IN THE PAPERS
In The Papers 28 April
28-04-2010
by Sylvia Leatham
Facebook under fire over privacy issues | Cybercrime costs UK firms STG10bn a year
The Irish Times reports that Communications Minister Eamon Ryan has said the TV licence fee as we know it will not exist in 2020. Television on devices from mobile phones to laptops will make the old way of charging for a physical television in a home neither practicable nor possible, he told the Media 2020 Vision for Change conference organised by Mediacontact.ie at Croke Park on Tuesday. Ryan said he did not know what would replace the current licence but alternatives would need careful thought. Meanwhile, RT Publishing executive director Mirne Laffan said connected TV, which will allow viewers to access the internet through the television, will be coming to Ireland this summer.
The Wall Street Journal reports that, according to sources, Apple recently purchased chip firm Intrinsity. Some analysts believe that Intrinsity's technology is used in the A4, the Apple-designed chip in its new iPad device. The sources did not disclose terms of the deal, but Tom Halfhill, senior editor of the newsletter Microprocessor Report, on Monday reported a purchase price of USD121 million.
The paper also says that German chipmaker Infineon Technologies swung to a net profit in its fiscal second quarter and raised its full-year guidance. Net profit for the three months to 31 March came in at EUR79 million, compared with a net loss of EUR258 million a year earlier, when its bottom line was hit by a EUR106 million net loss from discontinued operations at memory chip unit Qimonda. Revenue rose to EUR1.04 billion from EUR669 million. Analysts had expected net profit of EUR65 million on sales of EUR1 billion. Infineon said it is "now looking for full-year revenue to grow by a high-30s percentage, with an operating margin of more than 10 percent" in fiscal 2010.
The same paper says that business software giant SAP's first-quarter net profit almost doubled, on the back of a recovery in corporate software spending, a rise in US sales and a year-earlier charge. First quarter net profit rose to EUR387 million from EUR196 million a year earlier, slightly ahead of expectations. The first quarter of 2009 was also hit by a EUR166 million restructuring charge. Software revenue for the three months rose 11 percent to EUR464 million, beating analyst expectations of EUR418 million. The company also confirmed its full-year guidance for software and software-related service revenue to rise between 4 percent and 8 percent.
According to the Financial Times, Facebook has come under renewed attack over its privacy policy after four US senators launched a broadside at its plans to share information with third-party websites. Senators Charles Schumer, Michael Bennet, Al Franken and Mark Begich on Tuesday called on the social networking site to stop automatically sharing user information with select websites and streamline its increasingly complex privacy settings. At issue is Facebook's controversial new method of "instant personalisation". With this system, unveiled last week, Facebook automatically shares data about its users with sites such as Yelp.com and Pandora.com. The senators said the company should allow users to opt-in to such practices, rather than force them to go through a complicated opt-out process if they do not want to participate.
The paper also says that a sharp rise in cybercrime is costing UK businesses at least STG10 billion a year, according to a survey by PwC, the professional services firm. The study shows that most of the large British businesses questioned -- 92 percent -- experienced some kind of information security incident in the past year. These included attacks by cybercriminals and accidental leaks of confidential data. The cost of dealing with these incidents is soaring, according to the research, with the worst cases costing between STG280,000 and STG690,000 to remedy on average. That is up sharply from STG90,000 to STG170,000 in 2008. Large companies are dealing with an average of 45 incidents a year, up from 15 two years ago.
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