This is the first overseas research and development facility that China Mobile has set up, the news site reported.

China Mobile is already working with Google as part of its Open Handset Alliance. And many people believe that the carrier will soon launch an Android phone into the Chinese market. There’s also been speculation recently that China Mobile will be the first Chinese operator to offer Apple’s iPhone. But reports say a deal may fall through as China Mobile has asked Apple to strip down the phone and remove its 3G and Wi-Fi capabilities.

Like mobile operators throughout the world, China Mobile is looking to add new data services to its offerings. The president of China Mobile’s Institute of Research, Huang Xiaoqing, told the news site that it sees most of its revenue today coming from voice services, but the company recognizes that data services are the future. And it’s looking to Silicon Valley for innovation.

(Credit:
Trekking Mahlzeiten)

With all the talk of lolcats and their beloved “cheezburgers,” it’s no surprise that this cheeseburger in a can is spreading like wildfire across the Web. Apparently you just open up the can and take out the cheeseburger, and maybe heat it up somehow before you eat it. Amazing. I guess these mean we’re really prepared for the zombie apocalypse.

The spring quarter was not a good one for Sony.

There was at least one bright spot amid the gloom. Sony said its game unit recorded positive operating income, compared with a loss in the year-ago period. That shift was largely the result of higher sales of PlayStation 3 software, lower costs for PS3 hardware, and strong sales of
PlayStation Portable hardware.

And matters don’t seem any brighter as Sony heads forward. The company on Tuesday reduced its net income forecast for the full fiscal year. It now expects to report full-year net income of 240 billion yen, down 17 percent from its May forecast and down 35 percent from the actual results for the year that ended March 31.

Revenue for this year’s second calendar quarter (the first quarter of Sony’s April-to-March fiscal year) was 1.979 trillion yen, a slight gain from last year’s 1.977 trillion yen.

The consumer electronics giant on Tuesday reported that for the three months ended June 30, its net income was 35 billion yen ($330 million), or just more than half of the 66.5 billion recorded in the same period a year earlier.

(Credit:
Daniel Terdiman/CNET News)

The company also took a hit in its Sony BMG operations, due in part to a sagging physical-music market and high restructuring costs.

But in Sony’s overall electronics segment, operating income took a tumble, pushed down by increased price competition and a year-on-year decrease in equity in net income–a whopping drop to 600 million yen ($5 million) from 17.7 billion yen–for Sony Ericsson, its mobile-phone joint venture.

Even as profitability and unit sales improved for Sony’s Bravia LCD televisions, Electronics segment profits took a hit from sales of mainstay consumer products, including Cyber-shot cameras, Handycam video cameras, and Vaio PCs.

Michael O’Leary, a senior vice president at the Motion Picture Association of America, said the relationship between content companies and broadband providers had become less adversarial than before and both sides had left the “us against them era” behind. (This was probably a reference to the political trench warfare that led Verizon to reject the RIAA’s request to identify a subscriber and the fuss over one proposal in Congress to implant anticopying technology into consumer devices.)

A representative of the recording industry said on Monday that her companies would prefer to enter into voluntary “partnerships” with Internet service providers, but pointedly noted that some governments are mandating such surveillance “if you don’t work something out.”

Looking ahead a few years from now, the content industry may not be satisfied with voluntary agreements. Let’s say that AT&T and some of its larger rivals start to filter pirated material and demonstrate (at least to a first approximation) that it’s possible, but one ISP does not. Look for the RIAA and MPAA and their political allies to ask Congress for a law that would transform theretofore “voluntary” agreements into mandatory ones.

Not one of multiple AT&T representatives we contacted responded to our followup question, which was: “Can you confirm that AT&T is not monitoring and has no plans to monitor its customers’ traffic or other online activities to detect possible copyright infringements?”

In a statement sent to CNET News on Monday, an AT&T spokesman said: “There is nothing inherently wrong with P2P applications, which are legal technologies that are used and welcomed on our network. We have consistently said that AT&T will not become an enforcement agent on the Internet, nor will we inhibit the ability of our customers to access any
legal content they want.”

(What’s a little odd is that the conference organizers said they couldn’t find any broadband provider representatives to participate in the panel discussion–even though Jeff Brueggeman, AT&T’s vice president for regulatory planning and policy, was listed as attending the event, and executives from Comcast and Verizon were sitting, silently, in the audience.)

The idea isn’t exactly new: the Motion Picture Association of America said nearly a year ago that ISPs should police piracy, and one of its member companies asked federal regulators to make this a requirement. AT&T said in January that it’s testing technology that would let it become a copyright network cop, and the MPAA subsequently suggested that piracy-prone users should have their accounts terminated because they’re “hogging the bandwidth.”

(Credit:
Declan McCullagh/News.com)

Even if the content industry can sign deals with broadband providers, there are still a slew of unanswered questions–including ones about customers’ privacy and how filtering will work in practice. Will piratical transfers be automatically interrupted? Or just slowed? Will piracy-prone users merely find–this is what the IFPI suggests–their accounts suspended? How to detect whether content is licensed, or protected by fair use rights, which vary based on the situation? What if the transfer is encrypted?

Also at the conference on Monday, IFPI’s Perlmutter rattled off a list of countries that have taken at least some steps toward antipiracy filtering, through laws enacted by the legislature or other means: France, South Korea, New Zealand, Belgium, and Australia. In addition, Canada’s copyright lobby has pushed for legally-mandated filtering.

“Despite our best efforts, we can’t do this alone,” said Shira Perlmutter, a vice president for global legal policy at the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry. “We need the help of ISPs. They have the technical ability to manage the flow over their pipes…The good news is that we’re beginning to see some of these solutions emerge, in particular in Europe and Asia.” (IFPI is the Recording Industry Association of America’s international affiliate.)

During a discussion at the Progress and Freedom Foundation’s technology policy conference here, Perlmutter said one filtering solution would involve identifying particular files that are (or are not) permitted to be sent to particular destinations. That would be a “very tailored approach,” she said.

“Despite our best efforts, we can’t do this alone. We need the help of ISPs. They have the technical ability to manage the flow over their pipes…The good news is that we’re beginning to see some of these solutions emerge, in particular in Europe and Asia.” –Shira Perlmutter, International Federation of the Phonographic Industry

Shira Perlmutter of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, an RIAA affiliate, talks up the benefits for broadband providers of policing users’ online activities. The MPAA’s Michael O’Leary is third from left.

In the U.S., she said, referring to broadband providers, “increasingly they will be partnering with us–they will be doing deals with us.”

ASPEN, Colo.–Recording industry and motion picture lobbyists are renewing their push to convince broadband providers to monitor customers and detect copyright infringements, claiming the concept is working abroad and should be adopted in the United States.

MovieLabs did conduct tests last year of about a dozen “digital fingerprinting” technologies from companies such as Gracenote, Vobile, and Audible Magic. Certain products worked well in some environments, like on user-generated Web sites and on university networks, MovieLabs’ chief executive told us in January. But that’s not the same as saying it’ll work well for tens of millions of AT&T, Comcast, and Verizon subscribers.

CNET News reporter Marguerite Reardon contributed to this report

Second Rotation is a Web site designed to find a home for that used and no-longer-loved electronic gear. On Tuesday, the company announced that it has raised $4.4 million in funding led by Venrock to expand its product catalog and ramp up marketing.

“Forty percent of
car sales have a trade-in but if you look at consumer electronics, it’s not a significant number–less than 1 percent,” said Aurelien. “So we have our work cut out for us. There needs to be a little bit of change in consumer behavior, too.”

Second Rotation already takes cell phones, digital image and video cameras, gaming consoles, digital music players, and GPS systems.

To unload your old Treo or Canon, you write the product name into Second Rotation’s “dynamic pricing” application. You rate what kind of shape it’s in and the program tells you what Second Rotation will buy it for.

The Web site, which launched last July, acts as a broker between consumers and eBay or an electronics recycler.

You can then print out a shipping slip and arrange a pick up. Second Rotation then rehabs the goods to be sold on eBay. A small percentage–10 percent–are sent to reputable recyclers, says CEO and founder Rousseau Aurelien. It makes money brokering the transaction.

Tired of that iPhone? Find a buyer online.

Electronic waste is a growing problem. The Environmental Protection Agency earlier this month month launched a cell phone recycling program in an effort to raise consumer awareness.

People can sell their stuff directly on eBay, of course, but Aurelien argues that it’s still too troublesome for most consumers. Only one in 30 of eBay’s registered users actually sells anything, he said.

Admit it: somewhere in a drawer or stashed in your closet, you have an old cell phone or digital camera with no practical purpose.

The Macalope realizes press releases are not really directed at customers, but they do get put into news reports that customers read. You’d never see a press release from Apple like that. Maybe that’s one of the reasons why Apple’s the number one music retailer in the U.S.

The Macalope is in general agreement with Jupiter Research’s David Card that today’s announcement of hot four-way action between MySpace, Sony BMG, Universal and Warner could be huge. The reason, of course, is because the kids love the MySpace. There are also a lot of details missing and there’s plenty of room for them to screw this up, as is frequently their wont.

But the horny one had to chuckle at the press release on Warner’s web site:

“MySpace Music” Empowers Artists and Consumers Globally With Unprecedented Digital Music Service and E-Commerce Platform

New Company to Leverage 30 Million Unique MySpace Music Traffic to Activate Monetization Around Music Content

Installing the kiosks is free to the stores. Evincii charges advertisers to show off their products–the kiosk screens can show videos as well as a full view of the box, including the fine print–and splits revenue with the retailers.

With consumer products, advertising techniques tend toward “impressions” from display ads that are designed to generate interest in a particular brand. It’s hard to track the financial payback of impression-based advertisements, but retailers can more directly measure the value of their advertising with the Evincii approach.

But it’s an interesting idea. It’s relatively easy to track how well ads tied to Web searches convert into sales leads or purchases for some big-ticket items sold over Web sites, but inexpensive consumer packaged goods are another matter. Who clicks on an online ad to buy beef jerky?

A start-up called Evincii, which announced its technology this week, hopes to capitalize on the idea. It offers in-store computer kiosks that can help customers figure out what products to buy and where in a crowded aisle to find them.

Chief Executive Charlie Koo gives the example of a customer who wants to grapple with the unpleasantness of finding cold medicine. “There are 800 different products out there,” he said. Exactly 13 of them deal just with cough and a fever. “I guarantee you that when you get through this process, every one of those 13 are the right ones,” he said.

OK, so Google dominates the market for online search and accompanying advertisements. But what about people trying to find what they need in a store, not online?

An Evincii in-store search kiosk.

The kiosk directs people toward a product's shelf location.

(Credit:
Evincii)

(Credit:
Evincii)

The company, newly emerged from stealth mode this week, was founded in 2005 and now has 21 employees. We’ll see how well the business scales as the company spreads beyond the pharmacy area.

An Associated Press article coinciding with the change notes that Olympic officials are grappling with how to keep up appearances with foreigners as they arrive in Beijing. The usual estimate is that 500,000 people will come for the games. In the article, an official was quoted as saying he hoped the Internet would be open for media during the games:

I can confirm that both Wikipedia and Blogspot work from my connection and that this will make my life easier.

The two changes may also reflect a technical similarity, and possibly new infrastructure. The Chinese and English Wikipedia sites are differentiated using subdomains: cn.wikipedia.org vs. en.wikipedia.org. Similarly, the URLs for English and Chinese news on BBC are easily differentiable. This may mean a shift from IP filtering to URL filtering. Either way, offending requests still appear to be met with “connection resets.”

Kevan Gosper, vice chairman of the IOC coordinating commission, said blocking the Internet during the games “would reflect very poorly” on the host nation.

Obviously, Chinese officials read this blog and care very much about my opinions. (Blogspot’s available too, but I didn’ t ask for that. So whatever.)

“There was some criticism that the Internet closed down during events relating to Tibet in previous weeks, but this is not games time,” Gosper said.

But as Danwei, the Chinese media and culture site, reports, Wikipedia’s Chinese-language site is still blocked. Thus unfortunately, the argument that I made previously–that Wikipedia still lacks very important participation from this part of the world–will continue to stand.

I can’t say I discovered this on my own. Danwei’s “Net Nanny” post tipped me off.

The iconic Olympic sites in Beijing

Danwei calls this an “explanation,” but I think it’s more ambiguous. This change is similar to the unblocking of the English BBC News site in recent days: the Chinese counterpart is still blocked. The strategy of allowing open access in English and other non-Chinese languages while restricting Chinese-language sites feels like a P.R. move. Journalists from other countries will stop complaining so much about not being able to screw around online and comment on their friends’ blogs, and the Chinese authorities still get to control content for the majority of Chinese Net users.

I just got done mentioning how hard it is for me to fully participate in Wikipedia from China. But English-language Wikipedia is suddenly accessible tonight from Beijing.

“Even this morning we discussed and insisted again,” Gosper said. “Our concern is that the press is able to operate as it has at previous games–at games time.”

Gosper said the Chinese had an obligation under the so-called “host city agreement” to open Internet access to 30,000 accredited and non-accredited journalists expected to attend.

In true ironic reality show fashion, a poll running next to the article shows that 48% of the 141 visitors to the site believe “Twitter, a fad, will slowly fade away.”

The basis of his argument is that the internet is “in production” but there are scaling issues such as IPv4 and now we have to rethink how to fix them. True, but maybe he can give IM back to Twitter users in his spare time.

(Credit: Internet Evolution)
In a recent article, Alex Payne, API Lead at Twitter, claims that the internet is broken. While some of his arguments may have merit, it’s a shockingly bizarre PR tactic to come out against something (especially the internet) when your own stuff is broken. Especially the APIs!

Maybe Twitter isn't so great.

The winner gets to perform live onstage at Elvis’ historic Graceland home, backed by entertainers who actually performed with Elvis himself. Ten second-place winners get a DVD of Viva Las Vegas as well as some variety of MP3 player loaded with Elvis songs. Third-place prizes, of which there are 20, are one-year memberships to an “Official Elvis Insiders” club.

The contest is a singing one, not an impersonation one, but I’m presuming there will be plenty of video entrants decked out in sunglasses and gold-studded leather jackets. Let’s hope they welcome contest entrants in Elvis regalia a little more warmly than they do with the media.

There’s going to be an Elvis karaoke contest on MySpace. That is not a joke. I can’t seem to figure out whether it’s trying to market Elvis to a younger generation or MySpace to an older one–or if it’s just for kicks.