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. In addition, Microsoft chief executive Steven A. Ballmer said that if Yahoo’s board rejects the deal, Microsoft would likely pursue a hostile takeover, attempting to lure Yahoo stockholders with an attractive price.

Yahoo stock has fallen 43 percent since last October, and Ballmer said Microsoft would take “all necessary steps to ensure that Yahoo’s shareholders are provided with the opportunity to realize the value inherent in our proposal.”

Yahoo shares jumped nearly 60 percent in premarket trading, while Microsoft fell by more than 5 percent. Google shares tumbled even more, by 8 percent. Google’s share price has also suffered in recent months as its previously rapacious rate of growth began to slow. Google profit grew by 17 percent in the last three months of the year, disappointing analysts.

A Microsoft-Yahoo merger — uniting the maker of best-selling software with one of the Web’s most trafficked sites — would be subject to antitrust and other regulatory reviews, both in the United States and in Europe.

A Justice Department spokesman said the agency would be “interested” in examining the antitrust implications of the deal, wire services reported. An ongoing consolidation in the online advertising world largely has gotten a green light from regulators, including Google’s recent purchase of DoubleClick, one of the leading Internet ad sales companies. In a news release, Microsoft said it thought the transaction would be approved in time for a deal to be completed by the end of the year.

In a letter yesterday to the Yahoo board of directors, Ballmer put the offer in a blunt context: Google is gaining increasing control of the online advertising market, and Yahoo’s efforts to compete on its own are failing.

Yahoo and Microsoft have discussed different business alliances in recent years, but previous merger talks were rejected because Yahoo’s executives wanted to pursue a new business strategy on their own, Ballmer recounted.

A year later “the competitive situation has not improved,” Ballmer wrote. By combining, he argued, the two could consolidate their online audiences, cut costs on research and operation, and become a credible competitor to Google.

“Today, the market is increasingly dominated by one player who is consolidating its dominance through acquisition,” Ballmer wrote. “Together, Microsoft and Yahoo can offer a credible alternative for consumers, advertisers, and publishers.”

The offer was delivered the same day that Yahoo announced the departure from its board of former chief executive and longtime chairman Terry Semel, a change that had been in the works for months as Semel came under pressure for the company’s poor performance.

One of Yahoo’s central initiatives over the past year in particular has failed to meet expectations. The company’s “Project Panama” introduced a new formula for choosing which ads to run with search results. Previously, the ads from the highest bidder for a search word got the most prominence. Under the new project, the number of “clicks” an ad had previously received would be taken into consideration, too.

But analysts said the initiative had little effect on Yahoo’s market share, and that it seemed to be slipping against Google, which already had such a system in place.

“While a commercial partnership may have made sense at one time, Microsoft believes that the only alternative now is the combination of Microsoft and Yahoo! that we are proposing,” according to the letter.

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After 30 years, Sea Girt gets paddle tennis (Asbury Park Press)
When it came to getting an outdoor paddle tennis court in town, a group of determined residents proved that they knew how to play the game.

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Tennis tickets on sale (The Cincinnati Enquirer)
Tickets are now on sale for this summer's men's and women's tennis tournaments in Mason. Past champions include Roger Federer and Lindsay Davenport.

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Hockey: Beijing to be captain's swansong? (The New Zealand Herald)
Ryan Archibald will have his greatest fans turfside when he leads the Black Sticks into the biggest challenge of his hockey-playing career this afternoon.

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High School Girls Hockey: Perfect Hingham beats Canton (The Patriot Ledger)
HINGHAM – Two of the area s top high school girls hockey teams squared off Wednesday night and Hingham continued its undefeated season with a 6-3, Southeastern Mass. League victory over Canton at Pilgrim Arena.

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Scotland call off England football friendly (AFP via Yahoo! News)
Scotland will not play a friendly international against England on May 28 because new coach George Burley does not want to field a weakened team, according to Scottish football bosses.

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Chamblee football coach heading to Northview (Atlanta Journal-Constitution)
Jim Showfety, the first-year coach who took Chamblee to the Class AAA football semifinals last season, is the new head coach at Northview of Alpharetta, a six-year-old school that has never made the playoffs. [ Submit your comments below.] "They asked me what is my first-year goal here, and I'm not dumb enough to say we're going to go 15-0, but we've got to raise expectations," Showfety said. …

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American football: Scot aims to boot Giants to victory (The New Zealand Herald)
PHOENIX: Kicker Lawrence Tynes, who will become the first Briton to play in the National Football League's (NFL) Super Bowl when he takes the field against the unbeaten New England Patriots on Monday (NZT), relishes an opportunity to win it all for his New York Giants.

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Statistics give edge to England in cricket series (Reuters via Yahoo! Asia News)
LONDON (Reuters) – Statistics alone do not give an infallible guide to the outcome of a cricket series. However, as even a cursory glance at the respective records of England and New Zealand reveals, they do indicate the way to bet.

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Statistics give edge to England in cricket series (Reuters via Yahoo! Singapore News)
LONDON – Statistics alone do not give an infallible guide to the outcome of a cricket series.

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