Businesses race against the clock to keep up with the Daylight savings time. A federal law will take effect to reduce energy costs and move up Daylight saving time, also known as DST, to start three weeks earlier on March 11th and end one week later on November 4th. Yesterday, Microsoft started the ball rolling with a “situation room” to check customer problems and make support available to the consumers.
Microsoft has also staffed more than 200 employees trained in Exchange and Outlook to answer phone calls. Microsoft has seen a 68 percent increase in support calls related to DST. Many computers require an update to adjust to the new time. Personal consumer support calls remain free, but Microsoft charges companies using Windows 2000, Exchange 2000 and Exchange five-point-five or any other products that don’t have mainstream support around four thousand dollars to patch up old products.
Connecticut lawmakers argued over a bill on Thursday to compel social-networking sites such as MySpace to confirm users’ ages and make minors to get parental consent before creating profiles. Attorney General Richard Blumenthal proposed the bill to shield children from sexual predators. Blumenthal sited six alleged sexual assaults in Connecticut with older men and under-aged girls linked to MySpace last year. Blumenthal said applicants would present a driver’s license or other form of identification and the Internet site would check the age, address and date of birth. Sites that don’t verify ages under 18 without parental consent could face civil penalties of up to five thousand dollars. If passed, this would signify the first bill in the United States to inflict rules on the social-networking sites.
Analysts think Yahoo will lose after a probable reorganizing of its deal with AT&T. The Wall Street Journal reported today that AT&T looks for a review of how the companies contribute to advertising and Internet access revenue in their years-long arrangement to sell cobranded broadband services to customers in the U.S. Yahoo obtains between 200 and 250 million dollars in annual revenue from the partnership, but the Wall Street Journal said AT&T seemed stronger and less dependent on Yahoo.
Yahoo’s stock dropped almost five percent of Friday.
Pope Benedict called a press conference on Friday to endorse family values and disapprove of the Internet and Television. The Pope believes both mediums have a “destructive” influence on young people. The Pope said the media had a “pervasive role in shaping culture,” and that the control has shifted from print to electronic media. The Pope asked for the media leaders to protect the common good, support the truth, guard human dignity and encourage respect for family needs.
Nonprofit online encyclopedia Wikipedia plans on building a search engine to secure five percent of the Internet search market. Founder Jimmy Wales expects Wikia to compete with Google and Yahoo. Wikia will focus on specific markets and make money from advertising revenue. Wales said the collaborative search technology could change the power structure of the web. Wales acknowledged that the company received a four million dollar investment from “angel investors,” as well as a very large investment from Amazon.
