Tech Shot

Microsoft's Vista AV Fails Certification

2007-02-07T13:46:00.000-05:00

An anonymous reader writes

"Microsoft's much-hyped anti-virus solution, Live OneCare and three other Vista AV products failed to achieve the Virus Bulletin's VB100 certification. The other products are McAfee's VirusScan Enterprise, G DATA's AntiVirusKit 2007, and Norman's VirusControl. All failed to pass a series of tests that are required to display the VB100 badge. 'With the number of delays that we've seen in Vista's release, there's no excuse for security vendors not to have got their products right by now,' said John Hawes, technical consultant at Virus Bulletin."

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Google Docs to support Powerpoint

2007-02-07T13:38:00.001-05:00

KindredHyperion writes

"Garett Rogers at ZDNet has an article on the prospect of a Powerpoint-esque addition to Google Docs and Spreadsheets. From the article: "If you dig around the language files in Google Docs, you will find what appears to be traces of a new service preparing for launch soon. Meet Google Presently — an online presentation creator that will likely read and write the most common formats like Microsoft PowerPoint and Open Office Impress.""

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Amazon & Tivo Take on Netflix

2007-02-07T13:36:00.000-05:00

RadioTV writes

"Amazon is in Beta testing with select Tivo users to allow Unbox videos to be downloaded to Series 2 and 3 set-top boxes. The FAQ for the service is available."

The price point for movies is fairly reasonable. No HD and won't work with DirecTV's obsoleted HD tivo, but this is a step in the right direction.

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Dell Laptops Have Shocking New Problem

2007-02-07T13:34:00.000-05:00

dapsychous writes

"A friend of one of my coworkers has noticed a problem in Dell notebook computers (also covered in this engadget article) about a problem that has been popping up lately in Dell 17" notebook computers. It seems that these computers are putting out between 19 and 139 (65 according to article, 139 according to him) volts of AC power as measured from any chassis screw vs. earth ground. This has led to several problems including fried ram, blown video circuits, and a stout zap on his left hand. According to him, Dell has tried to keep him quiet about the problem and has even gone so far as to have him banned from a few websites, and threatened him with legal action if he tells people about the problem."

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Facebook ready to make TV debut

2007-02-07T09:20:00.000-05:00

Facebook.com, the social-networking Web site, said Tuesday it is moving into television by teaming up with cable operator Comcast's online video site Ziddio to produce a new series from users' clips called Facebook Diaries.

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Sony Ericsson to launch eight new phones

2007-02-07T09:19:00.001-05:00

Sony Ericsson, the world's No. 4 mobile-phone maker, aggressively expanded its lineup of low-cost phones Tuesday, joining bigger rivals in the fight for customers in emerging markets.

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LG wins contest for low-cost 3G phone contract

2007-02-07T09:18:00.001-05:00

LG Electronics has won a contest organized by the GSM Association to produce a low-cost handset for third generation mobile phone networks, a source close to the contest told Reuters on Tuesday.

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Kodak's consumer printers aim to chop ink costs

2007-02-07T09:17:00.001-05:00

Eastman Kodak announced a new line of inkjet printers on Tuesday that are geared toward everyday consumers and designed to cut down on ink costs.

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What rising sea levels could mean for coastal areas

2007-02-07T09:15:00.001-05:00

If sea levels rise a meter, the streets of Miami could end up underwater while New Orleans could become part of the Gulf of Mexico. But those aren't the only areas that will be in trouble, if two researchers from the University of Arizona are correct.

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Jailed blogger hits record as supporters rally

2007-02-07T09:09:00.000-05:00

SAN FRANCISCO--Dozens of supporters of jailed freelance video blogger Josh Wolf gathered at City Hall here Tuesday to rally for Wolf's release.

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Solar 'Heliotube' company partners with installers

2007-02-07T09:07:00.000-05:00

Solar power start-up Practical Instruments has signed on three installers of its "Heliotube," a solar panel equipped with tubes that follow the sun's direction.

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Internet backbone at center of suspected attack

2007-02-07T09:06:00.001-05:00

There are signs that hackers attacked key parts of the backbone of the Internet on Tuesday, but no damage seems to have been done, experts said.

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Kyoto Protocol successor on British agenda

2007-02-07T09:04:00.000-05:00

Britain wants to launch a major international clean-energy project with other European countries, Japan and the United States in a drive to combat climate change, Prime Minister Tony Blair said on Tuesday.

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If catastrophe strikes tomorrow, are we ready?

2007-02-07T09:02:00.000-05:00

If a major catastrophe struck the United States today our first responders would not have the communications capabilities they need to save lives. Our federal, state and local public safety officers lack "interoperability," the ability to communicate effectively and efficiently across jurisdictions. Currently, in most places in the United States, a state police unit cannot directly communicate with a local sheriff. Nor can a county fire chief talk directly to a local firefighting unit or to federal officials.

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Outsourcing your 'Warcraft' skills

2007-02-07T08:58:00.000-05:00

According to an estimate from a company called Power-levels.com, it would take someone starting from scratch 768 hours to reach the highest level you can hit in World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade.

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Video stars in Cisco's earnings boost

2007-02-07T08:56:00.000-05:00

Demand from cable operators and phone companies upgrading and building new networks to carry video is fueling growth for Cisco Systems, the world's largest supplier of equipment that shuttles bits around the Internet.

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Warner Music enters social-networking content deal

2007-02-07T08:54:00.000-05:00

Warner Music Group has signed a deal to allow its entire catalog to be played over the fast-growing social-networking music service LastFM, the innovative site that links music fans to new and old hits.

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IBM tunes up for Jazz open-source project

2007-01-31T13:16:00.000-05:00

IBM is working on an open-source project called Jazz to promote programming tools for globally distributed teams.

Set to launch in June at Jazz.net, the project will be based on work from IBM Research and its Rational tools division around geographically distributed collaborative software development.

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Raining on Microsoft's parade

2007-01-31T13:14:00.000-05:00

On the eve of the Microsoft Vista and Office 2007 launch, Thomas Vinje describes himself as a "native son gone bad."

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Intel ups server share, but AMD wins in PCs

2007-01-31T13:12:00.000-05:00

Intel continued to reclaim server chip market share from Advanced Micro Devices in the fourth quarter of 2006, but the smaller rival's strength with consumers helped it gain in desktops and notebooks.

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Vista's actual launch? Think whisper, not bang

2007-01-31T13:09:00.000-05:00

NEW YORK--The actual New York City release of Microsoft's new Windows Vista operating system, at midnight on Tuesday, couldn't have been more different from the prelaunch events that filled up many a reporter's business and social calendars on Monday.

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Vista steals the show

2007-01-31T11:58:00.001-05:00

NEW YORK--Now that Steve Ballmer has launched Windows Vista and Office 2007, he has his sights set on getting a key user to upgrade: his wife.

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Sony profit down on PS3, outlook raised

2007-01-31T11:56:00.002-05:00

Sony posted a 15 percent fall in quarterly operating profit on Tuesday after massive losses at its game unit offset robust sales of flat-panel TVs, but it raised its annual outlook closer to market expectations.

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Sony profit down on PS3, outlook raised

2007-01-31T11:56:00.001-05:00

Web giants ask for feds' help on censorship

2007-01-31T11:53:00.001-05:00

WASHINGTON--Google, Yahoo and Microsoft representatives on Tuesday implored the U.S. government to help set ground rules for complying with demands by foreign law enforcement agencies for user records or censorship.

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Apple's 802.11n software now available

2007-01-31T11:49:00.001-05:00

Apple on Tuesday released the software needed to unlock the fast Wi-Fi chips inside almost every one of its new Macs.

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Bill Gates' to-do list

2007-01-31T11:46:00.001-05:00

NEW YORK--It's still a year before Bill Gates shifts from a full-time Microsoft worker to a part-timer. Which is good, because there's plenty he still wants to achieve.

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Fighting to protect 'orphans'

2007-01-31T11:45:00.001-05:00

An effort among Internet activists to halt the extension of copyright protections for orphan works--out-of-print books and media--was dealt a setback last week by a U.S. appeals court decision.

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Sony settles with FTC in rootkit case

2007-01-31T11:43:00.001-05:00

Sony BMG Music Entertainment announced on Tuesday that it has reached a proposed settlement with the Federal Trade Commission over the controversial embedding of antipiracy software its CDs without users' knowledge.

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At AlwaysOn, talking 'bout the IM generation

2007-01-31T11:40:00.000-05:00

NEW YORK--It's not uncommon these days to hear debate about how advertisers and media insiders can successfully get through to the age demographic known as "Generation Y," the "MySpace generation," or the "IM (instant message) generation."

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Sweden to open 'Second Life' embassy

2007-01-31T11:38:00.000-05:00

Sweden plans to be the first country to open an embassy in the popular virtual world Second Life. "It will have answers to questions on all aspects of Sweden," Olle Wastberg, general director of the Swedish Institute, an organization that promotes the country's image abroad, said Tuesday.Read more...

Prices to plunge with demand for plasma TVs?

2007-01-31T11:37:00.001-05:00

It looks as if plasma is losing ground in the high end of the TV market.

Shipments of plasma panels--sheets of glass placed inside plasma televisions--rose only 3 percent in the fourth quarter of 2006 over the same period the year before and actually declined 4 percent from the third quarter of 2006, according to research firm DisplaySearch.

It was the first quarter that plasma panel shipments grew less than 47 percent on a year-to-year basis and only the second time since the first quarter of 2003 that there has been a sequential decline.

Plasma panel shipments were 15 percent lower than the suppliers' aggregate forecast and 9 percent below DisplaySearch's forecast.

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Alleged porn spammer settles with FTC

2007-01-31T11:35:00.000-05:00

An alleged marketer of online porn has agreed to pay a $465,000 penalty to settle spam charges, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission said Tuesday.

Under a proposed settlement, TJ Web Productions has also agreed to adhere to federal spam laws, the FTC said in a statement. This means the company has promised to use the phrase "sexually explicit" in message subject lines and ensure that the initially viewable area of the message does not display explicit images.

Additionally, TJ Web Productions has promised that any unsolicited commercial e-mail will include an opportunity for recipients to opt out of receiving future e-mail and provide a postal address, the FTC said. The promises are all required by the FTC's Adult Labeling Rule and the Can-Spam Act.

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Hubble humbled by power failure

2007-01-31T11:33:00.000-05:00

The main camera aboard the Hubble Space Telescope has stopped functioning due to a short circuit, NASA announced Monday.

The Advanced Camera for Surveys, installed on the Hubble in March 2002, is considered the Hubble's "workhorse," according to Dave Leckrone, the senior project scientist on the Hubble Space Telescope.

About the size of a public phone booth, the scientific instrument consists of filters and dispersers that can sense wavelengths from ultraviolet to infrared on the light spectrum, and three electronic cameras.

The Hubble will still be able to function, but until a new camera is installed in 2008, the images will not be as far reaching.

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Symantec unveils Vault for enterprise storage

2007-01-31T11:32:00.000-05:00

Symantec has launched Enterprise Vault 7.0, which the company says will enable IT managers to prioritize how they store messages.

As well as handling e-mail storage, IT managers can use the product to archive business-critical instant messages, the company said.

"We had a long, hard look at what's happening in the market," said Fredrik Sjostedt, European senior manager for product marketing at Symantec. "E-mail is a mission-critical function, but we needed a wider look to include instant messaging and Microsoft Sharepoint, as people are using the Web as a group interaction tool," he said.

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SanDisk to make USB security push

2007-01-31T11:30:00.000-05:00

Flash memory maker SanDisk next week plans to announce a product designed to help businesses manage and control the use of USB drives.

The Milpitas, Calif., company has scheduled the announcement for the RSA Conference in San Francisco, the annual bonanza of security products for businesses. "SanDisk will unveil a comprehensive solution for the enterprise security market, providing protection and control for USB flash drives," the company said in a statement.

USB drives and other gadgets carried around by workers pose a real security risk, security experts have said. Connecting the devices to work PCs could be a vehicle for malicious code to enter a corporate network, or a tool for disgruntled employees to smuggle confidential information out of the office, for example.

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Outdated Domains To Meet Their End

2007-01-30T15:41:00.000-05:00

Dr. Eggman writes

"The little used .um internet domain is no more. The domain was used, or rather unused, for US minor outlying islands and the University of Southern California's Information Sciences Institute had grown tired of maintaining it. This announcement comes as last month ICANN began taking comments on deletion of outdated suffixes. Among the top of the list? .su, the internet domain of the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union's .su may prove harder to remove however, as Google still lists 3 million .su sites."

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Verizon Wireless passed on iPhone two years ago

2007-01-30T09:36:00.000-05:00

Verizon Wireless could have been the first wireless carrier to offer the Apple iPhone, but the mobile carrier passed on the opportunity because Apple's financial terms were too steep, Verizon said Monday.

Denny Strigl, president and chief operating officer of Verizon Communications, said the iPhone will help draw attention to the whole mobile-music movement, but he said he was glad Verizon passed on the opportunity. Verizon Wireless is jointly owned by Verizon Communications and the European wireless carrier Vodafone.

"The iPhone product is something we are happy we aren't the first to market with," he said during Verizon Communications' fourth-quarter 2006 earnings call on Monday.

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Nickelodeon to launch virtual world for kids

2007-01-30T09:33:00.000-05:00

Nickelodeon on Tuesday plans to launch "Nicktropolis," a virtual world that encourages kids to play games, watch TV and interact with animated characters like SpongeBob.

With Nicktropolis, the children's cable network joins parent unit Viacom's MTV Networks in embracing virtual worlds as a way to showcase television programming and advertisements against a backdrop of 3D graphics, instant chat, games and shopping. MTV operates the virtual world Laguna Beach and owns the wildly popular virtual game NeoPets, among other Net properties.

"The virtual worlds we've been building across our networks give the fans of our brands the high level of interaction they want with one another...with the content itself," MTV Networks CEO Judy McGrath said in a statement.

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MySpace donates sex offender database to center

2007-01-30T09:13:00.000-05:00

MySpace.com will donate a national computer database on U.S. sex offenders to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, the popular social-networking site said Monday.

Sex offender data is collected by individual state authorities. News Corp.'s MySpace and background verification company Sentinel Tech Holdings developed a technology that combines close to 50 U.S. state registries in an aim to help police keep track of an estimated 600,000 convicted sex offenders.

MySpace has increased efforts to block convicted adult sex predators from the site, which is a meeting place for a large population of teens attracted to the service to share photos, blogs, music and videos.

Earlier this month, the families of five girls abducted by adults they met on MySpace sued the company for negligence.

The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) said it will use the new database to help law enforcement in investigations. Its local alerts are now incorporated within MySpace.

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Patents for dynamic Web pages to get another look

2007-01-30T09:09:00.000-05:00

U.S. patent examiners are poised to take another look at two controversial patents that critics say may sweep up the dynamic Web page systems commonly used by search features, online merchants and millions of other sites.

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office announced the move last week in letters to the Public Patent Foundation, which last November requested the re-examination. PubPat, as it is known, is a public interest legal group whose directors include free and open-source software advocates.

The patents in question, Nos. 5,894,554 and 6,415,335, cover systems and methods for managing dynamic Web page generation requests--that is, sites that return a customized page based on user input. An enormous number of Web sites use some form of dynamic processing, often through programming languages, such as PHP, that are designed to create Web pages based on database queries.

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Newspapers don't make the grade in Web-savvy schools

2007-01-30T09:06:00.000-05:00

More U.S. teachers are using national and international online-news sites in the classroom, leaving behind newspapers that fail to grasp the Internet's importance in trying to reach students, a study found.

Fifty-seven percent of teachers use Internet-based news in the classroom with some frequency, said the study, which was based on a survey of 1,262 teachers in grades 5 through 12 in the fall of 2006 and released on Monday by the Carnegie-Knight Task Force on the Future of Journalism Education.

That compares with 31 percent for national television news and 28 percent for daily papers. Local television news, at 13 percent, was at the bottom of the list, the study found.

"Students do not relate to newspapers at all--any more than they would to vinyl records," one teacher said in the study.

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Priceline, Travelocity, Cingular settle over adware charges

2007-01-30T09:03:00.000-05:00

Priceline.com, Travelocity.com and Cingular Wireless have settled over charges that they used secret adware Internet software programs as marketing tools, New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo said on Monday.

This is the first time marketers have been held responsible for ads displayed through adware, the software that automatically displays promotional material, Cuomo's office said in a statement.

The settlement calls for Priceline.com, Travelocity and Cingular, the wireless unit of AT&T, to pay New York $35,000, $30,000 and $35,000, respectively, to cover penalties and investigatory costs.

"Advertisers can no longer insulate themselves from liability by turning a blind eye to how their advertisements are delivered, or by placing ads through intermediaries, such as media buyers," the statement said.

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Getting printers down to iPod size

2007-01-30T08:58:00.000-05:00

Zink wants to take the printer off your desk and put it in your pocket. The question now is whether you want it there.

The Waltham, Mass.-based start-up has created--with help from Polaroid--a way to print photographs or documents without ink or an ink cartridge. Without an ink cartridge, a printer can be reduced to the size of an iPod or smaller, said CEO Wendy Caswell. The controlling factor when it comes to printer size is whether you want 2 x 3 inch prints or 4 x 6 inch prints. Zink says it has two manufacturing partners lined up, and products based on its technology will come out later this year.

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Adobe: Make room for Photoshop Lightroom

2007-01-30T08:45:00.000-05:00

Photoshop Lightroom, the photo file manager from Adobe Systems, is now available for preorder, the company announced Monday.

Adobe's photo management software, which has been in beta for months for Windows users and since 2005 for Mac OS users, is scheduled to begin shipping in mid-February.

Lightroom is a file management tool intended to complement photo-editing software such as Adobe's Photoshop. It enables photographers to import, minimally edit, manage and output batches of large digital photo files rather than having to deal with each file individually.

It is a direct competitor to Apple's Aperture 1.5 software, which currently sells for $299.

Lightroom will sell at the Adobe store for US$199 in the United States and Canada through April 30, according to Adobe. After that, it will be sold for about $299. The public beta version is set to expire February 28.

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TomTom shipped viruses on its navigation devices

2007-01-30T08:41:00.000-05:00

Satellite navigation company TomTom has admitted that it shipped two viruses on a number of its devices.

According to the company, a "small number" of TomTom GO 910 satellite navigation devices were shipped last year with malicious software preinstalled.

"It has come to our attention that a small, isolated number of TomTom GO 910s, produced between September and November 2006, may be infected with a virus. Appropriate actions have been taken to make sure this is prevented from happening again in the future," said TomTom in a statement.

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About South Korea's 'dependency' on Microsoft

2007-01-29T11:10:00.000-05:00

A couple of people recently have alleged that South Korea is being pushed around by Microsoft. It's not nearly as bad as it sounds.

"This nation is also a unique monoculture where 99.9% of all the computer users are on Microsoft Windows. This nation is a place where Apple Macintosh users cannot bank online, make any purchases online, or interact with any of the nation's e-government sites online," wrote South Korean blogger Gen Kanai. Commentators on technology news site Slashdot have also tsk-tsk-ed the situation.

The pending release of Vista has prompted many to speculate that it could increase security risks.

To some, this looks like the ugly face of monopolism and bad decisions by government leaders and large corporations. But there is actually a much simpler reason why people in South Korea have so much Microsoft software.

They steal it.

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Analysts: Latest breakthroughs won't alter chip race

2007-01-29T11:06:00.000-05:00

Intel is set to capitalize on a new breakthrough in microchip technology more quickly than its rival Advanced Micro Devices, but analysts say the advantage will only be temporary.

Like two superpowers announcing successful nuclear tests at the same time, last Friday Intel and IBM both said they had solved a vexing electricity leakage problem in microchips.

While hailed as the biggest breakthrough in transistor design in four decades, the advances do not alter the product roadmaps for the two companies, which call for their chips to shrink roughly every two years.

"It sounds more evolutionary to me rather than revolutionary," said Eric Ross, an analyst with ThinkEquity Partners.

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Windows Cheif Bows Out

2007-01-29T11:02:00.000-05:00

REDMOND, Wash.--Sitting behind a one-way mirror, a white-haired man struggles to access a shared music library within Windows Vista.

"I'm lost," he says. "I'm in trouble here."

On the other side of the glass, several Microsoft executives try to talk him through the experience. Thousands of people have gone through similar tests inside Microsoft's usability lab. But on this day, February 1, 2006, the person inside Building 28 isn't just some random beta tester. It's Windows boss Jim Allchin.

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Borland to throw down Gauntlet in life cycle tools strategy

2007-01-29T11:00:00.001-05:00

Borland Software on Monday is expected to release a product meant to further its strategy of selling broad product suites for corporate software development.

Borland Gauntlet is an application that allows software development teams to track and measure the progress of ongoing projects. The release marks the first time Gauntlet is being issued under the Borland name. The company acquired the technology when it bought Gauntlet Systems in May.

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Adobe to send PDF to standards group

2007-01-29T10:55:00.000-05:00

Adobe Systems on Monday is expected to detail plans to submit its Portable Document Format specifications to the International Organization for Standardization, a body of particular importance to governments and large corporations.

Subsets of the PDF format have already been standardized, including one for archiving documents. But Adobe customers, particularly governments, have told Adobe that making PDF an ISO-approved standard would raise their level of confidence that the format would be around in the long term, said Kevin Lynch, Adobe's chief software architect.

"We've already been taking feedback and updating the specification over time. Now we'll be doing it in a more formal way, through a standards body," he said.

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TV finds wealthier viewers on Net, study says

2007-01-25T10:14:00.000-05:00

U.S. television networks draw a younger, wealthier and better educated audience when they run their shows over the Internet, according to a study released Wednesday.

The study by Nielsen Analytics and Scarborough Research comes as networks have increasingly made hit TV shows--including ABC's "Grey's Anatomy" and NBC's "Heroes"--available for viewing through computers.

Concerns that allowing consumers to view those popular programs and others over the Internet would cut into the number of people watching them on television are unfounded, the study found.

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SAP misses targets, gives hazy outlook

2007-01-25T10:13:00.001-05:00

SAP failed to give a 2007 outlook for closely watched license sales on Wednesday and said margins would fall as it invests in software for smaller firms, sending its shares down more than 5 percent.

The German software group, which shocked investors by announcing earlier this month that it had missed its 2006 license sales target, said it would no longer forecast license revenues due to changing sales models.

Instead of giving an outlook for software license sales--the money companies pay up front for new software, which hooks them in to maintenance and service contracts--SAP gave a forecast for software and software-related services.

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Why it's not easy being green

2007-01-25T10:11:00.000-05:00

PALM DESERT, Calif.--Numerous technologies exist to curb energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. The problem is that consumers lack the willpower to embrace them, according to at least one energy expert.

"This country only gets excited about energy when oil prices get high," Dan Arvisu, director of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, said during a presentation at the Clean-Tech Investor Summit taking place here. "We do have a problem with how serious we are about our energy challenges."

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Netflix posts better than expected earnings

2007-01-25T10:09:00.000-05:00

Online DVD rental company Netflix reported lower fourth quarter net income on Wednesday but still beat Wall Street expectations and its shares rose more than 6 percent in after-hours trade.

But the company forecast 2007 revenue below estimates, and one analyst said the company's outlook factors in the impact of stiff competition from rival Blockbuster.

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Kids' TV faces new Net restrictions

2007-01-25T10:07:00.000-05:00

CNN can promote its advertisement-laced online presence however it likes during broadcasts, but new federal rules mean TV channels like Nickelodeon that cater to children no longer enjoy the same freedom.

The Federal Communications Commission decreed that during shows geared toward children age 12 and under, cable and broadcast operators may not display addresses for Web sites that contain any links to commercial content. The rules took effect on January 2.

Never mind that recent visits to NickJr.com and Noggin.com, online properties of kid networks, turned up more advertisements for Tylenol cold medicine and Nissan minivans than for anything youth-targeted. And some child advocacy groups would argue that many kids' television shows amount to program-length commercials for the toys and edible goodies endorsed by their stars.

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Pope condemns violent games

2007-01-25T10:05:00.000-05:00

If Jack Thompson, the self-proclaimed crusader against violent games, was looking for a powerful ally, he just found one.

Pope Benedict XVI, current head and spiritual leader of the Catholic Church, voiced his opinion on games Wednesday from the Vatican, saying that violent or sexually explicit games are a "perversion" and "repulsive."

As part of the annual papal message for World Communications Day, the theme of which was "Children and the Media: A Challenge for Education," the pope talked about the media's effect on children, paying particular attention to games and films.

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Sundance holds screening in 'Second Life' for first time

2007-01-25T10:03:00.000-05:00

PARK CITY, Utah--Never before had Sundance Film Festival audience members been part fox, used names like "NeoConD" and "Apparatchik," or had the power to teleport away.

Marking a first for both Sundance and cyberspace, these viewers were avatars watching a feature-length festival film Monday from a screening room in the virtual world of Second Life.

"This is one for the grandkids," said Henrik Bennetsen, who helped with the presentation in Second Life as part of the Stanford Humanities Lab.

The avatars were joined by real-life festivalgoers in a wired theater that allowed for a subsequent forum in which questions were fielded from both worlds.

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Simply Hired offers content-related job listings

2007-01-25T10:01:00.000-05:00

Not making enough money off the Google ads on your Web site? No problem. Add pay-per-click job listings.

Job classifieds search engine Simply Hired on Wednesday launched a service dubbed "Job-a-matic," which lets Web site publishers and bloggers add listings for jobs that are related to the content on their site. The site makes money every time someone clicks on a listing, receiving 30 percent of the revenue generated, said Gautam Godhwani, chief executive of Simply Hired.

Simply Hired modeled its pay-per-click system on Google's AdWords search-marketing system, in which advertisers bid on keywords in an auction and agree to pay a certain price each time their ad is clicked on.

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Toshiba eyes faster chips to win in iPhone era

2007-01-25T09:59:00.000-05:00

Japan's Toshiba said on Wednesday it will match rival Samsung Electronics' March launch of the industry's first 2GB NAND flash chip by mass-producing a chip with as much storage a month later.

Toshiba, the world's second-largest NAND chip maker after Samsung, is eyeing an expected a surge in demand propelled by Apple's music-playing iPhone, analysts said.

The iPhone--which will come with 4GB or 8GB of NAND--has fueled hope among flash memory makers who have become weary of price falls eating away at profit margins, said Mizuho Investors Securities analyst Yuichi Ishida.

"The iPhone is testament that price falls are giving birth to new applications and new NAND demand," Ishida said.

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New York pension fund takes lead in Apple lawsuit

2007-01-25T09:57:00.000-05:00

The New York City Employees' Retirement System said on Monday it was picked as the lead plaintiff in a shareholder lawsuit against Apple over its stock options practices.

The pension fund will spearhead the lawsuit, which contends Apple violated securities laws through its options awards to top executives, according to the fund's law firm, Grant & Eisenhofer.

The lawsuit seeks class-action status on behalf of other investors in the company.

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Microsoft extends support for XP Home, XP Media Center

2007-01-25T09:56:00.000-05:00

Would you like some extra support with that software?

That's what Microsoft is now offering buyers of Windows XP Home Edition and Windows XP Media Center Edition. The company announced on Wednesday that it is adding five-year customer support for the operating systems, marking the first time that such extended service has been offered with a Microsoft consumer product.

The "extended" support, which kicks in after April 2009, will bring the two products on par with Microsoft's Windows XP Professional for businesses. Microsoft previously reserved its five-year extended support feature to only enterprise-grade products.

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Microsoft to launch Vista with human billboard

2007-01-25T09:54:00.000-05:00

Microsoft will kick off its Windows Vista launch activities with a human billboard in downtown New York.

The Cirque du Soleil-style performance will take place at 9 a.m. Monday at the Terminal Building.

"It's a billboard. It's marketing, except that it's made by people," Mike Sievert, corporate VP for Windows told CNET News.com late Wednesday.

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HP accused of spying on Dell's printer plans

2007-01-25T09:52:00.000-05:00

A former Hewlett-Packard executive accused by the company of stealing trade secrets is now saying that he was instructed by the company's management to spy on rival Dell.

Karl Kamb Jr., previously HP's vice president of business development and strategy, was named as a defendant in a federal lawsuit filed by HP in 2005. It alleges that onetime HP employees illegally started a rival flat-screen TV company while still working at HP and it is claiming up to $100 million in damages.

Kamb, who has denied any wrongdoing, filed a countersuit in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas on Friday, according to legal documents.

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Profit surges at eBay

2007-01-25T09:49:00.000-05:00

Quarterly net profit at eBay rose 24 percent, aided by strength in its core auction business and by international growth, and the company said 2007 earnings would be at the high end of analysts' forecasts.

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Why ISPs can breathe easier after a porno decision

2007-01-24T12:05:00.000-05:00

Internet service providers naturally are concerned about circumstances under which they potentially could be held liable for content posted by users. But after a recent decision by a Texas federal judge, ISPs can breathe a collective sigh of relief.

The judge dismissed an ISP as a defendant in the case of Doe v. Bates (PDF), even though the offending conduct at issue was alleged to be in violation of criminal law.

In that case, the plaintiffs alleged that the ISP knowingly hosted illegal child pornography on a particular e-group. An e-group is an Internet-based forum where users can engage in discussions and share files and the like. The e-group at issue was just one of a multitude of e-groups registered with this ISP.

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Apple plugs zero-day QuickTime flaw

2007-01-24T10:06:00.000-05:00

Apple on Tuesday released a fix for a serious security hole in its QuickTime media player software.

The patch comes 23 days after details of the flaw, along with detailed attack code, were publicly released. The publication kicked off the "Month of the Apple Bugs" project, which has been publishing a new Apple software bug each day in January.

The QuickTime vulnerability relates to how the media player software handles the Real Time Streaming Protocol, or RTSP, according to an Apple alert. An attacker could exploit the flaw and commandeer a vulnerable system by placing a special RTSP string in a QuickTime file and tricking a user into opening that file, Apple said.

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Meet me in my avatar's office

2007-01-24T10:01:00.000-05:00

PALO ALTO, Calif.--Employees of tomorrow will inhabit virtual worlds like Second Life to hold live weekly meetings with co-workers, catch up over lunch with financial advisers, and join friends on virtual shopping excursions after work.

That's if IBM's vision pans out.

"Success (in the future) will depend on how well you play the game, literally," Doug McDavid, executive research consultant at IBM's Academy of Technology, said here Monday night at an SDForum event titled "Virtual Worlds: Ready, Fire, Aim."

"A generation (has) lived in these environments, and they'll bring that perspective into the workplace. How this plays out is in the integration of work with this playful perspective," McDavid said. He added: "This is an unstoppable phenomenon."

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AMD: Go to 'Barcelona' over 'Clovertown'

2007-01-24T09:59:00.000-05:00

When it comes to quad-core chips, good things come to those who wait, Advanced Micro Devices believes.

After years breathing AMD's dust, Intel beat its rival to the punch by releasing its quad-core Xeon 5300 "Clovertown" processor for servers in November. But AMD's "Barcelona" quad-core chip, due to arrive midway through 2007, will be a significant notch faster than the Clovertown chips expected to be on the market at that time, said Randy Allen, AMD's corporate vice president for server and workstation products.

"We expect across a wide variety of workloads for Barcelona to outperform Clovertown by 40 percent," Allen said. The quad-core chip also will outperform AMD's current dual-core Opterons on "floating point" mathematical calculations by a factor of 3.6 at the same clock rate, he said.

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Sun posts profit, gets private investment

2007-01-24T09:58:00.001-05:00

Sun Microsystems on Tuesday posted a profit that beat Wall Street's financial expectations for its most recent quarter, and announced a $700 million investment from an arm of private equity firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts.

The software and server maker reported revenue of $3.57 billion, a 7 percent increase from the year-earlier period, and earnings per share of $126 million, or 3 cents per share, using generally accepted accounting principles.

Excluding $58 million of stock-based compensation, $26 million of restructuring and asset-impairment charges and a $4 million tax benefit, Sun had income of 5 cents per share for the quarter, which ended December 31. That's well above the average of 1 cent per share expected by analysts surveyed by Thomson First Call. In addition, Sun's revenue exceeded that expectation of $3.52 billion.

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Intel speeds up delivery of faster Wi-Fi

2007-01-24T09:41:00.001-05:00

Intel has confirmed plans to ship its next-generation wireless chips ahead of its previous schedule for bringing 802.11n wireless to its Centrino program.

The Next-Gen Wireless-N product will appear in notebooks from companies such as Acer, Gateway and Toshiba by the end of this month, Dave Hofer, director of wireless marketing for the company, said Tuesday.

The new Wi-Fi chip is based on the draft 802.11n wireless standard, which is on track to be finalized later this year. It will become the newest piece of Intel's Centrino package of chips, which includes the Core 2 Duo processor, a mobile chipset and a wireless chip.

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Warner, Sony BMG invest in Chinese mobile play

2007-01-24T09:39:00.000-05:00

Sony BMG Music Entertainment and Warner Music Group announced on Tuesday strategic investments in a Chinese company that makes technology to download songs on to mobile phones in China.

Eyeing the potentially lucrative Chinese market, which has about 460 million mobile phone users, Sony BMG and Warner Music have invested in Access China Media Solutions, a partnership between U.S.-based digital content delivery company Melodeo and Japan's Access.

The record companies said they saw mobile phones as the future of the Chinese music industry, which has been hampered by rampant piracy.

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Will 'unlocked' cell phones free consumers?

2007-01-24T09:38:00.000-05:00

The major cell phone operators' hold on which devices U.S. consumers can use on their networks may be slipping as large manufacturers like Motorola and Nokia dabble in selling "unlocked" phones.

Up until recently, unlocked phones--handsets that can be used on multiple carrier networks--have been available only in "gray" markets where Americans have bought phones from overseas. Now manufacturers are selling them on their Web sites and through certain retail channels.

"Cell phones rank just behind keys when it comes to items that Americans don't leave home without," said Albert Lin, an analyst with American Technology Research. "And as cell phones become the most important thing people carry with them through their day, they will look for products that fit their lifestyles better. And believe me, they will want more than 5 to 20 choices. They'll want hundreds of options."

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Internet usage in China hits record high

2007-01-24T09:36:00.000-05:00

The number of Internet users in China made its highest recorded jump to reach 137 million at the end of 2006, a state information center said Tuesday.

China's Net users grew by 26 million, or 23.4 percent, year over year--the highest jump since the report began in 1997--to reach 10.5 percent of the total population, China Internet Network Information Center said in its 19th Internet development report.

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EMC profit gains on systems, software sales

2007-01-24T09:34:00.000-05:00

EMC, the world's largest maker of data storage gear, on Tuesday said quarterly earnings rose as it sold more high-profit software.

Fourth-quarter net income climbed to $389 million, or 18 cents per share, from $148.3 million, or 6 cents per share, a year earlier, when EMC had charges for job cuts and repatriating foreign earnings. Revenue increased 19 percent to $3.22 billion from $2.71 billion.

Excluding items, EMC posted a profit of 17 cents per share, beating analyst estimates of 16 cents per share, and revenue of $3.17 billion, according to Reuters Estimates. Fourth-quarter net income included charges for cutting about 1,300 jobs by the end of 2007.

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Mitsubishi to build lithium ion car batteries

2007-01-24T09:32:00.000-05:00

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries aims to start mass production of lithium ion batteries for cars in 2010, Japan's largest machinery maker said Tuesday.

The rechargeable batteries would be sold to automakers for use in electric and gas-electric hybrid vehicles.

The car industry is abuzz with talk of the potential for plug-in hybrid cars, and lithium ion batteries are more compact than nickel metal hydride batteries, contributing to fuel efficiency.

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Business apps giant SAP gets Web 2.0 bug

2007-01-24T09:31:00.001-05:00

Business software companies are looking to the consumer Web for product inspiration--and potentially profit.

Business applications giant SAP this year will be rolling out enhancements meant to make end users more productive through easier collaboration, according to company executives.

These additions are being designed around so-called Web 2.0 technologies, such as shared Web pages called wikis, as well as online forums and mini applications called widgets. The goal is to make it easier for knowledge workers who use SAP products to collaborate.

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Solution to energy conundrum may be CO2

2007-01-24T09:29:00.000-05:00

INDIAN SPRINGS, Calif.--There may be a solution to the energy problem under our feet. Unfortunately, the answer is coal.

America is the Saudi Arabia of coal, said Ira Ehrenpreis, a partner at venture capital firm Technology Partners. The coal in the United States also has less sulfur than geologists find in places like India, but it still produces tons of carbon emissions when it burns.

The solution may be to turn the CO2 waste product into a liquid or a solid and then store it underground, said panelists at the Clean Tech Investor Summit taking place this week here in Southern California.

"Carbon capture is easy," said Dan Arvisu, director of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). Capturing the carbon from the smokestacks from coal-burning electrical plants would add only about 20 percent to your electrical bill.

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U.S. automakers push for battery, fuel tech help

2007-01-24T09:21:00.000-05:00

U.S.-based automakers will this week underscore their push for government help on alternative fuels and advanced battery technology, riding what is anticipated to be an updated White House prescription for greater national energy independence.

One year after declaring America's addiction to oil, President Bush is expected in his State of the Union address on Tuesday night to promote expanded use of ethanol and other alternative sources, including gas-electric hybrids, to spur energy efficiency.

At the same time, General Motors, Chrysler Group, and Ford Motor will use the Washington Auto Show to accent hybrid technologies and review energy priorities.

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Dell may binge on quad-core Opterons

2007-01-23T14:18:00.000-05:00

In Texas terms, Dell has gone piglet with its Opteron server line rather than going the whole hog. That, however, could change with AMD's release of the four-core "Barcelona" processors.

Dell today promotes two Opteron systems - the four-socket PowerEdge 6950 and the two-socket SC1435. And getting those two boxes wasn't easy. It took an army of consultants, hypnotists, savvy executives and customers to persuade Dell of Opteron's merits.

When AMD's four-core chip ships mid-year, Dell may end up as the leading vendor out of the gate with the new chips.

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Video: Explore the world with Google Earth 4

2007-01-23T14:09:00.000-05:00

VIDEO - With the release of Google Earth 4, Google has stepped up the mapping software with new features and sharper graphics. CNET News.com's Neha Tiwari takes a look.

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Wal-Mart eyes Microsoft for Web build-out

2007-01-23T14:03:00.000-05:00

Retail giant Wal-Mart Stores is contracting with Microsoft and Novell--Microsoft's preferred Linux partner--to build out the company's Web operations, according to a Wal-Mart executive.

On Tuesday, Microsoft and Novell are expected to announce that Wal-Mart is the latest customer to purchase both Microsoft software and support certificates for Novell's Suse Linux Enterprise Server.

In an interview arranged by both companies, Wal-Mart's senior vice president and chief technology officer, Nancy Stewart, provided some details on the project involving Wal-Mart, Microsoft and Novell.

Stewart said Wal-Mart is in the midst of expanding its Web presence globally. The partnership between Microsoft and Novell, announced last November, provides "a fine support structure" for the project, she said.

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McAfee VirusScan upgrade hobbles Lotus Notes

2007-01-23T10:54:00.000-05:00

People who use both IBM Lotus Notes and McAfee VirusScan Enterprise may want to hold off on upgrading to the latest version of the McAfee software.

Installing McAfee VirusScan Enterprise 8.5i on a PC that also runs the Lotus Notes e-mail client can lock people out of their mailboxes, the two companies have confirmed. Lotus Notes is a commonly used e-mail application, particularly in larger organizations. McAfee, the world's second-largest antivirus company, released VirusScan Enterprise 8.5i late November.

"The upgrade locks people out and is causing Notes errors where we can not even restart Notes, but need to reinstall," said one IT administrator for a California company, who asked not to be identified. "This issue has created a higher-than-normal demand on our helpdesk; the cost to our company due to this issue is increasing every hour."

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Music industry divided over digital future

2007-01-23T10:48:00.000-05:00

With global music sales down for a seventh straight year, the talk at an annual industry meeting in Cannes, France, has become heated over how to develop digital sales against competition from the dreaded F word--free.

Global sales are expected to be down again for 2006 despite digital sales almost doubling to $2 billion and the popularity of music being as strong as ever.

Critics of the major players in the industry argue that they have been distracted by the fight against piracy and in doing so, hindered the growth of the legal business.

In response, the accused argue that they had little choice.

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AOL co-founder Case opens online health site

2007-01-23T10:45:00.000-05:00

AOL co-founder Steve Case launched a health Web site on Monday that will offer free and paid services including social networking tools for sharing information on doctors, insurance and other health topics.

In a statement, the new site, Revolution Health, bills itself as an online location for resources on health conditions and healthy-living topics combined with community and social-networking features.

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eMusic hears sweet sound of success in Europe

2007-01-23T10:44:00.000-05:00

eMusic, the digital music download service, says it is eyeing Asia after a successful launch across Europe last year.

eMusic became the first service to launch in all 27 European Union member states when it kicked off in September, taking on iTunes in some of the big markets such as Britain and Germany.

In its search for further expansion, New York-based eMusic is looking toward Asia--and Japan in particular.

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MySpace sues 'Spam King' Richter

2007-01-23T10:35:00.000-05:00

MySpace.com has filed a lawsuit against Scott Richter, the so-called "Spam King" who allegedly sent out millions of unsolicited "bulletins" to MySpace members, the site announced Monday.

The News Corp.-owned social-networking site cited violations of multiple state and U.S. antispam laws, including California statutes and the federal Can-Spam Act, in its case against Richter, who was the proprietor of a site called OptInRealBig.com. According to MySpace, Richter gained access to MySpace user accounts via phishing schemes, or took control of accounts that had already been phished, and then used the service's bulletin feature, which sends messages to all of a user's "friends," to churn out unsolicited messages that advertised products ranging from Polo shirts to cell phone ringtones.

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SpiralFrog loses CEO, other executives

2007-01-23T10:34:00.001-05:00

SpiralFrog's chief executive officer, at least five members of his executive team and three board directors have left the fledgling music store, according to sources connected to the company.

Robin Kent, the former CEO of advertising agency Universal McCann Worldwide, was ousted the day after Christmas at the conclusion of a company board meeting, according to three former SpiralFrog executives who requested anonymity.

What ensued was a widening of the fracture in the company's leadership. Three directors with strong music-industry ties resigned almost immediately after Kent's departure, sources said. In the days following, more directors walked out as well at least six members of SpiralFrog's senior executive team, including the chief marketing, strategy and operating officers, sources said.

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MIT-led study finds geothermal energy potential untapped

2007-01-23T10:22:00.000-05:00

A study led by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has concluded that geothermal energy is a largely untapped resource for electricity in the United States.

The study (PDF), issued Monday, was sponsored by the Department of Energy and included the participation of 18 experts in geology, drilling and energy.

With geothermal energy, or "heat mining," electricity is generated from hot rocks thousands of feet beneath the Earth's surface. Water is flowed into drilled wells, creating a heat exchanger that can produce hot water or steam to run electrical generators on the surface, according to MIT.

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'Grand Theft' maker finds major options backdating

2007-01-23T09:47:00.000-05:00

Take-Two Interactive Software said Monday that an internal review of stock option grants found a significant number of grants backdated between April 1997 and August 2003.

In a regulatory filing, the publisher of the best-selling Grand Theft Auto video game franchise said former Chief Executive Ryan Brant was responsible for backdating the options during the period.

Take-Two added that there was no evidence the current senior executive management engaged in any conduct that raised concerns about the reliability of their representation to the company's auditors.

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Tesco USA to get 'world's biggest' solar roof

2007-01-22T13:40:00.000-05:00

Los Angeles-based Solar Integrated Technologies has struck a deal with British supermarket chain Tesco to build what it says is the world's biggest roof-top solar panel installation.

Solar Integrated said on Friday it had won a $13 million contract to put solar panels on the roof of Tesco USA's new distribution center in Riverside, Calif.

"Our BIPV roofing system will... provide a fifth of the depot's power supply, and save 1,200 tons of carbon dioxide emissions each year," Solar Integrated Chief Executive R. Randall MacEwen said.

"We believe this will be the largest roof-mounted solar installation in the world," he added.

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Back from the grave! AmigaOS 4 trialled

2007-01-22T13:06:00.000-05:00

The Amiga is alive and well —sort of, and AmigaOS 4 was released recently. Ars Technica takes AmigaOS 4 out for a spin to see where the once-popular platform finds itself these days. I wonder if it runs The Secret of Monkey Island?

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Dell probes alleged Inspiron screen issue

2007-01-22T11:09:00.000-05:00

Buyers have begun complaining that the displays Dell installs in its Inspiron notebooks may not be up to scratch, and a groundswell of internet users are asking the computer giant to sort out the situation.

Affected LCD panels develop one or more pixel-wide vertical lines. Typically, each line will appear as a single colour or will change according to the colour of the image being displayed.

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Netgear HDX101 200Mbps powerline Ethernet adaptor

2007-01-22T11:04:00.000-05:00

It's a neat trick being able to transmit data around your home or office via the mains power wiring. You get a more stable, less interference-prone connection than Wi-Fi and a potentially faster link too. The downside is that there's no roaming, at least not beyond the reach of an RJ-45 cable and however many powerline adaptors you've got dotted around your house.

Just as Wi-Fi is due to get a major speed bump, with 802.11n, so too is powerline Ethernet. The difference: the 200Mbps powerline is here now, while the 380Mbps 802.11n isn't going to be ratified until later this year, though we're likely to start seeing a raft of standard... almost products come in the next few months.

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US tops spam relaying and malware leagues of shame

2007-01-22T11:01:00.000-05:00

The US hosted more than one third of the websites containing malicious code identified during 2006. The country also relayed more spam than any other nation last year, according to a study by net security firm Sophos.

Sophos's Security Threat Report 2007 reveals that the US hosts 34.2 per cent of malware sample detected last year, closely followed by China (31 per cent of samples). Russia (9.5 per cent of malicious code samples), the Netherlands (4.7 per cent) and the Ukraine (3.2 per cent) are also contributing to the growing problem of the use of hacker-controlled websites to infect surfers. The UK ranked 19th in the chart, with UK-based website hosting 0.5 per cent of all websites containing malicious code.

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Asus confirms AMD ATI Mobility Radeon X2300

2007-01-22T10:59:00.000-05:00

Asus has thoughtfully pre-announced AMD's next-generation mobile graphics chip, the ATI Mobility Radeon X2300, which the Taiwanese vendor today said it's planning to build into an upcoming Core 2 Duo-based notebook.

The laptop, the A8Jr, promises a "visual feast like no other", courtesy of its unannounced AMD GPU. Asus didn't provide any details, alas, but the X2300 is up to running Windows Vista's Aero user interface and uses HyperMemory to boost the graphics RAM available to the GPU.

The leak isn't without a quote from an AMD official, suggesting Asus simply uploaded the announcement a mite early. And to be fair, AMD's admitted it's working on just such a part, by mentioning the name in the most recent release notes attached to its Linux drivers.

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India's space hopes soar as capsule returns to Earth

2007-01-22T10:55:00.000-05:00

India's space agency said on Monday an orbiting capsule had been successfully returned to Earth, marking a major step toward the development of a highly prized manned space program.

The capsule was blasted into space as one of four payloads on January 10 from a launch pad 60 miles north of the southern city of Chennai. It splashed down in the Bay of Bengal 11 days later, boosting plans for a lunar mission in 2008.

"(It) landed in the Bay of Bengal ... as per schedule. The mission is a great success," said A. Subramoniam, head of the team that designed and built the capsule at the Indian Space Research Organization.

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Caught in the Web: Top 10 Internet Scandals of All Time

2007-01-22T10:52:00.000-05:00

The Web is a great way to deliver information, but it's also a great way to expose, spread, or jump-start a scandal.

A United States senator once said it, so it must be true: The Internet isn't a dump truck, it's a series of tubes. And many a reputation has gone swirling down those tubes, thanks to the Net's ability to expose scoundrels, scalawags, liars, cheats, and fools--and then broadcast the scandal to a billion glowing screens.

The Net's biggest scandals are nothing if not democratic, touching everyone from the most ordinary individuals to the highest office in the land. Not everyone deserved the notoriety. Some were hapless victims of privacy breaches; others were exposed by hackers or misguided crusaders. But in almost every case, somebody ended up getting fired, sued, or mortally embarrassed.

Here then, in descending order, are our picks for the 10 all-time biggest scandals on the Internet.

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Google turns a page on book downloads

2007-01-22T10:37:00.000-05:00

Google is reportedly working on a plan that would allow consumers to download books to their computers to be read online or on mobile devices like BlackBerrys.

The Times of London reports that the program would be part of Google's Book Search project, which involves scanning and digitizing thousands of texts at libraries across the world. That project has had its share of controversy, as publishers and authors have charged it violates their copyrights.

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Porn's problem with HD: 'Razor burn'

2007-01-22T10:33:00.000-05:00

In a fantasy world that makes an awful lot of real-world money, there's a new wrinkle that's posing a big problem. Literally.

Makers of pornographic movies are moving as fast as anyone to new high-definition formats, but some are also finding themselves in an ironic bind: In an industry built on people baring it all, the vivid HD images are just a little too revealing.

Wrinkles. Pimples. Cellulite. Surgically enhanced breasts with odd lumps. Those are some of the all-too-human flaws leaping off the screen from the skin of those in the skin trade.

"The biggest problem," an actress-writer-director named Stormy Daniels tells The New York Times in a story on Sunday, "is razor burn."

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