FCC Opens Market for Cable Boxes

fistfullast33l writes

"The FCC rendered a decision today against a Comcast appeal that centers on integrated security features in set-top cable boxes. The decision comes at the end of a long standing feud between the FCC and cable companies over the matter. The result is that starting July 1st, cable boxes distributed by cable companies must not be tied directly to a cable provider via internal security features. This rule is viewed as the first step in creating a market for set-top cable boxes. Comcast does have the right to appeal and has said they will do so. From the article: 'Several major consumer electronics manufacturers have argued that if set-top boxes weren't directly linked to the provision of cable service, they could enter the set-top market. Consumers could get a cable card from their service provider that they could insert into a set-top box purchased at a consumer electronics store. The cards would ensure that consumers could only access channels that they paid for.'"

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Pirate Bay to Purchase Sealand?

paulraps writes

"Notorious Swedish file-sharing website The Pirate Bay is planning to buy its own nation in an attempt to get around troublesome international copyright laws. The organization, the world's largest bit torrent tracker, has set its sights on Sealand, a former British naval platform in the North Sea that has been designated a 'micronation' and claims to be outside UK jurisdiction. With a target price of £500m it won't be cheap, but Pirate Bay says contributors will become honorary citizens."

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HP investigator to plead guilty, testify

The data broker charged with federal crimes for his role in the Hewlett-Packard news-leak probe will testify against other defendants, according to sources close to the case.

Bryan Wagner, who was charged with federal identity theft and conspiracy on Wednesday, plans to plead guilty and has agreed to testify for the prosecution in exchange for a lighter sentence, according to two sources with knowledge of Wagner's plans. Wagner could not be reached Thursday.

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Intel countersues Transmeta

Intel has filed a lawsuit against chip designer Transmeta, alleging that the company infringes on seven of its patents.

The suit, filed earlier this week in a U.S. District Court in Delaware, comes roughly three months after Transmeta filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Intel for allegedly violating 11 of its patents.

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AMD warns of disappointing fourth quarter

Blaming falling PC processor prices, Advanced Micro Devices has warned that its holiday sales and profits fell short of its expectations.

In a statement late Thursday, the chipmaker said that it would report positive operating income for the fourth quarter but that profit would be "substantially lower" than in the prior quarter.

Fourth-quarter revenue, excluding its recently acquired ATI Technologies graphics business, increased about three percent from the $1.33 billion reported in the third quarter, AMD said. That's less than the "seasonally strong" fourth quarter that the company had predicted.

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Mac flaw puts Safari surfers at risk

A serious security flaw in Mac OS X opens machines with Apple's Safari Web browser to hijack by outsiders, Secunia has warned.

The vulnerability and "proof of concept" code to exploit it were released on Wednesday as part of the Month of Apple Bugs project. It affects Mac OS X 10.4.8, the most recent version of Apple's operating system and, possibly, previous versions, security researcher LMH said in the posting on MOAB's Web site.

The flaw can be exploited if the Mac user has enabled an option in Safari to "open safe files after downloading," Secunia said in an advisory Thursday. The security company has rated the problem "highly critical."

"It is never good to have something open automatically when you download it, so users should disable this automatic feature in Safari," said Thomas Kristensen, Secunia's chief technology officer.

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Wii beats out PlayStation 3 in U.S.

Nintendo sold 604,200 of its new Wii video game consoles in the United States in December, beating Sony, which sold 490,700 units of its new PlayStation 3, according to NPD.

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Novell: SCO insolvency 'imminent, inevitable'

Novell has claimed that The SCO Group, the licensing and consulting firm conducting various legal campaigns over the Linux operating system, is about to go bankrupt.

In a court filing reported this week by legal Web site Groklaw, Novell claimed that SCO should pay it almost all of the Unix licensing revenue it has received from Sun Microsystems and Microsoft. This revenue amounts to almost $26 million, and was earned by SCO when it sold Unix licenses to Sun and Microsoft in 2003.

This revenue helped SCO to mount a legal battle in support of its claims that IBM violated SCO's intellectual property by including proprietary code from Unix--on which SCO claims copyright--in Linux.

Novell, though, argues that it is owed that revenue. In 1995, it transferred Unix and UnixWare to Santa Cruz Operations (now SCO) under a deal called the Asset Purchase Agreement (APA). The deal stated that SCO would hand over 95 percent of all revenue it received from SVRX (Unix System V) license agreements.

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SAP sales miss target

Germany's SAP missed its own forecast for fourth-quarter licence sales, as growth slowed in the United States.

The software maker said Thursday that fourth-quarter licence sales--which are key to future service and maintenance revenue--were about 1.26 billion euros ($1.63 billion), less than the 1.35 billion euros average forecast in a Reuters poll of 23 analysts.

For all of 2006, licence sales grew 11 percent, or 13.5 percent in constant currency. That's far short of the goal the company set of 15 percent to 17 percent in constant-currency growth.

SAP gave no reason in its preliminary results statement for the weaker performance. The company, the world's biggest maker of business software, faces increasingly fierce competition from U.S.- based archrival Oracle.

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'WoW': 8 million served

Currently, the population of Earth is estimated to be 6.7 billion people. As of this week, roughly 0.1 percent of the sum of modern humanity plays World of Warcraft.

On Thursday, Blizzard Entertainment announced that more than 8 million people subscribe to the massive massively multiplayer online role-playing game, setting a new milestone for the title more than two years after its fall 2004 release.

As it is with the real-world population, Chinese subscribers are the largest demographic in Azeroth, totaling 3.5 million players, Blizzard said. Next up is North America, with 2 million players, followed by Europe, with 1.5 million--the remainder of subscribers are in other territories. Subscription rates vary by region, but U.S. players pay $14.95 each month to play WoW after doling out the suggested retail price for the game, which has been lowered to $19.99.

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Give a child a video game--and maybe a job

Mathematics, science and video games? A U.S. university professor is urging schools to consider using video games as tools to better prepare children for the work force.

For although many educators scoff at the idea of video games in schools, the U.S. military has titles that train soldiers, teenagers with cancer use a game to battle their illness virtually and physically, and some surgeons use video games to keep their hands nimble.

David Williamson Shaffer, an education science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, says schools should use games to prepare children to compete in the work force, where juggling technology is a daily requirement.

"People think that the way we teach kids in schools is the natural way we should learn," said Shaffer, author of the book How Computer Games Help Children Learn.

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