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By Times Staff Writer
Published December 14, 2007

MySpace takes its place as Sprint feature

Sprint Nextel Corp., the third-biggest U.S. wireless carrier, will promote MySpace and other News Corp. Web sites by providing direct access to them on its mobile phones. Sprint plans to put links to MySpace, FoxSports.com, AskMen and Photobucket on the main page of its wireless Internet browser by next year, the company said Thursday. Phone users typically have to type in the sites' Web addresses to gain access. News Corp. introduced a free version of MySpace for mobile phones in September to attract more advertisers. The social-networking site is the world's largest, with more than 100-million users as of June. Sprint plans to use that popularity to spur growth in sales of data services such as Web surfing and video downloads.

Today's teens may be 2060's paupers

Teenagers flipping burgers, stocking shelves or studying for finals don't think about their retirement. The government does, however, and the prognosis isn't good. More than one out of every three American workers born in 1990 will have zero dollars in a 401(k)-style plan at retirement, a government report said this week, an ominous sign considering many businesses are dumping pension plans. The GAO report estimated 36.8 percent of today's 17-year-olds will have no money in a 401(k) or similar plan when they retire. The numbers will be worse for low-income workers: 63 percent of them will have zero dollars in a 401(k)-type account when it comes time for them to retire.

Killer game puts Ubisoft among elite

A Middle Ages assassin is helping gamemaker Ubisoft stand up to bigger competitors. The France-based company said Thursday it was revising its targets for this fiscal year upward and was able to delay release of several high-profile games due to unexpectedly strong sales of its blockbuster Assassin's Creed. The game for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 is expected to sell more than 5-million copies worldwide by the end of the fiscal year, up from the company's initial estimate of 3-million, company CEO Yves Guillemot said. It cost $15-million to $20-million to develop, and was in the works for four years. A sequel to the open-world stealth action game is already in development by the same Montreal office that created the first. Guillemot said the success of Assassin's Creed allowed Ubisoft to delay until after the holidays the release of Haze, a first-person shooter for Xbox and PS3 in which players can turn enemies on one another.

Server software rivalry heats up

Microsoft Corp., the world's largest softwaremaker, released a test version of a program that lets companies make better use of server computers, an earlier-than-expected debut that steps up competition with VMware Inc. The software, called Hyper-V, is available for customers to download, Microsoft said Thursday. VMware, which this year had the biggest technology initial public offering since Google Inc., has had the market almost entirely to itself for the past six years. Other emerging rivals include Citrix Systems Inc.'s XenSource and Virtual Iron Software Inc.

[Last modified December 14, 2007, 01:11:23]