CNetNews.com reports that Google threatened to blacklist a top semiconductor industry analyst’s Web sites when he complained about a new site of his not showing up in search results. In reaction, Dan Hutchinson, chief executive of VLSI research, remarked that Google is “showing all the signs of a monopolist trying to forcibly extract revenues for nothing”, usually “a sign that revenue growth has peaked and they are trying to force it in order to maintain high stock valuations.”
In another Google story, CNetNews.com writes that “Google is in hot water with the Korea Fair Trade Commission for allegedly violating part of its business agreement with the government branch.”
Computerworld has a very informative interview with Marshall Van Alstyne, one of the authors of a Boston University / MIT study which shows that tech-enabled multitasking leads to productivity gains at the individual desktop level.
BBC News points out that “Europe has a new flagship agency to fund the brightest ideas in science” which has “been given a budget of 7.5bn euros […] to 2013, and will focus solely on fundamental, or ‘blue skies’, study.”
Internetnews.com reports that “[o]nly 1 percent of those likely to buy the combined iPod and cell phone said they’d pay Apple’s $500 price tag, according to a survey published by online marketer Compete Inc.”