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The number of people using mobile devices to access the Internet more than doubled from January 2008 to January 2009, according to comScore, a provider of Internet tracking. Internet users have been using smartphones for personal use and to conduct business, similar to the way they would use a laptop or home computer.

Last January, of the 63.2 million people who used their mobile device to access information, 22.4 million, or 35 percent of mobile-device users, did it on a daily basis, more than double last year’s 10.8 million people.

“It was surprising to see such a dramatic change in the usage of mobile news and information,” said Jaimee Steele, spokesperson for comScore. “Only a year ago, the majority of those accessing news and information reported that they did so only a few times in the month; so over the course of one year, we have seen mobile Internet access become a part of the daily media diet of a growing number of people.”

Business or Personal

The increase in daily users indicates a few trends, according to Steele.

“First of all, the mobile content is no longer merely a diversion or novelty for gadget enthusiasts, but is truly integrated into people’s daily lives,” Steele said. “Secondly, the content being offered is resonating with consumers, which bodes well as advertisers and publishers consider mobile as part of their media budgets.”

Mobile-device users are using them for both business and personal use, according to comScore. People are using mobile devices to blog, visit social-networking sites, and download applications such as those offered through the iPhone App Store.

“What we are seeing is people are using them for both personal and business use. The line between business users and consumers is becoming less differentiated,” Steele said.

At the beginning of this year, 22.3 million people…

A mysterious chip in the volume-control bud of Apple’s new iPod shuffle headphones has set off a flurry of rumors that Apple is adopting a program of digital-rights management (DRM) for its hardware.

The rumors were launched during the weekend by very detailed reviews of the new hardware on the tech Web sites iLounge and Boing Boing Gadgets. The iLounge review was written by Editor in Chief Jeremy Horowitz, who complained bitterly about the limited controls on the shuffle and its impact on headphone use.

“Because of what Apple has done here — something sneaky and arguably terrible for consumers, especially if it continues with other iPod and iPhone products in 2009,” Horowitz said, “if you plug your old third-party headphones of any sort into the new shuffle, you’ll find that you can’t do anything with the device other than have it continuously play music without volume controls or interruption, unless, of course, if you turn it off.”

Authentication Chip?

Horowitz’s allegation that third-party manufacturers of headphones would have to license an authentication chip from Apple sent the techies at Boing Boing off on a hunt to see if they could find it. When they unearthed a small chip in the headphone module labeled 8A83E3, headlines popped up on Web sites around the globe that Apple was trying to dominate the headphone market.

As the Boing Boing site conceded, the techies actually weren’t sure what they had found: “For all we know, it could be something the FCC made them put in so that it doesn’t interfere with whale song,” Joel Johnson and Rob Beschizza wrote.

But the discovery of the chip set off a scramble for comment from Apple and its vendors. Accessory manufacturers V-moda and Scosche confirmed that Apple is requiring the purchase and installation of a chip, currently only available from Apple, to…

Proving once again that technology journalism has more than a little similarity to online dating, a bunch of tech sites ran stories Monday hyping a new entry into the sub-subnotebook field: The Pocket Yoga by Lenovo.

The stories began appearing after a series of high-quality photographs showed up on Lenovo’s Flickr feed, depicting a sleek, leather-wrapped, ultrathin PC that opened up to a very wide (but not very tall) screen and a matching keyboard with edge-to-edge keys. Another picture showed the screen folded all the way back so that it could be used as a small tablet PC roughly the size of a reporter’s notebook.

To secure the case while traveling, Lenovo designed a small leather belt to hold the screen shut. When the computer is in use, the belt folds up and becomes a travel-size mouse.

The tech site Engadget’s response to the photos was pretty typical: “Tantalizing, yes? That’s it for details, but be sure to hit up that gallery for those red-hot pics.”

Elegant Vaporware

But as is all-too-often true online, it turned out that the photos have no basis in reality. According to Johnson Li, director of Lenovo’s Beijing Innovation Center, the photos depict a concept the company considered a couple of years ago but decided not to bring to market.

“Last week some buzz was created by a photograph that someone snuck out of our Beijing design studio,” Li said in a blog post. “The picture was of a pocket-sized PC we developed about two years ago, well before the current netbook craze and the introduction of a similar form factor by one of our competitors.”

Li added that the concept of the Pocket Yoga was based on a larger folding notebook called the Yoga, which in turn was inspired by the athletic interest of a Lenovo designer from New Zealand.

“Pocket Yoga…

Internet users are spending a lot of time on social-networking Web sites, and as a result Facebook has shot up in popularity and has everyone from groups of moms to priests talking about it. The number of users flocking to the site to communicate with friends, check event invites, and post photos has soared.

Social-networking sites in general saw an increase in visitors, claiming 6.13 percent of U.S. Internet traffic, up four percent year over year, according to tracking company Hitwise. Facebook’s share of that traffic more than doubled, to 36 percent from 14 percent.

“I think what is really interesting about the growth is how Facebook has continued to grow and Web-site traffic to Facebook has had an upright trajectory,” said Heather Dougherty, director of research at Hitwise.

Demographics Are Changing

Moms aren’t spending their nights out talking about their children spending time on Facebook — they are talking about their own experience on the Web site. Tracking results show the site is not only attracting teens, but visitors aged 35 and older, a group that grew 23 percent from February 2008 through last month.

The older demographic may also be switching from MySpace to Facebook, since MySpace saw a two percent decline in that age group during the same time.

“When you look at the ages of visitors on Facebook, the biggest share is still aged 18 to 24,” Dougherty said. In fact, 29 percent of traffic to Facebook last month was from that age group, 17 percent were 45 to 54, and nine percent were 55 and older.

Still, there is a clear shift away from Facebook being visited by just the 18-to-24 group. Traffic from all age groups — except the 18-to-24 category — increased from February 2008 to February 2009, according to Dougherty.

“It has become far more mainstreamed than…

Intel has accused rival Advanced Micro Devices of breaching a 2001 cross-licensing agreement with the $4.3 billion semiconductor spin-off of Globalfoundries. AMD denies the allegations.

Threatening to terminate AMD’s rights in 60 days if the company doesn’t correct the breach, Intel said it “believes that Globalfoundries is not a subsidiary under terms of the agreement and is therefore not licensed under the 2001 patent cross-license agreement.”

AMD responded through a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. AMD denied any wrongdoing and argued that Intel has no right to terminate its rights and licenses covered by the cross-licensing agreement.

“Intellectual property is a cornerstone of Intel’s technology leadership, and for more than 30 years the company has believed in the strategic importance of licensing intellectual property in exchange for fair value,” said Bruce Sewell, Intel’s general counsel.

Keeping it Confidential

At issue is a confidentiality agreement. Intel said the joint venture between AMD and Advanced Technology Investment Company breaches a confidential section of the Intel-AMD agreement. The AMD plants that manufacture the chips based on Intel’s intellectual property are now part of Globalfoundries.

“AMD cannot unilaterally extend Intel’s licensing rights to a third party without Intel’s consent,” Sewell said. He said the company is “willing to find a resolution” and indicated Intel would seek resolution through mediation rather than a long court battle.

However, AMD said Intel had already breached the agreement by its “purported attempt to terminate [AMD's] rights and licenses under the cross license.” Intel’s threat, AMD said, gives AMD the right to cancel the agreement that expires in 2010.

Is Intel Threatened?

Does Intel’s threat mean it feels threatened by AMD and its new joint venture? According to Ron Lineback, a senior market-research analyst at IC Insights, anything that helps AMD cut costs and become more viable and competitive is a threat to…

Google’s new telephone service, Google Voice, is receiving generally positive reviews from industry analysts. Some of the features, however, are raising potentially troubling legal issues.

Nearly two years ago, Google bought Grand Central, an Internet-based phone service, and opened it up to a limited number of beta testers. Over the following months, users got increasingly impatient with the lack of new features or upgrades to the service.

It turns out, however, that Grand Central was merely on hold as Google undertook a complete revamping of the service to better integrate it into the Google universe. Current users and new subscribers will be able to read transcripts and search text of their voice mails, make low-cost overseas calls and free calls within the United States, set up free conference calls, and redirect both calls and text messages to up to six different numbers at the same time.

But not surprisingly, given Google’s increasingly dominant online profile, the news that the company is doing for voice what it’s done for virtually every other type of data has raised questions about both privacy and legality. Critics are worried about yet another data stream flowing through the Google server farms.

Scanning Phone Calls

In a widely reported interview, Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, said the new service raises worrisome issues. “It raises two distinct problems,” he said. “In the privacy world, it is increased profiling and tracking of users without safeguards. But the other problem is the growing consolidation of Internet-based services around one dominant company.”

Since even Google hasn’t figured out how to repeal the laws of economics, the obvious question is how the company will be able to support the undeniably attractive offer of free telephone calls, voice-mail transcriptions, and so on. As with other Google services, the answer is likely to be…