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“I suppose my reaction’s pretty similar to a lot of other people who think that we are on the brink of a very scary situation, and a lot of us thought that our political leaders were going to be able to come together and do the right thing, and put together a reasonable package,” McCrea said. “I’m hopeful that they will return to work on it and get something passed soon, but I would say that there’s a very big question mark hanging over all of our heads and we’re seeing companies that were once considered blue-chip evaporate in days.”

If even banks are having a hard time getting money, what does that say for the small and midsize business? The Wall Street Journal had a story on Monday on how companies like McDonald’s may face a squeeze as their franchisees are unable to get loans to purchase or upgrade stores. I suspect that is just one visible example of a growing issue for businesses across the country.

Here’s C.H. Low, CEO of social-networking software start-up Orbius and a serial entrepreneur.

Here goes.

I’m going to try to briefly accomplish in a few paragraphs what it seems to me our government has completely failed to do in this financial crisis.

No, I don’t have $700 billion of my own to shell out. But to me, Congress’ failure came not today on the House floor, but over the past week as both elected officials and members of the administration failed to translate the crisis into terms that have meaning for everyday Americans.

“As an early stage start-up, we rely on venture investments to carry us through a few more stages before we can be self-sustaining,” Low said. “With turmoil, smaller venture funds which fund many early stage companies themselves get anxious and their own investors may be affected and may affect their capital call. We ourselves planned for a rainy day but even we don’t have that much for a prolonged monsoon.”

News.com Poll Bailout bombshell
Was the House right to vote down the $700 billion bailout plan?

Microsoft, for its part, has also called on Congress to speedily revisit its decision.

In terms of where things are at, Milken Institute senior fellow James Barth said that we are a long way from another Great Depression, but added that we are also far enough in that even the legislation Congress proposed isn’t alone sufficient to solve it. In the meantime, cash really is king.

“I think we need a game where instead of shooting (Nazis), we shoot Congress,” he said. “This is embarrassing.”

If the credit markets should freeze up–which many say is happening and will continue without massive intervention–everyone that borrows money will face a cash crunch. That means companies that take advantage of short-term loans to get by won’t be able to buy raw materials or make payroll. Even businesses that don’t need short-term capital may defer purchases to preserve capital.

Then, he tried to put the best possible spin on it. And it was such a good spin, I decided to leave it in. “In such uncertain times one certainly is not surprised to see an awful lot of activity in services like Plaxo and LinkedIn. Now would be a good time to make sure that one’s information and network are up to date…”

“When financial markets don’t function well, the ramification is broad,” he said in an e-mail interview on Monday. He said he is disappointed that the bailout is so misunderstood. Even the term bailout, he said, is a misnomer.

He said that the seizing up of credit creates uncertainty in every sector. “Doing nothing is the worst of all choices,” he said.

Low noted that the main beneficiary is not Wall Street.

I’ve heard the phrases “Main Street” and “Wall Street” a lot, but what I haven’t heard is plain explanations of what credit really means and how essential it is to our system of doing business.

You don’t have to take it from me.

CNET News’ Daniel Terdiman, Elinor Mills, Jim Kerstetter, and Caroline McCarthy contributed to this report.

“This is an asset purchase, not a 100 percent bailout expense to taxpayer,” he said. “There is risk but also possibility of making a profit. Government’s main function is to do things that private sector cannot handle. This Market Stabilization Bill…is as necessary as having an Armed Forces to defend the country.”

“Any firm that has lots of cash that can tide itself over during this credit and liquidity crunch will be in far better shape than other companies,” Barth said.

John McCrea, vice president of marketing at Plaxo (now owned by Comcast), said it was “shocking and scary that they failed to come together on an issue of such vital importance. ”

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Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter, who tracks the video game market,
said his industry will suffer like any other, though he did offer a suggestion for how to make lemonade from the financial lemons being lobbed from Washington.

We are stuck trying to move forward with new loans–essentially to keep the economy moving–while dealing with clearly bad ones of the past. While much of the attention has focused on concern over home loans, there are also construction loans and business loans that are at risk of default, risks that grow as those businesses find themselves essentially shut off from getting any new capital, extending the vicious circle.

Phomance, writes Ben Nahorney, is actually the foreboding cross-section between phishing and online dating–and he should know, as he recently received a suspicious e-mail from a hot Russian nurse who seemed unusually interested in corresponding despite the paltry details in his online dating profile.

The Wall Street Journal
pointed us to Nahorney’s quite funny blog about the occurence, which is both a darn good read and a darn good cautionary tale (consumer tips included) about what can happen when scammers slowly win open-hearted victims’ trust and then attempt to start bilking them.

Phomance might sound like some hip new description of a romantic phone conversation, but Symantec’s senior information developer says there’s nothing sexy about it.

Why, out of the multitude of members on the site, had this woman decided to contact me? Did I seem open-minded, having stated that my ideal partner would have “Any” hair/eye/body type? Was I mysterious due to my lack of a picture? Was it that we had “All of the above” in common when it came to the hobbies section? Obviously my skeleton of a personal ad was picked from the site for other purposes.

Little did that most-likely apocryphal Slavic beauty know who she was dealing with when she contacted Nahorney. He immediately saw the telltale signs of a con and went about investigating his potential suitor (who, he noted from her photo, was “I’ll wire her money just to take care? of her sick puppy” gorgeous).

Having the Chinese government telling you where you can and can’t go on the Internet is not only frustrating but a bit unnerving as well. You can bet they are also watching journalists very carefully. Considering the way China dealt with YouTube during the Tibet crackdown earlier this year, what kind of “journalism freedoms” will reporters have if their stories offend Chinese officials?

This development is only the latest in a long string of headaches the media have suffered in China while preparing to cover the games.

When Chinese officials were bidding for the right to hold the games seven years ago, they assured international organizers that there would be ”complete freedom to report.” In April, Chinese organizers told International Olympic Committee members that Internet censorship, which is routine for China’s citizens, would be lifted for journalists during the games.

When a senior vice president for NBC Sports, which paid about $900 million to broadcast the games, asked organizers last month to lift broadcast and interview restrictions at Tiananmen Square, the response was reportedly clear: “Don’t push the issue.”

However, IOC members issued a clarification Tuesday, saying that Internet freedom applied only to Web sites related to ”Olympic competitions.” Some journalists expressed frustration at the slow download rates and even voiced suspicion that it was deliberate and intended to discourage use.

”This type of censorship would have been unthinkable in Athens, but China seems to have more formalities,” Mihai Mironica, a journalist with ProTV in Romania, told the AP. ”If journalists cannot fully access the Internet here, it will definitely be a problem.”

Despite earlier assurances that journalists would have unfettered access to the Internet at the Main Press Center and athletic venues, organizers are now backtracking, meaning that the some 5,000 reporters working in Beijing during the next several weeks won’t have access to a multitude of sites such as Amnesty International or any site with Tibet in the address, according to an Associated Press report.

With the opening of the Beijing Olympic Games a mere 10 days away, members of the media have learned that there is at least one thing they can expect not to be open: the Internet.

Our strategy has three components:

•Deliver on the basics. We will continue to improve search relevance and build out our ad platform.

We are 100 percent focused on executing on this strategy and we have made good progress in a very short time. We’ve improved search relevance dramatically, introduced compelling new search verticals, successfully integrated Aquantive, and added nearly 100 new publishers to our ad platform. In the last couple of months we’ve rolled out new versions of key products including Internet Explorer and Silverlight, and introduced new technologies like Live Mesh. We now have over 430 million active users of our Windows Live services worldwide. And we continue to add new technologies with acquisitions such as YaData, which brings leading-edge behavioral targeting technology, and Caligari, which gives us advanced 3D modeling capabilities that will help us continue to improve Virtual Earth.

This afternoon I sent the attached letter to Jerry Yang announcing that Microsoft has withdrawn its proposal to acquire Yahoo. We proposed the deal in the belief that a Microsoft-Yahoo merger would create a combined company with the resources and assets to win in the fast-growing market for advertising and online services.

To: Microsoft - All Employees (QBDG)

We are absolutely committed to being the leader in each of these areas. Now is the time to do what we have always done best–be tenacious, focus on the long term, innovate, and keep working hard.

Here is the text of an internal memo Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer sent Saturday afternoon to Microsoft employees:

From: Steve Ballmer

•Change the game through innovation. We will expand investments in engineering and deliver transformative tools and Web experiences.

Steve

Ultimately, our goal is to build the industry-leading business in search, online advertising, media, and social networking.

•Expand our global scale and focus. We will pursue partnerships and investments to realize the competitive advantages that come with scale.

I want to thank all of you for your patience during this process and for your dedication and hard work across all of our businesses. We asked that you remain focused on our goals through these cycles, and you have done this extremely well. We are committed to making the investments that will enable us to compete and, ultimately, lead in the online services and advertising businesses. Together, I know we will succeed.

Subject: Withdrawal of Offer to Acquire Yahoo!

Sent: Saturday, May 03, 2008 5:18 PM

Although the acquisition of Yahoo would have accelerated our ability to deliver on our strategy in advertising and online services, I remain confident that we can achieve our goals without Yahoo. We have a strategy in place to do so and we will continue to expand on this strategy and accelerate our progress.

At the heart of our strategy is a commitment to bring the benefits of competition, choice, and innovation to everyone who uses the Internet–from consumers to content creators to advertisers.

“Lasers can create fires. They can kill,” said Ragezhi, who has worked on lasers for the military. “Each (laser) wavelength has some application. Some of them you know about; some of them are classified, and we cannot speak about them.”

In addition, the laser would presumably strike more or less silently–no thump-thump-thump or rat-a-tat-tat. (Note, 11:30 a.m. PDT: A reader writes in to say that high-power lasers operating in the atmosphere are anything but silent, perhaps because of ionizing the air - a la lightning.)

The National Academies of Science, meanwhile, is raising questions about the overall costs of laser weapons programs, the power requirements for the systems, and just how much collateral damage might actually occur, according to Wired’s Danger Room blog.

In this week’s contract announcement, Boeing did not mention a time frame for an in-flight test, and a company representative could not say whether the test would occur before year’s end.

For use against missiles, mortars, and the like, laser weapons are intended to heat up and weaken the metal skin of the projectile, causing it to rupture while in flight. Against ground targets, the ATL could, say, zap fuel tanks or even vehicle tires–if it could hold focus long enough.

The ATL is a C-130H aircraft outfitted with a 12,000-pound high-energy chemical laser module that would be used as a weapon against ground targets. It’s the smaller sibling of the Airborne Laser, a highly modified 747 under development that packs a similar weapon but that would be used against ballistic missiles.

(Credit:
Ed Turner, Boeing)

The new Extended User Evaluation contract marks the start of a transition for the ATL, which Boeing has been working on as an Advanced Concept Technology Demonstration project. The EUE phase means another round of ground and flight tests, along with “hands-on operation” for the Air Force and other potential users.

Two months ago, Boeing said it had completed the first ground test of the entire ATL weapon system, with the laser being fired through the beam control system. At the time, it also said that before the end of 2008, it expected to conduct an in-flight test of the gunship firing at “mission representative” ground targets.

While the 747-centric ABL is designed to fire its laser through a bulbous nose apparatus, the ATL totes a belly turret reminiscent of the manned versions used in some World War II bombers.

In a Medill Reports story on the ATL, Northwestern University engineering professor Manijeh Razeghi said there is a range of potential military uses for lasers.

The Advanced Tactical Laser will use a rotating ball turret to fire its laser weapon at ground targets.

In August, Boeing touted a $36 million contract win to carry on with its work on a truck-mounted laser weapon system, the HEL TD.

The U.S. Air Force has awarded Boeing a new contract worth up to $30 million for the next phase of development on the Advanced Tactical Laser.

Why use a laser when the Air Force already has a wide array of missiles and bombs at its disposal? (The standard gunship variant of the C-130 can already be equipped with 40mm and 105mm cannons.) “Little to no collateral damage,” Boeing says, thanks to the laser weapon’s “ultra-precision engagement capability.” That is, think laser pointer with extreme prejudice.

Sophisticated microcontrollers could, for example, set an air conditioner or refrigerator fan at a lower speed rather than always full blast. A variable-speed air conditioner could be 30 percent more efficient, says TI.

The Picollo chip product line designed for energy efficiency.

But TI said that it has shrunk the size and cost of its chips, which can be adapted to several different uses. The 32-bit controllers will start at $2 per chip for volume purchases.

TI on Monday plans to introduce Piccolo, a line of microcontrollers that it says will make more sophisticated power electronics available to a wider array of products, including battery-driven cars, solar panel “microinverters,” LED lighting, and home appliances.

Late next year, the chip will be available in more energy-efficient appliances and solar panels with individual microinverters that convert direct current to household electricity, said TI marketing manager Keith Ogboenyiya.

The key to energy efficiency in everything from hybrid
cars to air conditioners is smarter chips, according to Texas Instruments.

By contrast, many of the embedded chips that control motors and power supply in appliances are not very nuanced: either the power is on or off. Manufacturers have used these chips because they are the least expensive.

(Credit:
Texas Instruments)

Energy efficiency, in general, is considered the most cost-effective way to decrease pollution. And specialized power electronics is one way to conserve energy usage.

This is a pity because the NBCOlympics.com is a very fine place to spend time. While you’re waiting for, you know, the live events to be shown.

Mr. Zucker seems to believe that word of mouth comes from deprivation, from tantalizing people that something amazing has happened and that they will only be able to see it on NBC television.

I think I can understand that.

I learned a lot from Mr. Zucker’s use of the words “bottle” and “capture.” Here’s an example of how capture worked the other night to bottle ratings.

Does this mean that NBC’s online Olympics site is somehow underdelivering on promises made?

So what time did Americans witness the final result? Why, a few seconds before one in the morning. Which didn’t seem quite perfect to me.

(Credit: CC Zoutedrop)

Still, another thing I learned was that “the pipes,” as Mr. Zucker refers to network television, are still the most powerful medium for mass viewing: “I think what’s been great, we’ve been able to bottle that excitement since the opening ceremony and I think the team has captured that in every day since,” he said.

I mean, if this mythical prime time was really the key to all the scheduling decisions, surely one might have expected that NBC would have enjoyed more viewers at, say, a few minutes before 10 in the evening? You see, that would have been the time on the West Coast when the result was finally decided.

But, no, the West Coast had its excitement bottled until after bedtime as it endured its usual tape delay and thousands and thousands of adults and children disappeared, never to be inspired by some of America’s most wonderful women athletes.

Two Americans, Shawn Johnson and Nastia Liukin, were poised to show the Chinese that you could survive both puberty and grueling training and still be a wonderful gymnast.

For all Mr. Zucker’s public delight at the network’s Olympian Olympic performance, I understand that some advertisers have not been entirely happy with the returns they are getting from the splendid NBCOlympics.com.

While Mr. Zucker trumpets NBC’s all-around performance, claiming some 30 million unique visitors to NBCOlympics.com, some interesting numbers have emerged from ComScore. They suggest that Yahoo’s Olympic section actually had 8 million unique users in the U.S. in the week ending August 10. This compares to NBC Olympics.com’s 6.7 million.

So one assumes, given that this strategy has been so successful, the next time NBC’s cameras exclusively witness, say, an assassination or a politician saying or doing something nutty, they will keep it to themselves until prime time comes along. You know, just to build up the excitement.

Here’s a thought. Just a small one. Is it possible that this TV attitude is affecting the NBC’s online audience?

“There’s no question we did the right thing in holding the opening ceremony to air in prime time on NBC that night,” he said on CNBC’s Squawk Box. “The excitement that built out of word of mouth that the opening ceremony was the most spectacular thing that people had seen, that China had wanted to make a statement and they made a statement and people wanted to see that.”

At the time, America’s mouths were full of anticipatory words about the all-around women’s gymnastics final.

Indeed, word of mouth in the business is that several of NBC’s advertisers have, over the last week, been discreetly attempting to augment their online presence by seeking to buy space on sites other than NBC’s.

I have many friends who would like to be media moguls, so I pored over these words in the hope of learning something that will help their careers.

Brands are funny things. And NBC’s is a very strong brand, one that has brought us brilliant programming such as The Office and 30 Rock, the latter a brave and funny series that superbly satirizes TV production.

However, I am still a little bit confused as to how he can be sure that if NBC had run the ceremony in real time, people would have told their friends that it was a dull, lifeless experience, not unlike the U.S. version of Coupling?

That bottle seems to be a little corked to me.

But I wonder whether real people, real American people, not amused by NBC’s bottling, capturing mentality, have expressed a small rebellion against the NBC brand and avoided the online offering in sufficient numbers to make the private projections fall short. As the ComScore numbers show, some people seem to have gone for their online Olympic fix elsewhere, despite the availability of good-quality video on NBC’s site.

NBC President Jeff Zucker has been explaining to the U.S. public just how right the network was to not screen the Olympic opening ceremony live.

Click here for more stories on tech and the Beijing Olympics.

Might it not have been vaguely possible that those who saw it live would have offered positive word of mouth? You know, just as people do when they see a movie they enjoy. And might it not have been possible that these people would have tuned in again in prime time, given what a spectacular show it turned out to be? You know, just as people sometimes watch excellent movies twice, or enjoy reruns of Frasier.

Of course, Zimbra was testing for how these browsers perform with the Zimbra Web application. Your mileage may vary with other applications. In fact, I’d love to see a wide range of tests for different sites and applications. Who’s next?

As an aside, I continue to be impressed at how Zimbra treats non-Microsoft platforms as first-class citizens (along with Microsoft). Firefox is the same way. Both allow you to run on the
Mac, for example, without losing any functionality that you’d find in Windows/IE.

It’s called great code. Weak developers write code that limps on anything but Windows. Great developers write code that ports well to diverse platforms.

Which is the world’s fastest browser? According to Zimbra,
Safari runs fastest, though it didn’t beat out
Firefox by much. Both Safari and Firefox were roughly twice as fast as Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 7.

commentary

SlyDial, a straight-to-voicemail call service I covered back in early April, has opened up its doors to everything this morning after undergoing three months of beta testing. New on Monday is a premium service heavy users can subscribe to in order to get all the perks of the service without having to listen to the in-house ads that run before connecting you to a call. There are a few plans available: either a 15 cents per call one-time fee, or a $4.95 monthly or $29.95 yearly plan, which only makes sense if you think you’re going to be sending more than 30 SlyDial calls a month.

SlyDial is a creation of Mobile Sphere, the same folks who did Joopz, the PC-to-mobile phone text-messaging service and Webware 100 2008 finalist.

SlyDial now lets you plug in your contacts and be connected with them just by clicking the SlyDial logo on the left.

More useful might be the new quick-dial functionality included for registered users. You can add any contacts from your phone book and have the service automatically connect you to their voice mailboxes. It saves you from having to enter the number or make a phone call in the first place; it’ll simply call you instead.

(Credit:
CNET Networks)

I still hold true to what I said about SlyDial in my initial hands-on. It’s a potentially evil service for people who misuse it (see the guy in the video embedded after the break), giving anyone the excuse that they “tried to call you” without having to approach actual conversation. That said, it can be wonderfully convenient if you want to send someone the equivalent of a voice text message without interrupting what they’re doing.

Microsoft on Tuesday issued five “critical” security patches designed to address vulnerabilities in Windows,
Microsoft Office, and Internet Explorer.

“We live in a Web 2.0 world,” Marcus said. “It’s getting more and more popular to send people e-mails with link spam…It’s becoming an effective way to compromise people’s machines.”

This security flaw, along with two Internet Explorer-related vulnerabilities are at the top of the list as a must fix, Marcus said.

Microsoft also issued a critical Windows patch for vulnerabilities in its VBScript and JScript Scripting engines, which could provide attackers with access to users’ systems and allow them to install programs, as well as view and change data.

One of the security bulletins is a cumulative patch for IE, and the other is designed to resolve vulnerabilities in ActiveX Kill Bits. Both flaws affect users who visit malicious Web sites with IE, which, in turn, allows malicious attackers to execute remote code from their systems.

One of the five critical patches is designed to resolve a flaw in Microsoft Office Project, which could allow attackers to take complete control of users’ systems if they open a malicious Office Project file.

The five critical patches were included among eight bulletins that Microsoft released as part of its Patch Tuesday. The bulletins covered a total of 10 vulnerabilities.

A second critical patch is designed to tackle GDI (Graphics Device Interface) vulnerabilities in Windows that could allow attackers to remotely execute malicious code if users open malicious EMF or WMF image files. Two years ago, Microsoft faced similar vulnerabilities, forcing the software giant to rush out a fix outside of its monthly patch cycle, noted Dave Marcus, security research and communications manager at McAfee Avert Labs.