CeBIT Business Review

WITHOUT really wanting to add to the tens of thousands of column inches (or the online equivalent) that will be written about Google turning ten years old, it is a milestone that cannot be ignored.

Larry Page and Sergey Brin have, of course, entered industry folklore, in the same way that Dave Packard and Bill Hewlett, the two steves (Jobs and Wozniak), Bill Gates and Paul Allen are legends beyond earthly realm, Larry and Sergey are no longer mere mortals.

A PEAK industry group representing some of the largest national advertisers in the US has rejected the proposed Yahoo-Google tie-up, outlining its objections to the US Department of Justice.

The Association of National Advertisers prepared a letter for the Department of Justice review of the proposed Google Yahoo collaboration.

YAHOO’s newly re-elected Board has successfully seen off a hostile take-over bid from industry Goliath Microsoft. But that doesn’t mean the board’s not collectively feeling as sick as a dog, its sharprice having plummeted to a five year low.

The share price slide, which has been a defining feature of Yahoo in recent times, makes it all the harder for management to justify knocking back Microsoft’s US$47.5 billion (A$58.1 billion) offer for the company earlier this year.

THE world has turned. Corporations are now looking to earn a dollar through “ethically sourced” product. Maybe previous products were sourced in some kind of underhand way.

The latest is online giant eBay, which has lifted the veil on a new marketplace that “offers products that have a positive impact on people and the planet.”

VODAFONE Australia has acquired independent mobile phone retainer Crazy John’s just one year after the death of the Crazy John founder, maverick businessman John Ilhan.

It is understood the sale, thought to be worth about $150 million, was successfully negotiated through Vodafone Australia chief Russell Hewitt and Mr Ilhan’s widow, Patricia Ilhan.

A planned strike action at IBM’s ‘Flightdeck’ data centre at Sydney’s Baulkam Hills has been avoided after progress was madfe in easrly morning talks.

Some 45 workers at the Flightdeck had threatened a series of rolling four-hour stoppages starting today, saying IBM Australia had refused to collectively bargain with them for improved working conditions.

Telecommunications carriers have turned their attention to the mobile advertising market, and stand to reap more than US$12 billion in revenue by 2011, according to research group Gartner.

But the bonanza is not without challenges, with Gatner warning the successful carriers will need to overcome key challenges to benefit from the boom.

INTEL chief executive Justin Rattner says developments in robotics have accelerated, and that humans and machines will be much closer together by 2050.

The prediction isn’t so far from Sony Corporation predictions of a decade or so ago. When Sony started running the RoboCup soccer championships using the Aibo dog as players, it said it aimed to build biped robots capable of beating the human workld champions by 2050.

INDUSTRY and Innovation Minister Kim Carr has appointed a career bureaucrat with expertise in urban planning to head the newly created Built Environment Industry Innovation Council.

Sue Halliday, a City Planner and economist most recently the managing director of urban strategy consultancy Strategies for Change will be the inaugural chair of the new council.

GOOGLE has upgraded its photo-sharing service Picasa, adding face recognition software to make it easier and faster for users to tag photos in their collections.

“Picasa Web Albums now helps users automatically sort and share their online photos based on who's in each picture,” said Picasa product manager Mike Horowitz in the company’s official blog.