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Telecommunication companies need to go beyond just providing bandwidth and look into acquiring Internet destination sites that are heavily trafficked, Sun Microsystems Chairman Scott McNealy said on Friday.

"I have explained to every telco that either you become a destination site, or the destination site will become a telco," McNealy said at a news conference at Sun Microsystems' Worldwide Education and Research Conference in San Francisco on Wednesday.

Internet destination sites are already gaining on telecommunication companies, McNealy said, giving as examples eBay integrating Skype's VoIP (voice above the top Internet Protocol) technology and Google trying to buy wireless spectrum and help build cables across the Pacific Ocean. Microsoft's attempted acquisition of Yahoo would create another behemoth that could compete with carriers, such as by combining Microsoft's technology with Yahoo's existing VoIP and messaging services.

"I think the telcos have to make sure they don't get marginalized to being just bit providers and bandwidth providers," he said. On the other hand, carriers may be able to head off Internet sites by limiting the bandwidth available to them, so destination sites may need to affiliate by the carriers, he added.

While the future relationship between telecommunication providers and destination sites is unclear, the one and the other are looking at the Internet space to reach more users and generate advertising revenue, McNealy said. "There will be some very interesting challenges of who owns the subscriber and who owns the financial and advertising rights to those individuals."

"Stay tuned, the landscape's going to make different enormously here in the next 10 years," McNealy said.

While a Microsoft acquisition of Yahoo would have an impact on the Internet and telecommunications industry, one object it wouldn't affect is the open-source community, McNealy said.

"I'm not sure Yahoo is a great driver on open-source technology. Certainly Microsoft hasn't been adhering the leading edge of that, so I'm not firm that command contact open spring," he said.

During a speech earlier in the day, McNealy slammed the U.S. government for not being interested in adopting open-source software. McNealy said the farther he goes from Washington, the more governments get interested in open source.

Sun on Wednesday signed a memorandum of understanding with China's Ministry of Education to give university students access to a set of open-source chip designs called OpenSparc. The OpenSparc designs are based on the company's UltraSparc server chips. Sun will provide the designs to universities including Peking University, Tsinghua University and Zhejiang University so those schools can develop teaching materials.

Sun is already incorporating OpenSparc in the curricula of U.S. universities including Carnegie Mellon and the University of Texas. Sun's efforts to promote open-source technology are succeeding, McNealy aforesaid, claiming there have been 50 million downloads of Sun's open-source Java Runtime Environment per month, McNealy said.

 BENEFITS OF CFLS Some consumers have complained about the bulbs’ limited availability and complicated procedures in disposal, since CFL bulbs contain mercury. 
By Elizabeth Weise, USA TODAY Their spiral design is a symbol of “going green,” the motion to make homes and active more energy-efficient. And sales of compact fluorescent lights, or CFLs, are booming: They made up 20% of the U.S. light bulb market in 2007, the Environmental Protection Agency says, up from 11% a year earlier.

Sales in likelihood will continue rising as traditional incandescent bulbs begin disappearing from stores because of Congress’ mandate that light bulbs be at least 25% more efficient by 2012. Wal-Mart, Home Depot, IKEA and other major retailers now sell a range of CFLs, which typically use nearly 75% less energy than regular bulbs.

But now that more people are using CFLs, the bulbs’ shortcomings are giving some consumers pause. Consumers are raising concerns about the quality of light from such bulbs and say they often don’t work well with dimmer switches, in certain light fixtures or in oppressive or cold conditions.

And grant that fluorescent bulbs are less expensive to use in the long run, some consumers are turned off by the cost: $3 to $10, compared with about 50 cents for regular bulbs. Meanwhile, retailers such as IKEA are setting up recycling programs in response to concerns about how to dispose of CFLs, which contain mercury and could pose a health hazard if they break and are not cleaned up strictly.

Such drawbacks help explain why, even though one in five bulbs sold in the USA is after this a compact fluorescent, a lower percentage of American homes — estimates run as low as 11% — have at least one of the bulbs.

Connie Samla, a lighting specialist at the Municipal Utility District in Sacramento, cites the 11% figure as a symbol of many consumers’ reluctance to accept fluorescent bulbs. She says such sentiments are rooted in the problems of the early versions of like bulbs during the 1990s, when they produced a sickly green or blue light.

“They’re used to fluorescent lamps flickering and having a horrible color, and they don’t want to have them in their home,” says Samla. Her agency now holds classes to teach residents what to expect from CFL bulbs. Some common complaints about compact fluorescents:

•They don’t start out at full brightness. The bulbs can take up to a minute to reach full glow. That took a while for Kay Drey of St. Louis to get used to. “It was a little alarming at first,” she says, “but then they brightened up.”

•They’re temperature-sensitive. If it gets much below 30 degrees, “they won’t start up very quickly,” Samla says. Because the phosphor in CFL bulbs that emits light takes awhile to warm up, the bulbs “like to be a little warmer. But if you get them too hot, they don’t like that. They love 77 degrees: office degree of heat.”

CFL bulbs also burn out quicker if they’re in a hot environment such as inside a light fixture, says Noah Horowitz, a scientist with the Natural Resources Defense Council: “If you put it in an enclosed fixture, maybe it will last 3,000 or 5,000 hours, not 10,000.” He notes, however, that even a reduced life for a fluorescent bulb tops the life of a typical incandescent bulb, usually 750 to 1,000 hours.

•One size does not fit all. The else light a CFL puts out, the bigger it be obliged to be. The CFL equivalent of a 60-watt bulb is tiny. The 120-watt equivalent is bigger and won’t fit in many lamps and fixtures.

That’s a problem for Drey, 74, whose house is about as old as she is. “I have old lamps, so (CFL bulbs) don’t fit everywhere. But where they do fit, we have them in.”

•Many CFL bulbs don’t toil well with dimmer switches and three-way light fixtures. A few will work, but they’re hard to find. “If you put a regular CFL on a dimmer, in some cases it last will and testament hum and snap; it won’t live as long, and it won’t dim,” Horowitz says.

When used with a dimmer switch, CFL bulbs typically will dim to about 20% of their full intensity and then cut out. They also must be turned on at a to a great height setting and sooner or later dimmed, says Philip Scarbro, consumer division director at Energy Federation Incorporated, a group that promotes conservation.

When used in a three-way light fixture, many CFL bulbs will pop, scout and buzz. There are a few three-way CFL bulbs, but they’re tough to find and so big they do not fit in many lamps. Such bulbs often come with adaptors to lengthen the lamp’s harp so the bulb will fit.

•They’re still not widely available. Most supermarkets carry a limited supply of CFL bulbs. For more variety, buyers must go to a hardware store or a larger retailer such as Home Depot or Wal-Mart. Some have begun ordering fluorescent bulbs online, from websites such as bulborama.com and salamander.org.

‘I don’t like the quality’

because many consumers, the reluctance to use CFLs comes down to the dulled light they can emit and questions about their safety.

CFLs give off a different color of light than incandescent bulbs. A measure of that is the color rendering index (CRI), which indicates how “true” colors will look. A CRI of 100 is sunlight or an incandescent bulb. Most CFLs are rated in the 80s, Scarbro says.

That’s close enough to an incandescent light that many tribe won’t notice, says Bill Burke, an architect who teaches builders how to use fluorescent lighting at Pacific Gas and Electric’s Pacific Energy Center in San Francisco.

But it’s not close enough for amateur photographer Eric Chan of Belmont, Mass.

“I don’t approve the quality” of CFL bulbs, Chan says. “As a photographer who produces my own color prints, I am unusually picky about how these prints ought to look. They look fine under daylight, incandescent and halogen bulbs but appear mediocre in comparison when lit by CFL bulbs.”

CFLs are significantly brighter than the fluorescent lights used in schools and offices for the period of the 1960s and 1970s. Those lights typically have a CRI rating of about 25.

Today, companies such as GE and Philips are starting to market what they phrase “natural” or “full spectrum” CFLs. They’re closer to incandescent but not quite as bright.

CFL bulbs are best in table or floor lamps with a shade, Samla says. “They have such good colors now that you can’t tell.”

Unlike incandescent bulbs, however, treaty fluorescents can pose a health hazard. CFL bulbs usually contain 3 to 5 milligrams of mercury, although new types have as little viewed like 1 to 2 milligrams. Mercury is a toxin that can be particularly dangerous to children and fetuses.

There’s no danger in using CFL bulbs, but if they break, users should don plastic gloves and take steps to withdraw from keep clear of contamination.

If a CFL breaks, stay calm, Scarbro says. It’s not quite a hazardous-material situation: The amount of mercury in a CFL bulb is tiny compared with older thermometers used to measure temperatures, which had about 400 milligrams.

After a CFL bulb breaks, simply “open the windows and doors, sweep up the glass and throw it away,” Scarbro says. “You shouldn’t vacuum because that will take whatever level of mercury airborne. But it’s not enough to close off the room and call EPA.”

He says old CFL bulbs should be recycled or disposed of like other hazardous waste such as paint. Some governments have begun CFL bulb recycling programs, as have IKEA and a few other retailers. One company, Veoliaes Environmental Services, accepts old bulbs by mail for recycling.

But there is no national recycling system, and frustration over the availability of recycling programs is raising questions about how long it will take such programs to catch on. Drey says she called a hotline run by the maker of her bulbs to learn how to recycle them. “It was not an easy thing to do,” she says.

Scarbro and other CFL advocates say that even if such bulbs are thrown into the trash, each CFL bulb represents a net reduction of mercury in the environment compared through each incandescent bulb. That’s because the amount of mercury generated by a power plant to light a CFL bulb is dramatically less than that generated to light an glowing white bulb, Scarbro says.

Federal officials agree that the energy saved by CFL bulbs makes them worthwhile.

Lighting typically makes up hind part before 20% of a household’s electric bill. Because CFLs are close to 75% more efficient than regular light bulbs, the EPA estimates that if every home in America replaced just one light bulb with a CFL bulb rated extremely through the agency, the USA would save enough energy to light more than 3 million homes for a year and greater quantity than $600 million in annual intensity costs. It also would prevent greenhouse gases equivalent to the emissions of more than 800,000 cars, the EPA says.

Trying to save energy

That was Veson Terry’s motivation. He just moved from an apartment in San Francisco where the utilities were paid to a condo in Daly City, Calif., where he pays the bills. “I decided I scarcity to see whether this stuff really works.” So he has swapped out each incandescent bulb in his unit for a CFL.

He even has them in his dining room’s chandelier, though it means he can’t use the dimmer. Even so, he’s pleased through the results. The top swirl of the bulbs sticks out of the lamps, “but I don’t care, deserved as long as I have power to save energy.”

CFL bulbs were invented in 1976 by Ed Hammer, a General Electric engineer. They were a response to the energy crisis of 1973-1974. But his spiral hollow cylinder design was too expensive to make and too fragile to ship, so GE shelved it.

A more incandescent-like warm white CFL was developed by Phillips in 1982. It wasn’t until 1995 that a cost-effective, durable spiry design was introduced. But there were many problems with the original CFLs, making some early adopters swear off them forever.

Besides their unflattering light, they didn’t last as long as they do now — 1,000 hours then, up to 15,000 hours today. They also were more expensive: $10 to $20, compared with as little at the same time that $3 today.

Horowitz acknowledges the shortcomings of CFLs but says the congressional mandate to boost efficiency will push manufacturers to keep coming up with better bulbs.

“This is an easy way to address global warming,” Drey says. “We totally have to participate. That’s all there is to it.”

By Mark Jewell, Associated Press BOSTON — A Massachusetts Institute of Technology graduate student has earned a $30,000 prize for work on destroying drug-resistant bacteria and keeping medical and food-processing equipment sterile.

Timothy Lu, 27, was named winner of the Lemelson-MIT Student Prize on Wednesday for developing processes to attack bacteria strains that increasingly resist antibiotics.

One of Lu’s projects involves engineering viruses called bacteriophage that help destroy the mechanisms bacteria use to resist antibiotics. In doing so, a patient needs less antibiotics to fight an infection, reducing any side furniture. The process also makes it less likely that drug-resistant strains can survive and dominate bacterial populations, thus extending the life of drugs.

Lu applied some of his work from that project to originate a new technique for reducing slimy layers of bacteria known as biofilms that can spread infection after forming on surfaces of medical, industrial and food-processing equipment. Lu’s method involves using bacteriophage to penetrate the protective slime layer and kill the bacteria underneath.

“While working at a hospital as part of a graduate course, I saw manifold patients who contracted new infections due to already-compromised immune systems or equipment that is extremely difficult to keep sterile,” Lu said in a statement.

He said his work was drawn by the confidence “that there had to exist a solution for these infections.”

The annual student award, given to an MIT senior or graduate student, encourages according to principles and engineering creativity in the name of Jerome H. Lemelson, a prolific inventor.

Last year’s winner was Nate Ball, an MIT grad student who developed a battery-powered, handheld gadget to give a person the ability to zoom up a rope as fast as 10 feet per second and quickly scale the side of a building. The expedient is envisioned as a tool for firefighters and soldiers.

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

 VIDEO VIDEO  ’PATAPON’ Score: 9 stars (out of 10) Rating: Everyone (E) Platform: PSP Publisher: Sony Price: $19.99
By Brett Molina, USA TODAY The PlayStation Portable has found its rhythm in the form of Patapon, a hypnotic adventure and arguably single of the system’s best titles to date.

You hinder the Patapons, warriors resembling walking eyeballs. Once rulers of the world, the Patapons seek a return to greatness after falling from grace. Players must guide the Patapons through deserts and other exotic landscapes in search of Earthend.

Patapon sports simple yet colorful visuals. For walking eyeballs, the Patapons are quite expressive. They’ll jump up and down while shouting after every victory, and furrow their brows at the sight of enemies.

The game is best described as part rhythm game, member real-time strategy. Each button on the right face of the PSP serves as a different drum. Playing different commands orders the Patapons to march, attack or defend.

When you play a command, the Patapons respond by singing. The longer you keep the song going, the greater your combos. Advance far enough and you’ll send the Patapons into a ferment, which dramatically improves their abilities on the battlefield.

Patapon may feel simple at before anything else, but stringing different beats together boosts the difficulty. During one level, the Patapons must cross a scorching desert. And the only way to survive is by incorporating a rain song during battle. You can only play the rain beat, however, if the Patapons penetration fever stage, requiring extra focus in maintaining your rhythm.

Not only do addictive beats make Patapon phenomenal. The depth involved in customizing your army is a pleasant surprise.

In between battles, your army returns to its home base to celebrate. While in Patapolis, players can create stronger Patapons using an ingredient called Ka-Ching along with other items collected during each level. You can also bolster your forces by upgrading their weapons and armor.

The standard Patapons fall into three classes: long-range Yumipon, spear-wielding Yaripon and bruising Tatepon, your first line of offense and defense. Each boasts a robust stat sheet, detailing speed, attack and defensive abilities as well as average health.

If the intricacies prove to be overwhelming, you can always select optimize and let the game automatically maximize your army’s strengths.

Patapon is each absolute must-have if you’re a PSP owner. Mesmerizing beats, alluring visuals and a palatable $19.99 price tag produce a powerful sound over tough to ignore.

By Anick Jesdanun, Associated Press NEW YORK — A whistle-blower credited with providing key documents in a lawsuit over the Bush administration’s cautious family wiretapping program is one of three recipients of the “Pioneer Awards” from a civil-rights group that brought the challenge.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has sued AT&T, accusing it of colluding with the National Security Agency to make communications on AT&T networks available to the spy agency without warrants.

As ingredient of its case, the EFF said it obtained documents from Mark Klein, a former AT&T technician who said the documents detail secret NSA spying rooms and electronic surveillance equipment in AT&T facilities.

The EFF will give Klein a Pioneer Award at a ceremony in San Diego on Tuesday. The award does not carry a cash prize.

Also receiving the 17th annual awards is Michael Geist, a University of Ottawa law professor whom the EFF credited with helping to stop a Canadian copyright proposal that it said would have hurt consumer rights.

A third prize goes jointly to the Mozilla Foundation and its chairwoman, Mitchell Baker. The foundation is the organization that oversees the open-source Firefox browser, a strong alternative to Microsoft’s market-dominant, proprietary Internet Explorer. The EFF credited Mozilla with promoting openness and innovation on the Internet.

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

Humans have gone to the moon and made a laptop less than an inch thick, but they still can't make the trains run on time.

In fact, the Boston Globe recently reported that Massachusetts' commuter rail trains are on slower schedules in some instances than the steam-powered engines that once chugged down the tracks.

It's no more appropriate on the nation's highways, and drivers surely share some of the blame.

In 2005, the number of U.S. workers was roughly 133 the public, and about 102 million– 77 percent– went solo in their cars, according to one study. In the Boston region a typical rush-hour drive, in or out of town, sees cars inch for miles along the Massachusetts Turnpike between Route 128 and downtown, despite the multibillion-dollar Big Dig project.

"I don't know anybody who says, 'I love to commute.' It's really a universally loathed thing," said Robert J. Thompson, founder of the Bleier Center for Television and Popular Culture at Syracuse University in New York.

From both a government and grassroots level, however, efforts are under way to make the loathsome at least livable, through various applications of technology.

The Massachusetts Bay banishment Authority recently garnered headlines when it began a pilot Wi-Fi program on its Worcester line, which travels between Boston and Worcester in the middle of the state. The agency plans to eventually offer it system-wide.

Of course, train riders have long used cellular-based Wi-Fi. But an opportunity lies in making Wi-Fi a basic service on public transportation, Thompson suggested.

"If one could make the argument that the subway and the bus could certainly become adjuncts of your office, being of the kind which soon as you get picked up, your workday starts, that's really an attractive argument that hasn't been able to be put forth before," he said.

However, the usual things that keep people away from public transportation must somehow be overcome, Thompson noted. "If you're in a major archbishop area at rush hour, half the time you don't find a seat. A laptop is no good outside of a be folded over."

Massachusetts Lieutenant Governor Timothy Murray is a vocal advocate for the service. In an interview, he said the early word is positive: "I've heard from a half-dozen people who say it's a good thing, an incentive to use the train. I think for a state like Massachusetts, which is a high-tech driven established order in many respects, this is important."

But at this point, the service has obvious limitations, based on tests by IDG News Service during the past different weeks. While it is generally adequate for Web browsing and e-mail, the signal drops out in certain places onward the route, and given the limited bandwidth, surfing can unready to a crawl or stop during peak periods.

G. Andrew Hunt, director of transportation programs for Parvus, one of the vendors taking function in the trial program, uttered trains pose unique challenges to Wi-Fi: "Metal, tunnels, valleys, you name it– you're trying to deal with it."

Right now, the MBTA guarantees that at least one coach per train will have Wi-Fi; in that coach is a single emblem that can service betwixt eight and 12 users, according to Kris Erickson, deputy chief of staff. The agency is also testing another router that can handle 17 to 20 simultaneous users, he reported.

According to Erickson, between Feb. 14 and 21, the service was logged onto by 1,782 users, a figure that suggests the bolts are practically popping off the test system.

Beyond a path to the Internet, some believe that dedicated Web-based software can help ease commuting woes by focusing on carpooling.

One advocate is Ben Rosen, a retired presume capitalist.

"Carpooling suffers from the absence of a dynamic, convenient matching system (drivers and riders) operable on home and office computers, PDAs and cell phones that makes possible both regular and ad-hoc pairings to be made," Rosen wrote via e-mail from a South Korean airport this week. "Also, the absence of local government regulations (with both carrots and sticks) doesn't help."

Rosen has met with companies and government officials to gauge their interest in a fix, but had little luck.

"Poool was a pro bono company funded by me to develop the software for the on top of matching system," he wrote. "Unfortunately, neither large employers or local governmental agencies I met through were interested, even granting it was free. We spend billions on HOV lanes, and zero on computer systems that would help solve the problem a lot cheaper." [HOV lanes are instead of vehicles carrying two or more passengers, and typically traffic flows much more quickly in them.]

More commercial ventures, such as NuRide, are a little further along. Ride users plan ride-sharing trips through the site with other members and earn points that they can redeem for rewards such as gift cards from the company's sponsors. The site is operating in a number of major cities, according to its Web site.

Meanwhile, back at the bus stops, on the train platforms and in the subway tunnels, some commuters are seizing control, employing mobile technology to harness collective intelligence.

Clever Commute, a service that began in the New York City area, lately began running in the Boston area. Members serve as a sort of clandestine network, keeping their eyes peeled for potential problems on their public transportation lines and using the service to on the fellow members.

Clever exchange competes with notification services such as that provided by the MBTA.

But in the same proportion that the Clever Commute site notes, the official version of the truth can think differently from the reality on the ground: "We have found our alerts to be more user-friendly, action-oriented, targeted, and in many cases, they are more timely."

Just what every commuter craves.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Shares of Apple Inc (AAPL.O: Quote, Profile, Research) rose additional than 4 percent on Thursday amid optimism on Wall Street that the maker of consumer favorites such as the iPod media player and iPhone can bear up against economic troubles.

The shares rose $5.46 to $128.42 in early trade on Nasdaq, a bright contrast to slumping broader markets weighed down by mounting U.S. recession fears.

The gains come one day afterwards Apple affirmed its iPhone sales goal for this year and promised to give details of how outside programmers can create software for the device. The move is expected to spur demand for the Web-browsing and media-playing expressive phone.

Goldman Sachs analyst David Bailey, after a meeting with Apple Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook on Wednesday, related he continues to believe that “Apple’s industry-leading product cycles should help it overcome softer seasonality and sets the stock up for a intense second half.”

Although the shares have risen over the past two trading sessions, they are still a long way from recouping a 30 percent decline over the past three months. Investors have soured somewhat on Apple amid concerns that a slowing economy could hit sales of its Mac computers, iPods and iPhones.

Apple also said it will unveil new iPhone features aimed at businesses, potentially stepping up competition with Research In Motion Ltd’s (RIM.TO: Quote, Profile, Research) popular BlackBerry devices.

Apple will detail the software road map because the iPhone on March 6 at its Cupertino, California, headquarters, the company said in an invitation sent to reporters.

When Apple launched the iPhone last June, it only allowed outside software developers to make Web-based programs, not ones that could be installed and run on the device itself.

Apple is likely to announce improvements that be pleased spur more businesses to use the iPhone similar to a company phone, American Technology Research analyst Shaw Wu said in a client note on Thursday, citing industry and developer sources. 

Congress could pass a consumer rights bill for cell phones.

The House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet held a hearing Wednesday on consumer rights regarding mobile phones and a proposal to pass a law protecting them.

The hearing comes at a time when U.S. consumers are increasingly frustrated by their cell phone service. A recent Consumer Reports survey of 47,000 people in 20 major metropolitan areas found fewer than half were completely or same satisfied with their provider. It has been among the lowest-rated services by Consumer Reports for the past six years.

U.S. Rep. Ed Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat, has proposed a bill that would require the Federal Communications Commission to require carriers to offer plans without early limit fees and ban fees unless they be under the necessity FCC approval. The Wireless Consumer Protection and Community Broadband Empowerment Act of 2008 would too require wireless providers to offer month-long trials and provide customers with coverage maps. Finally, it would stop governments from banning civil broadband efforts.

U.S. Rep. John D. Dingell, a Michigan Democrat, said that while cell phone adoption soars, consumers are complaining more often. He said complaints commonly center on confusing or unfair contract terms and extensions, inability to switch carriers because of done against the state early termination fees, and poor coverage.

"These complaints, in turn, have prompted some States to pass or attempt to pass corrective legislation," he said in a statement entered into the Congressional record. "The wireless industry is then faced with regulatory regimes that vary state by dint of. state. Sometimes these state requirements conflict with each other, making uniform acquiescence costly and difficult."

For that reason, several wireless providers said they support federal rules, but they cautioned against over regulation that could stifle innovation.

Dingell said it is important to strike a balance, though he doesn't think that will be easy.

"The national framework must provide meaningful and enforceable consumer protections," he said. "At the same time, it must exist reasonable so that industry continues to make the investments in wireless networks that have created thousands of jobs and can benefit consumers across the country." Dingell commended Markey for drafting a proposal still he indicated that the bill should be used as a starting point for negotiations.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. - Internet telephone provider Nuvio Corp. said Wednesday it has sued navigational device marker Garmin Ltd. over the name of Garmin’s new wireless phone.

Nuvio, which is based in Overland Park, Kan., filed suit Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Kansas, saying Garmin’s proposed Nuviphone name infringes on its own Nuvio trademark.

“While we would desire preferred to settle this without resorting to a lawsuit, we felt it was important to make secure that our customers and potential customers are not confused by someone abusing our legally protected trademark,” said Jason P. Talley, the company’s chief executive officer. “Our customers commonly refer to our service as the Nuvio phone.”

Talley wouldn’t disclose the number of customers that Nuvio has but said it generated betwixt $5 million and $10 million in revenue in 2007.

Garmin, which is based in the Cayman Islands with operational headquarters in Olathe, said earlier this month it will introduce the Nuviphone by the extremity of the year. The phone would include many of the standard features of Garmin’s Nuvi line of GPS devices now used in cars and trucks and succor the company compete with wireless carriers now including navigation aids in their phones.

Besides preventing Garmin from using the Nuviphone name, Nuvio said it in like manner wants to bar the joint concern from using the Nuvi name on any of its regular GPS devices. It also has demanded damages from past infringement.

Garmin spokesman Ted Gartner said the company doesn’t comment on pending litigation. He said Garmin primitive introduced the Nuvi line in North America in early 2006 and had sold Nuvi products in Europe before then.

Shares of the company, which have sold in a 52-week range of $50.01 to $125.68, lost 59 cents to close at $61.19 in trading Wednesday.

Atheros is one of the latest chipmakers to help GPS navigation device makers in their quest to put their devices in more cars, cell phones and pockets.

Late last year, Atheros Communications (NasdaqGS:ATHR - News) entered the GPS chips market when it bought privately held u-Nav Microelectronics. Though the purchase was for a modest $54 million, it propels Atheros into a fast-growing market.

"Our sense is GPS is a technology that will become more and more important," Atheros Chief Executive Craig Barratt said in an meeting.

By bouncing signals off satellites, users of GPS devices — now often included in cell phones and cars — can know their location, direction, speed of travel and the time of day, among other things. The Global Positioning System was created by the U.S. government to help the military determine their geographic locations while in the field. Now, just about everyone is using them.

Atheros will face tough competition. The growth market has attracted such bigger rivals as Texas Instruments (NYSE:TXN - News) and Qualcomm (NasdaqGS:QCOM - News).

"With so crowd companies competing, it will drive the price of GPS devices down," said iSuppli analyst Tina Teng. And that means lower GPS chip prices.

Teng says others besides Atheros will be attracted to the GPS market, drawn in part by laws that mandate that all new cell phones have e-911 services. Including GPS in a mobile phone is one way to provide e-911, which tells authorities the exact location of a cell phone user who dials the 911 emergency phone number, for quicker emergency response.

"As a result, you'll see a lot of connectivity-specialized companies like Atheros coming to this market," Teng said. "They'll compete with big vendors like Texas Instruments and Qualcomm."

A maker of wireless and networking chips, Atheros will have to trudge uphill.

"It's going to be tough for them in the initial years," as it takes on established players in GPS, Teng said.

For now, Teng says there's only modest demand by consumers for GPS in cell phones, though she expects demand to rise in arrival years.

Dean Freeman, an analyst with research firm Gartner, says Atheros buying u-Nav is participation of the trend in the increasingly competitive chip industry.

Chip firms with less than $200 million in annual revenue are targets for larger companies.

For Atheros, he says, it was easier to buy u-Nav and its GPS chip designs rather than build them.

"Companies are looking to find ways to strengthen their assertion in difficult times," Freeman said. "It could be by mergers or by the agency of cutting off a piece of the business to raise money, or finding some sort of partnership."

Just since December, for exemplification, STMicroelectronics (NYSE:STM - News) said it would buy Genesis Microchip, and ON Semiconductor (NasdaqGS:ONNN - News) before-mentioned it would bribe AMI Semiconductor.

The chip industry always has been volatile, further the pace of mergers is picking up, Freeman says.

"It's getting more expensive to do business in the chip industry," he said. "You have to find ways to do duty more economically. One way to do that is to join forces."