IN BRIEF

CAMARILLO, Calif.

Gasoline prices up 7 cents, survey says

A survey says the national average price for gasoline rose 7 cents over the last two weeks.

The average price of self-serve regular gasoline on Friday was $3.26 a gallon, mid-grade was $3.38 and premium was $3.50.

That's all according to the Lundberg Survey of 7,000 stations nationwide released Sunday.

Of the cities surveyed, the cheapest price was in Newark, N.J., where a gallon of regular cost $3.03, on average.

The highest average price for gasoline was in San Francisco at $3.66.

NEW YORK

Companies planning videophone device

Will the HDTV set be the new picturephone?

Quanta Computer Inc., a leading contract maker of laptop computers, and OoVoo, a maker of video chat software, are announcing plans today to take high-definition videoconferencing to the living room with a gadget that plugs into the HDTV and connects it to the Internet.

Users of the Quanta Video Messenger will be able to hold chats from the comfort of their living rooms with others with the device as well as anyone who is running OoVoo's software on a PC.

It's expected to be available later this year for a price that's affordable for consumers, said OoVoo Chief Executive Philippe Schwarz. A prototype of the gadget, recently displayed at OoVoo's New York headquarters, was the size of a hardback book and had connectors for a high-definition webcam and audio. It was unclear whether the final product will ship with a webcam and mike.

OoVoo is also in early discussions with U.S. phone and cable companies about the possibility of building the videoconferencing function into their set-top boxes, Schwarz said.

Home appliances for videoconferencing have been famously elusive: AT&T demonstrated a picturephone in the 1960s, but no company has managed to crack this market.

Video chatting with software like eBay Inc.'s Skype has become popular on personal computers, but setup can be difficult, since the software needs to interface with a webcam, microphone and loudspeakers or headset. Video quality has been lagging, partly because of limited processing power and partly because home broadband connections generally have low upload speeds.

NEW YORK

Verizon to offer FIOS to apartment complex

Verizon's fiber-optic service, so far mainly available to suburbanites, is making a big push into Manhattan with a deal to connect an 11,232-unit apartment complex.

Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village, an enclave of 110 buildings on Manhattan's East Side, is the largest apartment complex in Manhattan and the largest to get FiOS service anywhere in Verizon's 17-state fiber buildout area.

Verizon Communications Inc. is to announce the deal today, but seven buildings are already connected. It will take some months to connect the rest.

Single-family houses have been the low-hanging fruit for the company's $23 billion project to replace its copper phone lines with fiber optics. Connecting apartments is technically more difficult and requires permission from landlords.

At the end of last year, 560,000 apartments in Verizon's phone service area were open to FiOS marketing through deals with landlords, out of the 2.4 million apartments that could technically be connected because the company has run fiber down the street.

Only scattered buildings in New York City have FiOS. Eric Cevis, head of the FiOS unit that focuses on apartment buildings, could not say how many buildings are connected, but said there are FiOS installations in all five boroughs of the city.

It's unclear when FiOS will be more widely available. Verizon has no video franchise agreement with the city, so it can provide only Internet and phone service over fiber.

It is negotiating to get permission to provide the full "triple play" that includes cable TV.