TechFlash: Seattle's Technology News

South Hill Mall is hoping to make it easier to shop for that perfect-fitting pair of jeans, with a new body-scanning kiosk that promoters say can help shoppers figure out the best-fitting garments from various stores.

The Puyallup shopping destination is the first mall on the West Coast to get the Me-Ality, a walk-in station that uses rotating antennas and radio waves to scan a person’s body. After a few seconds, the machine delivers precise measurements and then steers shoppers to the best-fitting styles at different retailers.

Mall marketers are hoping the measuring station, which will be up and running near the food court starting March 5, will help ease a problem that plagues many consumers, especially women: figuring out the right size from one brand to the next.

While retailers are investing heavily in technology to track customer behavior online and to drive e-commerce sales, the Me-Ality kiosk is one example of how technology is poised to change the in-store shopping experience.

An Australian deal website owned by Microsoft has been accused of selling Chinese-made e-readers loaded with 4,000 books, many of which were pirated.

Australian newspaper The Sydney Morning Herald reported that the website, Cudo, owned by MSN, was selling the 4GB e-reader this week for $99 (Australian). The e-reader came with a CD loaded with the 4,000 books, including all of the Harry Potter books and the Lord of the Rings series.

The sale comes as Microsoft is involved in various lawsuits over unlicensed use of its own patents as well as its unlicensed use of other companies’ patents. Microsoft published a blog post two weeks ago accusing Motorola Mobility of gouging the software giant with “hefty royalties” on Motorola’s various video patents.

The revelation that a Microsoft-owned website was selling copyrighted materials without the owners’ permission is just the latest in the worldwide fight over intellectual property rights online and in digital formats.

The Cudo e-reader deal has since ended, after 2,317 of the deals were sold.

Issaquah-based Costco operates 600 warehouse stores where nearly all of its revenue still is generated from shoppers loading up super-sized grocery carts with food, clothing, household items, electronics and other items.

But Costco is making investments on the e-commerce side to help drive more sales to its online site, Costco.com.

Costco has its first smartphone app in the works, with a planned release this summer. And the retailer also is upgrading its online shopping technology, shifting over to a new platform for Costco.com this summer. With the new platform, the website for the first time will be in a position to allow Google, Bing, Yahoo and other search engines to "see" the site when people conduct searches.

“The new technology will giver us greater visibility on the internet, and we hope will bring users to Costco.com via search engines, which our much older current system does not allow,” Costco CFO Richard Galanti said during an earnings conference call Wednesday morning.

Galanti also said Costco.com also will be introduced outside the U.S. and Canada later this year, although he did not say where.

The Windows 8 consumer preview launched today at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain.

Microsoft’s newest version of its popular operating system has been redesigned to look virtually the same on tablets and mobile devices as it does on PCs and laptops.

“With Windows 8, we reimagined the different ways people interact with their PC and how to make everything feel like a natural extension of the device, whether using a Windows 8 tablet, laptop or all-in-one,” Steven Sinofsky, president of the Windows and Windows Live Division at Microsoft, said in a press release.

The “Metro design” has replaced the traditional “start” button with a start page that uses colorful block icons to represent apps and people you contact regularly. The apps update in real time, so you won’t have to click on them to see what’s going on.

Expedia Inc. and other travel websites have won a court fight in Tennessee, where a judge ruled that a state tax should be collected on the rates hotels charge and not the ultimate rates paid by consumers.

As seen from the rooftop of the Denny Building, the portion of the Denny Triangle bordered by Sixth Avenue, Blanchard Street and Westlake Avenue would be transformed by Amazon.com's plans to build three office towers. (Anthony Bolante photo)

Early designs for Amazon.com's proposed 3-million-square-foot expansion in Seattle's Denny Triangle show four possible designs, all of them featuring towers as tall as 37 stories.

Amazon is proposing to develop the property, on a wedge-shaped tract north of downtown, in three phases, with each full block providing about one million square feet of office space and about 1,100 underground parking stalls.

The early design packet submitted late Monday by Seneca Real Estate Group Inc. and architecture firm NBBJ includes several potential amenities. One possibility is an "awareness garden" featuring storm-water management waterways flowing alongside the walkways. Another is a neighborhood walking/jogging trail leading to a public square resembling Westlake Plaza; the plaza would be located near the intersection of 7th Avenue and Lenora Street.

These initial draft designs likely will be tweaked before a March 27 public design-review meeting — an early step in the approval process.

The tract, which the Seattle-based online retailer is buying from longtime Seattle landowner Clise Properties, is bordered by Westlake Avenue, Sixth Avenue and Blanchard Street.

Microsoft will announce its Windows 8 consumer preview at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona early Wednesday, Seattle time.

While announcements of this scale are frequently webcast live, ComputerWorld has reported that the Windows 8 event will not be streaming online. It will take place at 6 a.m. PST.

The new operating system is likely to move toward the convergence of PCs and mobile devices using Windows, by creating a system that looks virtually the same on all platforms. That cross-platform push is rumored to be the reason Microsoft decided to make this announcement at the world’s largest mobile tech conference.

The new operating system may be available for download after the event tomorrow, but Microsoft has not yet confirmed that.

The new operating system includes a new logo, reminiscent of the first Windows logo, and may eliminate the Windows “Start” button, replacing it with the “Metro-style” start page.

Windows 8 will include a file-sharing app called SkyDrive that will allow users to link files across multiple devices and share those files with others. The SkyDrive app will compete with Dropbox and Google Docs, and aims to create a seamless system for file-sharing across devices.

It is likely the new Windows app store will also open tomorrow, to go with the new OS.

Cell Therapeutics Inc. is moving its headquarters to Martin Selig’s 3101 Western building in Seattle, and F5 Networks is moving into the spot being vacated by CTI.

Cell Therapeutics, the Seattle-based biopharmaceutical, has leased approximately 66,000 square feet of space on floors 6 through 8 of the 3101 Western building, according to a release from the Seattle office of CBRE, a real estate services firm.

The company, which is developing cancer therapies that match a patient’s genetic profile and clinical information against anti-cancer drugs to find the best treatment, had been headquartered at 501 Elliott Ave. W. but will have more space in its new home.

Unless Facebook Inc. agrees to pay license fees, Yahoo Inc. may sue it.

In news first reported by the New York Times, Sunnyvale-based Yahoo (NASDAQ: YHOO) said it would sue if Facebook doesn’t work out a licensing agreement, as some other companies have done.

The dispute covers between 10 and 20 patents, the Times said.

Yahoo didn’t say what other companies are paying licenses for its technology.

Facebook, a rich, popular business getting ready for what could be a gargantuan IPO this spring, is a tempting target for lawsuits of many types, including patent suits.

Microsoft President Steven Sinofsky

Microsoft Corp.'s Steven Sinofsky will unveil the company's Windows 8 test version this week, giving the public a glimpse at the man who might become the company's next CEO.

Reuters speculates that if Sinofsky's Windows 8 introduction goes well, he's the heir apparent to CEO Steve Ballmer. Sinofsky is well known at Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) for getting new products out the door on time.

This story has been updated with Microsoft's reaction to the initial report that it had complained to the EU.

Microsoft Corp. reportedly has complained to the European Union about Google Inc.'s social-networking platform, Google+, but the Redmond software company says the report isn't true.

Reuters reported Tuesday that complaints from Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) and other companies may prompt the EU to broaden its ongoing investigation into Google.

Isilon CEO Sujal Patel

A Seattle startup announced Tuesday that two Isilon executives will join its ranks, one on the board of directors and the other as a high-level executive.

Isilon founder Sujal Patel, who led the company when it was sold to EMC Corp. for $2.25 billion last year, will join the ExtraHop Board of Directors, and former Isilon sales manager Eric Scollard will step into a newly created role as senior vice president of worldwide sales.

ExtraHop CEO Jesse Rothstein said the addition of this “world-class talent” was an indication of the company’s emergence as a strong force in the business of analyzing computer network traffic.

“We’ve been seeing tremendous traction in the marketplace,” Rothstein said.

ExtraHop, which started in 2007 and launched its first product in 2009, provides real-time network analysis that lets clients know when a network is down or operating slowly, without the analysis itself adding to the problem.

The company made headlines in May 2011 when it announced $14 million in B-round investments.

“Performance analysis is difficult to do on the fly, and can slow down the system that (a company is) trying to monitor,” Rothstein said. “Our solution is completely passive. We take a copy of the traffic.”

That way, he said, the company can alert its clients of network issues as they’re happening so the problems can be fixed immediately.

At the World Mobile Congress, Microsoft announced a new Lumia phone that will be 30 percent cheaper than the Lumia 710.

From the biggest names in mobile phones to 11 small tech companies who won government vouchers to help pay their way, Washington state is well-represented at the Mobile World Congress, a huge trade show that kicked off Monday in Barcelona, Spain.

Redmond-based Microsoft Corp. made headlines with a handful of announcements on Day One. The company unveiled an inexpensive smartphone and said it would open foreign-language online stores to sell Nokia Lumia phones and apps in 28 countries by the end of March. According to the New York Times, the new Nokia Lumia 610 will sell for around $250 – 30 percent less than the previously released Lumia 710.

Microsoft also revealed a beta version of its new Skype app for Windows Phone. The company said an official version will be available in April. Microsoft acquired Skype last year for $8.5 billion, the largest acquisition in Washington state in 2011.

Redmond-based MicroVision announced Monday that despite new business relationships with industry giants Apple Inc., Intel Corp. and Research in Motion, it saw a $36 million net loss in 2011.

A revenue increase of nearly $1 million, up from $4.7 million in 2010 to $5.6 million in 2011, as well as a 20 percent reduction in its workforce announced in February 2011, helped MicroVision reduce its net loss by 34 percent.

MicroVision stock was down more than 15 percent Monday, to $3.32 per share.

A major source of its loss was $15 million in research and development expenses. In April 2011, MicroVision opened an R&D facility in Singapore.

Rumors and reports have picked up speed ahead of the expected introduction next month of the next generation of Apple Inc.'s category dominating iPad.

Most assume that it will be called iPad 3 and be unveiled in San Francisco on or about March 7.

It's also expected to include a higher resolution display, the Siri voice-controlled personal assistant and wireless connectivity to high-speed 4G and LTE networks.