As advertisers spend more online, brand name firms increasingly are seeing their names, customers and millions of dollars in sales hijacked by shady marketers.

Instances of deceptive marketing to build traffic for rogue sites or to sell faux-branded products rose 17 percent last year, according to MarkMonitor, whose software tracks digital marketing infringement.

Shady marketers are using so-called cybersquatting to do their digital stealing. They drive people to a “squatted” site via e-mails or through paid search. Once they’ve led someone there, they hope to steal credit card information, spur clicks on ads to skim revenue from online ad networks or sell fake products, such as pharmaceuticals or pricey handbags.

The tactics target electronics, sports apparel, luxury brands and pharmaceutical brands the most and cost marketers about $175 billion worldwide in lost revenue, says Fred Felman of MarkMonitor.

“When the economy goes south, white-collar criminals don’t quit,” Felman says. The company’s “Brand Jacking Index” report shows that daily incidences of cybersquatting against 30 of the top global brands rose to 449,484 last year vs. 382,246 in 2007. A first-time study coming out today in conjunction with industry group Chief Marketing Officer Council addresses how marketers are coping with the surge in cybersquatting.

“We’re at a point in which marketers need a wake-up call in what’s happening to their brand,” says Liz Miller, vice president, programs and operations for the council. “Marketing is in the dark, and cybercriminals are ramping up their game.”

Incidents are up as marketers increasingly use search engine optimization to reach consumers online, where ad spending is expected to top $24 billion this year. While ad expenditures overall are expected to fall by as much as 10 percent, digital advertising in 2009 is expected to be up about 4.5 percent over 2008, according to online marketing tracker eMarketer.

As businesses fight for a share of dwindling dollars, rogue marketers are getting more aggressive. The CMO study says that marketers see their brands as more vulnerable to infringement online than in other media, with 29.5 percent of the 300 marketers reporting brand infringement on the Web vs. 22.6 percent in other media.

Despite the big cost to marketers, few of them invest in protecting their brands online. The CMO study reports 52 percent of respondents spend less than $100,000 on brand protection annually. Just 2.7 percent say they spend $5 million or more.

ASU among schools that might go to e-texts

NEW YORK – Amazon.com Inc. hopes a bigger version of its Kindle electronic reading device can be a hit, even if it’s more expensive, and the company is aiming it in part at college students who are eager to save money on their textbooks.

Since the Kindle debuted in 2007, it has jazzed many users and technophiles, but electronic readers from Amazon and rivals such as Sony Corp. are still in an early stage. Amazon has not disclosed Kindle sales figures, and the publishing industry has said e-books account for less than 1 percent of book sales.

Now, by offering the larger, $489 version of the Kindle and the smaller $359 Kindle 2, Amazon will try to open more avenues for digital versions of books — and other kinds of content. The New York Times, The Boston Globe and The Washington Post plan pilot programs in which they will offer the new Kindle at a discount to some readers who sign up for subscriptions to read the news on the device.

In an interview, Amazon founder and Chief Executive Jeff Bezos said that because the newest Kindle has a 9.7-inch screen, it will be better suited than the 6-inch regular Kindle at showing “complex layouts” in everything from cookbooks to travel guides.

“Things like those that have a lot of layout, structure, look really good on a big screen,” he said on the sidelines of a press event Wednesday at Pace University in New York.

The Kindle already had features that could aid textbook reading, like the ability to highlight and bookmark passages. Users could tap the Kindle’s typewriter-layout keyboard to look up words and annotate text. But in addition to a larger screen, the new version also offers more data storage — room for 3,500 books instead of 1,500 on the Kindle 2.

Three textbook publishers — Pearson PLC, Cengage Learning and John Wiley & Sons Inc. — have agreed to sell books on the device. Collectively, they publish 60 percent of all higher-education textbooks, Bezos said.

At least six universities have agreed to run Kindle pilots in the fall — Pace, Arizona State University, Case Western Reserve University, Princeton University, Reed College and the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia. The schools will work with publishers to make sure books assigned for courses are available in the Kindle format, and some colleges might subsidize the devices for their students.

Case Western President Barbara Snyder said her school will be looking to see whether the device changes how students take notes, study and communicate with each other and their professors. Using the Kindle DX “opens a new world of educational opportunity,” she said.

For students, the biggest advantage could be the lower cost of electronic textbooks. Reading material on the Kindle is consistently less expensive than printed versions, with new releases of mass-market books typically costing $10, for example.

A 2005 Government Accountability Office report said the average cost is $900 per year for students at four-year public colleges, though the textbook industry argues the figure is closer to $625. Typically the prices are high because publishers are trying to capture as many sales as possible in the first year of release, before students can buy used versions.

Though Amazon currently sells physical textbooks, Bezos believes electronic versions will eventually dominate. “It just makes so much sense,” he said.

Whether portable, electronic versions of newspapers make sense will remain to be seen. But publishers that have struggled to get people to pay for digital versions of news stories in Web browsers are exploring the Kindle and similar devices.

“Ultimately, this is about providing our readers with what they want and need,” said New York Times Co. Chairman Arthur Sulzberger Jr., who joined Bezos on stage for the event.

When the Kindle 2 was unveiled, NPD Group analyst Ross Rubin predicted that for e-book readers to reach broader audiences, the price would have to come down — something he didn’t expect to happen until must-haves like textbooks became available for the devices. Since the Kindle DX actually costs quite a bit more than the Kindle 2, “it makes sense to explore … other forms of distribution, such as subsidization by newspapers,” Rubin said.

Bezos said another potential improvement in the Kindle — a color screen — is being explored but is “many years away from commercial readiness.”

“The electronic paper display we’re using now, that was in the lab for 13 years,” he said.

Amazon shares dropped 92 cents, or 1.1 percent, to $80.98 in afternoon trading.

WAYNE, Mich. – Ford Motor Co. will invest $550 million to convert its old Michigan Truck Plant into a facility that will build small compact modern cars, the car maker said Wednesday.

The retooled facility, which once built sport utility vehicles like the Lincoln Navigator, will now build Ford’s next-generation Focus, expected to roll off the line next year.

The plant will also build a new battery-electric version of the Focus for the North American market. That vehicle is expected to debut in 2011.

The struggling automaker says roughly 3,200 jobs will be created in Michigan because of the plant conversion.

The majority of Ford’s investment will be spent on manufacturing at the site and the remainder on engineering and launch costs.

Ford says it will also consolidate operations at its Wayne Assembly plant and transform two other truck and SUV plants — the Cuautitlan Assembly in Mexico and the Louisville Assembly in Kentucky — as part of the retooling.

“We’re changing from a company focused mainly on trucks and SUVs to a company with a balanced product lineup that includes even more high-quality, fuel-efficient small cars, hybrids and all-electric vehicles,” said Mark Fields, Ford’s president of The Americas, in a statement.

The Dearborn, Mich.-based automaker will also build the same Focus it is offering its North American customers in Europe and Asia.

In addition to Ford’s zero-emission Focus battery-electric car, the company is working on several other product plans. The company is working with Smith Electric to sell a battery electric commercial vehicle for North America in 2010. It also plans to introduce in 2012 a next-generation hybrid vehicle and a plug-in hybrid vehicle.

Michigan, Wayne county, and the city of Wayne have contributed more than $160 million in tax credits and grants to support Ford’s expansion.

Nine Inch Nails vocalist Trent Reznor performs during a concert at Key Arena in Seattle last July. Reznor won a Webby award for releasing his 2008 album as a free download.

NEW YORK – Jimmy Fallon’s late-night show hasn’t been on the air three months, but he’s already got an award. The comedian was chosen as person of the year by the annual Webby awards for being “one of the most ardent online evangelists.”

The 13th annual Webbys were announced Tuesday. A special achievement award was also given to Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor, who released his 2008 album, “The Slip,” as a free download.

Seth MacFarlane, the “Family Guy” creator, was honored as film and video person of the year for his Web franchise “Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy.”

Nation Public Radio led winners with seven awards, including wins for its music division, mobile news and podcasts. The New York Times’ online unit — last year’s Webby leader — earned six awards, the same total that NBC.com also received.

Twitter, the fast-growing microblogging site, won the Webby for breakout of the year.

Two well-known comedians were also singled out.

Sarah Silverman was honored as best actress for her performance in the viral video “I’m … Matt Damon” and for her contribution to a voting initiative video. Lisa Kudrow won for outstanding comedic performance as the star of the series “Web Therapy” on lstudio.com.

The awards will be presented in New York on June 8, hosted by Seth Meyers (“Saturday Night Live”). The Webbys are known for their brief acceptance speeches, where winners are limited to five words. (Stephen Colbert, a special achievement winner last year, said: “Me. Me. Me. Me. Me.”)

Since “Late Night With Jimmy Fallon” began in early March, the comedian has augmented his NBC broadcast with Web videos, blogging and tweeting on Twitter.

Reznor’s online fervor was evident Sunday, when he posted in a Nine Inch Nails forum that he was frustrated with what he called Apple’s inconsistent standards. He criticized the company for not making the band’s album “The Downward Spiral” available on its iPhone app even though it’s for sale on iTunes.

The Onion won for best humor Web site and its television news parody, Onion News Network, won for best writing. The Huffington Post won for best political Web site.

Best individual comedy short went to “Prop 8: The Musical,” a video from the Will Ferrell co-founded site FunnyOrDie.com. The star-studded video (Jack Black, Neil Patrick Harris) suggested that gay marriage (which was then being voted on in California as Proposition 8) would save the economy.

Best comedy series went to “Childrens’ Hospital,” the medical drama parody for TheWeb.com by Rob Corddry (“The Daily Show”).

PBS won four Webbys, including best news and politics series for its “Frontline/World iWitness.” Others with multiple awards included the BBC, Sundance Channel, YouTube Live, Next New Networks and Wired.com.

The Webbys are presented by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, a 550-member group of Web experts. Every category has two winners: one picked by the Webbys and the other chosen by online voting.

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ON THE WEB

http://www.webbyawards.com

(Lil) Green Patch is a Facebook application that helps raise money for The Nature Conservancy

TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. – Meredith Bowen was getting tired of requests from Facebook friends to exchange make-believe pansies, daffodils and tiny cartoon characters for her “(Lil) Green Patch,” a virtual garden that sprouted on her social-networking page about a year ago.

She was ready to delete it, until she learned The Nature Conservancy was getting a portion of the ad revenue generated by the game.

“I’ve saved like 133 square feet of rainforest,” the 31-year-old Holt resident said.

Bowen illustrates both the potential upside and downside for charitable causes hoping to cash in on the popularity of social-networking sites such as Facebook and News Corp.’s MySpace.

With millions of users worldwide, the sites would seem fertile ground for fundraising experiments – especially ones where users aren’t asked to make direct contributions.

But it’s far from certain that social networking will prove as effective as more traditional fundraising methods such as direct mail, telephone solicitation and even e-mails to past donors.

One hurdle to overcome is the sheer deluge of information online.

As Facebook users are bombarded with invitations to send and receive virtual beers, throw snowballs, sign petitions and take quizzes, applications benefiting charities can seem like just another silly game.

“I get so many of those requests,” said Nicole Marble, 23, who works at Michigan State University. “Sometimes I pay attention to them, but with a lot of them I’m just clicking ‘Ignore, Ignore, Ignore.’ ”

She took only minor interest in (Lil) Green Patch until learning recently from a reporter that the game’s promise to help save rainforests and fight global warming was genuine.

“I’ll probably look into it a little more now,” Marble said. “I just finished tending my garden, whatever that really means.”

Many appeals on social networks have drawn lots of attention but few dollars.

“You often see where 20,000 people have joined a cause and it’s raised $200,” said Jim Tobin, president of Ignite Social Media, a promotional company in Cary, N.C.

The (Lil) Green Patch game has done better than most, generating $162,150 in little more than a year, said Sue Citro, digital membership director for The Nature Conservancy. It is among the most popular applications that Facebook can add to their profiles, with nearly 6 million active users monthly, according to Facebook.

Players plant virtual “gardens” with flowers and fruits sent by friends and send plants to them in return. Ads are shown alongside the game. Green Patch Inc., the Mountain View, Calif., developer of the game, donates a portion of ad revenue to The Nature Conservancy’s rainforest preservation campaign.

It’s yet another avenue for raising money and awareness, supplementing direct online contributions generated by running ads and sending e-mail to past donors. Social networks can potentially be more effective because they are cheaper and involve referrals from friends.

“A lot of the world is transitioning to using not just the Internet, but the socially connected Internet,” said David King, Green Patch’s founder. “We see this as the beginning of a whole movement where people are able to connect with each other and with foundations representing the causes that are important to them.”

Despite being among the more lucrative Facebook applications, (Lil) Green Patch accounts for less than 3 percent of The Nature Conservancy’s online fundraising – which itself generates just 10 percent of all individual donations to the group, Citro said.

Yet the conservancy is less concerned with raising big bucks than with planting seeds for future support from the younger generation active on social networks.

“It’s really a great branding tool,” Citro said. “It’s helping spread the word, educating people about our organization and its mission.”

The group recommends its social-networking activities to past donors who cannot afford to give cash because of the bad economy but still want to help, she said.

Even if social-networking sites draw relatively little money now, it’s imperative for nonprofits to explore them, said Melissa Brown, associate director of research for the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University.

Surveys by the center show that direct mail and phone solicitation have become less successful in recent years, while Internet fundraising has risen steadily. As more users gravitate to social networks, it makes sense for nonprofit groups to follow.

“This is a time for experimenting with the social networking, figuring out how it can work for your organization,” Brown said.

The Humane Society of the United States used a Facebook application to promote this year’s “Spay Day” drive in support of spaying and neutering.

The campaign invited people to upload photos of their pets to a Humane Society Web site and solicit contributions from family, friends and others. A Facebook application – and other interactive “widgets,” or small programs for blogs and MySpace pages – helped participants reach more potential donors.

The “Spay Day” drive raised $600,000 from about 40,000 participants, said Carie Lewis, the Humane Society’s Internet marketing manager. It’s uncertain how much was generated through Facebook. But this year’s campaign, the first to use the application and other widgets, was more successful than previous ones. In 2008, the 31,000 participants raised only $72,000.

NCM Fathom Events, an entertainment company based in Centennial, Colo., sponsored a four-day fundraiser in March for the anti-poverty group CARE using another rapidly growing site, Twitter.

For every “tweet,” or short message, supporting the campaign, Fathom Events made a pledge. The “tweet-a-thon” raised $5,000 for CARE, said Tobin, whose company promoted it.

Social-networking sites “lower the fundraising barrier,” offering nonprofits an inexpensive way to reach mass audiences, Tobin said.

“Before, you had to have a budget for advertising space,” he said. “What you need to have now is a really good idea that people gravitate toward. If you have that and make it fun or pull at the right heartstrings, you can get a lot of activity going.”

One potential pitfall: “Donor fatigue” might set in as social-networking sites become increasingly cluttered with pleas for help from do-gooders, said Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Internet and American Life Project.

As people’s time and wallets are stretched ever thinner, they could decide that installing an application is their “charitable good deed for the day,” leaving them less inclined to write a check or volunteer at the soup kitchen, Rainie said.

“This is making the battle for people’s contributions and charity endeavors and volunteer time all the more competitive and brutal,” he said.

Marble, one of the (Lil) Green Patch players, said she appreciates that the game is simple to use and doesn’t badger her to send cash. She just hopes the requests to swap plants don’t get out of hand.

“If it gets too much, I might consider uninstalling or just clicking the ‘ignore’ button on all of them,” she said. “But that hasn’t happened yet, so I’m still playing.”

Google has good news for all the Mike Smiths, Leslie Joneses and others with common names who have trouble looking themselves up on Google.

Tuesday, Google introduced new tools to its search index that give folks named Jones and Smith – common names that often get lost in results – a chance to be found.

A “Profiles” section on Google search results lists the top four people at the top and others underneath. Users who take the time to get a Google ID and beef up their profile can show up there.

Danny Sullivan, editor of website Search Engine Land, says this is Google’s attempt to take on Facebook and Twitter, sites frequented by people trying to connect with past and new friends.

“This improves Google’s relevancy in people search,” he says.

Many people use Google to search for themselves, just to see how they’re presented to the outside world, and are unhappy with the results, says Joe Kraus, Google’s director of product management.

“They have little control over how they appear in Google,” he says. “And sometimes the search results are dominated by people with a large Web presence.”

While Kraus says that Google made these moves to improve the overall experience for searchers, analyst Greg Sterling of Sterling Market Intelligence says the change is also a way to get Internet users more linked to the Google ID feature – and potential services.

Once you have the ID, you might be more inclined to shop with Google Checkout, post pictures at Picasa Web Albums or build a blog on Google’s Blogger, all areas where Google stands to profit with either fees or ads, Sterling says. “It deepens your engagement with Google.”

Currently, names show up at the top of search results for people who either are well known, or have large Web presences and take the time to link their website, blog, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and other sites. Leaving comments on other blogs and sites can also improve your position in search results.

The Profiles section previously listed your name and included a photo. Now the section allows multiple photos, relevant links to your website and blog, age and employment information – similar to information that sites such as LinkedIn and Facebook showcase.

Kraus says the online profiles will level the playing field a bit for searches. But interested people must take the time to add to their personal and Web data.

The most prominent names will still probably be listed on top, Kraus says, but the fact that all the Mike Smiths, for instance, will be linked together in a people section means “you won’t have to hunt and peck through the entire index looking for that person,” he says. “It helps you narrow the results down to people.”

To sign up, go to google.com/profiles.

Shares in Texas Instruments Inc. fell Tuesday after the chip maker reported that first-quarter profit and revenue tumbled as competition heightened and demand for its chips shrank amid the recession.

Texas Instruments has a plant in Tucson.

In reporting financial results Monday, the company said customers have begun to whittle down inventories of TI’s chips, which are used in cell phones and other gadgets. Orders for TI chips have risen each month since hitting bottom in December.

The results beat the company’s own expectations as well as Wall Street’s, but executives stopped short of declaring a rebound.

“We remain cautious,” said Ron Slaymaker, vice president of investor relations. “What we’re really watching for are broad-based increases in consumption and we’re not seeing that today.”

Shares fell 30 cents, or 1.7 percent, to $17.02 in morning trading Tuesday, when many tech stocks rose.

The Dallas-based chip maker posted a profit of $17 million, or 1 cent a share, during the first quarter, down 97 percent from $662 million, or 49 cents a share, in the same period last year.

Excluding a restructuring charge for job cuts, TI earned 7 cents a share during the latest period. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected a profit of 3 cents a share.

Revenue tumbled 36 percent to $2.09 billion from $3.27 billion. Analysts expected revenue of $1.9 billion.

TI’s profit and revenue estimates for the second quarter were rosier than Wall Street forecasts. The company projected a profit of 1 cent to 15 cents a share, compared with the analyst estimate of 2 cents a share. TI’s estimate includes a charge of 5 cents a share for restructuring costs.

The company estimated second-quarter revenue of $1.95 billion to $2.4 billion, compared with the analyst estimate of $1.94 billion.

Demand for TI’s chips has shrunk amid the recession, prompting deep job cuts. Slaymaker said the company remains committed to plans announced in January to cut 3,400 jobs, or 12 percent of its work force, through layoffs or attrition.

TI expects annual savings of $700 million when combined with another round of cuts announced in October to eliminate 650 jobs.

Still, there have been some encouraging signs.

Last month, TI revised its estimate of first-quarter revenue toward the high end of its January prediction, suggesting that sales were not as weak as the company initially feared. TI has lost its dominant grip on the market for chips that run many functions of cell phones. Nokia Corp., the world’s largest handset maker and a major TI customer, has shifted to multiple suppliers.

TI has turned its focus to other areas: Its largest division makes “analog” chips used in digital music players and other gadgets, while its “embedded” division makes small computers that go into machinery and cars.

WASHINGTON – The EPA on Friday declared that carbon dioxide and five other greenhouse gases sent off by cars and many industrial plants “endanger public health and welfare,” setting the stage for regulating them under federal clean air laws.

The action by the Environmental Protection Agency marks the first step toward requiring power plants, cars and trucks to curtail their release of climate-changing pollution, especially carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels.

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said while the agency is prepared to move forward with regulations under the Clean Air Act, the Obama administration would prefer that Congress addressed the climate issue through “cap-and-trade” legislation limiting pollution that can contribute to global warming.

Limits on carbon dioxide and the other greenhouse gases would have widespread economic and social impact, from requiring better fuel efficiency for automobiles to limiting emissions from power plants and industrial sources, changing the way the nation produces energy.

In announcing the proposed finding, Jackson said the EPA analysis “confirms that greenhouse gas pollution is a serious problem now and for future generations” and warrants steps to curtail it.

While EPA officials said the agency may still be many months from actually issuing such regulation, the threat of dealing with climate change by regulation could spur some hesitant members of Congress to find another way to address the problem.

“The (EPA) decision is a game changer. It now changes the playing field with respect to legislation,” said Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., whose Energy and Commerce subcommittee is crafting broad limits on greenhouse emissions. “It’s now no longer doing a bill or doing nothing. It is now a choice between regulation and legislation.”

Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., chair of the Environment and Public Works Committee responsible for climate legislation, said EPA’s action is “a wake-up call for Congress” — deal with it directly through legislation or let the EPA regulate.

Friday’s action by the EPA triggered a 60-day comment period before the agency issues a final endangerment ruling. That would be followed by a proposal on how to regulate the emissions.

The agency said in its finding that “in both magnitude and probability, climate change is an enormous problem” and that carbon dioxide and five other gases “that are responsible for it endanger public health and welfare within the meaning of the Clean Air Act.”

The EPA concluded that the science pointing to man-made pollution as a cause of global warming is “compelling and overwhelming.” It also said tailpipe emissions from motor vehicles contribute to climate change.

The EPA action was prompted by a Supreme Court ruling two years ago that said greenhouse gases are pollutants under the Clean Air Act and must be regulated if found to be a danger to human health or public welfare.

The Bush administration strongly opposed using the Clean Air Act to address climate change and stalled on producing the so-called “endangerment finding” demanded by the high court in its April 2007 ruling.

The court case, brought by Massachusetts, focused only on emissions from automobiles. But it is widely assumed that if the EPA must regulate emissions from cars and trucks, it will have no choice but to control similar pollution from power plants and industrial sources.

Congress is considering imposing an economy-wide cap on greenhouse gas emissions along with giving industry the ability to trade emission allowances to mitigate costs. Legislation could be considered by the House before the August congressional recess.

In addition to carbon dioxide, a product of burning fossil fuels, the EPA finding covers five other emissions that scientists believe are warming the earth when they concentrate in the atmosphere: Methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), perfluorocarbons (PFCs), and sulfur hexafluoride (SF6).

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ON THE WEB

The Environmental Protection Agency: www.epa.gov

President Barack Obama called Thursday for the country to move swiftly to a system of high-speed rail travel, saying it will relieve congestion, help clean the air and save on energy.

Appearing with Vice President Joe Biden and Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, Obama said the country cannot afford not to invest in a major upgrade to rail travel. He said he understands it necessarily will be “a long-term project” but said the time to start is now.

The president allocated $8 billion in the enormous $787 billion economic stimulus spending package for a start on establishing high-speed rail corridors nationwide.

Obama said, “This is not some fanciful, pie-in-the-sky vision of the future. It’s happening now. The problem is, it’s happening elsewhere.” He cited superior high-speed rail travel in countries like China, Japan, France and Spain.

The rail upgrades are critically needed, Obama said, because the nation’s highways and airways “are clogged with traffic.”

The money will go to high-speed rail development as well as a parallel effort to improve rail service along existing lines — upgrades that would allow faster train travel.

The White House said funding will move into the rail system through three channels, first to upgrade projects already approved and only in need of funding, thus providing jobs in the short term. The second and third channels would focus on high-speed rail planning and then a commitment to help in the execution of those plans far into the future when the stimulus funds are no longer available.

Transportation Department officials say about six proposed routes with federal approval for high-speed rail stand a good chance of getting some of the $8 billion award. Those routes include parts of Texas, Florida, the Chicago region, and routes in the Southeast through North Carolina and Louisiana.

The U.S. Federal Railroad Administration says the term “high-speed rail” applies to trains traveling more than 90 mph. The European Union standard is above 125 mph.

Many overseas bullet trains — most powered by overhead electricity lines — run faster than that. In France, for example, the TGV (Train a Grande Vitesse) covers the 250 miles between Paris and Lyon in one hour, 55 minutes at an average speed of about 133 mph.

In Japan, which opened the first high-speed rail in the 1960s and with a system that carries more passengers than any other country, the Japanese Shinkansen trains hurtle through the countryside at an average of about 180 mph.

Super-fast trains also run in Germany, Spain and China, at speeds up to 140 mph, according to a 2007 survey in the trade publication Railway Gazette.

The only rail service that qualifies under America’s lower high-speed standard is Amtrak’s 9-year-old Acela Express route connecting Boston to Washington, D.C.

The trains are built to reach speeds up to 150 mph, but only average about 80 mph because of curving tracks and slower-moving freight and passenger trains that share the route. On the heavily traveled line from New York City to the nation’s capital, the Acela arrives just about 20 minutes earlier than standard service, at more than twice the cost during peak travel times.

Technical preview will be available to many during third quarter

SEATTLE – Microsoft Corp.’s next version of its Office desktop programs will reach consumers next year, though not likely in conjunction with the Windows 7 operating system.

Microsoft is set to announce Wednesday that Office 2010 will be finished and ready to send to manufacturers in the first half of next year.

From there, it can take six weeks to four months or more for the programs to reach PC users, said Chris Capossela, a senior vice president in the Microsoft group that makes Office. The timing will differ for big businesses and individual consumers, and for people who buy packaged software versus those who download it.

Some industry watchers had expected a new version of Office this year, but Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer extinguished that rumor at a meeting with analysts in February.

Capossela declined to be more specific about a launch date. Windows 7, the successor to Windows Vista, is scheduled to reach consumers by the end of January 2010.

Office 2010 – previously known by the code name “Office 14″ – will include slimmed-down versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote that let people create and edit documents in a Web browser. Consumers will have access to a free, ad-supported version, and Capossela said the company is still hammering out what to charge businesses that want a version without ads.

Microsoft plans to let hundreds of thousands of people test a technical preview of the new Office portfolio starting in the third quarter of 2009, Capossela said. The company did not say whether average PC users will have a chance to test a more polished beta version.

Microsoft also said a new version of its Exchange e-mail server will be available for purchase in the second half of 2009.

When paired with the next version of Microsoft’s Outlook e-mail program, Exchange 2010 aims to prevent e-mail faux pas and would warn people against trying to “reply all” to a huge distribution list. Microsoft said it can also be tweaked to stop people from sending e-mail outside the organization, helping businesses cut down on unnecessary e-mail and prevent leaks.

A beta version of Exchange 2010 was to be made available on Wednesday.

PALO ALTO, Calif. – It’s an old idea: a central sign-in that would let you log into many of your favorite Internet sites, eliminating the hassle of remembering multiple passwords.

Microsoft’s Passport came and went. Google’s OpenSocial and the independent OpenID group are out there but haven’t picked up many high-profile partner sites. Now Facebook is trying – and so far succeeding – with Facebook Connect, which lets you use your Facebook credentials to log into sites across the Web. Since launching in December, the service has grown from 26 Web sites to more than 8,000.

Netflix, Citysearch, Vimeo, CNet, CNN, Showtime and many other top sites put the Facebook Connect tab on their pages – to encourage new sign-ups and greater use by Facebook’s 200 million members. For Facebook, it’s a way to extend its reach and bring more of the Web to the Facebook community.

When sites work with Connect, “They understand more about you, they know what you like, who you are, where you’re from, how old you are, what gender you are, and now they can custom tailor the site to make it more engaging,” said Ethan Beard, Facebook’s director of platform marketing.

Connect isn’t the first time Facebook has tried to open up its network to other sites. The ill-fated “Beacon” program sent user data to advertisers without member consent. It was quickly pulled back when members howled in protest. With Connect, Facebook has learned from its mistakes, said Charlene Li, an analyst with the Altimeter Group.

Beacon “felt like a violation,” said Li. “This time, it’s clear you’re opting to share the information with the site.”

Facebook said participating Web sites only get to store user information for 24 hours – it must be deleted after that and cannot be shared. Still, partner sites are thrilled to get access to one of the Web’s largest communities.

Video-sharing service Vimeo said 50,000 people have used Facebook Connect to log in since it began offering it earlier this year – 40,000 of them new users.

“Our sign-up process is easy, but with Connect it’s one less text box, and that makes a difference for people,” said Andrew Pile, Vimeo’s director of development.

Video-rental service Netflix grants Facebook members access to their Netflix accounts to talk about movies and share reviews.

“One of the first topics that always comes up during dinners with friends is great movies,” said Mike Hart, director of engineering for Netflix. By offering the Connect feature, “We enable great social interactions.”

Facebook members can’t use their ID to sign up for Netflix service because that is a more detailed registration that requires credit cards, said Hart. Nor can Facebook members add movies to their Netflix rental cue – yet. “We hope to add that in the near future,” he said.

Social Gaming Network produces iPhone games, including iGolf, which simulates a golf swing. Via Connect, folks logged into Facebook can play along.

The company’s more advanced Agency Wars is a multiplayer game that charges a fee to advance to higher levels. CEO Shervin Pishevar said sales have been stronger through Facebook than iTunes “because you can challenge and attack and align yourself with friends on Facebook.”

Microsoft had the same idea a decade ago when it started the Passport program: Make it easier on users to interact with sites and store their credit card information in one place. It gave up in 2004 when many sites – most notably eBay – quit the program.

“Microsoft was 10 years too early,” said Jeremiah Owyang, an analyst for Forrester Research. Now, though, “The influx of people using these social networks is reaching a momentum like we’ve never seen before.”

Both companies and consumers have a clear reason to want to participate, he said. For Web sites like Vimeo and Netflix, adding Connect is simple, Li said. “They don’t have to go out and build a social network, and in turn, they get more engaged users.”

For Facebook, she said, it’s about extending the Facebook experience beyond communication and quick games, things that Facebook does really well.

Beard concurs. He said Connect has taken off because, “We understand that not all the sharing will take place inside Facebook. We want to give users the power to share anywhere, wherever they are on the Web.”

Of course, that also creates the potential for clutter as folks post even more material to profiles. But Gartner analyst Andrew Frank said there are “ways of filtering so not every action shows up.”

CHEYENNE, Wyo. – A cell phone used by a Wyoming 13-year-old to run up a nearly $5,000 phone bill will text no more thanks to her angry father and his hammer.

Dena Christoffersen of Cheyenne sent or received about 20,000 text messages over about a month, and her parents’ phone plan didn’t cover texting.

Gregg Christoffersen told KUSA-TV of Denver this week that he thought texting had been disabled on her daughter’s phone, which he smashed hours after getting a phone bill for more than $4,750.

The family says Verizon has been willing to knock the bill down to a reasonable level.

Dena has been grounded until the end of school. She says she feels bad and has learned her lesson.

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. — Windmills off the East Coast could generate enough electricity to replace most, if not all, the coal-fired power plants in the United States, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said Monday.

But those numbers were challenged as “overly optimistic” by a coal industry group, which noted that half the nation’s electricity currently comes from coal-fired power plants.

The secretary spoke at a public hearing in Atlantic City on how the nation’s offshore areas can be tapped to meet America’s energy needs.

“The idea that wind energy has the potential to replace most of our coal-burning power today is a very real possibility,” he said. “It is not technology that is pie-in-the sky; it is here and now.”

Offshore energy production, however, might not be limited to wind power, Salazar said. A moratorium on offshore oil drilling has expired, and President Barack Obama and Congress must decide whether to allow drilling off the East Coast.

“We know there are some people who want us to close the door on that,” he said. “We need to look at all forms of energy as we move forward into a new energy frontier.”

Salazar said ocean winds along the East Coast can generate 1 million megawatts of power, roughly the equivalent of 3,000 medium-sized coal-fired power plants, or nearly five times the number of coal plants now operating in the United States, according to the Energy Department.

Salazar could not estimate how many windmills might be needed to generate 1 million megawatts of power, saying it would depend on their size and how far from the coast they were located.

Mark Rodgers, a spokesman for Cape Wind, which wants to build a wind farm off Cape Cod, Mass., estimates it would take hundreds of thousands of windmills. The average wind turbine today generates 2 to 5 megawatts per unit, he said.

“It would take a number of years to build out, but we’ve got to get going in this country with the first few projects,” he said.

Jason Hayes, a spokesman for the American Coal Council, said he was puzzled by Salazar’s projections. He said wind power plants face roadblocks including local opposition, concerns about their impact on wildlife, and problems in efficiently transmitting power from far offshore.

“It really is a stretch,” he said of Salazar’s estimate. “How you put that many new (wind) plants up, especially in deep water, is confusing. Even if you could do what he said, you still need to deal with the fact that the best wind plants generate power about 30 percent of the time. There’s got to be something to back that up.”

Monday’s hearing was hosted by Salazar and was the first of four to be held around the country to discuss how energy resources including oil, gas, wind and waves should be utilized as the new administration formulates its energy policy. It was held at the Atlantic City Convention Center, whose roof-mounted solar energy panels are the largest in the nation.

In 2007, the Outer Continental Shelf, a zone extending roughly three to 200 miles from shore, accounted for 14 percent of the nation’s natural gas production, and 27 percent of its oil production.

Salazar said it is essential that the nation fully exploit renewable energy resources to reduce its reliance on imported oil.

By buying oil from countries hostile to the United States, “we have, in my opinion, been funding both sides in the war on terrorism,” he said.

Environmentalists are urging the Obama administration to bar oil and gas drilling off the East Coast, and invest heavily in wind, solar and other energy technology.

“This is a defining moment, whether we’re going to have a clean energy future or continue to rely on oil drilling,” said Jeff Tittel, New Jersey director of the Sierra Club. “Right now the government is fossil-foolish, and we need to change that.”

But Skip Hobbs, a petroleum geologist from New Canaan, Conn., said oil and gas drilling has been shown to be safe.

“We should recognize that as a practical matter, fossil fuel will rule for another generation,” he said.

New Jersey is tripling the amount of wind power it plans to use by 2020 to 3,000 megawatts, or 13 percent of New Jersey’s total energy. In October, Garden State Offshore Energy, a joint venture of PSE&G Renewable Generation and Deepwater Wind, was chosen to build a $1 billion, 345 megawatt wind farm in the ocean about 16 miles southeast of Atlantic City.

In Atlantic City, the local utilities authority has a wind farm consisting of five windmills that generate 7.5 megawatts, enough energy to power approximately 2,500 homes.

The cooling towers of Unit 1 of the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant are shown in action. Thirty years aso, Unit 2 was the site of the worst nuclear accident in U.S. history.

MIDDLETOWN, Pa. – The nation’s worst nuclear power plant accident was unfolding on Pennsylvania’s Three Mile Island when an industry economist took the rostrum at a nearby business luncheon.

It did not go well.

Those in the standing-room-only crowd listened to economist Doug Biden’s thoughts about cheap, reliable nuclear power, but Biden could not calm their nerves or answer their pointed questions: Should they join the tens of thousands of people fleeing south-central Pennsylvania? Should they let their children drink local milk?

Three decades later, fears of an atomic catastrophe have been largely supplanted by fears about global warming, easing nuclear energy into the same sentence as wind and solar power. Dogged by price spikes and an environmental assault on carbon dioxide emissions, fossil fuels are the new clean-energy pariah.

“There’s a lot of support for nuclear now, and most of that support is borne out of a concern for the desire to have emissions-free energy sources,” said Biden, who still advocates for power companies as the president of Electric Power Generation Association in Pennsylvania.

Policymakers in numerous states are warming to nuclear power, even in states where the facilities are banned. Nuclear reactors generate one-fifth of the nation’s power. Some see nuclear as a stable, homegrown energy source in light of last year’s oil price spikes. Others see it as a way to meet carbon-reduction goals.

Public interest is emerging, too: A Gallup Poll released in recent days shows 59 percent favor the use of nuclear power, the highest percentage since Gallup first asked the question in 1994.

If the U.S. nuclear industry is hitting a new high point, Saturday marks the anniversary of its low point. Thirty years ago, the partial meltdown of Three Mile Island’s Unit 2 put the perils and shortcomings of nuclear power under the world’s microscope.

No one was seriously injured in the accident, in which a small amount of radiation was released into the air above the Susquehanna River island 12 miles south of Harrisburg. Studies of area residents have not conclusively linked higher rates of cancer to radiation exposure.

Since then, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has not granted one license for a nuclear power plant. The industry says it has made major safety advances, but huge obstacles remain.

It takes years to license and build a reactor. Construction costs billions of dollars. The nation has no long-term storage site for the 2,000 tons of radioactive waste being produced annually by the 104 reactors operating in 31 states.

While some environmental groups grudgingly accept nuclear power as part of the energy landscape, others continue to oppose it. Counting waste costs and government subsidies makes nuclear no more effective than a combination of efficiency measures, desert solar stations, wind power and geothermal energy, they say.

Last month, President Barack Obama called for a cap on greenhouse gas emissions that would almost certainly raise the cost to operate coal- and gas-fired plants. It was another arrow in the quiver of nuclear power advocates who argue that there is no other reliable source of power that is free of greenhouse gas emissions, such as carbon dioxide.

In the last two years, 26 applications for new reactors been submitted to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which expects to issue a license no earlier than 2011. No such application was filed in the 28 years following the Three Mile Island accident.

In red states and blue states, public officials are paving the way for new reactors to call their states home. Even lawmakers in fossil fuel-rich Oklahoma, are advancing a bill that would effectively lift a moratorium on nuclear power.

“It makes sense to at least have other options out there,” Oklahoma House Speaker Chris Benge said.

Republican Charlie Crist of Florida and Democrats Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania and Martin O’Malley of Maryland, governors who get high marks from environmental groups, all support proposals for new reactors in their states.

“By no means is (nuclear power) the sole answer to our energy problems, but I think it actually has a definitive place in the whole array of things we need to do to reach our goals of producing enough to meet demand,” Rendell said.

In the past year, the Florida Public Service Commission has approved four new reactors, including two at a proposed Progress Energy Inc. plant along central Florida’s Gulf Coast.

Bill Johnson, chief executive of the Raleigh, N.C.-based utility, said the proposal met two important criteria for public acceptance: It dovetailed with Crist’s anti-global warming agenda and the desire for reasonably priced power.

Down the Susquehanna River from Rendell’s office in the Pennsylvania Capitol, the destroyed Three Mile Island Unit 2 remains sealed.

Its core was shipped away years ago and what is left inside the containment building remains highly radioactive.

Next to it is Three Mile Island’s Unit 1, now owned by Exelon Corp. and still churning out electricity. Three Mile Island would even make a fine place to build another reactor — were it not for the memory of the 1979 accident, perhaps.

“I think politically that would be difficult,” Biden said.

———

Percentage of electricity produced by nuclear energy, 2008

1. France 77%

2. Lithuania 64.4%

3. Slovakia 54%

3. Belgium 54%

5. Ukraine 47%

6. Sweden 46%

7. Armenia 43.5%

8. Switzerland 43%

9. Slovenia 42%

10. Hungary 37%

U.S. 19.4%

World 16%

Source: World Nuclear Association

NEW YORK – Blockbuster’s effort to establish itself in the fast-growing Internet video-on-demand business will get a boost today when the No. 1 video rental chain unveils a deal to transmit movies and TV shows to TiVo digital video recorders.

“This relationship with TiVo is step one in getting to the places that consumers care about,” says Kevin Lewis, Blockbuster’s senior vice president for digital.

Later, he plans to offer Blockbuster OnDemand to Internet-connected Blu-ray players, televisions, mobile phones and portable entertainment products.

The deal should also help Blockbuster’s effort to establish itself as a consumer electronics retailer. The chain will begin to sell TiVo DVRs beginning late this year when Blockbuster videos become available on TiVos.

The companies declined to discuss financial details, including how many of Blockbuster’s nearly 4,000 stores will sell TiVo DVRs. It’s also unclear what movies might be available. “The studios and we are trying to figure it out,” Lewis says.

The alliance comes at an important time for both companies. Blockbuster shares have fallen about 80 percent over the last 12 months, to 73 cents, as consumer interest in DVDs has flagged.

TiVo shares have dropped only about 22 percent to $6.98. But it’s struggling to keep customers from switching to lower-priced DVRs offered by cable and satellite companies.

TiVo has 3.3 million subscriptions, its lowest number since 2005. The company hopes to turn that around by persuading cable and satellite providers to offer TiVo’s user interface on non-TiVo DVRs.

Meanwhile, TiVo is trying to make its own DVRs stand out by adding Internet video, including movies from Blockbuster rivals Amazon and Netflix.

Virtually everyone in home entertainment is jockeying for position, with spending for online and mobile videos poised to soar to nearly $1.4 billion in 2012 from about $321 million last year, according to merchant bank Veronis Suhler Stevenson.

TiVo wants to offer “a complete television experience,” says Tara Maitra, vice president of content and ad sales. Blockbuster’s movie selection will be similar to Amazon’s but different from Netflix’s, which she says “has fewer new releases.”

Lewis says Blockbuster hopes to offer “the hot new stuff, as soon as the studios allow us to sell it digitally,” typically within a month after it appears on DVD.

TiVo owners who have Blockbuster accounts will pay up to $4 to rent a movie, most with DVD-quality images. Customers will have 30 days to begin watching; once they do, they can view the video as much as they want for 24 hours. It will cost as much as $20 to buy a movie, but digital-rights software will prevent it from being copied to a DVD.

About 750,000 of TiVo’s DVRs are connected to broadband. The company expects that to soar as home networks grow.