Latest news about Consumer Electronics and Education And Reference

A Florida company that sells a spyware program must change advertising pitches that emphasize the product’s clandestine nature, but the company can continue to sell the application, a U.S. federal court has ruled.

CyberSpy Software had been unable to sell its RemoteSpy application since Nov. 6, when a court granted a request for an injunction after a complaint by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

The FTC alleges CyberSpy marketed RemoteSpy by giving detailed instructions on how to install the program on computers and surreptitiously collect data. A trial is scheduled for June 15 in U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida in Orlando.

The new injunction bars CyberSpy from suggesting the program can be secretly installed or that keyloggers can be passed on as innocuous programs.

CyberSpy Software gave its customers special instructions on how to e-mail the program to an intended victim, disguising it as a harmless photo file, to monitor keystrokes and instant message conversations, among other intrusive functions.

In an earlier court filing, CyberSpy contended it warned users that monitoring computers without a person’s consent is illegal, terms that are also in the software’s license agreement. RemoteSpy has legal uses, such as monitoring children’s Internet browsing, the company argued.

Nonetheless, CyberSpy’s heavy emphasis on spying and how to hide the program raised concerns from the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a Washington, D.C., based civil liberties advocacy group, which filed a complaint with the FTC in March.

U.S. District Judge Gregory A. Presnell wrote in the latest injunction that “the ability of RemoteSpy to invade the privacy of an unsuspecting victim is, indeed, alarming. And it is to this use that defendants direct their promotional and instructional material.”

CyberSpy Software is run by just one person, Tracer R. Spence. The company holds a 3 percent to 4 percent share of the remote keylogger software product market, according to another court filing in the case.

Since 2005, Spence has sold 11,138 licenses for RemoteSpy, which sells for US$89.95. Gross revenue for the program is around $200,000 annually, the filing said.

Election fervor has calmed down, and the economy is melting down. Are you down with the latest in high tech? This week’s quiz ranges from new Sony handsets to new Live services from Microsoft. Also: A spam-friendly ISP gets its just desserts, and Yankee Stadium gets a high-tech makeover. Correct answers are worth 10 points apiece. Ready to test your wits against our fiendish quiz master? Then let’s play ball.

1. Sony Ericsson has finally gotten smart — or at least its phones have. What’s the handset maker calling its new smartphone, due out on Black Friday?

a. Xperia
b. Xpedia
c. Xhilerate
d. Xpired

Take the InfoWorld news quiz

Russia could become a swing producer to influence global prices, the country’s top energy official said on Wednesday as OPEC’s Secretary General met with a Russian president for the first time.

The resurrection of a decade-old idea of a big oil reserve comes as another sign of Russia’s growing ties with OPEC, which has unnerved global consumers already worried by talks between Russia, Iran and Qatar to create an OPEC-style gas group.

“The Ministry of Energy is considering creating an oil production reserve, which would allow it to work more efficiently with prices on the market,” said Russian Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin, who oversees the energy sector.

Asked how big the reserve should be, Sechin told reporters: “Enough to reach efficient pricing parameters.”

Russia is the biggest oil producer outside OPEC and the world’s second-largest exporter after Saudi Arabia.

OPEC Secretary General Abdullah al-Badri, who arrived in Moscow on Tuesday for a two-day trip, met with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to discuss the exchange of market data.

“The reason (for this meeting) is absolutely obvious,” state television channel Vesti 24 showed Medvedev as saying after the two met just outside of Moscow on Wednesday.

“Russia is also a major producer and exporter of oil and is interested in maintaining stable, predictable prices.”

Badri said he liked the reserve idea. “Russian reserves can help global oil shortages … This idea is good. It is a technical matter. We will have to discuss it,” he said before meeting the Russian president.

The Russian economy grew for 10 straight years on the back of high oil prices.

But as prices have halved in the past months Russia’s budget is at risk as it is balanced at $75 per barrel for 2008 and $95 for next year compared to around $60 for Russian crude now.

Russian companies badly need high prices to refinance their heavy debts and maintain ambitious capital projects.

Badri told journalists he was not interested in asking Russia for a cut in production.

Some top OPEC officials have this week called on Russia and other non-member states to join OPEC in cutting production. The organization will hold an extraordinary meeting on Friday and is widely expected to reduce its deliveries to global markets.

Moscow agreed to reduce exports several times earlier this decade in tandem with OPEC, but analysts said the pledge never materialized as private companies raised shipments instead.

Russia has long toyed with the idea of an oil reserve, which could allow it to become a swing producer. But the expensive and logistically difficult plan was never implemented as the government and private companies failed to reach a compromise.

If set up it will differ from emergency reserves created in the 1970s in some big consuming nations, such as the United States, which are used to soothe supply problems rather than influence prices.

The current oil production scheme in Russia does not allow the country to change its flows significantly as any well shut down in Siberia usually leads to its costly repair.

INVESTMENT CONCERNS

The head of the International Energy Agency (IEA), attending the same industry conference as Badri, said he was worried by Russia’s production outlook as the country heads this year for its first annual output decline in a decade.

“We see worrying signs in some producing countries, including Russia, in the ability to invest enough to meet demand,” said Executive Director Nobuo Tanaka of the IEA, adviser to 28 industrialized countries.

Oil production in Russia has been down by around one percent since the start of this year, leading the government to make exploration a top priority for the strategic oil sector.

“We see Russian supply growth slowing, with all projects declining in production over the next decade. Further government incentives would be welcome to increase production,” he said.

Tanaka also said growing demand in robust emerging markets, such as China, could lead to a global squeeze on oil supply.

“In the medium to long term, say by 2013, a supply crunch may happen… If we stop investing now, the problem will be more acute,” he told reporters.

The IEA hoped OPEC would not cut output at Friday meeting, he added. “We want to see more production, we want a cushion.”

Russian oil firms have called on the government to ease taxes and slash export duties in November, one month earlier than planned, because of a steep price decline this month.

Sechin said the idea was being discussed but no decision had yet been taken.

Leaders from three African trading blocs accounting for more than half the continent’s industrial output agreed Wednesday to form a single market and aimed to set up a free trade area.

They resolved to “immediately start working towards a merger into a single (bloc) with the objective of fast-tracking the attainment of the African Economic Community,” a statement said.

Six heads of state and foreign ministers from 26 countries of the East African Community, Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) and Southern Africa Development Community gathered for the meeting in Kampala.

They also agreed on “the expeditious establishment of a Free Trade Area encompassing the member/partner states of the three (blocs) with the ultimate goal of establishing a single customs union.”

A framework to form the Free Trade Area will be drawn up in six months.

The summit comes as the world’s poorest continent grapples with the effects of steep food and energy prices as well as the impact of a credit crunch that has hit exports around the world.

Such crises posed a “serious threat to the growth of African economies particularly in terms of demand for African exports of goods and services,” the statement added.

South African President Kgalema Motlanthe said poor nations, whose economy might be shocked by the dynamics of the world financial market, should be given positions at global institutions.

“While Africa and other developing countries had marginal influence over the decisions that have brought the international finance systems to the brink of collapse, unjustifiably, African countries will bear the brunt.”

“Development countries must be included in the governance of all international financing institutions to mitigate adverse effects on them,” said Motlanthe.

Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki said the creation of a single market would help alleviate poverty and offer employment by boosting efficiency in production, increasing trade and investments.

“We should therefore be steadfast in supporting our desire for a bigger regional bloc that can finally culminate into an African Economic Community,” said Kibaki, who chairs COMESA.

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni described the envisaged single market and integration as “a strategic tool” for prosperity.

Rwanda’s Paul Kagame, credited with masterminding the reconstruction of his tiny nation following the 1994 genocide that claimed 800,000 lives, said “the summit constitutes another chance that we need to do more for our region.”

“It is inevitable that the integration will seemingly produce losers and winners initially, but in the long run it will benefit all of us,” Kagame said.

The three blocs comprise 527 million people and a combined GDP of 624 billion dollars or 58 percent of the GDP of the African Union.

But the drive for a single market faces obstacles arising from countries having overlapping membership in the three blocs, presenting a barrier to the creation of a common customs union.

They’re almost an endangered species, the dwindling number of people who say the country is heading in the right direction. But they’re out there and the way they see it, the U.S. has handled tough times before and will do it again.

Fewer than one in seven, or 15 percent, say the country is on the right path, according to the latest Associated Press-Yahoo News poll of adults. In these economically tough times, they tend to be older, less educated, conservative and supporters of Republican presidential candidate John McCain.

“Things go in cycles. Even when things are at their worst, there’s still an upturn” afterward, said Paula Fortin, 63, a retired bank supervisor from Marysville, Wash., who indicated that things are going the right way. “We’re still living at a higher level than most other countries in the world.”

Since last fall, the AP-Yahoo News poll, conducted by Knowledge Networks, has tracked how the same group of about 2,000 voters has reacted to the presidential campaign and other events.

Just last month, nearly three in 10 said the country was on the right course. That figure has declined sharply, tracking the catastrophic financial problems of recent weeks and widespread expectations of a serious recession.

“We’re faltering a little bit,” said Tom Waters, 24, a sales trainer from Brooklyn, N.Y. “But America has proven itself when things were more serious. I know times can be tough, but we’ll find our way again.”

The poll shows a relationship between people’s views of the country and their own lives. Sixty-nine percent of those saying the U.S. is heading the right way report being happy in their own lives, while 52 percent of those sensing the country is on the wrong track are happy personally.

In addition, 41 percent of right-track people report difficulties getting ahead financially these days — compared with 68 percent of wrong-track people.

“For us personally, things are going very well,” said Hilary Smith, 29, a substitute teacher from Mattoon, Ill., who owns some rental properties with her husband and sees the country heading the right way. “My parents always say that we’re the exception to the rule, but we’re very hard workers.”

Of those in the poll taking an optimistic view, 52 percent are age 50 and up; 51 percent have no more than a high school diploma; and 43 percent attend religious services once or more each week. That exceeds the figures in each of those categories for all people surveyed.

Six in 10 right-track people are Republican and slightly more than that are conservatives, both far exceeding the national average. Just one in four are Democrats and one in 14 are liberals.

Likely voters in the poll saying the country is moving the right way prefer McCain over Democrat Barack Obama by 73 percent to 25 percent. That’s a decisive reversal of the 54 percent to 39 percent preference for Obama among likely voters who see the U.S. on the wrong track.

“Most of his values are the same as mine, being fiscally responsible and not being a socialist,” Norman Brewer, 68, who owns rental properties in Redding, Calif., said of McCain.

There’s a strong residue of support for President Bush among right-track people in the poll. Sixty-six percent of them have favorable views of Bush, triple the positive rating he got from those saying the country is on the wrong course.

Right-track people express more positive feelings about the presidential election than the wrong-track crowd. More of them say they’re interested, hopeful and excited. And while 44 percent of wrong-track people express frustration with the election, just 28 percent of right-track folks say the same.

“With the presidential election, there’s been more focus on the needs of the people,” said Tina Jacobsen, 41, a Danville, Calif., homemaker who sees the country moving the right way.

The AP-Yahoo News poll of 1,769 adults was conducted Oct. 3-13. It included 264 who said the country is heading in the right direction and 1,504 who said it is on the wrong track. It has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 6 percentage points for those saying it is moving the right way, and 2.5 points for those saying it is going the wrong way.

The poll was conducted over the Internet by Knowledge Networks, which initially contacted people using traditional telephone polling methods and followed with online interviews. People chosen for the study who had no Internet access were given it for free.

At least twelve people were killed and dozens wounded Friday evening in a car bomb explosion in the southern part of the Iraqi capital, an official said.

An explosive-laden car parked at a market place in the Shia-dominated Abudisher district went off at around 4.35 p.m. (1335 GMT), killing 12 people and wounding dozens, an interior ministry official said requesting anonymity.

No further details were immediately available.

The bodies of 11 men and a woman were found dumped in an empty lot next to a Tijuana elementary school Monday morning, an hour before children were scheduled to arrive.

City officials suspended classes after finding the victims, most of whom had been bound and tortured. Some were only partially clothed, said Prisna Perez, state police spokeswoman in Tijuana.

Minutes after the grisly discovery, four other bodies were found in another empty lot in Tijuana, and two other bodies were discovered late Sunday in a lot next to a factory.

Investigators believe 16 of the victims were killed by warring drug gangs. The other two were victims of street crime, said Jose Manuel Yepiz, spokesman for the Baja California attorney general’s office.

Victor Clark Alfaro, director of the Binational Center for Human Rights, said the killings come as the Arellano Felix cartel suffers internal strife and seeks to fend off Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman’s push into the region.

Yepiz said the 12 bodies were discovered next to a message written on a white piece of cardboard that read, “This is going to happen to all of those who are with ‘The Engineer’ for being blabbermouths.”

He said police also found a message with the four bodies found in an empty lot in a residential area that read, “I’m not a traitor but I don’t like to be in the company of cowards.”

Tijuana is among the cities hardest hit by violence as Mexico’s drug cartels battle for lucrative smuggling routes past the border to supply illegal drug users in the United States.

Nearly two years ago, President Felipe Calderon launched a nationwide battle to take back territory controlled by some of the world’s most powerful drug gangs, and the cartels have responded with unprecedented violence.

Building on strong bipartisan consensus powering India-US ties, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will meet Republican presidential candidate John McCain Wednesday and is likely to have a telephonic conversation with Democrat nominee Barack Obama too, an Indian official said Monday.

Looking beyond the current Bush regime that has seen a quantum expansion in bilateral ties, India is keen to connect across the political spectrum in the US.

A day before he meets US President George W. Bush in Washington, Manmohan Singh will meet McCain at Hotel New York Palace in New York, said the senior official accompanying the prime minister on his 10-day trip that will take him to Washington, Marseilles and Paris.

Manmohan Singh arrived in Frankfurt Monday en route to New York. After an overnight halt, he will leave for New York Tuesday morning.

The prime minister will discuss with McCain the future contours of the India-US ties in a prospective Republican presidency.

Like Bush, McCain is known for his strong advocacy of the nuclear deal and is said to have a soft corner for India.

Efforts are also underway to arrange a telephonic chat between Manmohan Singh and Obama, the flag bearer of the Democratic Party, the official said.

The conversation - the first between Manmohan and Obama - will set the stage for intensifying engagements in the event Democrat nominee becomes the next US president.

The dialogue will take place in the middle of the process of the ratification of the nuclear deal by the US Congress.

The phone call could prove to be crucial in influencing the Democrats to wave the mandatory 30-day period for speedy Congressional approval of the 123 civil nuclear pact, likely by the time Bush meets Manmohan Singh in White House Thursday.

Being a Democrat, Obama has a strong view on non-proliferation but clarified a few months ago that he will not push for changes in the nuclear deal should he become the president of the US.

With an eye on two-million strong affluent Indian American community Obama has declared his love for India and Indians.

He describes himself as a ‘desi’ who cooks dal well and is said to have a portrait of Hindu god Hanuman in his office.

South Africa’s President Thabo Mbeki has agreed to step down after the ruling African National Congress asked him to resign, his office said on Saturday.

The ANC’s decision to remove Mbeki, who was favoured by investors for his pro-business policies, could raise political instability in Africa’s economic powerhouse 14 years after its transition from the end of white minority rule.

But a smooth process to replace him may calm investor fears.

“Following the decision of the National Executive Committee of the African National Congress to recall President Thabo Mbeki, the President has obliged and will step down after all constitutional requirements have been met,” the presidency said in a statement.

The ANC’s National Executive Committee, its top decision-making body, earlier decided to recall the president following years of infighting since his decision to fire his then deputy Jacob Zuma in 2005.

“After a long and difficult discussion the ANC decided to recall the President before his term of office expires,” ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe told a news conference.

The decision must now be ratified by parliament, which should be a formality, given the ANC’s two-thirds majority.

Mbeki, who has ruled South Africa since taking over from Nelson Mandela in 1999, was due to leave office in 2009.

He lost the leadership of the ANC to Zuma last year.

Zuma, who is popular with leftists within the party and with its trade union and communist party allies, is the frontrunner to succeed Mbeki.

MANUEL TO STAY

It was unclear whether he would immediately step into the breach left by Mbeki. He would first have to be appointed to parliament and the cabinet.

Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka could assume the presidency but she has signalled she will resign with Mbeki. Cabinet ministers and the speaker of parliament follow in the succession line.

It is generally expected that parliament, which is dominated by the ANC, will elect a new president within 30 days. Baleka Mbete, the speaker of parliament and a Zuma loyalist, has been mentioned as the most likely one to lead the transition.

Mantashe said the ANC would ask Mbeki’s cabinet ministers, including Finance Minister Trevor Manuel — who is widely respected by markets — to remain in their positions in the transition period for the sake of stability.

Manuel’s office told Reuters he would not step down — a decision that should calm some investor fears.

“If you have the continuity of the cabinet staying largely intact I would not expect a major market reaction,” Citigroup strategist Leon Myburgh said.

“But you will have to see how individuals react…key decision-makers like Finance Minister Trevor Manuel will be key to how the market reacts.

Mbeki and Manuel have presided over the country’s longest ever period of economic growth — a decade.

Mbeki’s presidency ended after a heated debate within the ANC executive committee over his future in the wake of allegations he had meddled in a corruption case against Zuma.

Trade unions and ANC members have accused Mbeki and his aides of plotting to smear Zuma and derail his hopes of succeeding Mbeki. The South African leader has consistently denied any involvement in the prosecution.

Last week a judge dismissed the charges against Zuma, which were linked to an arms deal, and suggested that there had been high-level political involvement in the case. The ruling spurred Zuma militants within the executive to demand Mbeki’s head.

Three Indians, including Indiabulls’ Sameer Gehlaut and Party Gaming founder Anurag Dikshit, have been named among the 34 innovators in the ‘Web Billionaires’ list by US magazine Forbes.The internet boom has put 34 innovators on our list of world’s richest, comprising a total networth of 109.7 billion dollar, the Forbes report said.

The list includes Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page with the highest networth of 18.7 billion dollar and 18.6 billion dollar, respectively.