Google hounds Microsoft over search choice

MOUNTAIN VIEW, California (AP) -- The search engine company Google wants Microsoft to make sure users can easily choose Internet search engines in future products.

But Mountain View-based Google won't say if changes Microsoft has already made to its upcoming operating system, Vista, have gone far enough.

David C. Drummond -- Google's senior vice president of corporate development -- spoke to reporters after meeting with European Union antitrust regulators but refused to give details on those talks.

Vista is Microsoft's first major update to the company's flagship operating system since Windows XP was released in late 2001.

Microsoft has changed some aspects of the upcoming operating system to soothe European antitrust concerns.

Group blasts firms for China Web control

ATHENS, Greece (Reuters) -- China's control of the Internet stirred controversy at the first global Internet governance forum on Tuesday when a rights group accused western firms of providing Chinese police with technology to limit Web freedom.

Reporters without Borders, a press freedom group, said sales by major U.S. companies to China had bolstered Beijing's capabilities of limiting Internet access in the country.

"You sold technology to Chinese police which they then use to limit and control Internet freedom," Julien Pain of Reporters Without Borders told the forum in Athens.

"The governments of democratic countries should regulate the activities of Internet companies to prevent this kind of abuse."

China is the world's second-largest Internet market. It employs an estimated 30,000 people to trawl Web sites for subversive material and is a leading jailer of journalists, with at least 32 in custody, and another 50 Internet campaigners also in prison, according to Reporters Without Borders.

The largest U.S. network equipment maker Cisco and several other U.S. technology companies, including Google Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Yahoo Inc., are facing the ire of some U.S. lawmakers, activists and investors for their alleged complicity in allowing the Chinese government to commit human rights abuses.

China, which will host the 2008 Olympics, has been under increasing pressure to soften its grip on the Internet. It buys Cisco Systems Inc. technology, which is used to direct Internet traffic, through independent resellers of its products.

A Cisco official said the company was not selling tailor-made products according to the demands of governments.

"We sold the same equipment we sell in any country around the world," Art Reilly, Cisco's Senior Director for Strategic Technology Policy said at the forum. "We are selling the same product everywhere. We are not colluding with any government."

He said Cisco technology sold to China would allow a secure information flow. "It is essential that there has to be security..to provide security to allow the freeflow of information. It is the same technology for libraries for example."

Microsoft senior policy counsel Fred Tipson defended Cisco.

"The condition of doing business in a country is to abide by the law in that country," Tipson said.

Activists rejected the companies' response, saying they had evidence firms marketed specific police and security services.

Pain presented the conference with what he said were leaflets from a U.S. company, distributed during a trade show in Shanghai, advertising their policing and surveillance systems.

"There should ... be a ban on the sale of communication surveillance equipment to repressive countries," he said.

The four-day meeting, hosted by Greece, is aimed at discussing the future of the Internet with all stake holders, including governments, businesses and rights groups.

Review: Kick it with latest 'Mortal Kombat'

Midway Games' "Mortal Kombat: Armageddon," now available for the Sony PlayStation 2 and Microsoft Xbox, boasts a full roster of playable characters.

"Armageddon" is the first in the series to feature every character from the 14-year-old "Mortal Kombat" universe. There are more than 50 3-D fighters in all including Scorpion, Kung Lao, Sub-Zero and Motaro.

Like any good fighting game, however, only a handful of characters are available at the start. Part of the fun is unlocking the rest, each of whom has a unique look, fighting style and weapon preference.

And if you don't want to go with a preexisting character, "Armageddon" is the first "Mortal Kombat" game with a "Kreate-a-Fighter" mode. You can select from thousands of physical features and attributes to design a custom fighter, give him or her a name, and then start a game to test their skills against others.

The fighting, which is fast-paced, requires mastery in three key areas: hand-to-hand combat, weapons and magic. Learning how to punch, kick, jump and spin -- not to mention linking successive moves into "combos" -- takes some time to get right. Therefore, you won't get very far in this title if you try your luck by random "button mashing."

It's also fun to learn how to fight in the air with the many aerial moves offered in this game.

Another "Mortal Kombat" calling card is the notorious "fatality" move, which refers to the way one fighter can kill the other. In "Armageddon," a new Kreate-a-Fatality system gives players the ability to create custom fatalities by stringing together button combinations.

Midway has also expanded a few of its game modes. Aside from the single-player game (against the game's artificial intelligence) and a two-player mode (on the same television), "Armageddon" also offers a deeper Konquest game (a story-based adventure) and expanded online play for head-to-head matches over the Internet - with faster response times than found in 2004's "Mortal Kombat: Deception," and the ability to play your custom fighter in cyberspace.

But even with all of these additions, "Mortal Kombat" is still the same old 3-D fighting game: Each player picks a character and fights in a number of different environments. In other words, "Armageddon" just gives the player a lot more of the same stuff. This isn't necessarily a bad thing; but if you are looking for a revolutionary new game, this is not it.

Also, while this game's graphics look OK (better on the Xbox than the PlayStation 2), it doesn't compare to fighting games on the Xbox 360 such as Tecmo's "Dead or Alive 4."

"Mortal Kombat" fans can pick up "Armageddon" for $39.95, or they may opt for the Premium Edition ($49.95), which also includes a playable version of the original "Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3," more than 60 minutes of bonus DVD video content, a collectible metal case (with four unique box fronts in total), and an animation cell cover art autographed by franchise co-creator Ed Boon.

Google acquires wiki startup

NEW YORK (AP) -- Google Inc., expanding its efforts at providing software that helps users create and post their own materials on the Internet, has acquired a California startup that develops online collaboration tools known as wikis.

The announcement came Tuesday through separate postings at Google's and JotSpot Inc.'s Web journals. Terms were not disclosed.

JotSpot Chief Executive Joe Kraus said JotSpot would be able to tap into the Internet search leader's large user base and robust data centers capable of handling any growth.

"Our vision has always been to take wikis out of the land of the nerds and bring it to the largest possible audience," Kraus said in an interview. "There's no larger audience that you can reach than one you can reach through Google."

Wiki tools, popularized by the online encyclopedia Wikipedia, let users to create, modify and even delete information on what others in a group have worked.

In July, JotSpot released a new version that aims to make shared pages similar to spreadsheets, photo albums and other software people already use. In the past, Wiki tools have generally mimicked basic Web pages or word-processing documents -- photographs, for instance, might appear as a list of attachments, with no thumbnails previewing the image before downloading.

Kraus said Google shared his company's vision for helping groups share information and work together online. As the two companies talked over the past nine months, he said, "we were completing each other's sentences."

Google's acquisition of JotSpot, which closed Monday, comes as the Internet search leader prepares to purchase the online video-sharing site YouTube Inc. for $1.65 billion in stock.

Earlier in the year, Google said it bought Upstartle, the maker of the online word-processing program Writely. Google has since packaged Writely with an online spreadsheet it developed in-house.

The free tools could help groups simultaneously work on documents over the Web and provide alternatives to Microsoft Corp.'s dominant business-software applications, which largely run on computer desktops rather than the Internet.

Kraus said Google's acquisition of JotSpot "validates the notion that people want to do more online than just read. The Web is moving from a monologue to a dialogue."

As JotSpot, makes the transition to Google's systems, new registrations have been suspended. Existing users can continue using the service, and JotSpot will stop billing for paid accounts.

Kraus declined to discuss future product plans under Google. In the past, Google turned the Picasa Inc.'s $29 photo organizer into a free download, but it sold a premium version of Google Earth, a mapping product that incorporated technology acquired from Keyhole Corp.

JotSpot currently has 30,000 paid users at about 2,000 companies using a service hosted on premise or at JotSpot. About 10 times as many people use the free, JotSpot-hosted service, which restricts the number of pages and the size of the collaborating group.

Kraus said Google has yet to determine whether existing users would eventually have to sign up for free user IDs through Google, as Writely users ultimately had to do.

The universal identity could heighten privacy concerns, making it easier for governments to obtain one's search history, e-mail messages, word-processing documents and now wiki data with just one subpoena. Kraus said users could delete accounts before migrating to Google.

JotSpot's 27 employees will move about six miles from Palo Alto, California, to Google's Mountain View headquarters.

The really small screen -- cell phone movies

BOSTON, Massachusetts (AP) -- The cameras capture the young man walking down the stairs, reciting a monologue about the three things people should know about him: His favorite movie is "Gone with the Wind," he loves roller coasters and he hates when people don't take him seriously.

The shot is complicated and takes several attempts to perfect. But there's no big camera equipment, no expert sound system and no reels of film to capture the moment.

Instead, everyone involved, from the three cameramen and the sound guy to the extras, is producing the miniature movie with -- and for -- cell phones.

The exercise is part of a new Boston University class created through a unique partnership with cellular company Amp'd Mobile and taught by director Jan Egleson. During the semester, the students will produce a series of short episodes that eventually will be distributed by the company for its cellular customers.

The students have challenged each other to shoot it using only the phones, despite obstacles surrounding sound and video quality.

The class, which the university believes is the only one of its kind in the country, offers students credit and a chance to be part of the new media culture -- where anyone, anywhere, can create, distribute and view entertainment using a variety of emerging technologies. Amp'd benefits by getting mobile content created by one of its targeted audiences: young, tech-savvy adults.

Amp'd, whose backers include Qualcomm Inc. and Viacom Inc., is trying to compete with mainstream cellular players like Cingular Wireless by branding itself as a youth-oriented company offering more than just phone service.

It sells comedy clips, cartoons and music videos for subscribers to watch on cell phones for prices that start at 45 cents for a single download to $20 for unlimited access.

Most content is geared toward people ages 18 to 35.

"They're all about anywhere, anytime," said Seth Cummings, Amp'd Mobile's senior vice president for content, who helped start the program at his alma mater. "They want to be able to take their media with them."

Amp'd has hired established writers to create original content, but Cummings said the company decided to work with BU to target budding artists.

"I know that when I was there, there was this stuff that we'd create that there was no outlet (for)," Cummings said. "There's a real outlet here."

The medium is so new, the students and Egleson spent some time in a recent class debating what to call their work. Options included mobisodes (mobile episodes), mobilettes or cellenovelas (cellular telenovelas).

"We're on the cutting edge of a new era of film medium," said Mark DiCristofaro, a 21-year-old BU film student. "Why not get on board early?"

And because anyone with a cell phone can make a video and upload it to the Internet to watch on computers or phones, the students said they felt a greater opportunity to get people to see their work. Television production graduate student Chris Miller said cell phones give young filmmakers a new way to distribute their work.

"It's so hard to get the studios to really pay attention, especially the beginning filmmakers," Miller said. "So if they don't want to go that route, you don't have to."

In some respects, Egleson's film class is like any other. In the first hour, he guides the students through a discussion of editing, graphics, music and tone. They work on their series, centered on a group of diverse students who each harbor a secret.

"The bottom line is always that if it's a good story and you get involved, it doesn't matter what format it is," said Egleson, who has directed films and television shows.

Other times, though, the students and teacher run into challenges unique to working with their black, shiny cell phones provided by Amp'd:

The phones film for just 15 seconds at a time. For longer scenes, such as the monologue in the stairwell, multiple phones are used.

The phones don't pick up sound well. During this class, the students try putting a phone in an actor's pocket or using a makeshift boom created with a tiny microphone and a bendable, green stick.

In some scenes, cameramen can be seen in the shots. So when they finish filming, they quickly put their cameras to their ears and become extras casually chatting on the phone.

The picture quality isn't as good as film, either, because the phone's camera records 15 frames per second, compared with the typical 24 to 30 frames per second in movies or on television.

"I wish I could tell you I've done this a million times," Egleson tells the class as they watch him upload their footage stored on the phone's memory cards onto his laptop, done by connecting the phone to the computer with a USB cable.

Miller said the students also have had to adapt their film-making style for the small -- very small -- screen. Scenes are shorter, cuts are quicker and visuals are larger. Nobody is trying to make a "Saving Private Ryan" epic, and the students refuse to edit out the quirks, saying they want to create videos the average phone user could make themselves.

"It's not quite as clean as what you'd expect from television. It's a little more raw," Miller said. "It's not your 'Everybody Loves Raymond' sitcom."

On the other hand, Egleson said, the phones give the cameramen more flexibility because they aren't lugging around large equipment and can easily whip a phone out of their pocket for spontaneous scenes. And Egleson expects the phone technology to improve quickly.

Paris recently held its second film festival devoted exclusively to movies shot with cell phones. But it's too early to say how popular mobile programming will become in the United States, said Linda Barrabee, an analyst at the Yankee Group, a Boston-based technology research firm.

Although cell phones are ubiquitous, a much smaller percentage of people own phones with the technology to watch videos or subscribe to services to do so.

Current trends, she said, lean toward people being most interested short programming, such as sketches or sports highlights, that they can watch in line at the store or on the subway.

"For the most part, what we're talking about is snacking," she said.

But Barrabee wouldn't rule out feature films watched in segments _ or even attracting older people, who have more buying power than young adults.

Despite the challenges and uncertain future, a wave of enthusiasm traveled through a recent three-hour BU class, from the experimental filming to the writing session.

"I feel like I should pay $7 for this," one student said as the class crowded around cell phones and computers to watch their edited footage.

Which is exactly what Amp'd Mobile wants to hear.

U.S. Air Force prepares to fight in cyberspace

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- The U.S. Air Force said Thursday it was setting up what could become a new four-star command to fight in cyberspace, where officials say the United States has already come under attack from China among others.

"The aim is to develop a major command that stands alongside Air Force Space Command and Air Combat Command as the provider of forces that the President, combatant commanders and the American people can rely on for preserving the freedom of access and commerce, in air, space and now cyberspace," Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne told an industry conference.

The Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana-based 8th Air Force -- already home to about 25,000 military personnel involved in everything from electronic warfare to network defense -- will house the fledgling Cyberspace Command, Wynne said.

"Cyberspace is a domain for projecting and protecting national power, for both strategic and tactical operations," Wynne said.

Last month, the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff defined cyberspace as "characterized by the use of electronics and the electromagnetic spectrum to store, modify, and exchange data via networked systems and associated physical infrastructures."

The definition is broad enough to cover far more than merely defending or attacking computer networks. Wynne cited the use of remotely detonated roadside bombs in Iraq, "terrorist use of Global Positioning Satellites and satellite communications, Internet financial transactions by adversaries, radar and navigational jamming, and attacking American servers" as examples of operations involving cyberspace.

"This new way of war is data-dependent," he said. "We need to protect our data while detecting adversary data and then deny, disrupt, dissuade or destroy the source of that data or transmission as appropriate."

Heading the new command will be 8th Air Force Commander Lt. Gen. Robert Elder, who said its capabilities would include, for instance, taking down a financial network if ordered to do so by the president or defense secretary.

"We see that as certainly within our realm," provided such action was consistent with laws of war such as proportionality and minimizing unintended harm to civilians, he told reporters at a briefing after Wynne's announcement.

Although the focus of U.S. efforts until now has been on defense, "we've come to realize there are a lot of things that we can do in the cyberspace domain that would be good for national security," Elder said.

He said the new drive would focus on standardization of operations, personnel training and making the case for more resources.

Lani Kass, who headed a cyber task force set up in January by U.S. Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. T. Michael Moseley, told the same briefing that the United States was already at war in cyberspace. She said U.S. foes were using it to attack "asymmetrically," meaning going after vulnerabilities.

In addition, she said, China was a U.S. "peer competitor" in cyberspace and had been involved in efforts to "exfiltrate" information from U.S. networks for at least 10 years -- an activity she said probably was on the "upswing."

Elder, referring to any U.S. foe, added: "If they want to fight with us in cyberspace, we're willing to take them on there, too."

Wynne, replying to a question, said the Air Force would seek funding for the cyber command in fiscal 2009, which begins October 1, 2008.

In December 2005, the Air Force mission statement was amended to include cyberspace as an operational area, along with air and space.

Hip-hop gets its game on

LOS ANGELES, California (Hollywood Reporter) -- Cutting-edge music has long been an integral feature of high-end video games.

Now, as Electronic Arts and the gaming arm of Def Jam Records gear up for the third in their successful series of Def Jam-branded game titles, and first for next-generation game platforms, music is being incorporated into the fabric of the gameplay as well.

"Gaming is almost intrinsic in hip-hop," says Lauren Wirtzer, VP marketing at Def Jam Interactive. "Every artist who goes on the road is going to have some sort of PlayStation or Xbox on their tour bus. It goes hand in hand."

For their latest endeavor, EA has opened a studio in Chicago that is working with more than 35 top-selling artists, including the Game, Ludacris, Paul Wall, T.I. and Big Boi. All of the Def Jam artists in the fighting game will be photorealistic playable characters with unique moves and exclusive music tracks.

The development team laser scanned each artist and motion-captured their facial and body movements to take advantage of next-generation technology.

Not only will the artists be featured in lifelike moves in the game, but their music also will influence the gameplay for the first time.

"Music plays a much bigger role in this title than in the past two," Wirtzer says.

"Music influences the environment in which the players play the game. We had to go above and beyond to make sure there's some new and exciting music offered to the player while they're playing through these environments."

Def Jam Interactive and EA will release "Def Jam Icon" for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in March. The convergence of the music giant and the world's largest independent video game publisher already has resulted in two best-selling current-generation games, "Def Jam Vendetta" in 2003 and "Def Jam Fight for New York" in 2004, which infused hip-hop music, culture and lifestyle into gameplay.

Def Jam is working with EA to incorporate a full range of hip-hop music from various styles, including East Coast, West Coast and Atlanta sounds. The different beats will impact the various interactive environments, which can be used by the player to throw an opponent into things like a car wash that keeps to the beat of the song. Each song played in each environment will open up unique interactions.

Wirtzer says that beginning next year, such next-generation consoles as PS3 and Xbox 360 will open up other types of interactions between gamers and music companies.

The always-on broadband-connected devices allow content, including music, to be digitally distributed directly to the box. Gamers will be able to select music for their titles and then create their own soundtracks.

"A lot of time, when gamers play they tend to turn off the volume and put on their own music," Wirtzer says. Now with these types of opportunities with Xbox Live Marketplace and the PlayStation Network, they'll be able to control the music themselves."

Beyond its relationship with EA, which has several additional Def Jam titles that will be released over the next few years, Wirtzer said that Def Jam Interactive will be making some new video game announcements next year.

"Def Jam Interactive's goal is to communicate to the consumer that we have a viable brand in the gaming business as well," Wirtzer says. "I think we've proven so far that we've been able to partner with EA and build great games. And we're going to extend that brand into a few more partnerships that make sense."

Mainframes making a comeback

BOSTON, Massachusetts (AP) -- Cheap little servers handle so much of the Internet's dirty work that giant computers known as mainframes, which debuted 50 years ago and often cost more than $1 million, are supposed to be passe.

When Hoplon Infotainment, a startup video game company in Brazil, let it be known that it uses a mainframe to operate its signature online game, "People would actually take a step back and say, 'What? Did I hear correctly?"' said Tarquinio Teles, Hoplon's CEO.

Yet mainframes are inspiring new ways of doing things at organizations like Hoplon. The trend is driven by and anxiously watched at IBM Corp., which makes the vast majority of the world's remaining mainframes and continues to be hugely reliant on them.

After dropping nearly 8 percent in 2005, IBM's mainframe revenue is up 10 percent this year. That includes a 25 percent gain in the most recent quarter.

Mainframes were IBM's fastest-growing hardware segment after the microchip division, which is enjoying a nice ride making microprocessors for the top three video game consoles.

IBM does not release precise figures, but analysts estimate mainframe revenue at roughly $2.3 billion in the first nine months of 2006. While that is a small chunk of IBM's overall sales of $65 billion so far this year, mainframe revenue is especially precious because the machines drive huge software and maintenance deals, making them IBM's most profitable line of hardware.

Of course, the huge third-quarter boost is unlikely to be sustained. IBM is benefiting from having released two new mainframes in the past year, and sales eventually should taper until an upgrade comes, at least a year from now.

Such ups and downs are typical: Unisys Corp., a much smaller vendor, has seen mainframe sales drop this year, but spokesman Brian Daly said the numbers strengthened in the third quarter with the release of a new model.

Still, for IBM to be having success with mainframes at all is somewhat surprising. Because if you were to break modern computing history into its simplest terms, it would go something like this: There was the centralized-mainframe era, and then there was the distributed-computing era. And the former ended a while ago.

Mainframes emerged in the 1950s as room-sized hubs that did it all. They crunched numbers, administered transactions, ran simulations and stored data.

By the 1980s and '90s, however, information technology was flourishing with flexible and smaller pieces of hardware that took on traditional mainframe duties.

Cheaper server computers could calculate stuff and serve up Web pages. New communications gear ferried information around networks. Separate storage machines made more efficient use of memory. Millions of desktop computers flowered.

Sun Microsystems Inc., a leading maker of servers, denigrated mainframes as "dinosaurs," prompting IBM to call its next mainframe line the "T-Rex."

As mainframes ceased to be the center of gravity, they mainly lived on in government agencies, banks or complex networks like airline travel systems.

Many such places needed mainframes' heavy-duty security and processing ability, but others were locked into the specialized programs they had written in mainframes' unique language.

"Where the mainframe still has a long-term home is running long-term code," said John Parker, chief information officer for A.G. Edwards & Sons Inc., a financial services firm that recently dropped its French-made mainframe but still runs key functions on a mainframe operated by a third-party hosting service. "Every industry has it, in my experience."

Since inertia is not growth, the market for mainframes and servers costing more than $500,000 dropped from $19 billion in 2000 to less than $12 billion last year, according to analysts at IDC.

One huge challenge has been the machines' old-school reputation. Programming mainframes still involves typing code on a green screen, much like early versions of DOS, the operating system that dominated PCs before the visual "windows" approach.

To try to encourage younger software developers to write programs for the machines, IBM recently announced a $100 million effort to simplify and modernize mainframe programming. Earlier it began encouraging customers to run Linux, Java and other low-intensity software on mainframes, in hopes of keeping the machines from falling deeper into specialized niches.

IBM also is trying to get creative in luring customers. In April it launched a "business-class" mainframe that costs $100,000 and up, targeted at smaller companies that want mainframes' high level of security and reliability.

One key pitch is that mainframes can do so many tasks at once that they are more energy efficient and take up less space than a comparable cluster of smaller servers.

"For every application, many times it takes five servers in a distributed environment," said Jim Stallings, who runs IBM's mainframe division. "Many customers are saying, 'I can't deal with the complexity."'

The University of Toronto recently bought a business-class mainframe to manage enrollment and other administrative functions. Eugene Siciunas, director of computing services, said the main attraction was flexible pricing.

The university saved money upfront by selecting a mainframe that runs at less than top capacity. Then on days when computing loads are heavier, the school can buy a short-term boost of extra processing power. Network managers call IBM, which remotely tunes the mainframe to deliver better performance.

Hoplon, the Brazilian company, is using a mainframe's processing might to build a complex "massively multiplayer" online game. But rather than shelling out precious startup capital to own a mainframe, Hoplon is remotely accessing one stashed in an IBM data center in Brazil. The same machine manages a retirement fund for IBM's Brazilian employees and handles operations for a building-tools manufacturer.

Charles King, an analyst with Pund-IT Inc., said IBM has had to adopt such sales methods to "maintain the platform's viability."

"The company has done a good job of continuing to gain leverage out of the mainframe," King said. "For a platform that a lot of folks have claimed is essentially moribund or headed into a very dark, bad future, it's got remarkable legs."

Sony to sell world's lightest notebook PC

TOKYO, Japan (Reuters) -- Japan's Sony Corp. said on Wednesday it plans to start selling the world's lightest notebook computer in December in Japan, in a bid to boost its presence among business users.

Weighing 898 grams, Sony's "type G" Vaio computer will be the lightest laptop PC, and comes with a 12.1-inch liquid crystal display (LCD) screen, the electronics and entertainment conglomerate said.

On the sidelines of a news conference on the new Vaio models, Sony Senior Vice President Yoshihisa Ishida said that recent recalls of Sony-made batteries are expected to have little impact on its personal computer operations.

Top PC makers including Dell Inc. and Apple Computer Inc. are recalling up to 9.6 million Sony batteries, which on rare occasions could overheat and catch fire, raising concern that production of replacement-use batteries may reduce Sony's supply capability for batteries that go into new PCs.

Sony said it expects a basic model of its new "type G" computer, which runs for about 12.5 hours on a battery and is not equipped with an optical drive, to sell for about 220,000 yen ($1,881).

It has no plan at the moment to offer the "type G" models overseas.

The company did not disclose its sales target for the new models, but said it aims to raise the ratio of its personal computer revenue from corporate clients to 30 percent of its PC revenue in Japan by the business year ending March 2010, from the current level of less than 10 percent.

Sony does not give revenue or profit figures for its personal computer business, but it aims to sell 4.2 million units of Vaio PCs in the year to March 2007, up 14 percent on the year.

Web reaches new milestone: 100 million sites

(CNN) -- Are your Web surfing fingers getting tired?

There may be a reason. Netcraft, an Internet monitoring company that has tracked Web growth since 1995, says a mammoth milestone was reached during the month of October.

"There are now 100 million Web sites with domain names and content on them," said Netcraft's Rich Miller.

"Within that, there are some that are busy and updated more often, and that represents the active sites, which are at about 47 or 48 million," he said.

Bloggers, small businesses, and simplicity have combined to create the dramatic growth of sites, much of it just in the past two years.

"The bottom line is it's much easier to create a Web site nowadays, and it's much easier to make money with a Web site," said Miller.

Netcraft uses the domain name system to identify Web sites, check how many of them are in a particular location, such as what operating system and Web server software they're running, and then publishes its information in a monthly report.

There were just 18,000 Web sites when Netcraft, based in Bath, England, began keeping track in August of 1995. It took until May of 2004 to reach the 50 million milestone; then only 30 more months to hit 100 million, late in the month of October 2006.

Netcraft says the United States, Germany, China, South Korea and Japan show the greatest Web site growing spurts.

Today there are seemingly endless Web sites for shopping, social networking, and, of course, sleaze.

But what was the subject of Web site number one in 1989?

"When the Web was started, it was started as a mechanism for sharing high energy particle physics data," said Professor Rebecca Grinter of Georgia Tech's College of Computing.

The creator of that Web site, Tim Berners-Lee, wanted experts to be able to share data on particle smashing, even if they weren't at CERN in Switzerland where he was doing research. CERN, in Geneva, is the European Organization for Nuclear Research.

Research facilities and universities soon started seeing benefits of this new tool for things as lofty as nuclear physics and as mundane as sharing restaurant recommendations.

Even today CERN proudly proclaims on its home page, "The world's largest particle physics laboratory, where the Web was born!"

It did not take long for this technological baby to flourish.

"As is true of many things, if you teach a lot of students how to do something, these students go somewhere, and around '96, lo and behold, you see this much more significant transition of the Internet," said Grinter.

Soon, a Web "explosion" took place when businesses realized they could use the Internet to make money.

"Web sites begin to be incorporated into advertising. So that just sort of raises the awareness of the general public," said Grinter.

And by the mid-'90s the cost of personal computers had fallen enough so that the Internet began entering peoples homes and schools as well as their workplaces.

The cost, and the complexity of creating Web sites have both diminished since the beginning of the 21st century.

Computer users no longer have to be experts in HTML, or hypertext markup language, to be masters of their own Web sites.

"There have been price wars going on in both the domain name and Web hosting industries for some time now, and as a result it's very affordable to create your own Web site, and the tools, the software being offered by these companies are much better," said Miller.

Blogs and social networking sites link family, friends and experts in just about everything.

Bond and belong

"What we've seen is people finding interesting new ways to use the Web to showcase their information and their expertise; particularly in niches in all kinds of subjects where it's really just opened the door to new uses of the Web," said Miller.

Whether it is sharing photographs on Flickr.com, showing off an amateur video on YouTube, or looking for a mate on Match.com, Web sites have also become a way to bond and belong.

"The history of humanity is the history of being part of a group, having a group mentality, and the Internet makes a whole other set of those groups possible," said Grinter. "And they don't have to be physically proximate to you, you can create content for people who are physically distant," she said.

So will a URL someday be as common as a birth name and a Social Security number?

For some celebrities, it already is. Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt registered domains for all three of their children.

And in both the business world and the social scene, a Web site is now an identifier almost as common as a phone number or an e-mail address.

"The Web has gone from being a very straightforward thing where you put some text and perhaps some images, to being this incredibly powerful medium in and of itself. You can engage so much more dynamically, and so many more people are doing so many more things. And who knows what will come about tomorrow?" said Grinter.

Hello

Just saing hello to every one