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All the entries posted on August 13, 2007.
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Home > Plugged In > Archives > 2007 > August > 13
Monday, August 13, 2007
It’s not working? Obviously, the FCC didn’t download the Microsoft critical update.
Tech companies including Microsoft, Dell, Intel, Google and EarthLink want to send high-speed Internet across the vacant television airwaves known as “white spaces.” A goal is to create devices that detect and dance around existing radio signals.
But a prototype wireless gadget from Microsoft recently flunked a government test, generating bad press for that coalition. The results also provoked an I-told-you-so response from the National Association of Broadcasters, which contends the technology will jumble over-the-air television. The NAB says: “Microsoft is playing Russian Roulette with America’s access to interference-free TV reception.”
No so fast, Microsoft says. On Monday, the software giant revealed why their device tanked: it was broken.
Microsoft told the Federal Communications Commission that a “scanner in the device had been damaged,” accounting for a failure to properly detect TV signals.
And, perhaps attempting to share the pain, Microsoft pointed out that the FCC didn’t contact them after the failure and never tried out a working backup device that “was in the FCC’s possession throughout the testing process.”
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Ads brought to you by Microsoft
Microsoft just closed its $6 billion purchase of online advertising and marketing company aQuantive, taking it one big step closer in competition with Google, Yahoo and others. See the official news release here.
The move is just the latest by Microsoft as it continues its march beyond just selling software in a box and tries to get more revenues from advertising sales. Last year, Microsoft bought Massive Inc., which sells and places ads inside video games. In May, it bought ScreenTonic, a European company that sells ads for cell phones.
Microsoft may be the world’s biggest software company, but it’s still just a pipsqueak compared to Google and Yahoo when it comes to online advertising. Its purchase of aQuantive comes as Google is in the middle of trying to complete its $3.1 billion purchase of another big online ad-placement outfit, DoubleClick.
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