.S. economy, other issues have weighed down Google’s stock.

Investors are particularly concerned about Google’s participation in a U.S government auction of a prized piece of the airwaves that will cost the winning bidder at in the smallest degree $4.6 billion. The bidding isn’t expected to be completed until March.

Although Google could use the 700 megahertz spectrum to make more money from advertising delivered to mobile phones, many investors are worried the expansion could become a financial drain and distract management from the company’s principal point Internet business.

Google ended the year with $14.2 billion. Following from one side on a pledge made succeeding its last earnings disappointment in July, Google pulled back on hiring. The company added 889 workers during 2007’s final three months in relation to bringing in more than 2,100 employees during the June-September period.

Copyright 2008 Reuters Limited.

By Christopher S. Rugaber, AP Business Writer WASHINGTON — A federal appeals court on Thursday upheld TiVo’s (TIVO) claims that Dish Network (DISH) infringed on one of its patents, skyrocketing TiVo’s shares more than 28%.

The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit agreed with a lower court that digital video recorders distributed by Dish, formerly known during the time that EchoStar Communications, violated software elements of TiVo’s patent.

The court overturned the look sullen court’s ruling that Dish infringed on the hardware elements of the patent.

But the three-judge appeals court panel said violation of the software claims was sufficient to uphold the $74 million in damages the lower court awarded TiVo. That has increased to $94 million due to interest accruals, a Dish Network spokeswoman said.

TiVo sued EchoStar Communications in 2004, alleging that the Englewood, Colo.-based satellite broadcaster infringed adhering TiVo’s patented technology that allows viewers to record one program while sleeplessness another. EchoStar Communications changed its name to Dish in late 2007.

TiVo, based in Alviso, Calif., pioneered digital video recorders that allow viewers to pause, rewind and day of fasting forward live television shows.

The appeals princely retinue also said that once its ruling is final, Dish would be barred from using TiVo’s technology, which it uses on besides than 3 million DVRs.

But a Dish spokeswoman said the ruling won’t interrupt service or require any action by customers, because the company already placed alternative software on its DVRs.

“This improved software is fully operational, has been automatically downloaded to current customers, and does not infringe the TiVo patent at issue in the Federal Circuit’s ruling,” Kathie Gonzales said.

TiVo welcomed the ruling, in a statement, as confirmation of the “value of TiVo’s (intellectual property) portfolio.”

In a research note, Citi analyst Tony Wible said the ruling could give TiVo “important negotiating power” as it seeks licensing deals with cable and dependant providers that want to sell their own DVRs, using TiVo technology.

Comcast and Dish’s satellite rival, DirecTV Group already have the permit to do just that.

“We would ideally like to see TiVo be the de facto standard offering for (cable) DVR boxes, where TiVo gets roughly $1 per box per month,” Wible wrote.

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

The latest information on phishing indicates that fraudsters are increasingly using malicious software to direct users to their deceptive sites.

The Anti-Phishing Working Group (APWG) said in a new reputation Thursday that it saw a sharp rise in November in malware that directs users to DNS (Domain Name System) servers controlled by phishers.

DNS servers frolic a crucial role in locating Web sites. The servers translate a domain name into an IP (Internet protocol) address, enabling a Web site to be located and accessed through a browser.

Often, the phishers will set up their own DNS server that works fine most of the time but can redirect to their have a title to malicious site.

Tainting a person's DNS settings is particularly dangerous since the user probably won't notice the redirection, the APWG said.

"The fraudulent server replies with 'good' answers for most domains, however, when they want to direct you to a fraudulent one, they simply modify their denominate server responses," the report said.

Phishers are also employing malware that modifies an internal PC file called the hosts, which is used to match branch names of Web sites with IP addresses.

at the time a individual visits a Web site, the browser checks the hosts to see if it has an IP address for a particular domain name. If the hosts file is corrupted or hijacked, the browser can be directed to fetch a different Web page than the one the user intended to go to.

Both attacks– also known as pharming– are dangerous, since a user may be typing in the correct URL (uniform resource locator) but be directed to the phishing site.

The APWG reported that the overall tell off of exceptional phishing sites declined in November, but 178 different brands were targeted, a record number. By comparison, 120 brands were used in phishing attacks in October. The highest previous total was in April 2007, when 174 brands were targeted.

More Middle Eastern and European financial services companies were spoofed in phishing schemes, APWG said. The financial services industry is the most targeted for fraud, comprising 93.8 percent of all phishing attacks.