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jdb2 writes with the (honestly labeled) rumor from the Inquirer "that Nvidia is preparing to release an x86 microprocessor with its guns targeted directly at its two major rivals — Intel and AMD/ATI," and excerpts from the just-linked Inquirer article: "THE HOT RUMOR going around IDF ... [is] that the company will do an x86 part. The background whispers say that the part will be announced next week at Nvision ... Nvidia's men in white coats certainly have the brainpower to do it, but they also most certainly don't have a license to sell such a part. NV is basically locked out unless Intel and AMD both decide to be magnanimous, and we would not recommend holding your breath waiting for this to happen ... That leaves the lawsuit option open ... Any attempt to enter the market without a license would bring down Intel legal on them like flying monkeys blackening the sky. It would get ugly. Really ugly. Expensive too.""

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

arcticstoat writes "Following the media hit that was VIA's Nano processor, VIA says that it's now quitting the motherboard chipset business that used to be its bread and butter product for years. VIA's vice president of corporate marketing in Taiwan, Richard Brown, explained that: 'Intel provides the vast majority of chipsets for its processors and, following its purchase of ATI, AMD is also moving very quickly in the same direction.' Although VIA will still be developing chipsets for integrated motherboards featuring the Nano CPU, but will no longer produce chipsets for Intel and AMD CPUs. Was this the right decision, and where does this leave other third-party chipset manufacturers such as SiS?" Seems like this is a tough business to stick around in.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

afabbro writes "The current issue of BusinessWeek has an expansive article of the history of OLPC and why it has, to date, been a flop. Among the reasons: no preparation for the educational systems expected to use it, uncertain pedagogical theories, poor business management, competition from Microsoft/Intel, and no input from education professionals in designing the software. As BusinessWeek quotes one educational expert, 'The hackers took over,' and the applications are too complex for children to use. To date, 370,000 laptops have been shipped — a far cry from the original 150 million planned to be shipped by end of 2008."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Nerdposeur writes "Google has announced that it will partner with several other companies to build a high-speed mobile data network. In a separate but related deal, Google will also become the default search provider for Sprint, including having one-click search access and Google Maps pre-installed on some Sprint phones. 'The consortium includes a disparate group of partners: Sprint Nextel, Google, Intel, Comcast, Time Warner and Clearwire. The partners have put the value of the deal at $14.5 billion, a figure that includes radio spectrum and equipment provided by Sprint Nextel and Clearwire, and $3.2 billion from the others involved. They expect the network, which will provide the next generation of high-speed Internet access for cellphone users, to be built in as little as two years, but there is no timetable on when it will be available to users and the price is not determined. The partners are seeking to beat Verizon Wireless and AT&T Wireless to the market.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Despite Yahoo's ostensibly deft maneuverings this week, analysts suggest that being swallowed by Microsoft is the most likely fate for Yahoo.

Just yesterday, Yahoo said it is testing Google search ads, a deal some interpreted as the latest move on Yahoo’s part to avoid a hostile takeover by Microsoft.

Now, news outlets large and small are reporting that Yahoo is in talks with AOL to discuss a merger of sorts that many see as yet another avoidance tactic.

Ah, but the plot thickens once again, as Microsoft, too, is in discussions with a potential partner: News Corp. might band with the software giant in its acquisition bid.

A story by the Associated Press, Ahead of the bell: Yahoo's options, on Yahoo's Finance page no less, quotes from a note that Citi Investment Research analyst Mark S. Mahaney sent to clients: "Yahoo's maneuvers 'clearly signal' its 'determination to explore all strategic options versus accepting Microsoft's $31-per-share bid.'"

Mahaney goes on to say that a Microsoft buyout is "the most likely outcome," though it will probably happen at a higher price than the current $42 billion proposal.

Either way, for Yahoo to be in irons, as the sailing expression goes, and forced to choose between Google and Microsoft is anything but ideal.

Benjamin J. Romano of The Seattle Times posts another analyst's opinion in this blog entry:

Christa Quarles, an analyst with Thomas Weisel Partners, broke out the Homer in her latest assessment of the deal, also reported by the AP. "Choosing between Microsoft and Google must seem like sailing between Scylla and Charybdis for Yahoo," Quarles said in a note to clients. "Though given independence seems to be the overarching goal, tacking toward Google may be the better short-term solution."

Despite Yahoo's ostensibly deft maneuverings this week, analysts suggest that being swallowed by Microsoft is the most likely fate for Yahoo.

Just yesterday, Yahoo said it is testing Google search ads, a deal some interpreted as the latest move on Yahoo’s part to avoid a hostile takeover by Microsoft.

Now, news outlets large and small are reporting that Yahoo is in talks with AOL to discuss a merger of sorts that many see as yet another avoidance tactic.

Ah, but the plot thickens once again, as Microsoft, too, is in discussions with a potential partner: News Corp. might band with the software giant in its acquisition bid.

A story by the Associated Press, Ahead of the bell: Yahoo's options, on Yahoo's Finance page no less, quotes from a note that Citi Investment Research analyst Mark S. Mahaney sent to clients: "Yahoo's maneuvers 'clearly signal' its 'determination to explore all strategic options versus accepting Microsoft's $31-per-share bid.'"

Mahaney goes on to say that a Microsoft buyout is "the most likely outcome," though it will probably happen at a higher price than the current $42 billion proposal.

Either way, for Yahoo to be in irons, as the sailing expression goes, and forced to choose between Google and Microsoft is anything but ideal.

Benjamin J. Romano of The Seattle Times posts another analyst's opinion in this blog entry:

Christa Quarles, an analyst with Thomas Weisel Partners, broke out the Homer in her latest assessment of the deal, also reported by the AP. "Choosing between Microsoft and Google must seem like sailing between Scylla and Charybdis for Yahoo," Quarles said in a note to clients. "Though given independence seems to be the overarching goal, tacking toward Google may be the better short-term solution."

The situation is not that dire just yet, but signs are beginning to emerge that Silicon Valley is not immune to the difficulties affecting the U.S. economy. And whereas Valley VC's once tended to primarily act locally, they're now eyeing global markets.

"During the first three months of the year, only five companies backed by venture capital investors went public on Wall Street, the National Venture Capital Association said last week. That is down from 31 in the fourth quarter of last year, and is roughly the same level as at the nadir of the dot-com bust," The New York Times reports in Economy has become a drag on Silicon Valley.

The Times story continues that, "there was also a sharp falloff in the acquisition of start-up companies by bigger corporations. Microsoft is making noise with its effort to take over Yahoo, but elsewhere things are quieting down. There were only 56 acquisitions in the first three months of the year, down from 83 in the fourth quarter."

Indeed, Silicon Valley won't always be the center of the technology universe, at least according to Rebecca Fannin, author of Silicon Dragon: How China is Winning the Tech Race.

Fannin, in this Q&A with Forbes, explains that, "it's going to be years before it becomes very pronounced, but China is slowly emerging as the next Silicon Valley. If you look at venture capital money flowing in, it's a phenomenal rate."

Fannin's work, by the by, is part of a cadre of new books examining China as an emerging powerhouse, eight of which The Guardian reviewed in Here be dragons.

The situation is not that dire just yet, but signs are beginning to emerge that Silicon Valley is not immune to the difficulties affecting the U.S. economy. And whereas Valley VC's once tended to primarily act locally, they're now eyeing global markets.

"During the first three months of the year, only five companies backed by venture capital investors went public on Wall Street, the National Venture Capital Association said last week. That is down from 31 in the fourth quarter of last year, and is roughly the same level as at the nadir of the dot-com bust," The New York Times reports in Economy has become a drag on Silicon Valley.

The Times story continues that, "there was also a sharp falloff in the acquisition of start-up companies by bigger corporations. Microsoft is making noise with its effort to take over Yahoo, but elsewhere things are quieting down. There were only 56 acquisitions in the first three months of the year, down from 83 in the fourth quarter."

Indeed, Silicon Valley won't always be the center of the technology universe, at least according to Rebecca Fannin, author of Silicon Dragon: How China is Winning the Tech Race.

Fannin, in this Q&A with Forbes, explains that, "it's going to be years before it becomes very pronounced, but China is slowly emerging as the next Silicon Valley. If you look at venture capital money flowing in, it's a phenomenal rate."

Fannin's work, by the by, is part of a cadre of new books examining China as an emerging commerce powerhouse, eight of which The Guardian reviewed in Here be dragons.

eldavojohn writes "Now that Verizon has beaten Google in the 'block C' spectrum auction, what are they going to do with it? Well, as of today they've revealed their plans for world domination: they plan to speed up wireless internet connections. It may come as no surprise that they'll also be making this available for other manufacturer's devices. AT&T plans to do the same with their auction winnings, 'AT&T was second to Verizon, winning $6 billion in spectrum licenses, which it also plans to use for high-speed Internet service. But its executives said they didn't bid for the portion subject to the open-access rules. The parts it did land cost AT&T nearly three times as much per unit of spectrum than the portion Verizon bought.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A recently released study of trades undertaken in an internal predictive market in place at Google surfaced a quantifiable can-do spirit among the company's employees.

Analyzing the predictive market trading behavior of 1,463 participating Google employees from April 2005 to September 2007, Justin Wolfers and Eric Zitzewitz, economists at Wharton and Darmouth, respectively, along with Google economic analyst Bo Cowgill, found that "internal markets overpriced securities tied to optimistic outcomes by 10 percentage points."

Meaning, in essence, that participating Google employees were, on the whole, willing to pay a 10 percent premium to place a bet on success.

[ PDF download: "Using Prediction Markets to Track Information Flows: Evidence From Google" ]

Part of a larger trend attempting to glean insight from the wisdom of crowds, predictive markets allow participants to perform trading-style transactions on the outcome of various short- and long-range conjectures. Participants are given tokens -- in Google's case, "Goobles" -- to place bets. The flow of this currency is believe to provide a credible prediction engine for future events -- more accurate, some believe, than knowledge gleaned from polls and surveys. Much of this accuracy is attributed to the assurance of vested participation in the form of financial compensation for individual participants' predictive accuracy -- for Google, this took the form of a $10,000 prize budget pool per quarter.

[ For a deeper look at predictive markets and crowdsourcing, see "Mob wisdom means business" ]

Google's market, which the authors believe is the largest such company market in operation, has been up and running for four years. Similar markets are under way at Abbott Labs, Arcelor Mittal, Best Buy, Chrysler, Corning, EA, Eli Lilly, Frito Lay, GE, HP, Intel, InterContinental Hotels, Masterfoods, Microsoft, Motorola, Nokia, Pfizer, Qualcomm, Siemens, and TNT, according to the authors of the report.

Conjectures ran the gamut, from demand forecasting (number of Gmail users at the end of a particular quarter), performance (Google Talk quality rating), company news, industry news, decision markets (will users of feature A use feature B more), to plain-old fun (how many rotten tomatoes will Star Wars III get?).

In all, 270 such "markets" were opened at Google, each with between two and five bet outcomes.

Participants in the Google market, who were more likely to be programmers at the Mountain View campus, exhibited a bias toward outcomes linked to a positive outcome for Google. Moreover, the economists found a measurable correlation between bullish predictive market behavior the day after Google's actual stock price experienced a better-than-average boost.

According to the economists, such optimism is akin to what is known as the "entrepreneur's curse," in which "firms are started by those most overly optimistic about their prospects." Such optimism, the authors conjecture, is desirable for leaders and employees in such environments, as it generates motivation, leads to risk-taking, and "makes employees cheaper to compensate with stock options."

Optimism, according to the study, was correlated most prominantly with more recent hires, as experienced employees tended to be less likely to overspend on optimistic outcomes.

Also of note from the study was a correlation of like-mindedness with physical proximity, as strong correlations in trading were found among employees with 10 to 20 feet of one another in a shared office setting, suggesting that being on the same page means being in the same environs.

Moreover, trading correlations were also found among employees sharing the same "three-levels-below-SVP" manager, which at Google, usually means working on the same broad set of products, according to the authors of the report.

Analysis of holdings and trading activities is used to determine how an organization processes information.

Interestingly, the authors did not find friendship to be a strong correlation factor in Google's predictive market. Apparently, work-farm architecture and workforce organization have a demonstrable effect on siloing information.

Organizations looking to foster cross-departmental collaboration, take note.