SiliconBeat

On Friday, I blogged about the intensive editing surrounding Sarah Palin’s Wikipedia entry. I later re-wrote that for the Saturday for the print edition of the Mercury News.

But it turns out there may be even more to this tale. On Saturday, I noticed a post on J.D. Lasica’s blog: Did Sarah Palin scrub her own Wikipedia entry? J.D. notes a brewing controversy:

“Well, now it appears that one of the citizen editors on the entry was … a member of Sarah Palin’s family.”

National Public Radio had reported that either a member of Palin’s family or the McCain campaign had rewritten portions of her entry in the hours before she was officially announced as McCain’s running mate. Apparently, the offending editor created an account called “Young Trigg.” Read the rest of this entry »

Mark Dentinger, former chief financial officer of BEA Systems prior to its acquisition by Oracle, will start next week as the new CFO at KLA-Tencor, a supplier of chip-making equipment.

Dentinger spent nine years at BEA Systems, “during which he managed all aspects of finance, investor relations, legal, facilities, and information technology, among various other financial roles within the company,” according to a filing KLA made Friday with the SEC.

One thing BEA and KLA have in common: both were forced to restate results after internal investigations at each determined that many option awards to employees were improperly dated. Read the rest of this entry »

Apparently, I’m not the only one wondering if Google’s future is looking a bit, well, less rosy than the conventional wisdom holds. Last Sunday, my column looked at whether Google was facing its first challenges as search growth slows and other services fail to generate new revenue.

Someone pointed me to this article by Joe Nocera at the New York Times. Nocera examined Google’s change in day care policy as a signed the company’s charmed existence had come to an end:

“In recent months, Google has hit the first rough patch in its short, magical life as a public company. From November to April, Google’s once high-flying stock dropped 44 percent, to $412 from $744. (It has since gained some of that back, closing on Thursday at $537.) It may be a stretch to equate the day care fiasco with the fall in Google’s stock. But maybe not.” Read the rest of this entry »

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Like most folks, I had never heard of Sarah Palin until this morning when Sen. John McCain announced that she would be his running mate. So after seeing the headline on CNN.com this morning, I decided I wanted more information on the relatively obscure governor of Alaska. So I wandered on over to Wikipedia. And it was there that I stumbled across a fierce, digital battle over her Wikipedia entry.

As of the writing of this post at 1:18 p.m. West Coast time, there had already been more than 500 edits made on her entry.

Read the rest of this entry »

Motorola filed an update to its employment agreement drawn up in February with co-chief executive Gregory Brown that included information about his stock-based incentive. The size and complexity of the equity awards rival the multiple cash bonus awards we previously wrote about.

The multiple stock awards, which were apparently granted July 31 and vest over the next three years, include: Read the rest of this entry »

Con-Way, the San Mateo-based trucking firm, settled a dispute with the SEC Wednesday regarding  alleged  violations  of  the  Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, according to a regulatory filing. The dispute arose from the conduct of Emery Transnational, a Philippines-based joint venture that Con-Way later sold to UPS. In 2003, Con-way  became aware that the division may have made certain payments in violation of the act and promptly notified the SEC.

Con-way says that the SEC recognized its co-operation in the investigation in its order resolving the matter, and that it “acknowledged that Con-Way has taken remedial actions and enhanced its compliance program.

Joseph LaValle submitted his resignation as vice president in charge of sales at Sirf Technology on Aug. 19, which will take effect Sept. 9, according to a regulatory filing Thursday.

LaValle, a former Intel executive, joined Sirf in 2003. He is leaving “to pursue other interests.” He becomes the second executive to quit in the past month, after the company’s corporate controller and principal financial officer submitted his resignation “to pursue other interests” on July 31.

Shares of Sirf Technology sank to an all-time low Aug. 11 after the maker of chips and software for global-positioning applications lost an initial ruling by a judge with the U.S. International Trade Commission that found Sirf violated six patents held by Broadcom.

A month after reporting that it was laying off about 100 employees, or 7 percent of its workforce, Silicon Graphics approved a b$150,000 bonus for its chief executive, Robert Ewald, “in recognition of his accomplishments during fiscal year 2008,” according to a filing made Wednesday with the SEC.

The company, which makes servers and visualization systems, is set to release financial results for its fiscal 2008 fourth quarter Read the rest of this entry »

In what must be an absolute coincidence, two of the Web’s most vital technology sites unveiled redesigns this week: CNET and TechCrunch. Read the rest of this entry »

Someone at Bloomberg News probably wishes they could have a do-over of their Wednesday when they mistakenly caused a pre-written and critically incomplete obituary of Steve Jobs to be published on its wire. The story, which was quickly retracted, lacked one important fact — Jobs yet lives. A tipster sent a copy of the story to the tech gossip blog Gawker.

According to a story published by CNET, Bloomberg retracted the story, making only “the vaguest reference to the content of the gaffe.”

“An incomplete story referencing Apple Inc. was inadvertently published by Bloomberg News at 4:27 p.m. New York time today,” the retraction read. “The item was never meant for publication and has been retracted.”