TechFlash: Seattle's Technology News

Keith Ross, a computer science professor at the Polytechnic Institute of NYU, says a Skype flaw can expose user locations.

Microsoft-owned Skype has a flaw that can expose users' locations, identities and, in some cases, what they are looking at or downloading, according to researchers at the Polytechnic Institute of NYU.

A team of researchers, including NYU-Poly computer science professor Keith Ross, discovered that a user's Internet Protocol address is revealed through a call placed to that user -- even if they don't accept the call. A hacker could then use commercial geo-location mapping services to determine the user's location and track their peer-to-peer file-sharing activity.

Blue Rooster today introduced Sepulveda, an internal social network designed for companies and its employees and stakeholders. Sepulveda, named after the wide-stretching Los Angeles boulevard, was designed for companies including FedEx, Eli Lilly, Abbott Labs, Chevron and Microsoft. Features include integration with Microsoft Office 2010, ability to add applications and flexibility in deployment either inside or outside of a firewall. In March, Blue Rooster opened an office in New York and brought in a new vice president of sales.

Jive Software, a former Portland-based startup that recently acquired Seattle startup OffiSync, has priced its stock for a proposed initial public offering at between $8 and $10 per share. This would give the social networking for business company an implied valuation of between $457 million and nearly $573 million.

Palo Alto-based Jive said in a regulatory filing that it plans to sell 11.7 million shares of common stock out of a total of just under 57.3 million outstanding shares available for potential sale.

Concur Technologies is expanding its partnership with Salesforce.com, expanding its Concurforce expense management platform and making it available to more Salesforce users.

In early September, Concur, the maker of travel and entertainment expense management software, announced Concurforce, a travel and expense management solution built on Salesforce’s social enterprise platform, Force.com. The platform allows employees and bosses to share trip details via Salesforce Chatter, submit expense reports for approval and see instant analysis of trip costs.

Microsoft and a consortium of investors have made a bid to buy a minority stake in Yahoo for up to $3 billion, reports Bloomberg.

Microsoft, along with private-equity firm Silver Lake,venture-capital firm Andreessen Horowitz and the Canada Pension Plan Investment board, offered to buy a 10 percent to 15 percent stake in the company for $16.60 a share, according to unidentified Bloomberg sources.

Reports of the consortium's interest in Yahoo have been swirling for weeks now. Last week, Microsoft reportedly signed a nondisclosure agreement, indicating that it was closer to making an offer for at least part of the internet company.

Is an Office app coming to the iPad?

Microsoft is reportedly planning an Office app for the iPad to be released in 2012.

The Daily reports the software giant, which already has a number of apps for iOS devices, is adapting its Office software suite for the Apple's iPad and could price the new app at $10:

Ten years ago this Saturday, Seattle-based Rhapsody launched amid a sea of change in the music industry and despite a tumultuous history, the company has been able to survive.

Today, Rhapsody’s music subscription service lets users stream unlimited music online or download tunes to listen to offline. The company’s library has more than 13 million songs and a subscription costs $10 a month.

But Rhapsody has experienced a number of changes and setbacks along the way, including a purchase by RealNetworks (and later, a spin-off), continued competition from established names like Apple’s iTunes and newer competitors like Pandora and Spotify, and pressures from the lagging music industry, which has experienced significant losses in the past decade.

Paul Misener, Amazon’s VP for global public policy

Amazon wants Congress to avoid exempting too many small retailers from a proposed federal online sales tax law that would authorize states to require retailers to collect sales taxes on goods sold online.

Meanwhile, eBay, which relies heavily on small businesses on its auction site, has a message of its own for Congress: "Protect small retailers who are already falling behind."

In prepared remarks for testimony Wednesday before the U.S. House Judiciary Committee, Paul Misener, Amazon’s VP for global public policy, said a national sales tax law would level the playing field among online retailers and also help cash-strapped states collect more revenue.

But Misener is urging Congress not to exempt too many small retailers from tax collection:

Clearwire Corp. has a big decision to make on Thursday; whether to pay a $237 million interest payment to satisfy investors who may be asked for more cash in the future or whether to keep the cash to pay for its wireless business.

Bloomberg reports the Kirkland company (NASDAQ: CLWR) is trying to work out a new network-sharing deal with Sprint Nextel Corp., which is Clearwire's biggest shareholder. Analysts believe that if Clearwire makes the payment tomorrow, it's close to making a new agreement with Sprint.

It's no wonder AT&T and T-Mobile have withdrawn their request for FCC approval of a merger.

In a 157-page report, the FCC concludes that the merger creating the nation’s largest wireless carrier would likely cause “significant harms” to competition and consumers, including increased costs for customers, reduced incentives for innovation and decreased consumer choices.

The FCC made the redacted report available on the internet Tuesday after opponents to the merger requested it be made public.

From the very start, the FCC report paints a negative picture of what a merger between the two companies would create. The report notes that if AT&T did merge with T-Mobile, it would create the largest mobile wireless provider in the U.S. with two-and-a-half times the number of subscribers as No. 2, Sprint.

The deal also would spell the end of Bellevue-based T-Mobile USA, a company know for its competitive pricing and innovations that have benefited consumers. “The potential loss of this competitive force in the market is a cause for serious concern,” the report says in the first paragraph.

The report says that the FCC staff -- which includes engineers, lawyers, economists and industry experts -- reviewed more than 200,000 documents.

West 8th (Pacific Real Estate Partners image)

Amazon.com has wolfed down another large chunk of prime downtown Seattle office space. The fast-growing online retailer is taking space on floors 7 through 10 and on floors 15 through 24 in the West 8th office tower at 2001 8th Avenue in downtown Seattle. That's according to permits filed earlier Tuesday requesting approval for interior alterations.

The new lease would consume most of the available space in the 28-story office building, which was built in 2009 by Seattle-based Touchstone Corp.

According to its listing on OfficeSpace.com, the 498,893-square-foot office tower has a vacancy rate of just over 69 percent, with 345,098 square feet of space available on floors 7 through 25.

Kindle Fire has been a hot seller this holiday shopping season. But the Amazon tablet has raised privacy concerns.

In a move to address privacy concerns, Amazon said its new “Silk” browser for the Kindle Fire tablet will temporarily log web addresses of users, but will not link the addresses with a customer’s identity.

In a letter to a U.S. Congressman concerned about privacy, Amazon defended its privacy procedures, saying Silk will “only aggregate browsing activity across all users. It will not link browsing activity to individual customers’ browsing habits.”

But the Congressman -- Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA) -- said he is not convinced, primarily because he said Amazon has not provided him with enough detail about how the company intends to use customer information the company collects.

“Amazon is collecting a massive amount of information about Kindle Fire users, and it has a responsibility to be transparent with its customers,” Markey said in a statement Tuesday. “I plan to follow-up with the company for additional answers on this issue.”

Ken Moss

Ken Moss, a Microsoft veteran and co-founder of Seattle startup CrowdEye, has joined eBay as the vice president of managed marketplaces technology.

Moss will be responsible for managing and developing the back-end buyer and seller experience on eBay's marketplace, reporting directly to eBay CTO Mark Carges, reports AllThingsD.

Moss spent 20 years at Microsoft, where he worked on Excel, MSN and, most recently, headed up its search engineering group. He left the company in 2009 to launch CrowdEye, an innovative search engine for Twitter and a joint venture between Moss and his wife Becca Moss.

WatchGuard Technologies has released a new version of its operating system for Extensible Threat Management (XTM) firewalls. The updates will allow iPhones, iPads and iPods to securely access corporate networks, as well as providing a new dashboard and better log searching.

ASEOPROtools has released its search engine optimization toolkit, the SEO Difference Engine. The tool allows users to compare their website to those of competitors and offer suggestions for better SEO ranking. A free version is available along with a professional version for $25 per month.

Facebook has settled with the Federal Trade Commission over charges that it deceived members by telling them their Facebook information was private, but allowing it to be shared and made public, reports the New York Times.

The proposed settlement bars Facebook from making any other deceptive privacy claims, requires the social networking giant to get consumer approval before making changes to the way it shares data, and institutes independent privacy audits for the next 20 years.