Dell spokesman Bob Kaufman said the company plans to close the kiosks, the majority of which are in malls and shopping centers, in a matter of days. Kaufman declined to say how many workers are losing their jobs, or the cost to Dell of ending the effort, but said that affected workers would receive severance and outplacement assistance.

The company is not closing its kiosks outside the U.S. In recent months, the company has moved its products into a number of retailers, most notably Best Buy, but also Wal-Mart Stores and Staples.

“In the past six months the company has adopted a retail strategy that enables Dell to connect with customers it has not necessarily reached in the past,” the company said in a statement.

The move follows a similar one several years back by Gateway, which had built up a larger network of stores, but closed them as it acquired retail specialist eMachines and started selling more broadly in stores. Gateway has since been acquired by Acer.

“Moving into retail is a prime example of Dell listening to its customers,” said Tony Weiss, vice president for Dell’s Global Consumer business, in a statement. “Ever since we began our journey into retail, we wanted to give customers the opportunity to call, click, or visit Dell and have access to our award-winning products. This move fits in with how our broad global retail strategy is evolving.”

Dell is abruptly abandoning its Dell Direct Store effort, saying customers now have other ways to get their hands on the company’s products.

The Google and Facebook cultures are not dissimilar–both are engineering driven. But Sandberg brings high-level sales and marketing expertise into the company at a time when growth in revenue needs to start catching up to the growth in members and applications. She has been through the hypergrowth and going public phases at Google, which is great training for getting Facebook on the same trajectory. She should also help Facebook avoid disasters like the Facebook Beacon program.

With the appointment of Sheryl Sandberg as COO, the odds just increased for Facebook to survive its adolescence (more on Techmeme).

In an interview with CNET News’ Caroline McCarthy asked Zuckerberg about how Sandberg’s role will differ from Van Natta’s: Well, they were different roles. Owen, as chief revenue officer, was mostly focused on direct sales, which is what we have now, and business development. He was just focused in different areas. I wouldn’t view this as really a replacement there, as other people have characterized it. Owen was doing that role, and he wanted to be a CEO, and I think Owen did great work here and I’m supporting him in doing that. With bringing in a COO, we just decided it was the right time for him to go and do that. Sheryl’s role is going to be managing sales and business development but also a handful of other things.
So there’s going to be all the different sales channels, direct and inside and online sales, and human resources, and marketing, communications and public policy…Sheryl will be in charge of all these different operations, and our consumer operations, the user operations group. It’s a large organization for someone to oversee, and she’s going to be primarily responsible for scaling that organization and scaling those operations.

In the PR release, Zuckerberg said, “She has just about the most relevant industry experience for Facebook, especially since we need to scale our operations and scale them globally. And we also share the same values.”

Mark Zuckerberg and his new No. 2 Sheryl Sandberg

Sandberg could have easily slowed down with her megamillions in Google stock. But the opportunity to take Facebook into the stratosphere was apparently too appealing.

Sandberg is 15 years senior to Facebook CEO and co-founder Mark Zuckerberg. She has been through the gauntlet, working in the Clinton administration and then at Google for six years, starting when the company had less than 300 people. Since Owen Van Natta, who held job titles including COO and chief revenue officer, left the company Zuckerberg has been searching for an experienced manager who would fit into the culture and lead the next wave of business growth.

(Credit:
Dan Farber)

Microsoft is aiming XP Mode primarily at small businesses, Woodgate said.”That’s a class of customers that may have Windows XP apps that they may want to run on Windows 7,” he said.

As noted on Friday, Microsoft is using its Virtual PC technology to allow
Windows 7 users to run programs that work in Windows XP but not in Windows Vista. On Tuesday, it noted some more of the fine print regarding the product.

Microsoft on Tuesday offered up a few more details on its once-secretive project to use virtualization to offer an “XP Mode” for Windows 7.

“Some PCs have it and some don’t,” said Scott Woodgate, a director in the Windows unit. “It’s not as clear as it should be relative to which PCs have (hardware-based virtualization) support and which don’t.”

Larger businesses may also have need to run older applications, but typically want control over things like who can install programs on their machines and other management issues. For them, he said, Microsoft has a product called MED-V that allows such control. An updated version of MED-V, due to be in beta within 90 days of the launch of Windows 7, will add support for Windows 7’s XP Mode, he said.

As far as technical requirements, XP Mode needs a beefier system than that required to just run Windows 7 or XP alone, including at least 2GB of memory and a system that has chip-level virtualization from either Intel or AMD. One of the challenges is that today it is often not that easy to tell whether one’s PC has such support.

The existence of XP Mode emerged on an enthusiast site on Friday, later confirmed by CNET sources, and then through an official company blog post.

One of the benefits of XP Mode over Microsoft’s existing virtualization products is the fact that, after a setup process, the Windows XP virtual machine runs in the background so users don’t have to manage multiple desktops. XP Mode automatically installs shortcuts for XP programs in the Windows 7 start menu. The experience from that point on is similar to the one offered by VMware’s Fusion and Parallels in their virtualization products.

Woodgate noted that XP Mode isn’t a security solution. Indeed, to protect their systems, users will need antivirus software running both on their Windows 7 desktop as well as a copy running inside their Windows XP virtual machine.

At its core, XP mode consists of two things, the Windows Virtual PC engine and a licensed copy of Windows XP Service Pack 3 as a packaged virtual machine. Although neither piece will be included in the Windows 7 box, XP Mode will be a free download for those who have a license to Windows 7 Professional, Windows 7 Enterprise, or Windows 7 Ultimate.

The beta version of XP Mode is debuting alongside the Windows 7 Release Candidate that is going to developers this week and being made publicly available on May 5. Microsoft said a final release will depend on the feedback to the beta, but Woodgate said Microsoft hopes it can be ready for download at the same time Windows 7 is made broadly available.

A screenshot of Windows 7's XP Mode, which allows programs designed for Windows XP to run inside a virtual machine within Windows 7.

Microsoft has been working on the XP Mode as long as it has been developing Windows 7, and Woodgate said even he is surprised it stayed secret for so long.

By now, most of us are used to the ads we see in our Web-based e-mail . But if you are paying for the e-mail service, those ads might be extra annoying.

AOL has been offering free e-mail for the past two years but still sells dial-up subscriptions that include e-mail and other services.

The lawsuit seeks class-action status and more than $5 million in damages. It alleges fraud, unjust enrichment, and California business code violations.

Frank Cecchini claims in his lawsuit, filed in federal court in Los Angeles, that he shouldn’t have to see any of the “intrusive and misleading” ads that appear as text in the e-mails because he pays $25.90 a month for his service, according to a MediaPost article.

At least one California man thinks so, enough to sue AOL.

An AOL spokeswoman said the company does not comment on pending litigation. However, she said AOL subscribers can opt out of receiving the ads and the company tells anyone who complains about the ads exactly how to do it.

(Hat tip to Richard at The Peking Duck, where an alert commenter has noticed that while news.bbc.co.uk has been blocked for a long time, the identical site newsvote.bbc.co.uk is available. A small victory for my news-reading diet.)

So if keyword filtering continues, but IP and domain blocking are turned off, browsers in China will be able to access Wikipedia, Blogspot blogs, Wordpress-hosted blogs, the BBC, and many other sites that I currently have to use proxies to access.

I doubt that the entire censorship regime will be shut down during the Olympics. Communications on the sensitive issues I noted above will likely be closely monitored for fear of demonstrations timed to distract attention from the national showcase in Beijing. But perhaps, if the government learns that it can handle things through keyword filtering alone, the irritating bans on Web sites central to my daily reading load will cease.

Keyword filtering is more directed and less likely to be detected by visitors not used to the restrictions. Here’s how it works:

I won’t list the sensitive terms here, because I don’t want this post (or on an unlucky day, CNET at large) to get blocked, but they include phrases about sensitive historical events such as the one in 1989. Too many mentions of two things that start with a T–an island with a U.S. security pact and a Himalayan region home to a famous form of Buddhism–can also get a site or individual page in trouble. Names of dissidents, especially when rendered in Chinese, often result in a block.

Apparently, decision makers are indeed worried about press regarding censorship. AFP quotes an Olympic organizing committee representative as saying, “I believe you will be able to (access banned sites such as the BBC), but I can’t give you a promise yet. The relevant government departments are still working on it.”

Something was going to give.

The story is unrevealing, especially because of the parenthetical inserted in the above quote, which is attributed to Wang Hui. (Was she really referring to BBC? To all banned sites? To specific sites not including the BBC?) This also doesn’t tell us anything about whether keyword filtration, another common censorship method, will continue.

As Beijing prepares for the Olympics and the attending flood of foreigners, many of them reporters, expected to arrive this summer, the government’s controls over the Internet have become increasingly sophisticated. But would the Olympic organizers really be OK with dozens of stories about reporters and athletes unable to reach Wikipedia and BBC?

A browser requests a page on an unrestricted IP address.
In transit, one node in a network of checkpoints and filtering software (not a monolithic Great Firewall of China suggesting 100 percent coverage) detects filtered keywords.
That node, through which data packets are being routed, sends a “reset connection” command to both the browser and the host.
The transmission stops, and the browser displays a connection reset message, making it appear as if there may be a transmission or Web server glitch, not censorship, at work.

No, not yet. Everything is still running through knowledge gate keepers within HP, to be doled out, it appears, via sales pitches and service contracts.

I sat in on a group breakfast with HP Labs’ Bernardo Huberman last week. He’s the director of the Social Computing Lab. The press function was called so HP could tell us how the company is using modern social-networking tools to enhance its business.

First, we learned, HP uses algorithms derived from its research to juggle the product offerings presented to buyers on HP’s commerce sites at checkout. Second, we were told of an internal HP app called Watercooler, which monitors HP employees’ blogs (not blogs outside of HP) and presents the “zeitgeist” of what’s happening on them to people inside HP.

HP is not doing badly as a technology company right now. It has dominant positions in PC and printer market share, and it is releasing interesting and experimental home PCs, servers, televisions, and mobile phones.

What amazed me was how little of Huberman’s brainpower was being applied to the real world of social media. I asked if any of these social tools were being used to engage HP’s customers at a level beyond transactions or beyond HP’s firewall–if, for example, the company was helping customers share knowledge with each other.

Modern tools, that is, for 2005.

At least HP isn’t Apple-like in imposing restrictions on the flow of information between its most involved users and developers.

If I were an HP shareholder or a blind consumer of HP products, I wouldn’t be disappointed. But I left the meeting worried about the company nonetheless. Instead of just mining its customers for ideas and revenue, HP could be turning some of them into loyal fans. I don’t know why it is not.

Meanwhile, Dell is using a Digg-like service, Ideastorm, to collect the wishes of its customers. Lenovo runs a surprisingly transparent blog about its PCs and laptops, with a small but devoted readership of ThinkPad fanboys. Comcast has a guy monitoring Twitter who will step in and problem-solve, if you start to kvetch in public about your service.

HP could do more with Bernardo Huberman

(Credit:
Rafe Needleman/CNET)

At a meeting of member companies here, new CEO Christopher Hansen said that it’s necessary the AeA expand beyond those traditional tech meccas. “Legislation affects this industry in a lot of places you wouldn’t expect,” he told a small gathering of reporters.

Though most state lawmakers are just getting back to business, there are some key issues coming up this year that will likely be highly debated in most states. According to Jim Wall, the chair of the AeA’s State Government Affairs program and regional government affairs director for Microsoft, that includes environmental policy, RFID tags, privacy, taxation on digital goods, workforce, and education.

That’s because states are finding themselves confronted with not only tech companies manufacturing products within their confines, but voters who want policy on spam, spyware, child Internet safety, electronic recycling, and more.

SAN FRANCISCO–The AeA (American Electronics Association) plans to expand its focus on government technology policy to include many more individual states, the trade group said Thursday.

There’s a lot going on locally, and each state may take a different tack on the same issue. For example, there are 12 different states with e-waste management laws on the books as of last summer, according to the Congressional Research Service. While one may focus on landfill policy, others may determine how specific hazardous materials are disposed of, and who pays for e-waste removal and recycling.

After spending much of its history lobbying for governmental policy favorable to the industry at the federal level and in a few key states with high-tech centers–California, Texas, Florida, New York, Massachusetts–the group says the current legislative environment requires more.

Previous iPlayer coverage:
iPlayer gets iPhone support
BBC’s iPlayer getting Mac version in 2008, Web version continues to dominate usage
BBC moving to Adobe Flash, iPlayer on the Web soon
BBC puts shows online

The BBC promises to bring a slightly updated version in the coming months that will add additional functionality, the same way Opera did with the specially designed version of its browser made just for the Wii. Best of all, it will be a standalone channel app. The BBC’s Anthony Rose hopes this will fit the needs of users who don’t want to have to load up the browser and navigate to their iPlayer bookmark, or pay for the Internet application in the first place.

This is the first time the iPlayer has made its living room debut. Previously the only way to get iPlayer programming on your TV set was by hooking up your home PC or laptop to your television. Enterprising
iPhone users were also able to take advantage of the streaming on their TV sets, as long as they had the AV cable pack and a universal dock, which costs about ?70.00 ($139) combined.

Even in our overly hyped times, his thinking stands out as a tour de force. While Licklider didn’t nail it exactly, his scenario predicting the interplay between humans and information technology turned out to be awfully close to the mark.

Every March, my PIM alerts me to call up a decades-old research paper by a computer scientist named J.C.R. Licklider. In a piece I wrote last year, I called Licklider perhaps the most important computer theorist you’ve never heard about.

Give the paper a read–it’s only 12 pages–and leave your feedback in the Talkback section at the end of this post. Licklider was writing 48 years ago, so what do you think will define the relationship between man and machine 48 years from today? Who knows? Maybe there’s a Licklider in waiting out there.

Later in the day a Microsoft executive said his company was still very excited about the possibility of merging with Yahoo.

In his first public appearance since Yahoo’s board snubbed Microsoft’s takeover bid, Yahoo Chief Executive Jerry Yang gave the keynote speech at the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s annual meeting in Phoenix. Yahoo President Sue Decker came with him to talk about the company’s advertising business.

(Credit:
Yahoo)

Asked to comment on concerns that combining the second and third players in the search advertising market would create a duopoly with too much control in too few hands, McAndrews said that would be better than a monopoly. “You want two; you don’t need more than two,” he said.

Digg rival due this week?
Decker did light up when talking about innovative products Yahoo is working on in the shadow of the Microsoft takeover bid.

“Obviously I think we can’t say a whole lot about the (attempted acquisition) process we’re going through. Everybody has read about everything we’re doing so there’s not much more to add,” Yang said when asked during a question-and-answer session following his keynote speech.

Updated at 1:30 p.m. PST with Microsoft comment

Yang said he has been spending a lot of time with the board and “key constituents” discussing the proposal, and executives want to make sure that “where Yahoo goes is the right place” for customers, employees, and shareholders.

“I don’t know if I can add a lot that is new. We continue to believe it would be a great combination,” Brian McAndrews, senior vice president of advertiser and publisher solutions group at Microsoft, said in a Q&A session. “Combined, we will be able to compete much better with Google.”

Decker didn’t provide more details, but chances are the announcement will be related to Yahoo Buzz, a buzz tracker for items chosen by readers, similar to Digg and Reddit, but also items people search for on Yahoo and the company’s network of publishers.

PHOENIX–Yahoo executives speaking at an online ad conference on Monday were mum on Microsoft’s takeover attempt, but were quick to tease a new feature, due out this week, on their home page–a feature that could be their rumored competitor to social news aggregator Digg.

Decker also assured Web publishers that online ad networks and exchanges, like Yahoo’s Right Media, won’t commoditize ad inventory but will instead make online advertising more efficient.

“We’re taking this proposal Microsoft has submitted to us very seriously. We’ve made a public statement about why we have not accepted the proposal given that it undervalues” Yahoo, he added. “It’s been a galvanizing event for all of us at Yahoo…I think Yahoo is a very unique asset. I’m a little biased.”

Meanwhile, Decker was suffering from a cold, a Yahoo spokesman said later. That would explain why she seemed out of breath during the keynote and coughed loudly during the Q&A session.

“We see the exchanges as a critical part of the broader platform, driving openness and scale,” she said. “If we can decrease the friction out of the process, it should only increase the yield for publishers because that creates value for marketers.”

Relying on the same talking points, Decker said the Microsoft move had been a “galvanizing force and a catalyst” for the company, and admitted that the company had spent the past few years playing “catch up” on its search algorithm and search advertising.

Susan Decker

There will be an announcement this week “on our home page where we have already been opening it up to third-party publishers…and refreshing it,” she said. “It allows us to surface the very best content on the Web.”