TechFlash: Seattle's Technology News

Just days before Apple's iPad hits the market, Amazon.com is caving to more publishers on the pricing of electronic books. The online retail giant just cut deals with Simon & Schuster (owned by CBS) and HarperCollins (part of News Corp.), allowing the two publishing houses to set higher e-book prices, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Under the new terms, digital versions of most best-sellers will sell for $12.99 to $14.99, according to the Journal. Those are the same terms that Apple is offering publishers for e-books on the iPad.

RealNetworks is laying off 60 people, or 4 percent of its work force, in preparation for the spin-off of its Rhapsody music business, and as part of its broader effort to refocus its overall business.

The job cuts were announced internally today, said Bill Hankes, a RealNetworks spokesman. They include people in marketing, human-resources and finance positions who have been supporting the Rhapsody joint venture. The remainder came in the company's video-game unit and its media software and services division.

I cheered wildly when the Seattle Sounders defeated the Philadelphia Union 2-0 in the opening match of the Major League Soccer season.

But when I tried to text a friend, call my wife and check the latest scores in the NCAA men's basketball tournament on my iPhone at last week's match at Qwest Field I was the one who was feeling shut out. And it appears I am not the only iPhone user fed up with poor coverage.

Fans who attend Sounders and Seahawks games at Qwest Field routinely complain of poor cellular coverage at the city's largest sports stadium, pointing fingers at the much maligned AT&T network.

AT&T recognizes the problem and says they're working on ways to offer better service when large crowds gather. Nonetheless, it can get a little ugly when a beer-fueled, iPhone-wielding Sounders fan can't text, talk or Tweet.

Researchers at the University of Washington are working on a way for computer users to customize PC software by changing the way pixels appear on the screen -- adding an iTunes control button to Microsoft Word, for example, in much the same way that web developers create mashups of online services.

The research, announced yesterday, is scheduled to be presented next month at the Association for Computing Machinery's Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. Dubbed "Prefab," the project is led by James Fogarty, a UW assistant professor of computer science and engineering, working with UW computer science and engineering graduate student Morgan Dixon.

Yahoo is closing the Yahoo Publisher Network, its rival to Google's AdSense program for delivering ads to third-party websites, according to an email sent to publishers today. As TechCrunch notes, Yahoo is referring those publishers to an alternative service, Chitika -- which seems strange on the surface given that Yahoo's new partner, Microsoft, has its own AdSense rival, dubbed Content Ads, that could certainly use the help.

[Follow-up, Thursday: Microsoft considered but declined Yahoo's self-serve ad biz]

There's no official comment yet from Yahoo, but the move to shutter the Yahoo Publisher Network as of April 30 appear to be the latest step in the company's effort to narrow its focus under CEO Carol Bartz. The move means that the company will focus more on selling ads for its own online properties.

We're wrapping another busy month here at TechFlash. And, in case you missed out, here are the top stories on the site for March. Thanks to everyone for reading, commenting and being a part of the TechFlash community.

"WA seeks new tax revenue from software, but not from Microsoft"

"Amazon.com's 1-Click patent confirmed following re-exam"

"The 2005 email that spawned Picnik, Google's latest buy"

"What Microsoft learned from Jerry Seinfeld and Bill Gates"

"Notes on Project Natal, including how much space you'll need"

"Video: Microsoft's Project Gustav"

"Microsoft sends flowers, card for Internet Explorer 6 funeral"

"PlayStation's Project Natal spoof: Hilarious, and a little misleading"

"Classmates to pay up to $9.5M to settle suit over phantom friends"

"Mexico's Carlos Slim knocks Bill Gates off his top billionaire perch"

"Workers say they're more productive away from the office"

"Picnik CEO: Google deal comes with a 'very happy number'"

"Video: Microsoft Mobile Surface"

"Top 5 worst Google Fiber pitches"

"RealNetworks' Rob Glaser on why Apple's model must be stopped"

We knew it was coming, thanks to an inadvertent leak from Microsoft itself, but the company this morning confirmed plans for a high-capacity version of its Zune HD portable media player, with 64GB of storage, at a price of $349.99. Microsoft also announce a $20 price drop for each of the existing Zune HD models, lowering the 16GB version to $199.99 (from $219.99) and the 32GB version to $269.99 (from $289.99).

Combined, the moves make the Zune look pretty good compared with Apple's iPod lineup -- although direct comparisons between the two product lines are a little misleading given all the capabilities (i.e., apps) available on the iPod touch these days. That said, Apple sells the 64GB iPod touch for $399, and the 32GB version for $299.

Life is just a little funnier in slow motion, especially with the right soundtrack. That's apparently the thought behind a new site from the folks at Cheezburger Network, which recently unveiled a new YouTube channel called SuperSweetSlowMo.

There you can see a human egg fight; dogs jumping in air; and a hammer smashing groceries -- all in slow motion video.

Above is a video of plastic army men set on fire, via New Tee Vee which first reported on the site.

The Focus Electric is expected to be the first vehicle to use Microsoft's Hohm service for energy management. (Ford photo)

Microsoft and Ford this morning announced plans to expand their partnership with a "joint solution" to help drivers and homeowners deal with the energy demands of electric cars, based on the Redmond company's Hohm online energy management service.

The companies aren't being specific about how the Hohm service would be integrated into Ford vehicles. The solution is still into the design phase, scheduled to roll out beginning with the Focus Electric next year. They say a primary goal is to help people figure out the best time to charge their electric cars.

Most of the time when big Internet companies talk about online privacy, it's in response to questions about how they're using personal data as part of their advertising systems. But companies including Microsoft, Google, AOL, eBay and others are raising the subject on their own this week, seeking a modernization of U.S. privacy laws to clarify the rules for police and government access to information about their users.

The group, dubbed Digital Due Process, also includes the American Civil Liberties Union, the American Library Association, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and others. They contend that the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986 has been outpaced by technology and left courts struggling to figure out how to apply the law to location-based services, cloud computing and email archives.

We've been writing about some of the ridiculous things people across America have been doing to entice Google to build high-speed Internet networks in their communities, from politicians jumping in freezing lakes to some really, really bad YouTube videos. But here's a project we could actually support. Portland brewery Hopworks has created "Gigabit IPA," a new beer which brewer Ben Love tells Taplister "honors Portland's new gigabit network project."

IBM is rolling out a new program Wednesday in order to appeal to startups, offering them free cloud-based software services for up to three years, according to The New York Times. The program, which also provides startups access to IBM scientists, marketers and other experts, is part of the company's Smarter Planet campaign. The program is similar to the BizSpark offering from Microsoft, which also provides free software and services to startup companies.

Meru Networks became the eighth venture-backed company to complete an IPO during the first quarter, which Venture Capital Dispatch reports is equal to all of the VC-backed IPOs last year. And while that might be cause for celebration, Scott Austin correctly writes that eight IPOs "still stinks" for venture capitalists.

InfoSpace, the Bellevue company which operates Internet search services such as Webcawler and Dogpile, has named Stephen Hawthornthwaite as vice president of corporate development. In that role, the former managing partner at GCA Savvian Advisors and former investment banker at Jefferies Group will oversee the company's M&A plans. InfoSpace finished 2009 with $226 million in cash and cash equivalents.

Clearwire reportedly suffered an outage of its high-speed wireless network in the Seattle area over the past weekend, according to technical writer and Clearwire subscriber Bruce Miller and others who reported the problems on DSLReports. According to Miller's report, the failure was due to what a spokesman described as an "intermittent software failure" in the network.

Seattle venture capitalist Nick Hanauer talks about the early days of Amazon, Insitu and aQuantive in part two of an Xconomy interview. Among other things, Hanauer had some choice comments about the future of the online ad business in which he said he's actively avoiding investments in the sector because he's just plain bored with it. "I feel like I did it. Been there, done that, it’s just not intrinsically interesting enough anymore for me. And P.S., it’s done. Maybe I’ll be proved wrong, but plus or minus, the online advertising ecosystem is baked." A good read.

Intelius founder Naveen Jain talks about entrepreneurship, people search and more in a Q&A interview with Search Engine Journal. "Openness to change, persistence and thinking without boundaries – both geographically and intellectually are key attributes I would point for being a successful entrepreneur today," Jain says during the interview.

ZipCar, the Boston-based car sharing service which operates in Seattle, is planning to go public in 2010, according to PEHub.com. ZipCar merged with Seattle's Flexcar in 2007.

Tweet of the day via @mulka: "Where is the Redfin of car dealerships??"

It's a big day for old lawsuits involving Novell, and it's looking like a split decision for the Linux vendor.

Novell said today that it won a jury verdict in a longstanding dispute with the SCO Group over the copyrights to Unix. And in a separate blast from the past, a federal judge dismissed the remaining counts in Novell's antitrust complaint against Microsoft, which involved allegations dating to the mid-1990s.

Of the two cases, Novell's victory in the SCO Group copyright litigation has the most relevance to the present day, because the Unix copyrights are pivotal to patent claims against Linux. Open-source advocates are celebrating the ruling. See Groklaw.net and Ars Technica for more details on the ruling.

Breaking News: MOD Systems co-founder and former CEO Mark Phillips has been arrested on two counts of wire fraud. [Post updated]

An arrest warrant was issued for Phillips last night, and he appeared in front of U.S. Magistrate Judge James Donohue this afternoon after turning himself into authorities. The 35-year-old did not address the court during the proceedings today, and he was ordered to be incarcerated pending a detention hearing set for Friday at 3:15 p.m. His attorney, David Bukey, declined to comment.

Phillips' arrest follows ongoing civil litigation between him and MOD, a heavily-funded Seattle company developing a way to access movies and TV shows from digital media kiosks. The legal battle, which Bukey today described in court as "hotly contested," has escalated in recent days. On March 16th, an attorney for MOD Systems reached out to the U.S. Attorney's Office and suggested that Phillips may have been involved in criminal activity. In an interview, Assistant U.S. Attorney Aravind Swaminathan declined to speculate on MOD's "motivations" for bringing the alleged conduct to light after ongoing civil litigation. He said the criminal investigation is in the early stages of development.

Meanwhile, A Dot Corp. -- a 7-year-old company operated by Phillips -- filed a lawsuit today in federal court against MOD CEO Anthony Bay, Richard Barber, Derek De Bakker, David Douglass, Jan Wallace and others alleging that they illegally accessed computers owned by A Dot.

[Correction: The university planning to offer the iPads was incorrectly identified in the initial version of this post. It is Seton Hill University.]

We've written in the past about the efforts of Amazon.com to bring its Kindle electronic reading device to universities, including The University of Washington and Jeff Bezos' alma mater of Princeton University. But Amazon may have a new formidable competitor when it comes to students accessing textbooks and other information on slim computing devices.

Seton Hill University, a small Catholic university located in Greensburg, Penn., said today that it plans to give each of its full-time students a new iPad beginning this fall. About 2,100 students attend Seton Hill, so at the lowest retail price point of $499 (and not factoring in any possible bulk discounts) it would amount to just over a $1 million initial investment.