It's Holiday Season, which these days in the tech world means a (forced) vacation from Christmas to New Years. And that in turn means a dearth of news coming out of Silicon Valley and the rest of the electronics industry. So we at Edgelings have decided to take our own (voluntary) vacation to count our blessings -- not least of which the chance to write for you, our growing ranks of loyal readers. We'll still cover major stories if they break during this hiatus; but look for the return of the fully-operational Edgelings in early January 2006. In the meantime, happy holidays! And may all of your earnings statements be black.

The Federal government is throwing a trillion dollars at our current economic crisis -- so why aren't we seeing results? Forbes publisher and regular Edgelings contributor Rich Karlgaard looks back to the Great Depression and finds the answer: assaulted by high taxes and government contempt, punished for both its failures AND its successes, Capital has gone on strike, refusing to participate in this current tax and regulatory environment. The solution, says Karlgaard, is to convince Capital to cross its picket lines and return to work.

Silicon Valley has built a perfect cycle of investment, start-up growth, new jobs and wealth creation. Edgelings editor-in-chief Michael S. Malone in the Wall Street Journal today argues that Washington has created a perfect storm of destruction that breaks this cycle at its most important points and threatens to kill America’s most entrepreneural region.

Graphics chip maker Nvidia believes it sees a crack in Intel’s armor and the company is moving quickly to try and exploit the opportunity. The company hopes to exploit the need for better graphics in netbooks, an arena where Intel needs to be cautious not to cannibalize it’s own efforts in the laptop arena.

All the advertising in the world can’t overcome consumer attitudes.  Microsoft has been battling the negative buzz about Vista for months. And now, in a concession to box makers/distributors, Redmond will ignore the Jan 2009 kill date and extend XP availability at least through the end on May. That may buy the company some time but it doesn’t solve the issue.  Many consumers are simply skipping Vista and waiting for the release of Windows 7, which is getting very good preliminary reviews. By announcing an extension through May for XP, Microsoft could be signaling that Windows 7 may be available earlier that the anticipated Fall 2009 release.  Redmond sunk a lot of R&D money into Vista and then burned through a bunch of marketing dollars to rehab the product reputation while comsumers turned, almost instantly, against the program.  Fortunately, Microsoft has the money to take the hit, but heaven help them if Windows 7 is a dud as well.

Warner Music, in a negotiating power play, has started removing music video materials from YouTube after the two sides failed to reach a licensing agreement.  The present licensing deal ends in march of 2009 and it’s obvious that Warner is adopting the “content is king” posture.  At the heart of the issue, as always, is money. Warner wants a better fee deal and points to AOL’s offer of bigger license fees.  In the end, these two companies need each other.  YouTube is having a miserable time monitizing videos on the site.  Music videos are the holy grail for YouTube because premiere music segments offer the biggest revenue potential. But for YouTube, the site continues to expand, along with revenues, to support too much non-profit generating material. The can’t afford to lose Warner and they don’t want to pay what Warner wants.  On the other hand, Warner probably won’t throw in that closely with a sinking ship like AOL, no matter what the offer. YouTube has the one thing Warner needs – growing traffic. Lacking any reasonable alternative, these two will find a solution but it’s up to YouTube to figure out how to monetize materials, fix existing cost structures and leverage Warner materials to help get to profitability. YouTube has become a promotional spot for many new music bands and product promotion. With more videos being downloaded, increasing bandwidth demands and ISP efforts to cap traffic, it may be time for YouTube to examine a tiered payment structure for posting to the site.  Warner has shown they are willing to over play their hand, unfortunately.

Edgelings Editor-In-Chief Michael S. Malone looks through the eyes of high tech and answers the question - "Is there a Santa Claus?"

Can you say 'Monopoly'? According to JP Morgan, Google's domination of the search business continues to grow: up to 63.5 percent domestically in November from 63.1 percent the month before -- and a 31 percent growth year to year. Meanwhile, every other search engine (except AOL, and who cares about them?) was down for the month. If Microsoft and Yahoo don't figure out how to work together, and soon, the only thing between Google and complete ownership of the search business will be the SEC.

There are a lot of advantages to turning your users into a cult: they become a giant corporate PR department, they remain loyal during hard times, and they buy your stuff good or bad. But there are downsides too -- especially when you betray their not-necessarily logical expectations. No company has done a better job of cult-management than Apple . . .and now it may be heading for an 'only at Apple' cult moment: angry that Steve Jobs has bowed out of this year's keynote at January's MacWorld Expo -- and furious that Apple itself is making this year its last appearance at the popular conference, one Mac user has called for a silent protest during the event's keynote speech.

The recording industry has decided to stop pursuing legal actions against individual P2P file swappers, in favor of working with ISP’s in a “graduated response” approach to the problem.  This is a radical shift away from a policy that had drawn the ire of many consumers and groups and had lead to legal cases and judgements that were chilling in their perceived overreaction.

Reports are coming out that a 12 megawatt solar electric generating system built by First Solar is producing electricity for the same cost as traditional electric production. The breakthrough is of significant importance to the widespread adoption of solar electric generation.  The solar plant, located in Nevada, is producing electricity for $.075 per kilowatt hour compared to $.09 for conventional generation.

EXCLUSIVE: Steve Jobs' decision to drop out of his scheduled keynote speech at MacWorld Expo next month has created a considerable stir in the media and around the Apple world -- most of centering on (once again) speculation over the precarious state of his health. Now, Edgeling's media editor and award-winning investigative reporter Robert Grove has dug into the matter and returned with the real story.

Patch Tuesday be damned. No one was going to wait until mid-January for a patch to the recent IE problem, especially Microsoft. The company scrambled in record time to create an emergency patch for the serious security flaw in Internet Explorer and it’s out now. With security experts telling users to switch browsers until a patch is available, the severity of the flaw is obvious. And it’s no surprise that Redmond took a ’spare no expense and get it done now’ approach to its troubles before people had a chance to think about switching browsers.  The patch is here.