The Wishful Thinker ( World News To You )

ThunderPack TP-R2G2: Up, Up, and Away!
You, too, can own your very own jet pack, for the bargain price of $98,000.

Wi-Fi Remote Surfs Channels, Browses Web
Because who wants to watch TV without surfing the Web at the same time?

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Guitar Lessons from the Stars, in HD
Think Guitar Hero's tough? This new HD video service will help you learn the real thing.

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Japan stocks ease as Sony drops, but banks support
Reuters India - TOKYO (Reuters) - Japanese stocks eased after earlier gains on Friday, dragged down by Sony Corp, which lost more than 5 percent after the maker of PlayStation game gear and Vaio PCs cut its earnings outlook."Investors appear to be overselling Sony

XM Satellite Radio and SONY BMG MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT Reach Agreement on
MSN MoneyCentral - Agreement Marks XM's Third With a Major Music Company to Resolve Dispute Over XM Devices With Advanced Recording Features NEW YORK, Feb. 1 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — XM Satellite Radio and SONY BMG MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT today announced that they have

Racket? Diaper bag? It must be Davenport
San Diego Union-Tribune - The only other mother on the Sony Erickson WTA Tour is 19th-ranked Sybille Bammer of Austria. Of Davenport's run, Serena Williams said at the Australian Open, I mean, I'm speechless, because she looks better than me, and she's seven months out of

In the list of top-selling games, clear evidence of a sea change
International Herald Tribune - importance of the mass audience in gaming's spectacular growth is seen most clearly in the success of Nintendo's Wii, which is far outselling its more technically advanced hardware competitors, the Xbox 360 from Microsoft and PlayStation 3 from Sony

Sharp profit up 5.5 percent on LCD panel demand
ZDNet - That more than offset steep TV price falls for Sharp–the world's third-largest LCD TV maker , behind Samsung Electronics and Sony –and higher silicon raw material prices that hurt profits at its solar-cell unit . Sharp is building the world's largest

Asian stocks mixed as investors weigh Wall Street's gains, China
Forbes - Sony Corp closed down 8.2 pct to 4,790 yen, after it missed third-quarter earnings estimates and lowered its outlook for the year. Top car electronics and electrical parts maker Denso Corp closed up 1.3 pct at 3,890 yen after reporting its net profit

Sony's new flagship SLR
CNET News - Sony announced its forthcoming"flagship"Alpha-branded SLR on Thursday at the Photo Marketing Association trade show in Las Vegas. Its chief defining feature so far is its use of a 24.8-megapixel sensor that's unusually large–the size of a full

Japan shares down on Sony, banks, U.S. job worries
Forbes - TOKYO, Feb 1 (Reuters) - Japanese shares edged lower on Friday, hurt by worries about the U.S. economy ahead of key jobs data and a slide in Sony Corp (nyse: SNE - news - people ) shares to a 14-month low after the maker of PlayStation game gear cut

UPDATE 1-Transmeta says shareholder offers to buy company
Reuters - The Santa Clara, California-based company's biggest customers include NEC Electronics Corp (6723.T: Quote , Profile , Research ), Fujitsu Ltd (6702.T: Quote , Profile , Research ), Sony Corp (6758.T: Quote , Profile , Research ) and Toshiba Corp (6502.T:

HSBC downgrades Sony to Neutral from Overweight
Reuters - TOKYO, Feb 1 (Reuters) - Brokerage HSBC downgraded its rating on Sony Corp (6758.T: Quote , Profile , Research ) to"neutral"from"overweight,"citing downside risks for the business year starting in April due to a weakening U.S. economy and a

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Cables connect the digital world / Backup systems keep data flowing over fiber-optic lines despite frequent breaks (San Francisco Chronicle)
The lines that tie the globe together by carrying phone calls and Internet traffic are just two-thirds of an inch thick where they lie on the ocean floor. The foundation for a connected world seems quite fragile - an impression reinforced this week when a…

NC State College Of Textiles To Demonstrate The 'New World Of (Textileweb.com)
High school students, parents, teachers and the general public are invited to learn more about the new world of textiles by attending North Carolina State University's College of Textiles' annual open house event on Saturday, Feb. 9, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

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Cables connect the digital world / Backup systems keep data flowing over fiber-optic lines despite frequent breaks (San Francisco Chronicle)
The lines that tie the globe together by carrying phone calls and Internet traffic are just two-thirds of an inch thick where they lie on the ocean floor. The foundation for a connected world seems quite fragile - an impression reinforced this week when a…

Saling The World: Smash Bros, DMC 4 Take Over in Japan (Gamasutra)
Gamasutra's weekly column, "Saling The World", covers the top five real-time Amazon.com sellers for every available platform in the United States, Japan, and Europe, providing an important update of sales patterns worldwide. This week's charts, with data taken from January 31st, 2008, find Japan's multiplatform bestseller lists upended following the recent release of big-name hits like …

NC State College Of Textiles To Demonstrate The 'New World Of (Textileweb.com)
High school students, parents, teachers and the general public are invited to learn more about the new world of textiles by attending North Carolina State University's College of Textiles' annual open house event on Saturday, Feb. 9, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Germans sweep medals at bobsled World Cup (CBC)
German teams finished 1-2-3 in a women's World Cup bobsled race Friday in Konigssee.

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A recent news I read about Microsoft trying to be funny again .

By Howard Schneider and Peter Whoriskey

Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, February 1, 2008; 11:25 AM

Microsoft Corp. has offered to buy struggling Internet search provider Yahoo for $44.6 billion, a merger that would combine two of the technology world’s most well-known names into a potentially potent competitor for Google in the lucrative Web search and advertising market.

Yahoo, which rebuffed earlier merger and business alliance offers from Microsoft, issued a terse statement saying that the “unsolicited proposal” would be “evaluated carefully and promptly in the context of Yahoo’s strategic plans.”

Microsoft, which manufactures the operating system and Web browser used on the vast majority of the world’s desktop and laptop computers, has been struggling to capture more of the Internet search and advertising traffic that has become Google’s undisputed province. The Web advertising market is growing rapidly, anticipated to increase from around $40 billion last year to $80 billion in 2010, Microsoft said in a news release.

Though the world’s dominant software maker, Microsoft has not fared as well in efforts to promote its own search engine and other Web-based services, or to capture more of that advertising revenue. The offer for Yahoo reflects the importance that Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft places on becoming more competitive in that arena — and finding a way to erode Google’s current dominance of it.

Google’s share of the U.S. Web search market is estimated at 56 percent by Nielsen Online, compared to 17 percent for Yahoo and 13 percent for Microsoft.

Yahoo was one of the first companies to popularize Web searching, and it still attracts one of the Internet’s largest audiences to its main Web site, an amalgamation of services and content that includes its search engine. However, the company has had trouble translating that audience into consistent financial performance. Earlier this week, it announced that 2007 profit had fallen 12 percent compared to the year before and that it would lay off 1,000 workers.

At $31 a share, the proposed purchase price represents a roughly 60 percent premium over Yahoo’s closing stock price yesterday of $19.18.