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Eduardo seemed too tentative to shoot; Adebayor was invisible; and the rest of the team seemed to mull around the fringes of the box, passing and passing and…passing. Not the best display, but at least it put the team five points clear at the top of the table and made up more ground on Manchester United’s goal differential.

commentary

These are the “ugly” games you just have to win, even if they’re not pretty. Arsenal won. I wish it would have been prettier. But I’ll take the win regardless.

Especially when it comes at the expense of Mark Hughes. I can’t stand that guy.

It was an ugly match, bookended with an excellent header from Senderos and then a finishing touch from Adebayor, but the rest of the 90 minutes were nothing to write home about.

Day one features a select group of security researchers, with team members from Microsoft Security Development Lifecycle (SDL) presenting on the second day. It is an opportunity for Microsoft engineers to hear first hand from leading security researchers. The last Blue Hat conference was held in April.

The complete Blue Hat schedule is posted here, and Microsoft has a related blog here.

Day two kicks off with a keynote from Scott Charney, corporate vice president of Trustworthy Computing. Other sessions that day include talks about threat modeling, “fuzzing,” concurrency attacks on Web applications, analyzing threats before writing code, and how Microsoft mitigations currently work. Microsoft’s Trustworthy Computing group will be heavily represented, with department members heading up several of those talks and panel discussions.

Microsoft’s eighth Blue Hat conference will take place on Thursday and Friday at the software giant’s Redmond, Wash., campus. Entitled “C3P0wned,” the invitation-only conference features two full days of sessions.

Of interest on day one is a talk by Dan Kaminsky, director of penetration testing at IO Active, who will provide additional details on the DNS flaw he disclosed earlier this year. Other talks will touch on crimeware, profiling using the Internet, cascading style sheet (CSS) injections, visualizing software security, and how to use code characteristics to find security bugs.

“Over the last 20 years, the flood of physical counterfeit projects and the scale of digital theft (have) gone off the chart,” he said. “What drives (the U.S. economy are) precisely technical invention, innovation, and creativity–if we don’t protect that, we dramatically undermine our economic future.”

The U.S. Senate on Friday unanimously passed a bipartisan bill backed by groups like the recording industry and the labor movement that would increase federal protections over intellectual property.

The bill was stripped of a controversial measure that would have given federal prosecutors the power to file civil lawsuits against peer-to-peer users who violate copyright laws. The Commerce Department and Justice Department voiced their opposition to the provision in a letter this week, saying it would create “unnecessary bureaucracy.”

Along with the recording industry, the bill is backed by the Chamber of Commerce, and labor groups like the AFL-CIO and Change to Win.

This post was updated at 4:25 p.m. PDT with more details.

The Commerce Department said it is still reviewing the legislation as it was passed.

Other groups opposed to the bill also spoke out Friday.

The legislation still provides increased resources for the Justice Department to combat intellectual property theft and provide coordination for federal and state efforts against counterfeiting and piracy. It also increases penalties for intellectual property infringements.

Introduced in July by Sens. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and Arlen Specter, R-Pa., the Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property Act now moves to the House of Representatives, where it will be taken up either Friday or Saturday, before Congress adjourns.

“The legislation still includes provisions that overzealous federal prosecutors could misconstrue to allow the seizure of important components of our Internet infrastructure,” he said in a statement.

“At a time when the entire digital world is going to less restrictive distribution models, and when the courts are aghast at the outlandish damages being inflicted on consumers in copyright cases, this bill goes entirely in the wrong direction,” said Gigi Sohn, president of Public Knowledge.

Rick Cotton, executive vice president and general counsel of NBC Universal, said concerns that the bill goes too far are unfounded.

Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., who pushed to have the controversial Justice Department provision removed, was still dissatisfied with the state of the bill.

The Recording Industry of America gave resounding praise for the bill.

“At a critical economic juncture, this bipartisan legislation provides enhanced protection for an important asset that helps lead our global competitiveness,” RIAA Chairman and CEO Mitch Bainwol said. “Additional tools for intellectual-property enforcement are not just good for the copyright community but for consumers who will enjoy a wider array of legitimate offerings.”

Not all of the Bush administration’s objections with the legislation were addressed, however. The bill replaces the body that currently enforces intellectual property law with a White House Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator. The new coordinator will chair an inter-agency committee to combat counterfeiting and piracy. In its letter, the administration said the establishment of a White House IP coordinator was “objectionable on constitutional grounds.”

In addition to the new hues, Sprint will lower the price point from $99.99 to $79.99 (with a two-year contract) during the period of October 19 to January 10. It’s a darn-good value, especially when you consider you get a couple more features too, including Facebook for Palm, Google Maps with the My Location feature on the device’s ROM, and twice the storage of the original Centro from Sprint. Not too shabby.

Just in time for the holiday season, Sprint announced on Tuesday that it will offer the Palm Centro in two new colors. Starting October 19, you will be able to get the entry-level smartphone in vibrant rose or olive green, in addition to the carrier’s red, black, and pink models. According to Palm, the colors chosen based on fashion trends for this season as forecasted by the color experts of the Pantone Fashion Color Reports for fall 2008 and spring 2009. How chic.

(Credit:
Palm)

Updated 3:35 p.m. PDT with additional details and comments from conference call.

The company reported its first-quarter financial results Thursday after the close of the market, and it continues to lose hundreds of millions of dollars. AMD had already warned investors that revenue would fall short of early expectations, and the official number, at $1.5 billion, was in line with the revised expectations.

Despite Intel’s upbeat assessment of the economy on Tuesday, AMD saw “a challenging global environment for consumers” during the first quarter, said Bob Rivet, AMD’s chief financial officer.

AMD’s processor business had a decent quarter, despite not having its two latest server and desktop processors on hand until late in the period. Revenue in the chip business was up 30 percent compared with last year’s first quarter, as unit sales increased. But the business took a step backward in profitability, losing $160 million in the first quarter after eking out a $21 million profit in the fourth quarter.

That sounds very much like additional layoffs beyond the 10 percent cuts and the possible jettisoning of AMD’s consumer electronics business, which lost $8 million on a 31 percent decline in revenue. The company needs to get its costs down from around $1.7 billion this quarter to about $1.5 billion a quarter by the end of the year, Rivet said.

It sounds like AMD is getting ready to do a top-to-bottom look at its operation to find places to cut costs beyond the 10 percent workforce reductions it has already announced. Chairman and CEO Hector Ruiz spoke of “revisiting” noncore businesses, such as AMD’s cell phone and consumer electronics businesses, if the company can’t find a way to make them profitable.

However, despite the new products, AMD still expects revenue to decline in line with normal seasonal patterns looking forward into the second quarter. The current quarter is always the slowest period of the year for the PC and server industries, absent any catalysts such as the back-to-school season or the holidays.

The first quarter of 2008 marks the fifth straight quarter in which AMD has lost at least $350 million. It’s mind-boggling to understand how it’s sustained such losses for such a long period of time. In total, that’s $3.7 billion in losses racked up between the beginning of 2007 through the end of March 2008.

As we already knew, times are still tough for Advanced Micro Devices.

And while I had expected to hear about the fabled “asset-light” strategy on the one-year anniversary of Ruiz uttering that phrase, we’re still in the dark as to AMD’s plans for cutting costs in its manufacturing operation. “I know you would like (more information) and I feel terrible I can’t provide you details on that,” Ruiz said, sounding almost chagrined.

For the quarter, which ended March 29, AMD lost $358 million based on generally accepted accounting principles, but that number includes $50 million in charges related to the acquisition of ATI Technologies in 2006. Excluding that one-time charge, the company lost $308 million, or 51 cents a share, also in line with Wall Street expectations.

The good news is that AMD will have fresh new products in place, at long last, by the time the second quarter ends. Barcelona and Phenom, quad-core chips for servers and desktops, should provide a lift to AMD’s performance in those areas, said Dirk Meyer, president and COO. And AMD also expects to launch its first processor designed specifically for notebooks in the second quarter.

Ruiz promised to have AMD profitable by the third quarter of the year. It’s going to take strong sales in the face of an uncertain economic environment, substantial cost cutting, and a bit of luck to get there.

Our Open Season podcast series continued with Episode 19 last week as we wallowed in my general inabilities and the fact that open source realities are starting to kick in for many people.

Topics:
-Apache licensing and the inability to make money
-Bill Gates’ departure
-Contest: Bill Gates or Kermit the Frog

We were also joined briefly by RMS, Bill Gates, Nick Carr and others. It was an all-star event.

You do have some recourse, however.

Or not!

Yeah!

Yeah! Unlike all the other times Adrian writes about Apple!

… I feel that this is going too far.

It’s a somewhat complicated accounting convention and perhaps you can argue that the iPod touch revenue should also have been recognized on a subscription basis, but then it raises the question as to whether or not all iPods should have their revenue recognized that way and pretty soon it all devolves into communism and everyone’s getting everything for free and even Randy Newman doesn’t want that.

Again, yes, Apple could give the update to iPod touch users for free just like their iPhone-using brethren, but they’d have to open past accounting periods and restate their financials. 802.11n? Any of this ringing a bell?

Come on Steve, give your biggest fans a break.

Not with Adrian, apparently.

Yeah!

Well, dear reader, if you’re experiencing a bit of deja vu over this, it’s probably because we’ve seen this before. Which, not coincidentally, is what “deja vu” means in French.

$20 is awfully steep to add a little functionality to the
iPod touch - functionality that already exists for the iPhone.

So you can’t argue that Apple shouldn’t charge for the update. It’s too late.

The Macalope was certain that the whining would be swift and furious over Apple charging $20 for the same software features
iPhone users get for free. As Adrian Kingsley-Hughes so brilliantly puts it:

The short story for those who got to class late is Apple must charge for substantial enhancements to products that do not have revenue recognized on a subscription basis or it has to restate prior earnings. The iPod touch does not have revenue recognized on a subscription basis. The iPhone does. As does the Apple TV. Hence, they get free updates and the iPod touch does not.

Sure looks like it’s worth it to the Macalope, though.

If you think $20 is too much, don’t buy the upgrade.

Whatever!

Here are some basic specs for the two new models, and stay tuned for a full review of the 13-inch T135, currently undergoing testing in the CNET Labs. Both will be available starting October 22.

(Credit:
Toshiba) 11.6-inch diagonal widescreen HD TruBrite LED Backlit display Windows 7 Home Premium operating system Intel Pentium processor SU4100 or Intel Celeron processor 7435 Starting at 250GB (5400 RPM) HDD7 802.11b/g/n wireless8 10/100 Ethernet Toshiba Hard Drive Impact Sensor Touch Pad with Multi-touch Control 3.49 lbs. 6-cell battery eSATA/USB combo port with USB Sleep-and-Charge HDMI port Built-in Webcam with Toshiba Face Recognition, stereo speakers and microphone 5-in-1 Memory Card Reader Slot

Just in time for the Windows 7 invasion, Toshiba has announced a new line of slim laptops, dubbed the T100 series. With Intel ultra-low-voltage processors (or ULV), the 13.3-inch T135 and 11.6-inch T115 are both less than one inch thick, have LED displays, and multi-touch touchpads.

Like other recent Toshiba laptops, they have the useful sleep-and-charge feature, which lets you use a USB port to charge iPods and other devices, even when the system is asleep or off.

The 11.6-inch T115

Toshiba Satellite T135, starting at $599

The 13-inch T135

(Credit:
Toshiba) 13.3-inch diagonal widescreen HD TruBrite LED Backlit display Windows 7 Home Premium operating system Intel Pentium SU4100 processor or Intel Pentium SU2700 processor DDR3 RAM, upgradeable to 8GB Starting at 250GB (5400 RPM) HDD 802.11b/g/n wireless and 10/100 Ethernet Bluetooth V2.1 + EDR (available on select models) Toshiba Hard Drive Impact Sensor Touch Pad with Multi-touch Control 3.88 lbs. 6-cell battery eSATA/USB combo port with USB Sleep-and-Charge HDMI port Built-in Webcam with Toshiba Face Recognition, stereo speakers and microphone 5-in-1 Memory Card Reader Slot

Toshiba Satellite T115, starting at $449

The new “Ask GamerDad” column on the video game guide side What They Play brings this perspective to video game reviews and advice. Whether or not you are a gamer parent yourself, this point of view can be another useful resource when considering games for your kids.

In this week’s column, “Gamer Dad” Andrew Bub talks about video games as fitness tools, drawing on his own experience of losing 30 pounds over four years by playing Dance Dance Revolution every day. This activity more than just “play” for Bub, as he relied on this weight loss to help him survive a heart attack at age 36.

Ask GamerDad column on WhatTheyPlay.com

The fitness options are expanding with family-oriented games such as Wii Sports and Wii Fit, which has been a big hit in Japan will be released in the United States in mid-May. I believe that a virtual sport should never replace ‘real-world’ family interactions. Even so, parents who are not major gamers themselves may embrace some of these new activities as a wholesome, and possibly healthy, opportunity to play with their kids.

Video games have been around long enough now that we can see a new trend developing–gamer parents. These parents have been playing games themselves for years, and look forward to playing games with their kids as a way to spend time together as a family.

we ask you to continue to put aside all the rumor and speculation you may be hearing. none of us should allow external reports to shift our focus away from doing what we do best — transforming the experiences of our users, advertisers, publishers and developers, all while enhancing our leadership position in the online marketplace.

Subject: update

we want to update you on some news we announced this morning. yahoo!’s board has decided to extend the deadline for nominating directors to our board from march 14th to 10 days following our announcement of a date for our annual stockholders meeting. we have not yet announced the date of this year’s meeting.

Full coverage
Microsoft’s big bid for Yahoo Click here for the latest on the software giant’s attempt to buy the Net pioneer.

yahoos

since we last updated you, our board and management team are aligned in ongoing efforts to explore a number of alternatives to create stockholder value. we believe we are making progress clarifying the many options available to us. and, of course, throughout this process, management and the board are both speaking with–and listening carefully to–our stockholders. this ongoing dialogue has provided us with helpful feedback.

in light of the current circumstances, this change removes an imminent deadline. microsoft, of course, could still choose to name directors, but our objective here is to enable our board to continue to explore all of its strategic alternatives for maximizing value for stockholders without the distraction of a proxy contest. it will also make it easier for you to continue to focus intently on delivering on our business strategies and creating value.

why did we do this?

let’s all be clear about one thing: we have a great company, a company with a truly unique set of assets — including our global brand, large worldwide audience, significant recent investments in advertising platforms, future growth prospects and the excellent momentum we have created behind our core business strategy. so it should come as no surprise that this situation is receiving such a high level of attention — from national media to blogs.

jerry and roy

we want to thank all of you again for your continued hard work and dedication to yahoo!. we’ll continue to update you as new information becomes available.

Jerry Yang, Yahoo’s CEO and co-founder, and Yahoo Chairman Roy Bostock issued a note to employees on Wednesday following the company’s announcement that it is extending the deadline to nominate opposition candidates to its board. Here is the text of that memo: