News From Around The Industry:

•Google reads your email, shocker:
Microsoft CEO Steve " All Quiet on the Western Front" Ballmer has accused Google of reading punter's emails. Talking to the throngs in Blighty, Steve told a crowd that one of the differences between the evil empire of Google and the Glorious Empire of MS was that the Vole didn't read your email. It all started when an audience member asked him if an advertising model could support software business in the future.
Ballmer quietly replied he always fancied a combination of models. Don't we all? He said it was really tricking to make cash out of email and Google has had the same problems even though "it read your mail and Microsoft doesn't". Ballmer pointed out that he was not defaming Google as it was a factual statement. However he pointed out that Google's privacy was not working out as well as the company thought.

•Vista uptake is barely more than Windows 98 share:
Released first to its corporate Software Assurance users in November 2006, Windows Vista was touted by Microsoft as primarily aimed at business customers. Vista wasn't released for consumers until January 2007. However, figures gathered and recently released by security vendor SunBelt Software indicate that businesses are staying away from Vista in droves, as opposed to home users who often have had no other choice but to run Vista on a new PC. Sunbelt logged the client operating systems reported by its CounterSpy Enterprise security monitoring product and used by machines visiting the company's website. Not surprisingly, CounterSpy Enterprise reported that Windows XP came in first with 82.91% market share. Vista had a mere 0.32% market share, just barely more than last place Windows 98 with 0.03%. These figures look plausible from here, given the conservative tendencies and inertia of business users, and they do seem to show that Windows Vista has so far utterly failed to take hold in corporate settings.

•Brit troops get free WiFi:
The Ministry of Defence (MoD) has announced that British troops on service in Iraq and Afghanistan will have a free wireless internet connection for the first time. The new service will enable them to surf the web and contact home without leaving their living accommodation. Work to install the wireless access is due for completion by Easter 2008. The development is part of the defence ministry's Project Mercury programme, and will follow the installation of telephones and computers with internet access, which is due for completion in December 2007. "This improvement to the internet access for our troops adds to the excellent Operational Welfare package available to all those deployed on operations, which includes the provision of TVs, DVD players, radios and 30 minutes of free phone calls per week to anywhere in the world," Defence secretary Des Brown said.

•Wireless phones ARE dangerous, says report - EVERYBODY PANIC:
Prolonged use of mobile and home cordless phones does increase the risk of cancer, according to a new report which casts doubt on recent more reassuring research. The report, published in the journal Occupational Health Medicine, says the dangers have been downplayed because much research has involved people who have been using mobile phones for less than ten years. Most cancers take at least ten years to develop, and the new report says relatively few people have been using wireless phones intensively for that long. It drew together the results of eleven studies involving people among that small group and concluded that they showed a "consistent pattern of increased risk" of a tumour - particularly on the side of the head where they usually hold a handset.

•Airing problems in wireless:
Electronic News/Electronic Business sat down to talk about future wireless issues with Darren McCarthy, market development manager at Tektronix; Christopher Bergey, director of Broadcom’s embedded WLAN wireless connectivity group; Zoltan Cendes, chairman and CEO of Ansoft; and Dan Karr, senior vice president of marketing and sales at Tzero Technologies. According to them, the biggest problems vary greatly. Bergey says the problem is "desire to get smaller and smaller with these products while at the same time increasing the functionality"; McCarthey claims "Ease of use and convenience are really what it’s about"; while Karr and Cendes chime in with "There are a couple of problems. One is bandwidth. The second is quality of service" and "There are a lot of problems with mixed signal design.", respectively. Umm.. is it me, or is that pretty much everything about wireless? Oh, wait... no one thinks security is a problem?

•Philly Inquirer comes to defense of muni-fi:
The Philadelphia Inquirer printed a passionate defense of the muni wireless network there this weekend.
"Philadelphia is working out on the cutting edge with its wireless initiative. Much as its critics anticipate a meltdown, there is still more reason to be upbeat than not," the newspaper stated in an editorial. The Inquirer was responding to the demands of Councilman Frank Rizzo, a political opponent of Mayor John F. Street and long-time critic of the mayor's muni wireless initiative, to hold hearings on the project. Recognizing the implicit politics of the demand, the Inquirer nevertheless endorses the idea of hearings, saying "The good news is that City Council hearings could be a forum to tell a mostly upbeat story about the city's Wi-Fi project."

•Class Action Lawsuit Filed Over iBricking -- Violation Of Antitrust Law?:
Mike Masnick at TechDirt writes: "While the last class action lawsuit over the iPhone was pretty ridiculous -- claiming that the rapid price drop was illegal -- this latest one may have a bit more substance behind it. One of the victims of the infamous iPhone iBricking update has now filed a class action lawsuit against Apple, claiming that the iBricking action was a violation of California law. The specific arguments are a bit complex, but basically, the guy is claiming that in locking the handset to one carrier, Apple violated sections of the Cartwright Act, which is designed to prevent companies from creating artificial market barriers on products they sell in order to boost the price. On top of that, the lawsuit notes that unlocking a phone for use on other networks is perfectly legal under last year's DMCA exemptions. Therefore, to then brick the iPhones that were unlocked violates the California law, saying that it's illegal to take actions that 'substantially lessen competition or tend to create a monopoly.'"

•FAA seconds FCC on grounding in-flight mobile phone calls - Oops, forgot about that Skype thingy...:
"Over the weekend, a story out of the UK began to get some buzz, when an American FAA representative supposedly told a British newspaper that the FAA will not approve in-flight mobile phone calls after the agency received a ton of complaints when it publicly began considering the shift in policy. Of course, this is somewhat meaningless, because the FCC had already said no to the change in policy, and both agencies would likely need to agree before any change went into effect. So, for those of you (and we know there are lots of you) who were terrified by the idea that you might get stuck sitting next to someone jabbering away into a mobile phone for a cross-continent flight... rest easy. Well, rest easy until you realize that voice is just a form of data, and it's only a matter of time until internet access in the sky means the person sitting next you will be jabbering away via Skype for a cross-continent flight no matter what gov't agencies have to say about mobile phones in the sky."