Congressman seeks investigation of Smart and Bayantel for unsatisfactory service

Monday March 27, 2006 | MANILA, PHILIPPINES

News

BY PAUL C.H. HOW, Reporter

Congressman seeks investigation of Smart and Bayantel for unsatisfactory service

A lawmaker has called for an investigation of poor internet service allegedly provided by two telecommunications companies, saying concerned agencies had not addressed consumer complaints.

Compostela Valley Rep. Manuel E. Zamora filed House Resolution 1197 for the House information technology committee to determine how widespread such service problems are, and to provide appropriate protection to affected consumers.

Mr. Zamora cited a newspaper article that claimed the wireless broadband (wi-fi) service of Smart Communications, Inc. and the digital subscriber line (DSL) service of Bayan Telecommunications, Inc. had failed to give customers satisfactory service as advertised.

"It is clear that the consumers are being shortchanged and are on the losing end," Mr. Zamora said, adding that customer service hotlines had been unreachable because these could not handle the barrage of complaints.

"Many of these consumers have labeled the problem as a rip-off because they are continuously being billed monthly as a result of the 'locked-in period' clause in their subscription, preventing them from ending the service," he said.

Although consumer complaints have reached the Department of Trade and Industry, Mr. Zamora said the agency had instead referred the complaints to the National Telecommunications Commission.

"The government is reportedly maintaining a 'hands-off' policy when it comes to dealing with consumer issues in a deregulated business environment such as that of the telecommunications industry," he said. He called for sanctions to be handed out to telecommunications companies found unable to provide the services they promise.

Ramon Isberto, Smart public affairs head, admitted that because wi-fi is a relatively new service, companies providing it are still on rollout mode, and technical problems are part of the service's "growth pains."

Still, he claimed there are more satisfied customers than those who experience recurring problems. "In many cases, customers are given internet access through broadband, where otherwise it would not be possible to have a connection," he said in an interview.

Bayantel Vice-President Joevel Rivera said internet service problems were more the exception than the rule, but admitted that because DSL bandwidth is shared by many people, "the service is sometimes not very good."

He said any technical problems Bayantel had were also experienced by other service providers. The company, he added, continuously upgrades its system capacity. "To ensure that we have sufficient bandwidth, whenever we hit the 70% utilization mark, we begin an upgrade," he told BusinessWorld.

http://www.itmatters.com.ph/news.php?id=032706b

New ICT plan in the works

i.t. matters
Friday-Saturday March 31 - April 01, 2006 | MANILA, PHILIPPINES

News

New ICT plan in the works

CEBU CITY -- The Commission on Information and Communications Technology (CICT) will release in May a new ICT strategic road map for the Philippines.

The plan will be presented to President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo in June, which is celebrated annually as ICT month, said Commissioner Damian Domingo O. Mapa.

Among others, Mr. Mapa said the road map lists programs and projects focusing on the computerization of all government offices nationwide and of government services, generation of jobs, development of ICT human resources and integration of ICT in high school and college curricula by 2010.

"By 2010, we want to see to it that every high school graduate has touched a computer," said Mr. Mapa, who was here to attend the inaugural meeting of the Cebu Provincial ICT Council.

Under the plan, Metro Cebu and Metro Davao are expected to join Metro Manila in the Tier 1 cities classification. This category covers cities that will have over 50,000 ICT workers by 2010. Tier 2 cities should have at least 10,000 ICT workers, while Tier 3 cities will have less than 10,000 workers in the industry.

The plan does not identify ICT hubs, but rather human resources hubs. "We are not pursuing the concept of ICT hubs anymore because, with the way networks are designed, we are going to be in one big loop," Mr. Mapa said. -- MSV

http://itmatters.com.ph/news.php?id=033106b

051507: Microsoft unveils hardware for Web phone push

May 14, 2007
Updated 18:24:51 (Mla time)

Reuters

SEATTLE--Microsoft Corp. introduced on Sunday phones, headsets and other devices to work with its software that aim to replace the traditional office phone and deliver e-mails, instant messages and phone calls over the Internet.

Microsoft, the world's largest software company, said it worked with nine technology manufacturers including Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. and NEC Corp. to develop hardware to work with its unified communications strategy.

Instead of one system for phones and another for e-mails and instant messaging, Microsoft wants all communications to run over Internet networks on its Office Communicator program.

Microsoft forecasts that the shift to Web-based phone systems will gain momentum during the next three years, eventually generating billions of dollars in new revenue for the company.

The new hardware products will be unveiled at this week's Microsoft Windows Hardware Engineering Conference in Los Angeles.

The new products include an Internet Protocol phone from NEC that connects to a computer's Universal Serial Bus and a Bluetooth headset that connects via wireless technology to the Office program made by LG-Nortel, a joint venture of LG Electronics Inc. and Nortel Networks.

Other hardware manufacturers working with Microsoft are ASUS, Plantronics Inc., Polycom Inc., Tatung Co. Ltd. and Vitelix.

http://services.inquirer.net/express/07/05/15/html_output/xmlhtml/20070514-65849-xml.html

050109: Windows 7 to make public debut May 5

Agence France-Presse

May 01, 2009

SAN FRANCISCO -- Microsoft said Thursday that a nearly-final version of its next-generation Windows 7 operating system will be publicly released on May 5.

The release will be available at microsoft.com/downloads in a move intended to signal that the software giant is putting finishing touches on an operating system that it hopes will escape criticism heaped on its predecessor Vista.

"Listening to our partners and customers has been fundamental to the development of Windows 7," said Bill Veghte, senior vice president for the Windows business at Microsoft.

"We heard them and worked hard to deliver the highest quality release candidate in the history of Windows."

The Windows 7 release candidate (RC) was made available to developers on Thursday.

The release indicates that little is likely to be changed in the final version of Windows 7 and that companies can begin tailoring software or hardware to the operating system, according to Microsoft.

Touted features include compatibility with touch-screen computer controls and with software designed to work with earlier-generation Windows XP operating system.

Critics lambasted Vista for being too complex and not being compatible with older software programs.

Windows XP holdouts are being told they will have to upgrade to Vista to make a transition to Windows 7.

"Windows 7 shows significant promise," Forrester Research analyst Ben Gray wrote in an independent report on the operating system. "Start preparing for it now, and the best way to prepare for Windows 7 is by deploying Windows Vista."

©2009 www.inquirer.net all rights reserved

http://services.inquirer.net/mobile/09/05/01/html_output/xmlhtml/20090501-202527-xml.html

042109: US study on kids' addiction to videogames

Agence France-Presse

April 21, 2009

SAN FRANCISCO – Nearly one in 10 US children who play videogames may be growing addicted to the pastime, according to US research released Monday.

A study released by the National Institute on Media and the Family at Iowa State University drew comparisons to compulsive gambling, concluding some children lie, borrow money from friends, or dodge work to play videogames.

"The present study was designed to demonstrate whether pathological gaming is an issue that merits further attention," Institute director and assistant professor of psychology Douglas Gentile wrote in the report.

"With almost one out of 10 youth gamers demonstrating real-world problems because of their gaming, we can conclude that it does."

Researchers based their findings on a national sample of 1,178 people, ages eight through 18, with the group containing nearly even numbers of boys and girls.

Almost 90 percent of the US youths polled said they played videogames.

The average amount of time spent playing videogames weekly was reported to be 16.4 hours for boys and 9.2 hours for girls.

Of the videogame players, 8.5 percent exhibited "pathological patterns of play" gauged by the presence of at least six of 11 clinical symptoms showing damage to family, social, school, or psychological functioning.

"Although this percentage may at first appear to be high, it is very similar to the prevalence demonstrated in many other studies of pathological videogame use in this age group, including studies in other nations," according to Gentile.

The most typical symptom was children skipping household chores in order to play videogames, the report indicates.

A quarter of videogamers surveyed said they played to escape problems, and nearly as many admitted to playing when they were supposed to be devoting time to homework.

A fifth of videogamers said that they had botched schoolwork or done poorly on exams because they had spent time playing instead of focusing on academics.

"It is certainly possible that pathological gaming causes poor school performance," the report maintains.

"But, it is equally likely that children who have trouble at school seek to play games to experience feelings of mastery, or that attention problems cause both poor school performance and an attraction to games."

Girls were more likely than boys to try to cut back on videogame play to refocus on their home or school responsibilities, according to the research.

Some of the children said they lied to friends or family about how much they play videogames and a few even said they stole to get games or the money to buy them.

©2009 www.inquirer.net all rights reserved

http://services.inquirer.net/mobile/09/04/21/html_output/xmlhtml/20090421-200541-xml.html

042109: E-money at 'sari-sari' level gets BSP backing

---

By JUN VALLECERA/Business Mirror | 04/21/2009 3:43 PM

The pioneering work done by the country’s telecommunications companies to promote the use of electronic money or e-money should soon see competition from your neighborhood sari-sari store, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) said on Monday.

According to Deputy BSP Governor Nestor Espenilla Jr., the monetary authorities are very receptive to the proposal allowing still more nonbank financial entities like pawnshops, post offices, retail chain stores and the like to act as e-money agents like the telcos do at present.

He acknowledged, however, that while the idea is sound, it is also one filled with practical issues that need to be ironed out.

Globe Telecommunication’s G-Cash product and Smart Communication’s Smart Money pioneered the use of e-money transfers by using the short messaging service or SMS platform, Espenilla said.

Making the ubiquitous sari-sari store, pawnshops, retail chains of Mercury Drug or 7-Eleven and even the country’s snail-mail offices act as e-money agents is something the BSP is seriously looking into.

“I am open to the idea of permitting your neighborhood sari-sari store as conduit for e-money but not as a deposit-taking entity,” Espenilla said.

Expanding the number of authorized e-money agents beyond the realm of the telcos is, after all, the very essence of the BSP’s financial-inclusion program, he explained.

At the moment, the e-money concept and its popularity is very limited and known to just a relatively few number of people able to use a cellular phone.

The challenge, according to Espenilla, is how to expand the authorized agents beyond the mostly urban-based telco cash centers while also addressing the all-important know-your-customer or KYC rule the BSP imposes on all regulated financial entities.

He ruled out the use of these e-money agents for money laundering, as such transactions are low-volume and leave easily identifiable electronic trails that illicit money launderers avoid like the plague.

“E-money is basically retail, but the nitty-gritty issues pertain to KYC. The question is, can we allow pawnshops which we already regulate to do KYC?” Espenilla noted.

Should the idea prove feasible, Espenilla said one can in theory open an e-money account without actually going to a bank.

Espenilla reiterated that while allowing sari-sari stores to act as e-money agents is highly attractive, the likelihood of making them deposit-taking entities as well is nil.

as of 04/21/2009 3:43 PM

 

http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/technology/04/21/09/e-money-sari-sari-level-gets-bsp-backing

042409: Yahoo to close GeoCities, other services in revamp

 

04/24/2009 | 08:47 AM

SUNNYVALE, California — Yahoo Inc. said Thursday it plans to close GeoCities, a Web site publishing and hosting service it bought in May 1999 at the height of the dot-com boom for around $3 billion in stock.

The service will be shut down later this year. Visitors to the site now see a message that says new GeoCities accounts will not be available and gives them the option to sign up for Yahoo's Web hosting service for $5.98 a month.

It is not clear when Yahoo made the move, but a spokesman said in an e-mailed statement that the decision was recent.

GeoCities is not the only Yahoo service to get the ax — Yahoo Briefcase, Farechase, My Web, RSS ads, Yahoo Pets, Yahoo Live, Kickstart and Yahoo For Teachers all are being eliminated as well. The search giant also recently outsourced Launchcast radio to CBS Corp.

"As part of Yahoo's ongoing effort to build products and services that deliver the best possible experiences for consumers and results for advertisers, we are increasing investment in some areas while scaling back in others," the statement said.

The trimming is part of a process that started in 2007 while Jerry Yang was still chief executive, to close down services that aren't profitable or don't fit into company's long-term vision.

The revamp has accelerated under new CEO Carol Bartz, who was hired in January.

In a sign of its ongoing troubles, Yahoo said Tuesday that it will lay off nearly 700 workers, the company's third round of job cuts during the past 14 months.

Yahoo earned $118 million, or 8 cents per share, during the first three months of the year. That represents a 78 percent drop from net income of $537 million, or 37 cents per share, in the year-ago period.

Revenue fell 13 percent to $1.58 billion.

Yahoo shares rose 7 cents Thursday to close at $14.55. - AP

 

http://www.gmanews.tv/story/158367/Yahoo-to-close-GeoCities-other-services-in-revamp

 

 

042509: Former Facebook exec Owen Van Natta to be MySpace CEO

 

04/25/2009 | 07:52 PM

 

NEW YORK – With MySpace falling behind Facebook as the world's largest online social network, MySpace tapped a former Facebook executive Friday as its new chief executive.

Owen Van Natta, 39, replaces Chris DeWolfe, a co-founder of MySpace, who stepped down as chief executive Wednesday. News Corp., which owns MySpace, said Van Natta's new role begins immediately.

Van Natta faces the lofty task of reinvigorating MySpace at a time when Facebook is growing at a faster clip and Twitter, the short messaging site, is grabbing scores of headlines and celebrity attention. While MySpace is still the largest social network in the United States, it has only 130 million users worldwide, compared with more than 200 million for Facebook.

Even so, MySpace may be making more money, at least for now. Research firm eMarketer estimates that the company brought in $585 million in U.S. ad revenue last year, nearly three times that of Facebook. A big chunk of that, however, comes from an ad-sharing deal with Google Inc. that expires next year. Neither Beverly Hills, California-based MySpace nor Palo Alto, California-based Facebook discloses how much money they make.

The executive change could be energizing for MySpace, said Charlene Li, an industry analyst and founder of Altimeter Group.

"MySpace has a very interesting product and a loyal user base," Li said. But from a technology perspective, they've been stagnant, she added.

Facebook, meanwhile, continues to redesign and update the site, even if doing so often leads to user rumblings.

"Owen is coming from Facebook and the history they have with being much more technologically innovative than MySpace," Li said. Shaking things up, she added, is the "whole purpose of a change in management."

At Facebook, Van Natta was chief operating officer and helped negotiate a $240 million investment from Microsoft Corp. that valued the company at $15 billion — though it later emerged that Facebook placed its value well below that.

With Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg ensconced as the site's CEO, Van Natta left in February 2008 in hopes of landing the top job at another company. Later in the year he became CEO of Playlist.com, a Palo Alto, California-based online music company.

On Friday, Playlist named John Sykes, a board member, as the company's CEO and said Van Natta will be adviser to the company. Sykes is a co-founder of MTV and has been president of VH1.

MySpace's other co-founder, Tom Anderson, had been president of the company and has been in talks about taking on a new role. News Corp. did not give an update on that Friday. Van Natta will report to Jonathan Miller, News Corp.'s chief digital officer, who was named to the post April 1.

Facebook, where Van Natta spend about three years as chief operating officer and then as chief revenue officer, declined to comment on the appointment. - AP

 

http://www.gmanews.tv/story/158568/Former-Facebook-exec-Owen-Van-Natta-to-be-MySpace-CEO

041709: YouTube boosts lineup of TV shows, movies

 

04/17/2009 | 09:01 AM

 

LOS ANGELES — Google Inc.'s YouTube said Thursday it is vastly expanding its library of full-length movies and TV shows it offers online, while also launching a new advertising service and adding about a dozen new content partners.

The long-form videos will be housed on a unique page at www.youtube.com/shows and get a "Shows" tab on the main YouTube site.

The offering, which was due to go live late Thursday, marks a further departure from the fuzzy homemade clips that made the Web site popular and is the latest move in YouTube's attempt to boost sales and profits. Last week, YouTube announced it was teaming up with Universal Music Group to create an online music video venture.

"It's a first step in a long commitment," said Shiva Rajaraman, a YouTube senior product manager, in a conference call with reporters.

The company hopes to add to its movie and show content over time. The titles available at launch are mostly older fare that are already available elsewhere on the Web. It will offer for free hundreds of TV show titles including "Beverly Hillbillies" and "Married With Children," and hundreds of movies, including "Casino Royale" and "Cliffhanger."

The service expands on YouTube's existing partnership with several studios, whose parents include Sony Corp., Lions Gate Entertainment Corp., CBS Corp., Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. and Liberty Media Corp.

On Thursday it also announced new partnerships with 13 smaller companies such as Discovery Communications Inc., National Geographic and SnagFilms LLC.

Advertising revenue will be shared with the content providers.

The news came on the same day Google said it earned $1.42 billion, or $4.49 per share, in the first quarter, up 9 percent from a year ago.

Google bought YouTube for $1.76 billion in late 2006 but it hasn't emerged as a major marketing vehicle and the company does not disclose its revenue figures. Analysts have estimated its revenue in 2008 at around $200 million.

On Thursday, YouTube spokesman Chris Dale simply said a recent analyst estimate that said the site lost $500 million a year was "factually incorrect" and said its performance was better.

As a way to bolster its ad revenue, YouTube also announced it is launching Google TV Ads Online, which will help advertisers target viewers of online content with video ads.

Single video ads are planned to be inserted in scheduled breaks in shows and movies, Rajaraman said. Sometimes the ads will be sold by Google and sometimes by the content providers.

Certain content providers also provide their own video players, such as Sony's Crackle.com player, which will be embedded in the YouTube site.

Crackle.com has 60 movies on its site, but will be offering only 15 at time through the partnership. For example, "Groundhog Day," initially will not be shared, as Sony managers intend to use YouTube's large audience to help drive traffic to Crackle.com. - AP

 

http://www.gmanews.tv/story/157402/YouTube-boosts-lineup-of-TV-shows-movies

042009: Windows washer: Meet Microsoft's antidote to Vista

 

04/20/2009 | 07:22 AM

 

REDMOND, Wash. - Julie Larson-Green hopes you'll like Windows 7. If not, well, now you and a billion other people know whom to blame.

Microsoft Corp. is counting on Larson-Green, its head of "Windows Experience," to deliver an operating system that delights the world's PC users as much as its last effort, Vista, disappointed them. She's in charge of a wide swath of the system, from the way buttons and menus work to getting the software out in January as scheduled.

Given Microsoft's history, Larson-Green's plan seems downright revolutionary: Build an operating system that doesn't require people to take computer classes or master thick manuals.

"We want to reduce the amount of thinking about the software that they have to do, so that they can concentrate all their thinking on the task they're trying to get done," Larson-Green said in an interview.

Microsoft relies on Windows for half its profit, which helps fuel money-losing operations like the pursuit of Google Inc. online. Windows was still profitable after Vista's 2007 launch, but its poor reception dinged the software maker's reputation at a critical time. Vista was designed for powerful, pricier PCs just as nimble rivals like Google were releasing Web-based programs that could run on inexpensive computers. Microsoft appeared to be clinging to an endangered world order that spawned its operating system monopoly.

What's more, Vista's initial incompatibility with many existing programs and devices, and its pestering security warnings, exposed Microsoft to ridicule in Apple Inc. commercials that helped Macintosh computers gain market share. Businesses didn't give up Windows, but many delayed upgrading to Vista.

Microsoft's executives have since distanced themselves from Vista, acknowledging its flaws. Now the company needs Windows 7 to widen that distance even more.

You probably don't know her name, but if you're using Office 2007, the sleeper hit of the Vista era, you're already familiar with Larson-Green's work. She was the one who banished the familiar system of menus on Word, Excel and other programs in favor of a new "ribbon" that shows different options at different times, depending on what a user is working on. It seemed risky, but it was grounded in mountains of data showing how people used the software.

Focusing on real customers might seem obvious, but Microsoft's programs more often have reflected the will of techie insiders.

One reason is that Windows' dominance relies heavily on third-party software developers who keep churning out compelling new programs. To give those developers as many options as possible for reaching PC users, over the years Windows spawned confusingly redundant features. For example, you can tweak antivirus software settings by opening the program; by clicking on shortcuts from the desktop, task bar or "Start" menu; by responding to notifications that pop up uninvited from the bottom-right corner of the screen; or by poking around in a control panel.

Another bit of dysfunction stemmed from Microsoft's corporate structure. Windows employs thousands of people divided into groups that focus on search, security, networking, printing — the list goes on. With Vista and earlier versions, each group built the best solutions for its isolated goals. For example, two separate groups added similar-looking search boxes to Vista's control panels and its Start menu. Yet typing the same query into both boxes produced completely different results.

Larson-Green, a 16-year Microsoft veteran, grew up in tiny Maple Falls, Wash., about 100 miles north of the software maker's headquarters in Redmond. She waited tables to put herself through Western Washington University, then took a job in 1987 answering customer support calls at Aldus, a pioneering software company in Seattle.

During six years at Aldus, Larson-Green worked her way into software development and earned a master's in computer science on the side. But she credits her waitressing and customer-service work for making her good at her current job.

"The primary things that help you create a good user experience are empathy, and being able to put yourself in the place of people who are using the products," she said. "User interface is customer service for the computer."

Larson-Green, 47, is engaging and eager in person — to the point that in one interview, she couldn't keep from repeatedly interrupting her boss, Steven Sinofsky, as he sketched the history of Windows. But while giving product demos on stage, she lacks the showman's panache that a surprising number of Microsoft employees display. At a developer conference last year, she seemed nervous as she showed off Windows 7's new features.

Later, she explained that as a woman, she worried that honing the softer skills of marketing might prompt colleagues to take her less seriously as a technologist. Larson-Green has spent her Microsoft career working deeply on many Microsoft programs, including the Internet Explorer Web browser.

When she landed in the Office software group a few years ago, Larson-Green was dubious that much could be done to improve the software, which dominates the market for "productivity" programs.

"I felt like it had been that way for a long time, (and) everyone was pretty happy with it," she said.

Yet customers weren't quite as happy with Office as they might have thought.

For years Microsoft had tested software with focus groups and gathered comments and complaints from customers. But around the time Larson-Green joined the Office team, Microsoft was trying a more precise way of garnering feedback. By deploying special software — with user permission — on computers running Office programs, Microsoft could track how people used their PCs day after day.

That helped explain one puzzle in Redmond: why Office users often asked Microsoft for features that were already in the software. The tracking data showed there were functions very few people had discovered deep in the menus and toolbars in Office.

More research and testing yielded a solution — the ribbon, which displayed different commands depending on what the PC user was doing. Then Larson-Green pushed Microsoft to get even more radical: to release Office 2007 without the hedge of a "classic mode" that would emulate the old look and feel for people who didn't like the changes.

It worked. Just as Vista was a magnet for complaints, Office 2007 won accolades from software critics and regular users. Larson-Green proved she had the stomach to challenge a Microsoft legacy. Her reward? The assignment to help fix Windows. When Sinofsky was tapped to lead the Windows division, replacing retiring Jim Allchin, Sinofsky drafted Larson-Green to come along, in a new position created for her.

"Some people are great at having ideas, and (have) no discipline. Some people are great at discipline, not much at ideas," Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer said in an interview. "She's got both of those genes."

Larson-Green's team began with centralized planning, in contrast with the old culture that let Windows subgroups set their own agendas. For example, in the past, different groups worked on home networking. One group decided how Windows would share files among multiple computers at home; another group figured out how to get shared printers up and running. As a result, the steps for networking PCs and printers were inconsistent — and harder for PC users to master.

As she did with Office, Larson-Green sought insights in a daunting mass of data.

Vista was the first version of Windows to include the remote-tracking software that had helped Microsoft hone Office, and nearly 11 million Vista users had let their PC activities be logged. Larson-Green's team also surveyed more than 250,000 people around the world and showed other users prototypes, some as simple as sketches on paper.

From these billions of data points emerged big ideas that got boiled down into eight design principles. Larson-Green had them printed on folded slips of paper as reminders for everyone in the group.

Many of the principles come back to Larson-Green mantras of "user in control." The team tried to build an operating system people could use without studying first, one that would let them get right to reading the news or sending e-mail without dragging them down a rabbit hole of settings and configurations. A system with manners, not one that constantly interrupts with bubbles, boxes and warnings that, data showed, people ignored or raced to close.

The Windows groups agreed in principle but old habits often reared up. Many Windows teams still wanted to be able to create alert bubbles for their functions.

"We've probably talked to every team in Windows about, `No no no no, we don't want you to pop your notifications. Windows is not going to use these notifications to tell users things,'" said Linda Averett, a Windows user experience manager.

Larson-Green is already planning Windows 8, though her team continues to tweak the Windows 7 user interface. Signs point to a possible release months ahead of schedule, though Microsoft still says the official plan is for January.

Microsoft's marketing machine will pore over piles of charts to decide whether Windows 7 is a success. Larson-Green says her measure will be the conversations she overhears at Best Buy and comments posted by bloggers.

"I think people are going to like it," she said. Her voice rose a few notes when she added, "I hope so." - AP

 

http://www.gmanews.tv/story/157713/Windows-washer-Meet-Microsofts-antidote-to-Vista