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January 31, 2005
BrandChannel readers have picked the top global brands for 2004 in Brandchannel's fourth annual Readers' Choice Awards. This year's winning brands include Apple, Sony, Pixar, Ikea and Al Jazeera.
Apple designed, marketed and iPoded its way to become the Reader's Choice for the brand with the most impact in 2004. Despite its public offering Google was bumped to second after winning the award for the last two consecutive years. Ikea's global expansion lifted it to third as Coca-Cola, the brand cited so often as THE global brand, disappeared entirely from all top five lists.
New to the awards: Australian travel brand Lonely Planet, animation powerhouse Pixar, Swedish fashion's answer to Ikea, H&M and Al Jazeera, which branding professionals now feel has global brand impact alongside powerhouses like Starbucks and Nokia.
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SBC Communications Inc. plans to acquire AT&T Corp. in a deal worth US$16 billion, the company said in a statement Monday. The deal will create the largest telecommunications carrier in the U.S.
"Today's agreement is a huge step forward in our efforts to build acompany that will lead an American communications revolution in the21st century," said SBC Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Edward Whitacre in the statement.
Whitacre will remain in his current position, while AT&TChairman and CEO David Dorman will become president of the mergedcompany, to be based in San Antonio, Texas, where SBC has headquarters.
Under terms of the agreement, shareholders of AT&T will receive0.77942 shares of SBC common stock for each common share of AT&T,the statement said. Based on the Jan. 28 closing price of SBC's stock,this exchange ratio equals $18.41 per share. In addition, AT&T willpay its shareholders a special dividend of $1.30 per share, bringingthe total consideration for each AT&T share to $19.71, and valuingthe deal at around $16 billion, it said.
The acquisition, which is subject to approval by AT&T'sshareholders and U.S. regulatory authorities, is expected to close bythe first half of 2006, the statement said.
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Vodafone K.K. has announced plans to launch - Japan's first "motion sensitive" handset - Toshiba V603SH (pictured above) and the Toshiba V603T. The Toshiba V603SH features a one-chip sensor that allows customers to perform menu operations by moving the handset up, down, left or right and call up often-used functions (shortcuts) by moving the handset in a variety of preset patterns. The Toshiba V603T features a special swivel screen. Both phones offer analog TV tuners that also capture FM radio signals.
Toshiba V603T
- via MobileTracker
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According to Business Week some Telecom analysts are scratching their heads at SBC's bid to acquire AT&T for 16 billion, in a move touted to push SBC into the enterprise market catering to large corporations and government agencies. Here are some of the quotes - Telecom analyst Daniel Zito of investment company Legg Mason - "From SBC's perspective, it's not obvious to me why they would want to do this now. While big, the enterprise sector tends to generate below-average returns, because of thin margins and high capital costs,"
Telecom investor Michael Mahoney who runs a technology fund for investment company EGM Capital. "AT&T-SBC is a questionable deal at best," -- "I can understand what they're going after, but I think they're going to get a lot of things they don't want and...end up paying more than it's worth." Mahoney, believes AT&T is worth about half the $15 billion to $16 billion SBC may be poised to pay.
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Google has released a beta of an application program interface (API), for its successful AdWords program. The API will allow developers to better manage campaigns on their own, as well as further innovate the delivery of Google's text-based search ads. "The AdWords API beta program is an open invitation to developers to explore new concepts (and then write great software) for managing Google AdWords advertising campaigns," Josh McFarland, Google AdWords Product Manager, and Nelson Minar, software engineer wrote, in the Google Blog. Each user of the API will be limited in the amount of "calls," or requests for information, made to the service each day. The developers say this will prevent any one user from taking the entire system down, and keep the service running smoothly.
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The nation's second largest local phone company SBC Communications Inc. has agreed to buy AT&T Corp. for about $16 billion in stock. AT&T shareholders will receive SBC stock worth $18.41 a share and a special dividend of $1.30 a share. The decision followed late-night meetings by directors of SBC, the nation's second-biggest regional phone company, and the 120-year-old telephone icon AT&T. "It's a done deal," said SBC spokesman Larry Solomon. "We just acquired AT&T." SBC Chairman and CEO Ed Whitacre would run the combined company, and AT&T CEO David Dorman would be president. The new company would be based at SBC headquarters in San Antonio, Tex.
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January 30, 2005
A team at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and RSA Laboratories said the "immobilizer" security system developed by Texas Instruments that make possible high-security car keys and swipe-by gasoline passes could be cracked using a "relatively inexpensive electronic device" making it easier to steal a car or get a free tankful of gasoline. The team said criminals can easily decipher the code RFID system uses because of its simplicity. Avi Rubin, technical director of the Johns Hopkins Information Security Institute said the team found that the security measures built into the devices are inadequate. "An attacker who cracks the secret key in an RFID tag can then bypass security measures and fool tag readers in cars or at gas stations," Rubin said in a statement. The radio-frequency security system being used in more than 150 million new Fords, Toyotas and Nissans involves a transponder chip embedded in the key and a reader inside the car. If the reader does not recognize the transponder, the car will not start, even if the key inserted in the ignition is the correct one.
It's similar to the new gasoline purchase system in which a reader inside the gas pump is able to recognize a small key-chain tag when the tag is waved in front of it. The transaction is then charged to the tag owner's credit card.
Researchers said they were able to crack that code too.
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Reuters is reporting via a source in the know, that the boards of directors of SBC Communications Inc. and AT&T Corp. met today to vote on a more than $15 billion stock deal in which SBC will acquire AT&T. Last week The New York Times and Wall Street Journal both reported that executives from the nation's second largest local phone company SBC were in "fluid" and "sensitive" talks about a buyout in the $15 billion to $16 billion range. SBC had no comment. The combination would help SBC's business with large corporations. If the boards approve the deal, it could be announced as early as Monday, the source said.
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According to the yearly Brandchannel.com survey recognizing the brands that have had the most impact (negative or positive) on our lives, Google is no longer the top brand, the Search Giant slipped to second place after two years of being in the top spot. Apple Computer now takes the top spot after a total of 1,984 brandchannel readers(very low number) from 75 countries voted online between November and December 2004. BrandChannel said "It's hard to imagine a brand having a shinier year than Apple. Notably punctuated with iMacs, iPods and iTunes, Apple's 2004 presence was felt in the press, in ads and on the streets, with iPod coming to define the word "ubiquitous." Coupled with strong revenue, Apple reported a net profit of US$ 295 million in the last quarter of 2004 alone and a 2004 overall net income growth of 300 percent. Yes, 300 percent.
At Apple's core is great innovation, beautiful design and an ability to bring warmth and passion to those who may be completely incurious about technical gadgetry but need it nonetheless to survive in today's world."
via WebProNews
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Jeffrey Lee Parson, 19, will be imprisoned at a low-security jail and must perform 10 months of community service for unleashing a Internet worm that crippled 48,000 computers in 2003. The Internet "has created a dark hole, a dungeon if you will, for people who have mental illnesses or people who are lonely," Judge Marsha Pechman told the Seattle court. "I didn't see any parent standing there saying, 'It's not a healthy thing to lock yourself in a room and create your own reality.'" Defense lawyers said Parson feared leaving the house and his parents provided little support. Parson pleaded guilty last year to attempting to cause damage to a protected computer and to, "modifying the Blaster Internet worm and using it to launch a distributed denial-of-service attack against a Microsoft Windows update Web site as well as personal computers"
Parson's W32.Blaster-B variant first appeared just days after W32.Blaster-A first appeared. Blaster-B used a different file name, teekids.exe, as opposed to the original msblast.exe.
The worm was programmed to take advantage of a vulnerability in the Distributed Component Object Model interface component of Windows, which handles messages sent using the remote procedure call protocol, to spread itself over the Internet and launch denial-of-service attacks against popular Web sites, including Microsoft's Windows Update Web site.
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