Al Losey, a corporate trainer at a Detroit auto parts maker, lost his job six weeks ago in what could be another down-and-out story from a hard luck corner of the American economy.Instead, Losey, and his wife Peggy, a devoted part-time seller of odds-and-ends on eBay, flew to Las Vegas this week trying to change their fortunes by hitting the jackpot as full-time sellers on the online auction site.

They joined thousands of other hopefuls who made the pilgrimage to eBay Inc.’s annual user conference to learn how 1.3 million people worldwide support themselves, in whole or in part, through online auctions.

“This is a great opportunity to kind of do our own thing,” said Al, who, after being downsized from two jobs in the auto industry in six years, is ready to join his wife of 35 years in building a small business online.

“We’ve had it with corporate America,” says Peggy. “I’m tired of relying on other people,” echoes her husband.

Since 1998, she’s created a sideline to her day job as a medical assistant by scouring garage sales for items many people might consider junk, but collectors on eBay covet. Now, the couple are gearing up to become full-time eBay sellers.

“No more mom-and-pop operation. It’s time to move up to the next level,” Al enthuses during a break in courses on how to incorporate a small business and become trading assistants by helping manage other people’s eBay sales.

The middle of Middle America — retirees, stay-at-home moms and school teachers — are learning how to support themselves by the detailed work of turning items they buy on the cheap into profitable sales.

EBay sellers are protected from what to outsiders might seem like the latest in a long line of get-rich-schemes because they control the sale price and how payments are received, minimizing the risk of fraud.

TURNING JUNK INTO GOLD

Trainers at the event estimated there are 12 million eBay sellers, including those who sell the occasional unwanted item on eBay’s vast market. EBay recently signed up its 200 millionth registered user worldwide.

“It’s pretty much my life,” says Nancy MacGillivray, 49, of San Marcos, California. She turned to eBay four years ago, after her employer went bankrupt.

Her schooling 30 years ago in fashion merchandising came in handy. She sells extra large-sized clothing for young people under the eBay seller name Plus Size Fashions and More.

Her daughter, Kristi Roller, 22, a fashion student, started out helping her mother, but now runs her own eBay business, called KLR Couture, which specializes in clothing for juniors.

MacGillivray says she sells 35 to 50 packages of clothing a day, which at an average price of $20, translates into around $700 to $1,000 in gross sales. Among eBay sellers, she ranks as No. 8,904 in volume, company figures show.

“Last year it started to feel like a real business,” Nancy says. “But I’m still waiting to hit the jackpot.”

“You’re happy, mother. Don’t be greedy,” chides Kristi

Peggy Losey believes she hit the jackpot three weeks ago, when she found some old plates shaped like lettuce leaves. She recognized the markings a type of Majolica pottery she’d seen on an antiques television show.

Because they had tiny chips on the edges, she paid just $10 for 15 pieces. When listing the items for auction on eBay, she acknowledged the defects, fearing the wrath of buyers and the harm to her all-important user feedback rating if she did not.

She auctioned off the plates for $1,419. Coming just weeks after her husband’s lay-off, it amounted to winning a jackpot.

“I was just running around the house yelling, ‘Oh, my God! Oh, my God!’”

Christian Godfrey is more sanguine about eBay.

“There is no jackpot,” Godfrey said. “It’s just another way to sell.”

Still, he drove 12 hours with his wife, Kathy, 37, from their home in Idaho Falls, Idaho. The 39-year-old teacher of Web site development at a technical college has been on eBay since 1998. He says he sells $2,000 a month of merchandise, mostly home furnishings.

“Everyone thinks that people can sell junk on eBay and make lots of money,” Godfrey said. “It’s way more work than people let on,” he said between checking on inquiries. “That’s the problem,” he says. “You are on call all the time.”

Yahoo Inc., the world’s largest provider of e-mail services, said on Monday that a software virus aimed at Yahoo Mail users had infected “a very small fraction” of its base of more than 200 million accounts.The e-mail virus, or worm, has been dubbed Yamanner and landed in Yahoo mailboxes bearing the headline “New Graphic Site.” Once opened, the message infects the computer and spreads to other users listed in Yahoo users’ e-mail address books, security experts said.

The e-mail containing the virus need only be opened — in contrast to most worms that are hidden in attachments and require users to take an additional step — to release the virus, according to computer security site Symantec Corp..

The Sunnyvale, California-based company advised users to update virus and firewall software on their computers and to block any e-mail sent from the address “av3@yahoo.com.”

“We have taken steps to resolve the issue and protect our users from further attacks of this worm,” Yahoo spokeswoman Kelley Podboy said in a statement.

“When we learn of e-mail abuse, such as a worm or other online threat, we take appropriate action,” she said. “(A) solution has been automatically distributed to all Yahoo Mail customers, and requires no additional action on the part of the user.”

Yamanner, first detected by Yahoo and major computer anti-virus software makers earlier on Monday, was ranked as having a low threat level by Trend Micro Inc. and McAfee Inc.

But Symantec considers the worm an “elevated threat,” one step up from the lowest ranking in terms of relative danger.

Symantec’s Security Response site suggested Yahoo Mail users might protect themselves by upgrading to the latest test version of the recently upgraded Yahoo Mail software.

“The worm cannot run on the newest version of Yahoo Mail Beta,” Symantec’s site said.

A Yahoo spokesman was not immediately available to comment on whether the company advised users to do this.

The worm exploits a vulnerability in Javascript technology used to make the mail program easier to use by triggering embedded HTML scripts to run in the computer user’s browser.

The e-mail addresses are also sent to a remote online computer server, which may be used to run spam campaigns, experts said. The technical name of the worm goes by variants of “JS.Yamanner.”

source - reuters

The newspapers of the future - cheap digital screens that can be rolled up and stuffed into a back pocket - have been just around the corner for the last three decades.But as early as this year, the future may finally arrive. Some of the world’s top newspapers publishers are planning to introduce a form of electronic newspaper that will allow users to download entire editions from the Web on to reflective digital screens said to be easier on the eyes than light-emitting laptop or cellphone displays.

Flexible versions of these readers nay be available as early as 2007.

The handheld readers couldn’t come a moment too soon for the newspaper industry, which has struggled to maintain its readership and advertising from online rivals.

Publishers Hearst Corp. in the U.S., Pearson Plc.’s Les Echos in Paris and Belgian financial paper De Tijd are planning a large-scale trials of the readers this year.

Earlier attempts by book publishers to sell digital readers failed due to high prices and a lack of downloadable books.

But a new generation of readers from Sony Corp. and iRex, a Philips Electronics spin-off, have impressed publishers with their sharp resolution and energy efficiency, galvanizing support for the idea again.

“This could be a real substitution for printed paper,” Jochen Dieckow, head of the news media and research division of Ifra, a global newspaper association based in Germany, said.

It’s easy to see why publishers are keen. Digital newspapers, so called e-newspapers, take advantage of two prevailing media trends — the growth of online advertising and widespread use of portable devices like the iPod music player.

Nearly all papers run Web sites, but few readers relish pulling out laptops in transit or risk dropping one in the bathroom.

E-newspapers would cut production and delivery costs that account for some 75 percent of newspaper expenses.

Circulation in the $55 billion U.S. newspaper industry has slid steadily for nearly two decades as papers compete with Internet news for attention and advertising dollars.

Some publishers now see new devices as a way to help them snatch a bigger slice of online advertising and protect their franchise in reading away from home.

Ad spending on newspaper Web sites grew 32 percent in 2005 but only accounted for 4 percent of total ad spending in newspapers, according to the Newspaper Association of America.

Still, little is known about demand for an e-paper. “The number of consumers who are interested in reading on the go as opposed to listening to music on the go is probably smaller in the U.S. today,” NPD Group analyst Ross Rubin said.

PRINT SCREENS

Sony and iRex’s new devices employ screen technology by E Ink, which originated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Media Lab. Investors include Hearst, Philips, McClatchy Co., Motorola Inc. and Intel Corp.

The company produces energy-efficient ink sheets that contain tiny capsules showing either black or white depending on the electric current running through it.

Some of the latest devices apply E Ink’s sheets to glass transistor boards, or back planes, which are rigid. But by 2007, companies such as U.K.-based Plastic Logic Ltd will manufacture screens on flexible plastic sheets, analysts say.

Separately, Xerox Corp. and Hewlett-Packard Co. are developing methods to produce flexible back planes cheaply. Xerox, in particular, has created a working prototype of system that lets manufacturers create flexible transistor boards much like one would print a regular paper document.

Production costs are expected to be low enough soon for publishers to consider giving away such devices for free with an annual subscription. Data on subscribers could also help publishers better tailor ads.

Sony’s reader will cost between $300 and $400. “If you can get one of these products to cost less than the cost of a year’s subscription it could probably work,” Kenneth Bronfin, president of Hearst Interactive Media, said.

He declined to name which other groups plan testing, but said Hearst’s San Francisco Chronicle and Houston Chronicle will likely be among the first of its 12 daily papers to offer such devices to several hundred subscribers later this year.

In Europe, Ifra is discussing trials with 21 newspapers from 13 countries. The New York Times Co. is a member.

Sony is separately in discussions with some publishers to offer newspaper downloads in its e-bookstore due to launch this summer, although no decision has been made, said Lee Shirani, vice president of Sony’s online content service, Sony Connect.

Skype, the Web telephone company, said on Monday it would allow consumers in the United States and Canada to make free phone calls, a promotional move that marks a new blow to conventional voice calling services.The offer, which extends through the end of 2006, covers calls from computers or a new category of Internet-connected phones running Skype software making calls to traditional landline or mobile phones within the United States and Canada.

Previously, users of Skype, a unit of online auctioneer eBay Inc., were required to pay for calls from their PCs to traditional telephones in both countries. Calls from North America to phones in other countries will incur charges.

Skype already offers free calling to users worldwide who call from computer to computer.

The company is seeking to accelerate usage in the North American market, where adoption of its voice-over-Internet technology has lagged other regions of the globe. Based in Luxembourg, it counts more than 100 million registered users globally, including 6 million in the United States.

Henry Gomez, general manager of Skype North America, said he believes the move would rapidly accelerate adoption of the service. Skype will pick up the interconnection costs of making calls to phone networks owned by other carriers, he said.

“Skype anticipates that completely free calling in the U.S. and Canada will expand Skype’s increasing penetration in North America and solidify Skype’s position as the Internet’s voice communication tool of choice,” Skype said in a statement.

The offer is likely to put price pressure on rival voice-over-Internet phone service Vonage Holdings Corp., which is expected to go public later this month. A spokesman did not return calls seeking comment.

Although Vonage and Skype serve somewhat different markets — with Vonage acting as a full replacement service for traditional phones over Internet lines, and Skype considered by most as a complement to existing service — the free offer could siphon customers away from Vonage.

“In one stroke, Skype simplifies the choice to try Skype,” said Phil Wolff, an editor at Skype Journal, an independent consulting group that publishes an online news site on Skype developments. “This promotion targets Skype’s hardest market: North America.”

The move puts pressure on rival Internet services such as Microsoft Corp., Yahoo Inc., AOL, Earthlink and Google Inc., which charge small per-minute fees for computer-to-phone services, Wolff said.

Skype, which allows free Web-based calls between members, said the offer to U.S. and Canadian consumers is made feasible by the low cost structure of North American telecom markets relative to other countries, where phone tariffs are higher.

“The structure and efficiency of the telecommunications industry in the U.S. and Canada make it possible for Skype to offer free calls,” Skype said on its Web site.

In October, eBay CEO Meg Whitman signaled that Skype users could eventually expect to make telephone calls for free, with no per-minute charges, as part of a package of services through which carriers make money on advertising or transaction fees.

“In the end, the price that anyone can provide for voice transmission on the ‘Net will trend toward zero,” she said.

The company is betting that by combining electronic markets, online payment systems and Web-based communications, eBay can emerge as a leader in all three businesses.

Gomez said the free phone service promotion will not alter the company’s plans to generate more than $200 million in revenue during 2006, up from roughly $60 million last year. Skype will promote the offer via online advertising, radio spots and ads in selected local cable TV markets, he said.

Japanese web and telecom conglomerate Softbank Corp is working with Apple Computer Inc to develop cellphones with built-in iPod music players, Nikkei reported.

The music-playing phones can download songs from Apple’s iTunes Music Store, The Nihon Keizai Shimbun said. A spokesperson for Apple in Cupertino, California, was not immediately available for comment.

The report said Apple and Softbank have agreed to co-develop the phone for sale as early as this year.

Carry both brands
The device is expected to carry both the Softbank and Apple brands, the report said, without citing the source of the information. Softbank, which said last month it would buy Vodafone’s Japanese cellphone business, appears to be looking to use the power of Apple’s brand to compete against mobile market leaders NTT DoCoMo and KDDI Corp.

Last year, Apple and handset maker Motorola Inc introduced a music-playing cellphone known as the Rokr that has received disappointing reviews for its design and the limited number of songs that can be stored on the device.

Speculation has mounted that Apple is developing its own cellphone - popularly labeled the iPhone - that will combine the stylish design of its iPod music and video player with cellphone features.

Pundits from blog rumour sites to Wall Street analysts have speculated on the meaning of a string of patent applications filed by Apple Computer that stretch back several years and could indicate its ambition to build its own cellphones.

Touchscreen patent
Also fueling speculation about Apple’s next potential moves is a newly disclosed Apple patent application for a display screen that detects multiple, simultaneous touches or “near touches” to produce separate signals to a device.

Touch-screen technology is widely used in so-called smartphones that have a variety of functions such as phones, e-mail, contact lists, internet access and cameras.

Apple’s technology would allow users to perform several touch-activated tasks at once, unlike other devices that process only one screen-activated function at a time, according to the application with the US Patent and Trademark Office, which was filed on May 6 2004 and published on Thursday.

Apple spokesperson Steve Dowling declined to comment. “Apple is very secretive,” said Tim Bajarin, president of Creative Strategies Inc, a consulting firm in Campbell, California, who cautioned not to read too much into the move.

“Apple is very innovative, and if you’re a company that’s innovative, you may file a patent that you may never use.” But John Ward, a patent attorney and strategist with Greenberg Traurig in Palo Alto, California, said Apple is more selective in its patent filings than other large technology companies.

“They are not a massive application filer,” Ward said. “They certainly are more strategic in what they file on.”

Yahoo today said it plans to roll out a redesigned search advertising platform, which spokeswoman Gaude Paez said will help Yahoo compete with rivals Microsoft and Google.

The platform is the transaction point between Yahoo and its advertisers who buy space next to search results. Yahoo said the new simplified platform will mean advertisements will hit the Web faster than ever before.

The company will also help advertisers by rotating multiple versions of ads and, over time, adjusting the rotation times so that the ones generating the most clicks go up more frequently.

Yahoo promised the new service will automatically help users find the least expensive way to maximize their “Return on Ad Spend” and “Cost Per Acquisition.”

The platform will also track the full value and contribution of every ad campaign by allowing advertisers to see beyond the last click that led to a conversion.

Analysts say the new platform will help Yahoo leverage its millions of registered users by helping advertisers target specific audiences.

That’s the idea, Paez told internetnews.com.

For example, she pointed to Whereonearth, technology Yahoo acquired last October, which will be included in the new platform.

Paez said Whereonearth understands colloquial descriptions of geographic locations, such as “restaurants near Fenway,” thus helping marketers target specific local audiences.

“We decided to move forward with enhancing our geo-targeting capabilities,” Paez said, “because that’s what we heard from advertisers was on the top of their list.”

And that’s why the new platform is a good move for Yahoo, Forrester Analyst Shar Vanboskirk told internetnews.com.

She said that by helping marketers target specific audiences, Yahoo can close its Google gap.

Google dominates in terms of revenue dollars and the sheer number of consumer searches, Vanboskirk said.

“But Google is a little bit behind in terms of its consumer data stores. Yahoo has a lot of information about its users because a consumer on Yahoo uses a myriad of different properties. They store all of that information to get a really deep profile.”

Yahoo’s announcement comes a week after MSN announced adCenter, a competing advertising platform for its own search engine.

Like Yahoo, MSN trumpeted the demographic-targeting capabilities of its new platform.

Previously, Microsoft depended on Yahoo’s Search Marketing for its advertising revenue.

But Paez said the timing of the announcement was meant to coincide with the release of application program interfaces (API), which are building blocks of code for third-party developers.

Though the platform will not be online till the third quarter of this year, Yahoo “needed to give the ecosystem adequate time,” Paez said.

Two partners introducing competing products in consecutive weeks isn’t so strange in an Internet ad industry that grew by 30 percent last year.

So, what’s one more operating system between friends? Linspire is preparing a new Linux-based operating system that uses AJAX as the interface for all of its applications and documents.

The value of ajaxOS is that it is AJAX-aware, so any compatible file will be recognized by AJAX  applications.

Double-clicking on any known file type will launch an AJAX application to edit the document. All of this is available now, except this also means any browser that can support AJAX can also support these applications.

What makes it unique is that Linspire is also offering online storage, called a locker, where files can be saved, so a person can work on their files or play back MP3 files from any device with a browser.

This eliminates the need to take both applications and data on the road.

ajaxOS is being developed by Ajax 13, a subsidiary of Linspire, in San Diego, Calif. Ajax 13 executives think there’s plenty of opportunity out there for ajaxOS.

“Education is a great example, as kids would have access to their own projects and course work as well as a consistent application set in the classroom and at home,” Ajax 13 president Jan Schwartz told Internetnews.com.

“Mobile business people will find a lot of benefit with this, as they no longer have to worry about keeping their local office documents and presentations in sync or the hassle of transferring everything to other devices when they’re on the go,” he added.

Because files are stored remotely, they are safe from crashes and viruses, Ajax 13 argues. Since the applications are Web-based and remote hosted, there’s no added expense and they are always kept up to date.

Ajax 13 has no plans to recreate any existing AJAX application if it exists. For example, Google’s Gmail is AJAX based, so that is the e-mail client of choice for ajaxOS.

While ajaxOS runs on a modified version of the Linux-based Linspire operating system, APIs are available so an AJAX developer can interface with the core technology when writing new applications.

Linspire already has some AJAX-based applications, including AjaxWrite, a word processor, and AjaxSketch, a graphics editor.

Linspire expects to release the ajaxOS in the next few weeks.

It’s a dream to be part of the world’s premier software technology contest. You get to show you’re good. It’s even a bigger dream to be in the final. You get to show you’re the best.

One Indian team from the Dhirubhai Ambani Indian Institute of Communication and Technology has made it to the worldwide finals of Microsoft’s biggest tech competition, Imagine Cup. And this Indian team will be competing not anywhere else but in India.

It’s only been four years since the Imagine Cup has been instituted and already it has come to India. The worldwide finals 2006 will be held in Agra this August. At stake is $125,000. How did the competition get here so fast?