He notes that there are currently about 1,500 virtualization-related jobs on Dice – still a small amount of the total 90,000 – yet this figure is a whopping 40 percent higher than six months ago. Most of these jobs call for VMware experience, yet as Microsoft launches its virtualization tool Hyper-V later this year, and Citrix’s virtualization offering gains market share, it’s likely that job demand will grow.

A message on Swisscom Mobile's Web site, confirms the carrier will, eventually, deliver the iPhone in Switzerland. It's not the first mobile operator to announce support for the iPhone over the last week either.

“Swisscom is launching iPhone in Switzerland. The iPhone will be available later this year. We will inform you personally as soon as we have more news,” according to Swisscom, reports iLounge. which, with 5.1 million customers, is the largest mobile operator in Switzerland. You can register with Swisscom to receive more about this as it becomes available.

Earlier this week, Apple picked up four other wireless operators to deliver the iPhone. Singapore Telecommunications (SingTel) will ship the iPhone in Singapore, Bhariti Airtel in India, Optus in Australia and Globe in the Philippines later this year.

That news followed an announcement from Vodafone last week that the wireless carrier would be extending the iPhone's reach as well, by ten countries. Vodafone new iPhone markets include Australia and India, and, like Telecom Italia Mobile, which will also carry the iPhone, Italy. Additional Vodafone iPhone carriers include Czech Republic, Egypt, Greece, Portugal, New Zealand, South Africa, and Turkey.

All of these agreements will greatly increase the number of markets consumers can officially get and use an iPhone. It is likely all the new iPhone carriers will skip the current EDGE model and go right to the 3G edition that's due to come out this summer.

I think this is a good purchase by CBS.  However is it not odd that a few years ago they sold Marketwatch to Dow Jones?  Think of the lineup that CBS would have if they had retained Marketwatch (Sportsline and CNET)? This would be very powerful.  Too bad somebody blew the Marketwatch decision.  Perhaps the same person who now decided to buy CNET?

Quite a premium.  44% over the closing price of yesterday.  4x 2008 revenues and 22x 2008 EBITDA.  Based on where CNET has been headed and with the threat of a takeover, CNET has done well with this decision.  While the deal metrics are strong, I have long contended that content and traffic are extremely valuable.  These values are not always visible in the price of a stock.  It is nearly impossible to create a CNET today.  Therefore CBS wanted Internet girth and had to pay up.  Think of the recent Microsoft-Yahoo dance.

Microsoft would have to pay up too for Yahoo.  In order to get girth Microsoft should have paid the extra few dollars to Yahoo.  Microsoft cannot obtain that girth without a big payment.  Facebook has girth, but I still am a doubter that Facebook will ever be a money machine.  The other facet in the equation is the geometry of a deal.  In other words does 2 plus 2 equal 6 or 8 or more?  The CBS - CNET deal yields 6.  The Microsoft - Yahoo deal yields 12.

First, it seemed like it would deliver free Wi-Fi to iPhone owners, then the opposite appeared to be true. Some folks even reported receiving such service last week, only to have it disconnected later on.

Most recently, the carrier said on its Web site it was delivering this type of service with the iPhone. But nothing happened. Then the statement to that affect on AT&T's Web site was removed only hours after it appeared.

Finally, some clarity...sort of:

According to an AT&T spokesperson Fletcher Cook, speaking with The New York Times, the statement on AT&T site was a mistake. However, he added that the country's leading mobile operator would eventually deliver network access at hotspots - it runs over 17,000 of them, including those at Starbucks, Barnes & Noble and at airports - for all the Wi-Fi smartphones it supports.

"Our Wi-Fi network is a great way of differentiating the AT&T network and giving customers another reason to choose us over a competitor,” Cook said to The Times.

Okay. That's great, but when? Cook would say.

In related news, AT&T wireless yesterday unveiled plans to bump up the performance of its 3G cellular-wireless data network, beginning next year. With the deployment of HSPA (High Speed Packet Access) Release 7, AT&T plans to bump performance in excess of an extremely fast 20 megabits per second.

The network upgrade (mostly a software process) is the next step for AT&T on its way to the deployment of 4G performance with the Long Term Evolution (LTE) technology sometime in 2010. LTE promises to boost speeds up to and beyond an astonishing 100 megabits per second.

"LTE will allow for backwards compatibility to GSM and HSPA, which is a great benefit to customers," explained AT&T mobility head Ralph de la Vega at Morgan Stanley's annual Communications Conference, reported AppleInsider. "And our path forward to LTE allows us to get there step-by-step, with interim steps that will deliver more and more speeds everyday."

Sounds good to us.

Although Moonlight works on Firefox 2 and Firefox 3, recent changes in Firefox 3 prevent Silverlight and Moonlight from working (For details see #432371, #430965). There is a user contributed Greasemonkey script that will work around this bug for some sites (requires Greasemonkey).

“I suggested to Mr. Schremp that there are likely to be a fair number of customers who don’t consider having their Internet activities tracked to be an enhancement.

“He responded several ways. He said that Charter convened focus groups of customers in two cities and found that most didn’t object when the program was explained to them. (A key aspect of the NebuAd system is that it claims not to record any personally identifiable information about users. Rather, it associates each user’s behavior with 1,000 categories of interest to advertisers.)

“He offered his personal view that the system is harmless and well within the norms of the Internet these days. ‘The mainstream Internet user is hugely aware of the fact that the fundamental economic model on the Internet is advertising,’ he said. While some people object to targeted advertising systems like Google’s Gmail, which displays ads related to the text of e-mail users are reading, many others don’t.”

“For those customers who disagree, Mr. Schremp said that Charter is offering the ability for them to choose not to be part of the system. I suggested that most privacy experts prefer opt-in systems where information isn’t collected until the user explicitly grants permission. He said that opt-out has become the norm for all targeting on the Internet.”

(Link)

For shutterbugs who want to print on the go, Canon USA today announced a mobile printer that at first glance looks like something you'd find the Easter Bunny toting around after a trip to KFC. The Selphy CP770 ($149.99) is designed to be not only portable--it comes in a storage bucket with a handle and storage area for paper, ink, cartridge and power cord--but independent, too, since it can be used without plugging it into a computer or camera. For true independence, though, you'll need the optional battery pack, which sells for $79.99. The printer is designed for ease of use--its buttons are larger and there are fewer of them--and with its color offerings--apricot and "crisp" white--it's definitely not aimed at the Goth set. Other features include a 2.5-inch LCD for previewing images before they're printed and a high speed infrared port that's compatible with some mobile phones.

In addition to the CP770, Canon also introduced today the more-conventional looking CP760 ($99.99).

• Video No. 1 takes a look at the new Terminal Services features in Windows Server 2008
• Video No. 2 explains the TS Gateway and RemoteApp publishing
• Video No. 3 explores the multi-user kernel
• Video No. 4 examines the TS Gateway, TS Web Access and publishing.

DOE Report: Wind Could Power 20 Percent of US Grid by 2030 - Wired.com

A new report from the Department of Energy claims that wind turbines could generate 300 gigawatts by 2030, which would power about 20 percent of the US electrical grid.

The forecasting scenario would require tremendous growth in the wind industry, which currently produces about 17 gigawatts of electricity, or a little over one percent of total capacity.

'Green' procurement goes into the black - Purchasing.com

Just ask IBM, Herman Miller and GlaxoSmithKline. At IBM, sustainable sourcing and supply chain efficiency go hand in hand. Herman Miller uses Green concepts to optimize the lifecycle of their products. And at GlaxoSmithKline, purchasing works with the company's research and development staff to find ways to save energy, water and cut down on emissions. Though their definitions of Green and their approaches to environmentally friendly purchasing may differ, each company follows the three Rs—reduce, reuse, recycle—and each works to find the best way to promote Green throughout their respective supply chains.

Ahead of the Curve: It's quiet, it's green, it's the Rack o' My Dreams - InfoWorld

After a long and edifying discussion, GizMac, a company that really needs to work on its name, agreed to send me an XRackPro2 sealed rack enclosure. GizMac was careful to set my expectations. XRackPro2 is not, the company warned, a noise-isolating cabinet. It reduces noise, I've learned, with varying effectiveness depending on the type and amount of fan noise generated inside the rack. But I'll tell you this: I packed an 8-core Xserve and two 16-core machines in a 6U XRackPro2. When I powered them all up, the noise was so overwhelming as to make a telephone call impossible from anywhere in the room. Until, that is, I shut XRackPro2's foam-sealed front and back doors.

The top 10 green issues in the workplace - ITWeb

Results of the survey show that almost 40% of US respondents said their number one office environmental pet peeve was mindless printing resulting in abandoned pages at the printer, followed closely by leaving the lights on in unused offices (37%).

DOE Lab To Get the Biofuels Party (Re)started - Matter Network

Specific projects will focus on perfecting biochemical and thermochemical processes for turning cellulosic biomass into a more eco-friendly ethanol brew. "Cellulosic ethanol is a critical component of the President's comprehensive strategy to diversify our nation's energy sources in a sustainable manner, enhance energy security and address the serious challenge of global climate change," said Andy Karsner, DOE Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy.