Compliantly

President Obama’s stimulus package will make it difficult for foreigners to get H-1B work visas with companies that accept TARP money. An amendment in the stimulus bill puts strict regulations on the hiring practices of the New York banks and financial services companies who have taken TARP money. The federal government wants TARP-funded companies to hire from the growing pool of laid-off Americans rather than new immigrants seeking H-1B visas. 

The new provision especially hurts Indian immigrants, who make up roughly 70% of the 65,000 H-1B visas awarded in the U.S. each year and who work primarily in the IT sector.  

Senator Chuck Schumer of New York (D) calls the hiring restrictions on H-1B workers "counterproductive" to New York’s economy and vows to work hard to change it. Schumer will need to create an amendment in another bill that must be passed through Congress in order to reverse or change the strict hiring policies of TARP recipients.

Virgin Mobile USA plans to introduce touch-screen handsets as part of a move into "smarter" phones, the carrier's CEO said Tuesday.

As a mobile operator focused on younger people in the low- and middle-income brackets, Virgin has stayed out of the smartphone market because most consumers still can't afford such devices, said CEO Dan Schulman. Though smartphones such as the iPhone and BlackBerry get a lot of attention, they still are only about 20 percent of the handsets sold, he said. However, Schulman believes that figure may rise to as much as half the market over the next three to five years.

In an on-stage interview at the Dow Jones Wireless Innovations conference, Schulman gave no details about the touch-screen phones or when Virgin may roll them out. But it's a safe bet that they will be targeted at a market that he thinks is a very good place to be as the economy weighs on consumers - that of low- and middle-income youth.

Virgin's core business is prepaid services, though it also offers monthly service plans. It's an MVNO (mobile virtual network operator) that resells access to Sprint Nextel's network. It's considered a survivor in the ailing MVNO business and last year acquired Helio, the struggling, entertainment-oriented MVNO once backed by SK Telecom and EarthLink.

The economic downturn has benefited Virgin Mobile because many consumers don't want to be tied down to a monthly service they have to pay for whether they use it or not, Schulman said. Last year, Virgin's subscriber base grew 6 percent to 5.4 million.

"Things like value and flexibility are moving to the forefront," he said. "I think the economy is helping people to appreciate our model." It's still a cutthroat business, however, and the trend's not over yet, he believes. There aren't many first-time cellular users left in the U.S. market, and Sprint Nextel and other carriers have already started changing the pricing picture with "unlimited" monthly voice and data plans.

"It wouldn't shock me to see more pricing pressure coming into the industry," Schulman said. Virgin's total revenue grew just 5 percent in 2008, though its services revenue rose 10 percent.

Virgin still sees voice and messaging as the sweet spot in its market, though it's a definition of messaging that has expanded from traditional text messaging to include social networking. About 20 percent of the company's revenue comes from services other than voice now, Schulman said.

User-generated review site Yelp is quickly gaining on longtime stalwart Citysearch. For January 2009, Yelp had 22.8 million unique visitors compared with 30.9 million for Citysearch, according to Compete. Yelp’s gowth rate for unique visitors has nearly tripled in January from the same period a year ago, while Citysearch’s has stayed stagnant.

Acer plans to launch its first non-Windows smartphone in the second half of this year, according to company representatives.

The world's third largest PC vendor last month announced its first ever family of smartphones, called Tempo. All of the handsets use Microsoft's Windows Mobile OS.

Officials at the announcement event hinted at future Acer smartphones using other OSs, including Google's Android, but provided few details.

Acer representatives in Taipei say the first non-Windows OS smartphones by the company will hit world markets later this year, though they also declined to say which OS the handsets will use.

The company is also currently working on smartphones to release later this year that use Microsoft's new Windows Mobile 6.5.

Google Android has won accolades as a new alternative software for smartphone makers. The first smartphones with Android on board came out in the U.S. late last year, and they were made by Taiwan's High Tech Computer (HTC).

Since the handsets, known as the T-Mobile G1 or HTC Dream, hit the market, reports of other Taiwanese companies making Android smartphones have surfaced. Some reports have said Asustek Computer plans to make Android smartphones, while others say Acer is working on one.

Asustek representatives declined to comment on speculation.

Acer bought its way into the smartphone business last year with the acquisition of Taiwanese handset maker E-Ten Information Systems. The company is now part of Acer's smart handheld business.

Last week's announcement of Google Voice was a shot across bow of the telecommunications industry. While Verizon and other carriers will experience pricing pressure on some of the add-on services that they give customers, companies that provide Internet-based voice-over-IP (VOIP) may be most threatened by Google Voice, which will let users make calls within the U.S. at no cost, and international calls at an inexpensive rate.

Take Jajah, an Internet telephone service that recently scored nearly $2.8 million in a round of funding. Jajah uses VOIP to connect landlines and mobile phones at a low cost.

Investor and entrepreneur Paul Kedrosky predicts Google will have the same impact on Internet telephony as the company has had on search engines.

On Tuesday, Seattle's oldest newspaper, the Hearst-owned Post-Intelligencer, will crank out its last printed edition. The P-I, as it's known, has a daily print circulation above 125,000 and nearly a half million Sunday readers. That makes it by far the largest newspaper to date to shut down its newsprint operations and become an Internet-only publication.

The reason is simple: The paper lost $14 million last year, and print newspaper revenues are almost universally shrinking even more at a rapid rate. The newspaper had already outsourced print operations to its crosstown rival, the Seattle Times.

The P-I's enormous globe sign (in photo above, click for the full image) is an iconic part of Seattle's skyline. Former employees include the novelists Frank Herbert and E.B. White. The paper isn't going away, but its format and focus will shift radically. Taking a cue from the success of the Huffington Post, the P-I will become more like Seattle news and opinion site Crosscut.

Hearst told The New York Times that the P-I will reduce its staff from 165 people to about 20. Popular columnists and bloggers will stay on, as will the people who blog for free for the P-I's website. Another 20 or so people will be hired to do online ad sales and other Web-related functions.