Web Development Live

XMOS Semiconductor Ltd. (Bristol, England) has introduced a development kit for its XS1-G4 programmable device. Designs are created using a C-based software development flow, which the company claims shortens the time required to build electronic products and systems.

The XS1-G development kit features the XS1-G4 target device, a QVGA touch screen display, RJ45 10/100 Ethernet port, a stereo audio interface and XLink connectors for connecting multiple kits together. The XS1-G4 can be booted from JTAG, an SD/MMC card or on-board SPI boot PROM. In addition to the integrated multi-media I/O, designers have access to on-board switches, status LEDs and IDC expansion ports. A set of design examples is accessible on startup through a soft-key menu system.

The XS1-G4 device is programmed using web-based XMOS development tools which include C and XC compilers, simulator and debugger. The kit includes a tutorial on XC, which is the XMOS-originated programming language supporting parallelism, concurrent and real-time programming using channel-based communications, and event-driven control. Programs can be evaluated using the simulator, or loaded into the XDK for hardware verification. A GDB debugger is also provided to simplify program development.

The XS1-G4 programmable chip features four XCore tiles connected by a high-performance switch, with each tile containing an XCore, which is a 400MHz 32-bit event-driven processor. The four XCore tiles together execute up to 32 concurrent real-time tasks, provide 1600-MIPS of performance, and service up to 400 million events per second. Data and code is stored in 256-kbytes of RAM and 32-kbytes of ROM. Tightly coupled to a highly flexible I/O pin structure, the XCore processor can implement a range of hardware and software functions including I/O interfaces, state machines, application programs, DSP and cryptographic algorithms.

XMOS devices are general-purpose programmable chips. The device features and software-based design flow make the XS1-G product family well-suited for applications such as Ethernet audiovisuals and audio, intelligent LED display control, IEEE-1588 network time keeping and chip-level security systems. Additional information on how XMOS technology supports these applications can be found on the XMOS website.

Google has been courting software developers to entice them into a money-making relationship built on turning its array of online widgets into a global infrastructure.

At a conference in San Francisco, said to be the biggest yet for net developers, the search giant made clear that the Web is the future for application development.

It wants its own bit of web infrastructure the Google Cloud to be more accessible to developers and spent two days wooing them to build and run applications on it.

To encourage them aboard, Google invited the 3,000 developers to mash-up Google’s online services, like Gmail, Docs, Maps and Search, with their own applications.

To show client-cloud connectivity, it showed off Google Gears, a browser add-on in the Adobe Flash mould that allows for richer browser experiences, to improve search in MySpace email.

It then showcased the new Google Web Toolkit, so rich net applications can be Java-built, and the hosting of new Ajax libraries, which enhances applications via JavaScript tagging.

Top of its agenda, Google wants the web browser the enabler of its cloud to have more functionality, interaction and to evolve so it becomes as powerful as its desktop counterpart.

“These diverse tools and technologies might seem loosely unintegrated and targeted at different areas,” said Ovum analyst Madan Sheina.

“In fact they’re all cogs and wheels of a more meaningfully connected web that hosts Google web services powered by the Google App Engine. Importantly some of these web services and applications aren’t written just by Google, but by an entire market of independent developers.”

The analyst believes most of these third-party developers no longer build ‘cool’ web applications just for the sake of it; rather they want a slice of Google as a lucrative advertising business.

“Google likes to separate its web development technologies from its advertising. But the two are inextricably linked,” Ms Sheina said.

“Google’s monetisation strategy is simple. Invest in advancement of the web by allowing users to do more on the internet. That makes the Web a much bigger market for Google to monetise services like search.”

The descriptive line of text is extraneous information for most web shoppers. But for an increasingly vocal group of web users, the text tag means the difference between comprehending what is shown in that image and being left in the dark.

Screen readers, purchased and owned by individual users, transform visual information into audio information. They also assist blind web users, who use keyboard commands instead of a mouse to navigate web pages, to move around a site, by recognizing and reading headings on a web page. The user can then respond with keyboard commands that move the cursor from element to element.

It further charges that because the site requires the use of a mouse to complete a transaction, blind Target customers also are unable to make purchases on Target.com independently.

In October, a federal judge in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California granted class action status to a lawsuit against Target. The judge also ruled that e-commerce sites are required by California law to be accessible to blind shoppers.

National Federation of the Blind president Marc Maurer called the granting of class action status to the suit a tremendous step forward for blind people throughout the country.

With the outcome of the Target case pending, it remains to be seen just how motivating a ruling in favor of the National Federation of the Blind would be to retailers whose sites are not now accessible.

One retailer not waiting for that outcome to take action is Amazon.com. Though it provides text tags with images on its home page, it has more work to do in achieving full accessibility.

Minutes after attending a seminar titled “Use Social Networking to Your Professional Advantage,” I opened my e-mail and found two invitations to join LinkedIn.com networks.

One came from a person I’d had professional contact with previously. I clicked “accept” and went on to other things. I didn’t recognize the other name, so I closed the e-mail without response. And, thanks to Ellen Levy, I didn’t feel bad about the tacit rejection.

Levy, vice president of corporate development and strategy at LinkedIn.com, just presented an overview of Internet social networking sites at the Central Exchange’s annual Women’s Lyceum, an educational and networking event. Understanding that attendees came to the conference from many different backgrounds and levels of Web familiarity, Levy prefaced her user advice with a primer. First, she explained, there was Web 1.0 — the mostly one-directional flow of information over the Internet. Think of Web pages.

We’re now in the age of Web 2.0 — an era of two-way communication that in three years spawned a host of interactive social networking sites. A show of hands indicated that about half the people used LinkedIn, a professional networking Web site, to build business relationships.

Even if you’ve never been on a social networking site, you understand the concept: It’s a cyberspace handshake. It facilitates connections. It does what Rotary meetings, phone calls, cocktail parties and e-mail have done for years.

Let’s say Joe wants a job at Hallmark Cards. Joe doesn’t know anybody in the human resources department or target department where he wants to work. But he is good friends with Sally, who has a Hallmark Gold Crown store. Sally knows people in Hallmark’s retail division. One, Bill, is the main liaison with Joan in the human resources department. And Joan knows that Fred is exactly the right person for Joe to meet. Fred, meet Joe. Joe, here’s Fred, who has someone vouching for him.

I made up that scenario, but that’s the six-degrees-of-separation concept.

A professional networking Web site might help make the connections that have always been an essential ingredient in job hunting, business development and sales prospecting. (A user also can get a wealth of professional responses quickly when posting a question on the appropriate area of the site.)

Levy emphasized that Web-based networking sites are only as good as the veracity and relevance of the people using them.

A LinkedIn connection may not make sense if you accept an invitation to join one’s professional network if you don’t know the person or don’t have ties to one’s business skills or services. “It should be a tool to leverage relationships you already have,” Levy said.

And a good professional network site should never be confused with a social networking site such as Facebook. The purposes are completely different, she said.

A professional networking site can be a good way to put your business profile — basically your resume and the services you can offer — online, where they can be seen by millions of other site users. It can spread “the message of you” a lot further and faster than passing out business cards and shaking hands at meetings.

But as much as Levy championed the professional development possibilities of Web 2.0, she reminded attendees of something that most knew well: “Time is a scarce resource.” Use networking sites judiciously. Understand that others might not have the time you do to dig deep into the site. And, most of all, she said, don’t get sucked into making a contest out of how many “connections” you can list. It’s not a matter of quantity; it’s the quality that counts.

NIU had issued a campus alert at 2:18 p.m. Thursday after receiving a bomb threat targeting the DeKalb campus Health Services building Web Development Software, which is near the intersection of Lucinda Avenue and Normal Road.

The threat was received at about 2 p.m., according to an alert posted on the school’s Web site. Pedestrian and vehicular traffic in that area was cut off until shortly after 4 p.m., when officers from the NIU Police, city of DeKalb Police and Illinois State Police Web Development Software, who had been blocking off traffic on Normal Road and Lucinda Avenue, left.

The bomb threat came more than two months after five students were shot to death on campus Web Development Software.

Shortly after 3 p.m. Feb. 14, former student Steven Kazmierczak entered a classroom in Cole Hall and opened fire, killing five students and injuring 16 others before turning the gun on himself. The incident caused the school to close down for more than a week.

The Health Services building and the adjacent Telecommunications building were the only buildings evacuated, according to the alert posted on the NIU Web site, although NIU Police asked occupants in buildings surrounding that complex not to exit the sides of their buildings that face the Health Services building.

Students or their parents who have questions about this situation can call NIU Student Affairs at 815-753-1573 or 815-753-6257. NIU’s Counseling & Student Development Center, which is in room 100 of the Campus Life Building, will be open until 8 p.m. Thursday in Campus Life Building for students who would like to speak with a counselor Web Development Softwareq.

SAN FRANCISCO Microsoft Corp.’s attempt to take over Yahoo Inc. has become so tortured it may help Internet search and advertising leader Google Inc. grow stronger, undermining Microsoft’s main reason for pursing the deal in the first place.”We find this to be a very advantageous situation for Google,” Cantor Fitzgerald analyst Derek Brown said Thursday. “The longer this gets dragged out, the better for Google.”Yahoo signaled it is bracing for a protracted battle late Wednesday when an announcement and a media leak provided a glimpse at its labyrinthine search for alternatives to Microsoft’s bid of more than $40 billion.The options include an experimental advertising alliance with Google that could lead to a broader partnership and, according to published reports, a combination with the online operations of Time Warner Inc.’s AOL. Google also owns a 5 percent stake in AOL.As part of the AOL deal, Time Warner would get a roughly 20 percent stake in the merged entity in return for a substantial sum of cash that would help Yahoo buy back some of its stock at a price well above Microsoft’s offer, which was initially valued at $31 per share.”This is the first time that we have seen real feasible alternatives that could derail the Microsoft deal,” said analyst Jeffrey Lindsay of Sanford C. Bernstein %26 Co.Other analysts doubt Yahoo will succeed in thwarting Microsoft but believe it could force the world’s largest software maker to raise its offer as high as $35 per share, or about $50 billion.For its part, Microsoft has indicated that it may lower its offer if Yahoo doesn’t accept the current bid by April 26.But Microsoft made that threat before the details about Yahoo’s alternatives with Google and AOL emerged.Although Microsoft has plenty of money to up the ante on its own, the Redmond, Wash.-based company may draw upon another deep pocket - Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp.Under this reported scenario, News Corp. would contribute the Internet’s top social network, MySpace.com, and some cash in a Yahoo takeover. The proposed deal would put three of the Web’s most popular sites - Yahoo, MySpace and Microsoft’s MSN - under the same umbrella.In another ironic twist, Google could benefit if Microsoft and News Corp. buy Yahoo because it already has a long-term contract to show ads on MySpace.Microsoft, Time Warner and News Corp. all declined to comment Thursday. A Yahoo representative didn’t respond to inquiries about the AOL deal. Google and Yahoo announced their advertising test Wednesday.Yahoo directors are expected to meet Friday to discuss the company’s options.Investors seemed to welcome the latest developments. Yahoo shares rose 82 cents to $28.59 while Microsoft shares gained 22 cents to close at $29.11. The stocks of Google and Time Warner also moved up, while News Corp.’s Class A shares dipped 5 cents to $18.89.The reported negotiations to bring together some of the world’s largest Web sites underscores the Internet’s maturation as a business sector. As consumers spend more time online, the smart money is following them - and now there’s a mad scramble to latch on to the prime properties in this promised land of future profit.”The most likely outcome here is that a few players will become more and more dominant on the Internet,” said James Owers, a Georgia State University professor specializing in media and corporate finance.The stakes are so high that News Corp. and AOL might decide to join forces if their latest negotiations with Microsoft and Yahoo don’t pan out, Citigroup analyst Jason Bazinet wrote in a Thursday note to investors.Google has emerged as the Internet’s most profitable company so far, primarily by showing relevant text-based ad links alongside the billions of search results that it churns out each month.Propelled by its success in search, Google built up a vast computer network that hosts a wide range of free services - many of which threaten to make Microsoft’s software less vital to consumers and businesses.Microsoft believes Yahoo’s franchise will give it more weapons to retaliate against Google and reverse the losses that have plagued its online division.But it’s looking less likely that Microsoft will be able to realize its goal of completing the Yahoo deal by the end of this year.If Yahoo continues to resist, Microsoft probably will have to take its bid directly to shareholders - an acrimonious process that is typically settled at the target company’s annual meeting. Yahoo doesn’t have to hold its annual meeting until July 12.And a deal done that late in the year isn’t likely to emerge from antitrust regulators’ purview until 2009, according to experts.Yahoo may be able to rally support from its shareholders by pointing to the possibility of a long-term partnership with Google, which some analysts believe could boost Yahoo’s cash flow by 25 percent to 35 percent.Google, too, could make more money from the alliance. But Lindsay doubts that’s the search leader’s main incentive for the tests.”Anything that Google can do to keep Yahoo from going to Microsoft is good for Google,” Lindsay said.If Yahoo turned over all its search-driven advertising to Google, it would face intense regulatory scrutiny that would be difficult to overcome, analysts predicted. Google controls 59 percent of the U.S. search market followed by Yahoo at 22 percent and Microsoft at 10 percent, according to comScore Media Metrix.For now, Yahoo is allowing Google to show advertising links alongside no more than 3 percent of its U.S. search results and only for two weeks.Microsoft already has signaled that it will strenuously object to antitrust regulators if Google sells search ads for Yahoo on a full-time basis. But a regulatory review might hurt Microsoft more than Google, Lindsay said, because it could mean waiting even longer to own Yahoo.If Microsoft is able to pull off the Yahoo takeover, melding the two organizations will be difficult, especially if the deal is hostile or includes a third party like News Corp.”The more complicated a deal gets, the more difficult it becomes to satisfy all parties,” Brown said. “And the more complicated the (post-deal) integration gets, the more it favors Google.”

SAN FRANCISCO Last-minute changes to the Olympic torch’s route through the only North American city on its world tour helped it evade not only protesters, but also fans who lined up for hours waiting for a historic sight that never arrived.”I’m disappointed, annoyed, tired, frustrated,” Sydney Sullivan, 18, said after unsuccessfully trying to chase the flame through the city. “I mean, it’s not every day you get to see the Olympic torch.”After its parade was rerouted and shortened to prevent disruptions by massive crowds of protesters, a planned closing ceremony at the waterfront was canceled and moved to San Francisco International Airport. The flame was placed on a plane and was not displayed.International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge expressed relief that the San Francisco relay avoided the turmoil of the torch’s previous stops in London and Paris, where demonstrators had tried to snuff out the flame.”Fortunately, the situation was better … in San Francisco,” Rogge said at an Olympic meeting in Beijing. “It was, however, not the joyous party that we had wished it to be.”The torch’s 85,000-mile, 20-nation global journey is the longest in Olympic history, and is meant to build excitement for the Beijing Games. But it has also been targeted by activists angered over China’s human rights record, its rule of Tibet and its support for the governments of Myanmar and Sudan.Chinese officials declared the San Francisco event a success and praised the route changes as a clever strategy for thwarting “Tibetan separatists.”The activists “ran into a brick wall in San Francisco,” the Global Times newspaper, published by the Communist Party mouthpiece People’s Daily, said on its Web site. It called the changes a “brilliant idea.”Jiang Xiayou, executive vice president of the Beijing Olympic torch relay committee, thanked San Francisco.”Perhaps some of them failed to see the sacred flame today,” Jiang said, speaking through a translator at San Francisco’s closing ceremony. “But we all have felt the passion of the Olympic movement.”Less than an hour before the relay began, officials cut the original six-mile route nearly in half.Then, at the opening ceremony, the first torchbearer took the flame from a lantern brought to the stage and held it aloft before running into a waterfront warehouse. A motorcycle escort departed, but the torchbearer was nowhere in sight.Officials drove the Olympic torch about a mile inland and handed it off to two runners away from protesters and media. The runners began jogging in the opposite direction of the crowds, and the procession gave front-row views to nearby residents, who leaned out their windows for the unexpected sight. More confusion followed, and the torch convoy apparently stopped near the Golden Gate Bridge before heading southward to the airport.As the flame traveled toward the airport, news dribbled through the crowds of more than 10,000 spectators and protesters gathered at the waterfront that the torch wasn’t coming. While Olympic fans dispersed in disappointment, many protesters were undeterred by the development.”I think it was very strange that the torch seemed to be running away from the people, but it was a good day because attention was focused on some very important issues,” said Jerry Fowler, president of the Save Darfur Coalition.San Francisco Police Chief Heather Fong said the decision was made after protesters who swarmed into the street along the original route refused police orders to get back behind barricades. Disputes among China protesters and supporters were escalating into “pushing and shoving matches,” Fong said, and one protest group began breaking windows on a bus.”We had serious concerns about the possibility of additional violence, of additional disruption … if the torch bearers were to run along this route,” Fong said. “We felt it would not be safe.”There were signs of tension even before the torch relay began. Pro-Tibet and pro-China groups had side-by-side permits to demonstrate, and representatives from both sides spilled from their sanctioned sites across a major street and shouted at each other nose to nose, with no visible police presence to separate them.Farther along the planned route, about 200 Chinese college students mobbed a car carrying two people waving Tibetan flags in front of the city’s Pier 39 tourist destination. The students, who arrived by bus from the University of California, Davis, banged drums and chanted “Go Olympics” in Chinese.”I’m proud to be Chinese and I’m outraged because there are so many people who are so ignorant they don’t know Tibet is part of China,” Yi Che said. “It was and is and will forever be part of China.”Only a handful of arrests were made, and no major incidents were reported, police said.Local officials say they support the diversity of viewpoints, but tightened security following chaotic protests during the torch’s stops in London and Paris and a demonstration Monday in which activists hung banners from the Golden Gate Bridge.Vans were deployed to haul away arrested protesters, and the Federal Aviation Administration restricted flights over the city. One of the runners who planned to carry the torch dropped out earlier this week because of safety concerns, officials said.Torchbearers in other cities have complained of aggressive behavior by paramilitary police in blue track suits sent by Beijing to guard the Olympic flame. Although there were no major problems reported in California, they did make their presence felt.At least one torchbearer decided to show her support for Tibetan independence during her moment in the spotlight. After being passed the Olympic flame, Majora Carter pulled out a small Tibetan flag that she had hidden in her shirt sleeve.”The Chinese security and cops were on me like white on rice, it was no joke,” said Carter, 41, who runs a nonprofit organization in New York. “They pulled me out of the race, and then San Francisco police officers pushed me back into the crowd on the side of the street.”Peter Ueberroth, chairman of the United States Olympic Committee, said the U.S. had struck the right balance between preserving freedom of speech for protesters, providing an exhilarating experience for the torchbearers, and preventing a repeat of the chaotic demonstrations that accompanied the torch in London and Paris.”As close as anybody can do in a free society, so far it’s looking very good,” Ueberroth said. “Virtually anybody and everybody is being heard.”On Friday, the IOC’s executive board is to discuss whether to end the remaining international legs of the relay after San Francisco because of widespread protest. The torch is scheduled to travel to Buenos Aires, Argentina, and then to a dozen other countries before arriving in China on May 4. The Olympics begin Aug. 8.After the San Francisco event, Indonesian officials announced it would significantly shorten its leg of the Olympic torch relay in the capital, Jakarta, citing security concerns. Their relay was scheduled for April 22.Rogge has refrained from criticizing China, saying he prefers to engage in “silent diplomacy” with the Chinese.Meanwhile, the White House said anew that President Bush would attend the Olympics, but left open the possibility that he would skip the opening ceremonies. Asked whether Bush would go to that portion of the games, White House press secretary Dana Perino demurred, citing the fluid nature of a foreign trip schedule.A spokesman for British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said he would not attend the opening ceremony. Brown’s office said the decision was not aimed at sending a message of protest to the Chinese government, that Olympics Minister Tessa Jowell will represent the British government at the opening, and that Brown would attend the closing ceremony.London is hosting the 2012 Olympics and British officials were expected to attend events throughout the games.French President Nicolas Sarkozy has said he is debating not attending the opening ceremony as a protest of China’s crackdown in Tibet.

SAN FRANCISCO Microsoft Corp.’s attempt to take over Yahoo Inc. has become so tortured it may help Internet search and advertising leader Google Inc. grow stronger, undermining Microsoft’s main reason for pursing the deal in the first place.”We find this to be a very advantageous situation for Google,” Cantor Fitzgerald analyst Derek Brown said Thursday. “The longer this gets dragged out, the better for Google.”Yahoo signaled it is bracing for a protracted battle late Wednesday when an announcement and a media leak provided a glimpse at its labyrinthine search for alternatives to Microsoft’s bid of more than $40 billion.The options include an experimental advertising alliance with Google that could lead to a broader partnership and, according to published reports, a combination with the online operations of Time Warner Inc.’s AOL. Google also owns a 5 percent stake in AOL.As part of the AOL deal, Time Warner would get a roughly 20 percent stake in the merged entity in return for a substantial sum of cash that would help Yahoo buy back some of its stock at a price well above Microsoft’s offer, which was initially valued at $31 per share.”This is the first time that we have seen real feasible alternatives that could derail the Microsoft deal,” said analyst Jeffrey Lindsay of Sanford C. Bernstein %26 Co.Other analysts doubt Yahoo will succeed in thwarting Microsoft but believe it could force the world’s largest software maker to raise its offer as high as $35 per share, or about $50 billion.For its part, Microsoft has indicated that it may lower its offer if Yahoo doesn’t accept the current bid by April 26.But Microsoft made that threat before the details about Yahoo’s alternatives with Google and AOL emerged.Although Microsoft has plenty of money to up the ante on its own, the Redmond, Wash.-based company may draw upon another deep pocket - Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp.Under this reported scenario, News Corp. would contribute the Internet’s top social network, MySpace.com, and some cash in a Yahoo takeover. The proposed deal would put three of the Web’s most popular sites - Yahoo, MySpace and Microsoft’s MSN - under the same umbrella.In another ironic twist, Google could benefit if Microsoft and News Corp. buy Yahoo because it already has a long-term contract to show ads on MySpace.Microsoft, Time Warner and News Corp. all declined to comment Thursday. A Yahoo representative didn’t respond to inquiries about the AOL deal. Google and Yahoo announced their advertising test Wednesday.Yahoo directors are expected to meet Friday to discuss the company’s options.Investors seemed to welcome the latest developments. Yahoo shares rose 82 cents to $28.59 while Microsoft shares gained 22 cents to close at $29.11. The stocks of Google and Time Warner also moved up, while News Corp.’s Class A shares dipped 5 cents to $18.89.The reported negotiations to bring together some of the world’s largest Web sites underscores the Internet’s maturation as a business sector. As consumers spend more time online, the smart money is following them - and now there’s a mad scramble to latch on to the prime properties in this promised land of future profit.”The most likely outcome here is that a few players will become more and more dominant on the Internet,” said James Owers, a Georgia State University professor specializing in media and corporate finance.The stakes are so high that News Corp. and AOL might decide to join forces if their latest negotiations with Microsoft and Yahoo don’t pan out, Citigroup analyst Jason Bazinet wrote in a Thursday note to investors.Google has emerged as the Internet’s most profitable company so far, primarily by showing relevant text-based ad links alongside the billions of search results that it churns out each month.Propelled by its success in search, Google built up a vast computer network that hosts a wide range of free services - many of which threaten to make Microsoft’s software less vital to consumers and businesses.Microsoft believes Yahoo’s franchise will give it more weapons to retaliate against Google and reverse the losses that have plagued its online division.But it’s looking less likely that Microsoft will be able to realize its goal of completing the Yahoo deal by the end of this year.If Yahoo continues to resist, Microsoft probably will have to take its bid directly to shareholders - an acrimonious process that is typically settled at the target company’s annual meeting. Yahoo doesn’t have to hold its annual meeting until July 12.And a deal done that late in the year isn’t likely to emerge from antitrust regulators’ purview until 2009, according to experts.Yahoo may be able to rally support from its shareholders by pointing to the possibility of a long-term partnership with Google, which some analysts believe could boost Yahoo’s cash flow by 25 percent to 35 percent.Google, too, could make more money from the alliance. But Lindsay doubts that’s the search leader’s main incentive for the tests.”Anything that Google can do to keep Yahoo from going to Microsoft is good for Google,” Lindsay said.If Yahoo turned over all its search-driven advertising to Google, it would face intense regulatory scrutiny that would be difficult to overcome, analysts predicted. Google controls 59 percent of the U.S. search market followed by Yahoo at 22 percent and Microsoft at 10 percent, according to comScore Media Metrix.For now, Yahoo is allowing Google to show advertising links alongside no more than 3 percent of its U.S. search results and only for two weeks.Microsoft already has signaled that it will strenuously object to antitrust regulators if Google sells search ads for Yahoo on a full-time basis. But a regulatory review might hurt Microsoft more than Google, Lindsay said, because it could mean waiting even longer to own Yahoo.If Microsoft is able to pull off the Yahoo takeover, melding the two organizations will be difficult, especially if the deal is hostile or includes a third party like News Corp.”The more complicated a deal gets, the more difficult it becomes to satisfy all parties,” Brown said. “And the more complicated the (post-deal) integration gets, the more it favors Google.”

CHARLOTTE, N.C. The night Henry Ford turned 7, his father took him on his first coon hunt.Their two black and tan hounds treed five raccoons in one white pine.That experience - sleeping next to the tree all night while the hounds bayed at the trapped raccoons until Ford and his father could see to shoot them at daybreak -hooked the Caldwell County boy on what was then a way to make money.At 83, Ford is still hunting, though not for the pelts. He just loves it. He taught his sons and grandsons to run coonhounds and is working on his 2-year-old great-grandson.But he realizes a sad fact borne out by hunting license sales and national surveys: He and other hunters of everything from raccoons to bears are falling in number in the Carolinas and across the country.In the past decade, the number of hunters has declined about 10 percent nationwide. During the same period, the population rose by 5 percent. Since 2002, Carolinas hunting license sales have dropped by nearly 13,000 while the states’ combined populations rose by more than 1 million.Wildlife management officials say urbanization, sprawling development and competition for free time have resulted in fewer hunters. Not as many boys are taking up a rite of passage that goes back to frontier times, leading to an aging of the hunting population.”Fifteen years ago, you couldn’t go into the woods without running into a coon hunter,” Ford said, “and now you can hunt three nights a week and never see one.”Carolinas hunting license sales have stayed flat this decade while the population has ballooned. That concerns those who care about hunting from both a conservation point of view and a cultural one.”For good or bad, the notion of the boy’s initiation into the adult male world is being lost,” said Ted Ownby, a professor of history and Southern studies at the University of Mississippi.Moreover, hunters and anglers pay the bulk of the cost of fish and wildlife management and conservation through excise taxes on sporting equipment. When their numbers drop, so does the income for those programs.The national trend has moved the Carolinas and other states, along with private hunting organizations, to work on reversing the decline by teaching youth about hunting and streamlining often complex hunting laws that vary from county to county.”Years ago, when I was a child hunting, it was such a part of the culture, it was a father or uncle or grandfather that introduced the youngsters to hunting,” said Wes Coltrane, a Quail Unlimited director in North Carolina. “That’s not the case in too many cases today.”Quail Unlimited reaches out to youth groups by teaching them about hunting safety and introducing them to the hunting experience.One factor in the hunting decline is that a lot of people moving here settle in more urbanized areas than Carolinians have traditionally lived, meaning they’re farther from hunting grounds, said Brad Gunn, a section manager with the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission.The commission has increased education on hunting opportunities and is encouraging those who’ve let their hunting licenses lapse to renew.Other methods include:A new booklet targeting disabled hunters with information about hunts tailored to their needs.A search option on the commission’s Web site to help people find hunting lands by ZIP code.Youth hunting days before official hunting seasons open.Efforts to get a hunting heritage license law passed to allow teenagers to skip hunting education requirements for a year while they give hunting a try.South Carolina’s Department of Natural Resources conducted an ad campaign last year encouraging hunting and directing people to its Web site, where they can now buy hunting licenses.It’s hard to measure success, but North Carolina has already seen lapsed hunters renew licenses after getting one of the commission’s reminders. South Carolina is conducting a study to see if its campaign worked.The fact that fewer people are hunting may actually deepen the tradition’s meaning to those who still practice it, Ownby said.”It becomes really important to people who aren’t going to be able to hunt very often, a sign that I’m not becoming just like any other modern kid who’s online every day, does text messaging and has 300 TV channels. I’m connected to my male ancestors. I’ve learned something that makes me different.”Ford’s grandson, 24-year-old Andrew Ford, sees the decline in hunting interest among his peers. He hunts with his grandfather and cousins, but said he has a hard time convincing buddies to accompany them. That hasn’t diminished his own enthusiasm for the sport, though.”Everybody’s getting lazy. They party or just lay around,” he said on a hunt in February. “There’s not a lot of people that hunts anymore, especially coon hunting. There’s other stuff to do.”When asked why he does it, the younger Ford paused in thought.”I don’t know how to answer that. I just love to hunt.”THE REDUCTIONNorth Carolina annual hunting license sales*2002-03 - 307,0102006-07 - 302,517During the same period, the state’s population rose by 9 percent.*-Does not include short-term or lifetime licensesAverage N.C. Hunter’s age: 44South Carolina annual hunting license sales2002-03 - 163,8922006-07 - 155,687During the same period, the state’s population rose by 7 percent.NATIONWIDEIn the past decade, the number of hunters has declined about 10 percent. During the same period, the population rose by 5 percent.Average nationwide hunter’s age:*44 (up from 37 in 1965)*-16 and olderSOURCES: N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission; S.C. Department of Natural Resources and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife ServiceRACCOON ECONOMICSUntil the mid-1970s, the raccoon pelt market was steady and mainly for utilitarian uses, such as coat linings or even raccoon meat for people who became accustomed to it during the Great Depression. Then a retail fur craze swept the Western world in the 1970s, and pelt values reached their peak. “You could get $25 for a really nice raccoon pelt during the peak,” said Perry Sumner, who oversees furbearer biologists for the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission. That’s about $150 in today’s dollars. The 1990s saw the lowest prices, but pelts still bring less than $12 each, not worth the effort to most hunters. Today’s market is now back to its utilitarian roots, with fur-lined garments mass-produced for raccoon fur-loving customers in Russia and other cold spots.SOURCE: Perry Sumner, N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission

SAN FRANCISCO Last-minute changes to the Olympic torch’s route through the only North American city on its world tour helped it evade not only protesters, but also fans who lined up for hours waiting for a historic sight that never arrived.”I’m disappointed, annoyed, tired, frustrated,” Sydney Sullivan, 18, said after unsuccessfully trying to chase the flame through the city. “I mean, it’s not every day you get to see the Olympic torch.”After its parade was rerouted and shortened to prevent disruptions by massive crowds of protesters, a planned closing ceremony at the waterfront was canceled and moved to San Francisco International Airport. The flame was placed on a plane and was not displayed.International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge expressed relief that the San Francisco relay avoided the turmoil of the torch’s previous stops in London and Paris, where demonstrators had tried to snuff out the flame.”Fortunately, the situation was better … in San Francisco,” Rogge said at an Olympic meeting in Beijing. “It was, however, not the joyous party that we had wished it to be.”The torch’s 85,000-mile, 20-nation global journey is the longest in Olympic history, and is meant to build excitement for the Beijing Games. But it has also been targeted by activists angered over China’s human rights record, its rule of Tibet and its support for the governments of Myanmar and Sudan.Chinese officials declared the San Francisco event a success and praised the route changes as a clever strategy for thwarting “Tibetan separatists.”The activists “ran into a brick wall in San Francisco,” the Global Times newspaper, published by the Communist Party mouthpiece People’s Daily, said on its Web site. It called the changes a “brilliant idea.”Jiang Xiayou, executive vice president of the Beijing Olympic torch relay committee, thanked San Francisco.”Perhaps some of them failed to see the sacred flame today,” Jiang said, speaking through a translator at San Francisco’s closing ceremony. “But we all have felt the passion of the Olympic movement.”Less than an hour before the relay began, officials cut the original six-mile route nearly in half.Then, at the opening ceremony, the first torchbearer took the flame from a lantern brought to the stage and held it aloft before running into a waterfront warehouse. A motorcycle escort departed, but the torchbearer was nowhere in sight.Officials drove the Olympic torch about a mile inland and handed it off to two runners away from protesters and media. The runners began jogging in the opposite direction of the crowds, and the procession gave front-row views to nearby residents, who leaned out their windows for the unexpected sight. More confusion followed, and the torch convoy apparently stopped near the Golden Gate Bridge before heading southward to the airport.As the flame traveled toward the airport, news dribbled through the crowds of more than 10,000 spectators and protesters gathered at the waterfront that the torch wasn’t coming. While Olympic fans dispersed in disappointment, many protesters were undeterred by the development.”I think it was very strange that the torch seemed to be running away from the people, but it was a good day because attention was focused on some very important issues,” said Jerry Fowler, president of the Save Darfur Coalition.San Francisco Police Chief Heather Fong said the decision was made after protesters who swarmed into the street along the original route refused police orders to get back behind barricades. Disputes among China protesters and supporters were escalating into “pushing and shoving matches,” Fong said, and one protest group began breaking windows on a bus.”We had serious concerns about the possibility of additional violence, of additional disruption … if the torch bearers were to run along this route,” Fong said. “We felt it would not be safe.”There were signs of tension even before the torch relay began. Pro-Tibet and pro-China groups had side-by-side permits to demonstrate, and representatives from both sides spilled from their sanctioned sites across a major street and shouted at each other nose to nose, with no visible police presence to separate them.Farther along the planned route, about 200 Chinese college students mobbed a car carrying two people waving Tibetan flags in front of the city’s Pier 39 tourist destination. The students, who arrived by bus from the University of California, Davis, banged drums and chanted “Go Olympics” in Chinese.”I’m proud to be Chinese and I’m outraged because there are so many people who are so ignorant they don’t know Tibet is part of China,” Yi Che said. “It was and is and will forever be part of China.”Only a handful of arrests were made, and no major incidents were reported, police said.Local officials say they support the diversity of viewpoints, but tightened security following chaotic protests during the torch’s stops in London and Paris and a demonstration Monday in which activists hung banners from the Golden Gate Bridge.Vans were deployed to haul away arrested protesters, and the Federal Aviation Administration restricted flights over the city. One of the runners who planned to carry the torch dropped out earlier this week because of safety concerns, officials said.Torchbearers in other cities have complained of aggressive behavior by paramilitary police in blue track suits sent by Beijing to guard the Olympic flame. Although there were no major problems reported in California, they did make their presence felt.At least one torchbearer decided to show her support for Tibetan independence during her moment in the spotlight. After being passed the Olympic flame, Majora Carter pulled out a small Tibetan flag that she had hidden in her shirt sleeve.”The Chinese security and cops were on me like white on rice, it was no joke,” said Carter, 41, who runs a nonprofit organization in New York. “They pulled me out of the race, and then San Francisco police officers pushed me back into the crowd on the side of the street.”Peter Ueberroth, chairman of the United States Olympic Committee, said the U.S. had struck the right balance between preserving freedom of speech for protesters, providing an exhilarating experience for the torchbearers, and preventing a repeat of the chaotic demonstrations that accompanied the torch in London and Paris.”As close as anybody can do in a free society, so far it’s looking very good,” Ueberroth said. “Virtually anybody and everybody is being heard.”On Friday, the IOC’s executive board is to discuss whether to end the remaining international legs of the relay after San Francisco because of widespread protest. The torch is scheduled to travel to Buenos Aires, Argentina, and then to a dozen other countries before arriving in China on May 4. The Olympics begin Aug. 8.After the San Francisco event, Indonesian officials announced it would significantly shorten its leg of the Olympic torch relay in the capital, Jakarta, citing security concerns. Their relay was scheduled for April 22.Rogge has refrained from criticizing China, saying he prefers to engage in “silent diplomacy” with the Chinese.Meanwhile, the White House said anew that President Bush would attend the Olympics, but left open the possibility that he would skip the opening ceremonies. Asked whether Bush would go to that portion of the games, White House press secretary Dana Perino demurred, citing the fluid nature of a foreign trip schedule.A spokesman for British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said he would not attend the opening ceremony. Brown’s office said the decision was not aimed at sending a message of protest to the Chinese government, that Olympics Minister Tessa Jowell will represent the British government at the opening, and that Brown would attend the closing ceremony.London is hosting the 2012 Olympics and British officials were expected to attend events throughout the games.French President Nicolas Sarkozy has said he is debating not attending the opening ceremony as a protest of China’s crackdown in Tibet.