Friday, December 08, 2006 05:00 PM PST
Mozilla today hit an early milestone on the road to the next version of its open-source browser, but the final product is still a year away, developers say.
The Mozilla team released its first alpha release of Firefox 3.0 today, giving Firefox and Web application developers an early look at the next-generation browser. This release is not intended for regular users, not even those who like to play around with early versions of a product, Mozilla said.
The software, code-named Gran Paradiso, comes just six weeks after Mozilla shipped version 2.0 of the browser, but it has already been more than a year in development, according to Mike Schroepfer, Mozilla's vice president of engineering.
3.0 Features
The final version of Firefox 3.0 is expected to be released by the end of 2007. Developers hope that it will be a major step toward making Web applications indistinguishable from programs that are installed on the desktop, Schroepfer said.
Gran Paradiso features better support for a number of graphics standards, such as the Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) language and the Canvas specification, Schroepfer said. "These are fairly major architectural changes to enable us to improve performance."
Firefox 3.0 also supports the Cairo graphics library, which aims to make Web pages look the same whether they are being printed or viewed on a Windows PC, a Macintosh, or a small-screen device.
The Firefox 3.0 plan calls for browsing, bookmarking, and privacy enhancements to be built into the browser, but Schroepfer said there is still a lot of time to work out new features. "It's a bit early to be talking about the user-facing features," he said.
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Blu-ray DVD Drive Annoys Some PlayStation 3 Buyers
Friday, December 08, 2006 04:00 PM PST
Gamers love Sony's new PlayStation 3 for its graphics capabilities and its firepower, but the advanced Blu-ray DVD drive is also annoying some of those same gamers with its steep cost, its production problems that have limited current availability, and its introduction of a format that they have not yet aligned with.
Sony's move to put a Blu-ray drive into the PS3 video game console is part of the Japanese giant's plan in a high-stakes next-generation DVD format war that recalls the fierce Betamax-VHS battle, which Sony's Betamax lost.
This time, Sony's Blu-ray is competing against a rival Toshiba-backed format known as HD DVD.
Strategy Backfiring?
Sony said Blu-ray is part of its long-term plan to position its machine as a home entertainment hub, but some experts say the strategy may be backfiring.
Yankee Group analyst Michael Goodman said that while die-hard gamers will buy the PS3 at any cost early on, buyers who come to the product later will be more price-sensitive.
"Blu-ray is adding $150 to $200 to the product. They've created something that is not for today's market. It's not a market driver, it's only driving the price higher," he said.
Watertown, Massachusetts-based Cymfony, which culls trends from posts on Internet sites, reported that positive discussions about HD DVD were 46 percent higher than for Blu-ray in a survey of almost 18,000 posts on blogs, discussion boards, and consumer review sites from October 1 to November 30.
"Negative Blu-ray conversation indicated a lack of consumer trust in Sony, as well as gamer displeasure with selling Blu-ray in association with PlayStation 3," said Jim Nail, a spokesman for Cymfony.
Hollywood studios and consumer electronics makers are hoping that high-definition DVDs, with better picture quality and interactive features, will reignite the slowing market for DVD sales. But the format war, technical issues, and the advent of digital video-on-demand services are creating hurdles for the new DVDs and players.
Turning Point?
Andy Parsons, a spokesman for the Blu-ray Disc Association, called the launch of the PS3 a "turning point" for the format.
"Blu-ray's here to stay. The likelihood of people using PS3s as DVD players is significant, particularly when you're talking about [the] millions of consoles Sony expects to sell," he said.
There is a good precedent for Blu-ray: Sony's PlayStation 2, currently the dominant game console with more than 106 million sold, helped push the standard DVD format. The PS2 came to market in 2000, about three years after the DVD was first launched.
"We think the same will happen with the PS3 and Blu-ray," Parsons said.
In the gaming console war this holiday season, Sony's PS3, priced at around $600, faces two main competitors in Microsoft's Xbox 360, which costs about $400, and Nintendo's Wii, costing about $250.
Microsoft and HD DVD
Microsoft recently added an optional HD DVD player and began offering full-length film and TV downloads in high-definition via its Xbox Live online gaming service.
Mark Knox, a spokesman for the HD DVD consortium, said offering HD DVD as an add-on was an important distinction.
"We know that every HD DVD drive being sold to Xbox users is being used to watch films. They're not being forced to buy it," he said. "Every PS3 includes a Blu-ray drive, but that doesn't mean every gamer wants to watch a movie on PS3."
John Davison, editorial director of 1Up Network, a gaming network with 13 million monthly unique visitors, said most gamers are not interested in viewing films on the PS3.
"PS3 will live and die by the games it plays. The fact it's a DVD player is a bonus, but not why people bought it," he said.
Security Hole Found in Windows Media Player
Friday, December 08, 2006 08:00 AM PST
Users are being advised to disable a certain type of file in Microsoft's Windows Media Player software following the discovery of a new security hole in the software.
Windows Media Player versions 9 and 10 are affected by the flaw, which could allow a malicious hacker to run unauthorized software on a victim's PC or cause a denial of service attack, according to security company FrSIRT, which rated the problem critical in an advisory Thursday.
The flaw is due to a buffer overflow error that can occur when Windows Media Player is used to run ".asx" media files, according to a warning from eEye Digital Security.
Such files open automatically in a Web browser, meaning a hacker would need only to post an infected .asx file in a Web page and then try to lure users to visit the page, eEye Digital said. An infected file could also be sent via email, in which case users would need to be persuaded to open it.
Reduce Risk
Microsoft said an initial investigation revealed that the "proof of concept" code could allow an attacker to execute code on a user's machine. It said it was unaware of any attempts to exploit the vulnerability, and it was unclear Friday morning if the proof of concept code it referred to was in the hands of hackers.
Users can protect against the vulnerability in Internet Explorer by preventing it from opening .asx files automatically. Turning off Active Scripting would also greatly reduce, but not eliminate, the risk, Microsoft said. FrSIRT also recommended that users upgrade to Windows Media Player 11, which it said is not affected.
Microsoft was still determining Friday whether it needed to issue an "out of cycle" security fix for the problem or patch it with its next monthly software update.
Zero-Day Exploit
The flaw was originally reported on Nov. 22, when it was identified only as a denial-of-service issue.
Some discussion boards described the problem as a "zero-day exploit," although it was unclear if that was the case. Zero-day exploits occur when exploit code is released on the same day that a flaw is uncovered, giving users no time to protect themselves.
It's been another busy week for Microsoft's security teams. On Tuesday the company warned of an unpatched vulnerability in Word that had been the subject of what it called "limited attacks." And on Thursday it said it was readying several patches for Visual Studio and Windows that it plans to release next week.
The patches currently due for next week do not address the problems with Word and Windows Media Player.
Users are being advised to disable a certain type of file in Microsoft's Windows Media Player software following the discovery of a new security hole in the software.
Windows Media Player versions 9 and 10 are affected by the flaw, which could allow a malicious hacker to run unauthorized software on a victim's PC or cause a denial of service attack, according to security company FrSIRT, which rated the problem critical in an advisory Thursday.
The flaw is due to a buffer overflow error that can occur when Windows Media Player is used to run ".asx" media files, according to a warning from eEye Digital Security.
Such files open automatically in a Web browser, meaning a hacker would need only to post an infected .asx file in a Web page and then try to lure users to visit the page, eEye Digital said. An infected file could also be sent via email, in which case users would need to be persuaded to open it.
Reduce Risk
Microsoft said an initial investigation revealed that the "proof of concept" code could allow an attacker to execute code on a user's machine. It said it was unaware of any attempts to exploit the vulnerability, and it was unclear Friday morning if the proof of concept code it referred to was in the hands of hackers.
Users can protect against the vulnerability in Internet Explorer by preventing it from opening .asx files automatically. Turning off Active Scripting would also greatly reduce, but not eliminate, the risk, Microsoft said. FrSIRT also recommended that users upgrade to Windows Media Player 11, which it said is not affected.
Microsoft was still determining Friday whether it needed to issue an "out of cycle" security fix for the problem or patch it with its next monthly software update.
Zero-Day Exploit
The flaw was originally reported on Nov. 22, when it was identified only as a denial-of-service issue.
Some discussion boards described the problem as a "zero-day exploit," although it was unclear if that was the case. Zero-day exploits occur when exploit code is released on the same day that a flaw is uncovered, giving users no time to protect themselves.
It's been another busy week for Microsoft's security teams. On Tuesday the company warned of an unpatched vulnerability in Word that had been the subject of what it called "limited attacks." And on Thursday it said it was readying several patches for Visual Studio and Windows that it plans to release next week.
The patches currently due for next week do not address the problems with Word and Windows Media Player.
IBM Sues Mainframe Company For Patent Infringement
Friday, December 08, 2006 07:00 AM PST
Platform Solutions, a company that makes a system that allows IBM mainframe operating systems to run on Itanium-based hardware, is facing a lawsuit from Big Blue.
IBM filed a federal lawsuit against Sunnyvale, Calif.-based PSI alleging patent infringements and breach of contract, according to the lawsuit filed late last month in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.
The lawsuit cites letters between the two companies disagreeing over licensing issues. The correspondence extends back several years, but IBM said the dispute came to a head when PSI began lining up customers.
Beta users include Lufthansa Systems, and general product availability is planned for early next year, according to PSI.
Antitrust Threats
PSI technology allows z/OS and OS/390 operating systems and applications to run on Itanium systems. In its lawsuit, IBM said it is refusing to license its operating systems for that use.
"IBM has a strong interest in ensuring that z/OS is not used on computer systems with which z/OS is not fully compatible or used in ways that have the potential to undermine either the reputation of z/OS for accuracy, data integrity, and reliability or customers acceptance of z/OS for mission-critical applications," the company said in the lawsuit. IBM refers to PSI's product as an emulator, a characterization disputed by the company, which calls its system an open mainframe computer.
Christian Reilly, PSI's marketing director, said what his company brings is competition on the mainframe platform. "This market is pretty much a sole source for hardware in the z/OS market -- it's a $4 billion market, and customers have expressed a strong demand for choice," he said.
IBM said in its lawsuit that at one point, PSI threatened an antitrust lawsuit. Reilly said that he couldn't comment on the specifics of the lawsuit and that the company has not filed its response yet.
Software Costs A Problem
John Phelps, an analyst at Gartner, said PSI is trying to provide an alternative hardware platform to the mainframe, but "software costs have been the biggest problem in the mainframe space, and I didn't know how they were going to solve software costs."
PSI's executive team includes former Amdahl and IBM executives. Amdahl, which was acquired by Fujitsu in 1997, made IBM mainframe-compatible hardware but didn't produce a 64-bit system for the z/OS.
Platform Solutions, a company that makes a system that allows IBM mainframe operating systems to run on Itanium-based hardware, is facing a lawsuit from Big Blue.
IBM filed a federal lawsuit against Sunnyvale, Calif.-based PSI alleging patent infringements and breach of contract, according to the lawsuit filed late last month in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.
The lawsuit cites letters between the two companies disagreeing over licensing issues. The correspondence extends back several years, but IBM said the dispute came to a head when PSI began lining up customers.
Beta users include Lufthansa Systems, and general product availability is planned for early next year, according to PSI.
Antitrust Threats
PSI technology allows z/OS and OS/390 operating systems and applications to run on Itanium systems. In its lawsuit, IBM said it is refusing to license its operating systems for that use.
"IBM has a strong interest in ensuring that z/OS is not used on computer systems with which z/OS is not fully compatible or used in ways that have the potential to undermine either the reputation of z/OS for accuracy, data integrity, and reliability or customers acceptance of z/OS for mission-critical applications," the company said in the lawsuit. IBM refers to PSI's product as an emulator, a characterization disputed by the company, which calls its system an open mainframe computer.
Christian Reilly, PSI's marketing director, said what his company brings is competition on the mainframe platform. "This market is pretty much a sole source for hardware in the z/OS market -- it's a $4 billion market, and customers have expressed a strong demand for choice," he said.
IBM said in its lawsuit that at one point, PSI threatened an antitrust lawsuit. Reilly said that he couldn't comment on the specifics of the lawsuit and that the company has not filed its response yet.
Software Costs A Problem
John Phelps, an analyst at Gartner, said PSI is trying to provide an alternative hardware platform to the mainframe, but "software costs have been the biggest problem in the mainframe space, and I didn't know how they were going to solve software costs."
PSI's executive team includes former Amdahl and IBM executives. Amdahl, which was acquired by Fujitsu in 1997, made IBM mainframe-compatible hardware but didn't produce a 64-bit system for the z/OS.
Pirates Hack Vista's Registration Features
Friday, December 08, 2006 06:00 AM PST
Hackers are distributing a file that they say lets users of the corporate version of Microsoft's Windows Vista operating system get around the software's anti-piracy mechanisms.
Windows Vista must be "activated," or authorized by Microsoft, before it will work on a particular machine. To simplify the task of activating many copies of Vista, Microsoft offers corporate users special tools, among them Key Management Service (KMS), which allows a company to run a Microsoft-supplied authorization server on its own network and activate Vista without contacting Microsoft for each copy.
The software Microsoft.Windows.Vista.Local.Activation.Server-MelindaGates lets users spoof that KMS process, allowing them to activate copies of the enterprise editions of Vista, its creators say. The hacked download is available online on sites including The Pirate Bay and other file sharing sites.
MelindaGates Hack
Microsoft's official KMS offering is available to customers with 25 or more computers running Vista. The machines activate the software by connecting to the KMS server, and must reactivate every six months.
KMS is not the only option that enterprises have for volume activation of Vista: they can also call Microsoft by phone or connect over the Internet to activate the software.
The MelindaGates hack allows users to download a VMware image of a KMS server which activates Windows Vista Business/Enterprise edition, its creators claim.
Microsoft did not respond to requests for comment on the hack.
Aimed At Reduced Piracy
Vista is the first Windows operating system that requires volume users to activate each product. The new activation processes are aimed at reducing piracy.
While one security expert said he isn't surprised that KMS has been cracked, he said the MelindaGates hack offers some insight into piracy.
"This also shows how piracy is not just about kids swapping games," said Mikko Hypponen, chief research officer of F-Secure. "The only parties that would need a KMS crack would be corporations with volume licensing."
Hackers are distributing a file that they say lets users of the corporate version of Microsoft's Windows Vista operating system get around the software's anti-piracy mechanisms.
Windows Vista must be "activated," or authorized by Microsoft, before it will work on a particular machine. To simplify the task of activating many copies of Vista, Microsoft offers corporate users special tools, among them Key Management Service (KMS), which allows a company to run a Microsoft-supplied authorization server on its own network and activate Vista without contacting Microsoft for each copy.
The software Microsoft.Windows.Vista.Local.Activation.Server-MelindaGates lets users spoof that KMS process, allowing them to activate copies of the enterprise editions of Vista, its creators say. The hacked download is available online on sites including The Pirate Bay and other file sharing sites.
MelindaGates Hack
Microsoft's official KMS offering is available to customers with 25 or more computers running Vista. The machines activate the software by connecting to the KMS server, and must reactivate every six months.
KMS is not the only option that enterprises have for volume activation of Vista: they can also call Microsoft by phone or connect over the Internet to activate the software.
The MelindaGates hack allows users to download a VMware image of a KMS server which activates Windows Vista Business/Enterprise edition, its creators claim.
Microsoft did not respond to requests for comment on the hack.
Aimed At Reduced Piracy
Vista is the first Windows operating system that requires volume users to activate each product. The new activation processes are aimed at reducing piracy.
While one security expert said he isn't surprised that KMS has been cracked, he said the MelindaGates hack offers some insight into piracy.
"This also shows how piracy is not just about kids swapping games," said Mikko Hypponen, chief research officer of F-Secure. "The only parties that would need a KMS crack would be corporations with volume licensing."
Microsoft Readies Windows, Other Security Fixes
Thursday, December 07, 2006 04:00 PM PST
Microsoft plans to patch its Windows and Visual Studio products next week, but it does not have a fix in the works for a widely publicized flaw in Word, which hackers are reportedly exploiting in targeted attacks.
The company's security team is readying five sets of patches for Windows, and will also issue a single critical security update for Visual Studio, Microsoft said in an alert published Thursday.
How They Work
Microsoft rates the most serious of its Windows updates as critical, meaning an attacker could exploit the underlying flaw to run malware on a victim's PC with no user action, the company said.
Such security patches are usually released on the second Tuesday of each month. The company strives to publish a small number of updates in December, because IT operations are often short-staffed during the holiday season.
On Tuesday, Microsoft warned of a vulnerability in its Word software that reportedly had been used in online attacks. Security researchers have rated this flaw as critical, because an attacker could exploit it to run malicious software on a victim's PC. For such an attack to work, however, the victim would first have to be tricked into opening a maliciously encoded Word file.
The Word flaw is not scheduled to be patched next Tuesday, said a spokesperson for Microsoft's public relations firm.
There is, however, one critical Visual Studio flaw that may be addressed in the updates. That bug is in Visual Studio 2005's WMI Object Broker ActiveX object. It was first reported in late October.
Microsoft plans to patch its Windows and Visual Studio products next week, but it does not have a fix in the works for a widely publicized flaw in Word, which hackers are reportedly exploiting in targeted attacks.
The company's security team is readying five sets of patches for Windows, and will also issue a single critical security update for Visual Studio, Microsoft said in an alert published Thursday.
How They Work
Microsoft rates the most serious of its Windows updates as critical, meaning an attacker could exploit the underlying flaw to run malware on a victim's PC with no user action, the company said.
Such security patches are usually released on the second Tuesday of each month. The company strives to publish a small number of updates in December, because IT operations are often short-staffed during the holiday season.
On Tuesday, Microsoft warned of a vulnerability in its Word software that reportedly had been used in online attacks. Security researchers have rated this flaw as critical, because an attacker could exploit it to run malicious software on a victim's PC. For such an attack to work, however, the victim would first have to be tricked into opening a maliciously encoded Word file.
The Word flaw is not scheduled to be patched next Tuesday, said a spokesperson for Microsoft's public relations firm.
There is, however, one critical Visual Studio flaw that may be addressed in the updates. That bug is in Visual Studio 2005's WMI Object Broker ActiveX object. It was first reported in late October.
HP Settles Civil Lawsuit Over Spying
Thursday, December 07, 2006 03:00 PM PST
Hewlett-Packard today agreed to a $14.5 million settlement in the California civil lawsuit related to the company's spying scandal.
Under terms of the settlement with the California attorney general, HP will pay $13.5 million to create a "Privacy and Piracy Fund" for law-enforcement activities related to privacy and intellectual-property rights operated in the state attorney general's office.
The company will also pay $650,000 in civil penalties and $350,000 to cover expenses of the investigation, California Attorney General Bill Lockyer announced Thursday afternoon.
HP executives and private investigators retained by the company still face criminal charges in the scandal, which involves the alleged use of "pretexting," or pretending to be someone to obtain that person's phone records.
In an announcement made at the same time as Lockyer's, HP detailed a number of internal reforms that it is making to its business and investigative practices.
How the Money Will Be Used
The attorney general and local prosecutors throughout California will use the Privacy and Piracy Fund to investigate and prosecute violations of privacy and intellectual-property rights. Each year, as much as $1 million will be allocated from the fund--$500,000 to the attorney general's office and as much as $500,000 to local prosecutors.
"This settlement should help guide companies across the country as they seek to protect confidential business information without violating corporate ethics or privacy rights. And the new fund will help ensure that when businesses cross the legal line, they will be held accountable," Lockyer said in a prepared statement.
The civil suit made the same allegations that the state made in its criminal filing in October against former HP chair Patricia Dunn, former HP legal counsel Kevin Hunsaker, and three private detectives HP hired to trace the source of boardroom leaks. The charges include using false or fraudulent pretenses to obtain confidential information from a public utility, wrongful use of computer data, identity theft, and conspiracy.
Since the scandal broke in early September, HP chief executive officer Mark Hurd, who succeeded Dunn as chair, has pledged that HP will clean up its act. The company said Thursday it will appoint newly named board member G. Kennedy Thompson, an independent director, to review and report to the board on compliance with legal and ethical requirements related to company investigations.
HP already met two other conditions in the agreement when it named Jon Doak as the company's new chief ethics and compliance officer and appointed former federal prosecutor Bart Schwartz as a "qualified authority" to review HP's investigative practices and suggest changes where needed.
HP has also pledged to revise its employee training to better emphasize ethics and to make sure that ethics codes at the vendors with which HP does business also specify ethical behavior regarding investigations.
Settlement of this case should have no impact on the criminal case, says Bill Keane, a white-collar criminal defense attorney at Farella Braun and Martel LLP in San Francisco. Even if HP is doing good by donating to this privacy fund, don't expect the court to go easy on the defendants.
"Law enforcement has always viewed corporate liability and individual conduct as separate and distinct issues," says Keane.
Hewlett-Packard today agreed to a $14.5 million settlement in the California civil lawsuit related to the company's spying scandal.
Under terms of the settlement with the California attorney general, HP will pay $13.5 million to create a "Privacy and Piracy Fund" for law-enforcement activities related to privacy and intellectual-property rights operated in the state attorney general's office.
The company will also pay $650,000 in civil penalties and $350,000 to cover expenses of the investigation, California Attorney General Bill Lockyer announced Thursday afternoon.
HP executives and private investigators retained by the company still face criminal charges in the scandal, which involves the alleged use of "pretexting," or pretending to be someone to obtain that person's phone records.
In an announcement made at the same time as Lockyer's, HP detailed a number of internal reforms that it is making to its business and investigative practices.
How the Money Will Be Used
The attorney general and local prosecutors throughout California will use the Privacy and Piracy Fund to investigate and prosecute violations of privacy and intellectual-property rights. Each year, as much as $1 million will be allocated from the fund--$500,000 to the attorney general's office and as much as $500,000 to local prosecutors.
"This settlement should help guide companies across the country as they seek to protect confidential business information without violating corporate ethics or privacy rights. And the new fund will help ensure that when businesses cross the legal line, they will be held accountable," Lockyer said in a prepared statement.
The civil suit made the same allegations that the state made in its criminal filing in October against former HP chair Patricia Dunn, former HP legal counsel Kevin Hunsaker, and three private detectives HP hired to trace the source of boardroom leaks. The charges include using false or fraudulent pretenses to obtain confidential information from a public utility, wrongful use of computer data, identity theft, and conspiracy.
Since the scandal broke in early September, HP chief executive officer Mark Hurd, who succeeded Dunn as chair, has pledged that HP will clean up its act. The company said Thursday it will appoint newly named board member G. Kennedy Thompson, an independent director, to review and report to the board on compliance with legal and ethical requirements related to company investigations.
HP already met two other conditions in the agreement when it named Jon Doak as the company's new chief ethics and compliance officer and appointed former federal prosecutor Bart Schwartz as a "qualified authority" to review HP's investigative practices and suggest changes where needed.
HP has also pledged to revise its employee training to better emphasize ethics and to make sure that ethics codes at the vendors with which HP does business also specify ethical behavior regarding investigations.
Settlement of this case should have no impact on the criminal case, says Bill Keane, a white-collar criminal defense attorney at Farella Braun and Martel LLP in San Francisco. Even if HP is doing good by donating to this privacy fund, don't expect the court to go easy on the defendants.
"Law enforcement has always viewed corporate liability and individual conduct as separate and distinct issues," says Keane.
Consumer Groups Target MP3 Site
Thursday, December 07, 2006 09:00 AM PST
Two consumer protection groups are asking the U.S. Federal Trade Commission to investigate FastMP3Search.com.ar, a Web site that distributes software that can be used to search for digital music on the Web.
'Worst of the Bad'
The FastMP3Search plugin disables the Windows Firewall, installs adware and Trojan horse programs, and generally hobbles the user's PC, said John Palfrey, the Harvard Law School professor who is StopBadware.org's co-director. The software is also virtually impossible to remove once installed, he added.
StopBadware.org and the Center for Democracy and Technology plan to file a formal complaint with the FTC on Thursday. "We are asking the FTC to take a close look at an application that we consider to be the worst of the bad applications that we've seen over the course of the last year," Palfrey said.
Representatives from FastMP3Search.com.ar could not be reached immediately for comment. The Web site is registered to a company called Direct S.A., based in Buenos Aires, according to the Network Information Center Argentina domain name database.
StopBadware.org was also unable to reach representatives from the company before filing its complaint Palfrey, said.
FastMP3Search Promises Fast Searches, Delivers Adware
The company's Web site tells users that the software will provide a fast way to search the Internet for downloadable music files, "in exchange for your agreement to also install our plugin software, which may occasionally display ads on your computer."
Although the FTC has sought court orders to shut down Web sites in the past, the fact that FastMP3Search.com.ar appears to be based in Argentina complicates matters, Palfrey admitted. Still the FTC has worked on international efforts to fight spam and online fraud.
"When an application is hosted outside of the U.S., but is plainly affecting U.S. consumers, they can coordinate with other governments," Palfrey said. "We would hope that they would start an investigation of this application."
FTC representatives could not be reached immediately for comment.
Formed earlier this year with funding from Google, Lenovo Group, and Sun Microsystems, StopBadware.org has issued reports on dozens of software products that engage in questionable or downright malicious behavior. It has exposed problems in everything from Kazaa to the Jessica Simpson Screensaver, to AOL's free client.
Two consumer protection groups are asking the U.S. Federal Trade Commission to investigate FastMP3Search.com.ar, a Web site that distributes software that can be used to search for digital music on the Web.
'Worst of the Bad'
The FastMP3Search plugin disables the Windows Firewall, installs adware and Trojan horse programs, and generally hobbles the user's PC, said John Palfrey, the Harvard Law School professor who is StopBadware.org's co-director. The software is also virtually impossible to remove once installed, he added.
StopBadware.org and the Center for Democracy and Technology plan to file a formal complaint with the FTC on Thursday. "We are asking the FTC to take a close look at an application that we consider to be the worst of the bad applications that we've seen over the course of the last year," Palfrey said.
Representatives from FastMP3Search.com.ar could not be reached immediately for comment. The Web site is registered to a company called Direct S.A., based in Buenos Aires, according to the Network Information Center Argentina domain name database.
StopBadware.org was also unable to reach representatives from the company before filing its complaint Palfrey, said.
FastMP3Search Promises Fast Searches, Delivers Adware
The company's Web site tells users that the software will provide a fast way to search the Internet for downloadable music files, "in exchange for your agreement to also install our plugin software, which may occasionally display ads on your computer."
Although the FTC has sought court orders to shut down Web sites in the past, the fact that FastMP3Search.com.ar appears to be based in Argentina complicates matters, Palfrey admitted. Still the FTC has worked on international efforts to fight spam and online fraud.
"When an application is hosted outside of the U.S., but is plainly affecting U.S. consumers, they can coordinate with other governments," Palfrey said. "We would hope that they would start an investigation of this application."
FTC representatives could not be reached immediately for comment.
Formed earlier this year with funding from Google, Lenovo Group, and Sun Microsystems, StopBadware.org has issued reports on dozens of software products that engage in questionable or downright malicious behavior. It has exposed problems in everything from Kazaa to the Jessica Simpson Screensaver, to AOL's free client.
Cell Companies to Replace 1.3 Million Batteries
Thursday, December 07, 2006 06:00 AM PST
NTT DoCoMo and Mitsubishi Electric are planning to replace around 1.3 million batteries manufactured by Sanyo Electric because they may overheat and catch fire, the companies said today.
The batteries were manufactured before June 2006 and are used in NTT DoCoMo's D902i handset. Some may have also been used in two other Mitsubishi Electric models, the D902iS and D903iS, the companies said. The batteries carry the model number D06.
"In rare cases there is a slight deformation of the electrode plate which causes it to come into contact with the insulation sheet and hence the insulation sheet can become damaged," said Richard Sedgwick, a spokesman for Sanyo in Tokyo. "If the battery was also damaged through an outside side, for example if the user dropped the battery, then the problem could occur."
Possible Issue Recognized in April
NTT DoCoMo said it has confirmed one case of the battery rupturing because of the problem and knows of 17 other cases where the D06 battery has ruptured or overheated. The carrier said the battery had been subject to an "extremely strong impact" in a number of the cases.
Sanyo said it began examining ways of strengthening the electrode in April this year as a precautionary measure against possible problems, but at the time had not heard any reports about actual problems. Batteries with stronger plating on the electrode began rolling off the company's production line in June, hence today's advisory only concerns batteries manufactured until May.
Similar to Sony Problem
The problem brings back memories of Sony's battery problems of earlier this year. Around 9.6 million Sony-manufactured laptop computer batteries were recalled or voluntarily replaced by many laptop PC vendors after batteries in several PCs overheated and caught fire. The problem was traced back to metal particles that had gotten into the battery during manufacturing.
Sony estimated the problems will cost it around $444 million this financial year.
Sanyo said that it has yet to work out with NTT DoCoMo and Mitsubishi Electric the part it will play in the replacement.
Sanyo and Sony are two of the world's largest manufacturers of lithium ion batteries.
NTT DoCoMo and Mitsubishi Electric are planning to replace around 1.3 million batteries manufactured by Sanyo Electric because they may overheat and catch fire, the companies said today.
The batteries were manufactured before June 2006 and are used in NTT DoCoMo's D902i handset. Some may have also been used in two other Mitsubishi Electric models, the D902iS and D903iS, the companies said. The batteries carry the model number D06.
"In rare cases there is a slight deformation of the electrode plate which causes it to come into contact with the insulation sheet and hence the insulation sheet can become damaged," said Richard Sedgwick, a spokesman for Sanyo in Tokyo. "If the battery was also damaged through an outside side, for example if the user dropped the battery, then the problem could occur."
Possible Issue Recognized in April
NTT DoCoMo said it has confirmed one case of the battery rupturing because of the problem and knows of 17 other cases where the D06 battery has ruptured or overheated. The carrier said the battery had been subject to an "extremely strong impact" in a number of the cases.
Sanyo said it began examining ways of strengthening the electrode in April this year as a precautionary measure against possible problems, but at the time had not heard any reports about actual problems. Batteries with stronger plating on the electrode began rolling off the company's production line in June, hence today's advisory only concerns batteries manufactured until May.
Similar to Sony Problem
The problem brings back memories of Sony's battery problems of earlier this year. Around 9.6 million Sony-manufactured laptop computer batteries were recalled or voluntarily replaced by many laptop PC vendors after batteries in several PCs overheated and caught fire. The problem was traced back to metal particles that had gotten into the battery during manufacturing.
Sony estimated the problems will cost it around $444 million this financial year.
Sanyo said that it has yet to work out with NTT DoCoMo and Mitsubishi Electric the part it will play in the replacement.
Sanyo and Sony are two of the world's largest manufacturers of lithium ion batteries.
Elpida, Powerchip to Invest in DRAM Venture
Thursday, December 07, 2006 06:00 AM PST
Japanese memory chip maker Elpida Memory and Taiwan's Powerchip Semiconductor have announced a broad plan to invest $13.9 billion over five years to build four new DRAM factories in Taiwan.
The investment, announced today, will go into a new joint venture company that does not yet have an English name. The new company will open early next year in an advanced 12-inch chip factory Powerchip started building in central Taiwan earlier this year. In coming years, the joint venture company will build three more DRAM factories on the island, with output reaching 60,000 silicon wafers per month each, for total planned capacity of a massive 240,000 wafers. Thousands of DRAM chips can be made on each wafer.
The investment means the companies are confident in the future of the DRAM industry and in their ability to compete against market leader Samsung Electronics. In fact, Elpida Chief Executive Officer Yukio Sakamoto pledged to surpass Samsung in terms of DRAM market share within three years.
DRAM Prices Strong
The DRAM industry is ripe for new factories. Most companies in the business have invested in non-DRAM production lines in recent years, mainly NAND flash memory, which is popular in digital cameras and iPods. But DRAM prices have surged recently due to strong PC sales, and the launch of Microsoft Windows Vista is expected to keep DRAM prices strong over the next several months due to strong anticipated PC demand and the greater memory content required by Vista compared to Windows XP.
The two companies intend to marry Elpida's technology prowess with Powerchip's low-cost manufacturing know-how, said Frank Huang, chairman of Powerchip. The companies will be even partners in the venture, each putting in their half of the value of investment, and each deriving half of the production from the new company.
Elpida had been looking at four possible investment locations before deciding to partner with Powerchip in Taiwan. The company's CEO traveled to China to visit manufacturing partner Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. (SMIC) of Shanghai, in addition to scouting locations in Japan and Singapore. Despite better incentives offered by the Chinese government, Sakamoto said his company's relationship with Powerchip and Taiwan's superior infrastructure swayed Elpida's final decision.
"Yesterday, Powerchip and Elpida had a very friendly relationship, but today we became a family," said Sakamoto. The two companies have been working together for over four years. Elpida will continue to use SMIC as a manufacturing partner in China, he said.
Details of Pact
Elpida and Powerchip will initially invest NT$40 billion to get the first DRAM factory up and running. They expect to move production line equipment into the factory by May 2007 and start mass production in August. The joint venture company will begin life with the latest production technology thanks to Elpida, etching transistors and other parts on silicon at the tiny size of 70-nanometers. A nanometer is a billionth of a meter.
Powerchip will take charge of daily operations and staff the factory. By the time the fourth plant is finished, Powerchip reckons it will have hired 8000 new workers for the joint venture.
Elpida and Powerchip will also co-invest in research and development, they said. Their technology pact will ensure joint development down to the 50nm level and beyond.
The companies plan to sign a final agreement on the joint venture in January.
Japanese memory chip maker Elpida Memory and Taiwan's Powerchip Semiconductor have announced a broad plan to invest $13.9 billion over five years to build four new DRAM factories in Taiwan.
The investment, announced today, will go into a new joint venture company that does not yet have an English name. The new company will open early next year in an advanced 12-inch chip factory Powerchip started building in central Taiwan earlier this year. In coming years, the joint venture company will build three more DRAM factories on the island, with output reaching 60,000 silicon wafers per month each, for total planned capacity of a massive 240,000 wafers. Thousands of DRAM chips can be made on each wafer.
The investment means the companies are confident in the future of the DRAM industry and in their ability to compete against market leader Samsung Electronics. In fact, Elpida Chief Executive Officer Yukio Sakamoto pledged to surpass Samsung in terms of DRAM market share within three years.
DRAM Prices Strong
The DRAM industry is ripe for new factories. Most companies in the business have invested in non-DRAM production lines in recent years, mainly NAND flash memory, which is popular in digital cameras and iPods. But DRAM prices have surged recently due to strong PC sales, and the launch of Microsoft Windows Vista is expected to keep DRAM prices strong over the next several months due to strong anticipated PC demand and the greater memory content required by Vista compared to Windows XP.
The two companies intend to marry Elpida's technology prowess with Powerchip's low-cost manufacturing know-how, said Frank Huang, chairman of Powerchip. The companies will be even partners in the venture, each putting in their half of the value of investment, and each deriving half of the production from the new company.
Elpida had been looking at four possible investment locations before deciding to partner with Powerchip in Taiwan. The company's CEO traveled to China to visit manufacturing partner Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. (SMIC) of Shanghai, in addition to scouting locations in Japan and Singapore. Despite better incentives offered by the Chinese government, Sakamoto said his company's relationship with Powerchip and Taiwan's superior infrastructure swayed Elpida's final decision.
"Yesterday, Powerchip and Elpida had a very friendly relationship, but today we became a family," said Sakamoto. The two companies have been working together for over four years. Elpida will continue to use SMIC as a manufacturing partner in China, he said.
Details of Pact
Elpida and Powerchip will initially invest NT$40 billion to get the first DRAM factory up and running. They expect to move production line equipment into the factory by May 2007 and start mass production in August. The joint venture company will begin life with the latest production technology thanks to Elpida, etching transistors and other parts on silicon at the tiny size of 70-nanometers. A nanometer is a billionth of a meter.
Powerchip will take charge of daily operations and staff the factory. By the time the fourth plant is finished, Powerchip reckons it will have hired 8000 new workers for the joint venture.
Elpida and Powerchip will also co-invest in research and development, they said. Their technology pact will ensure joint development down to the 50nm level and beyond.
The companies plan to sign a final agreement on the joint venture in January.
Yahoo Music Continues DRM-Free Download Experiment
Wednesday, December 06, 2006 04:00 PM PST
Yahoo put another music track without DRM (digital rights management) on sale through its Yahoo Music service today.
Norah Jones single "Thinking About You" sells for $0.99, in MP3 format on Yahoo's music store, and in DRM-encumbered AAC format on Apple Computer's iTunes Store. Both formats will play on PCs, Macs and the market-leading iPod portable music player, but only the MP3 version will play on other portable music players.
DRM technology is used to set limits on how, when, how many times and on what devices a file may be played. While DRM can be applied to music in AAC, ATRAC or WMA format, it cannot be introduced into MP3 files.
History
Yahoo first experimented with selling MP3 files without DRM in July, when it offered Jessica Simpson's "A Public Affair" as an MP3 file for $1.99. While that track was not tied to a particular PC or music player with DRM, the audio track was personalized to contain a first name of the purchaser's choice, picked from a list of hundreds of prerecorded names, limiting its interest to other listeners.
Since then, Yahoo has sold an entire album by the artist Jesse McCartney in both MP3 and the DRM-encumbered WMA (Windows Media Audio) format, but has not published sales figures for the two formats.
Analysis
Some see the release of tracks in MP3 format, without DRM, as a big gamble for record labels, as nothing prevents buyers from uploading them to file-sharing networks.
In reality, DRM does little to stop such behavior, but makes life harder for legitimate music users, said analyst Mark Mulligan, a vice president at Jupiter Research in the U.K.
"Most of the DRM in place is not going to stop piracy. You've got limits on CD-burning, but all of that is cracked immediately if you burn it onto CD and rip it back in again. Anyone with an ounce of tech-savvy is going to know how to get around that," he said.
But the fact that there's nothing to stop listeners copying and sharing MP3 files could work to record labels' advantage, said Mulligan.
"It's going to be implemented more as marketing than anything else," he said.
Major record labels are starting to look more seriously at MP3 distribution because of the success of eMusic.com, which Mulligan says is the second-largest online music download store in the U.S., after that of Apple. EMusic sells music from independent record labels in MP3 format.
Yahoo put another music track without DRM (digital rights management) on sale through its Yahoo Music service today.
Norah Jones single "Thinking About You" sells for $0.99, in MP3 format on Yahoo's music store, and in DRM-encumbered AAC format on Apple Computer's iTunes Store. Both formats will play on PCs, Macs and the market-leading iPod portable music player, but only the MP3 version will play on other portable music players.
DRM technology is used to set limits on how, when, how many times and on what devices a file may be played. While DRM can be applied to music in AAC, ATRAC or WMA format, it cannot be introduced into MP3 files.
History
Yahoo first experimented with selling MP3 files without DRM in July, when it offered Jessica Simpson's "A Public Affair" as an MP3 file for $1.99. While that track was not tied to a particular PC or music player with DRM, the audio track was personalized to contain a first name of the purchaser's choice, picked from a list of hundreds of prerecorded names, limiting its interest to other listeners.
Since then, Yahoo has sold an entire album by the artist Jesse McCartney in both MP3 and the DRM-encumbered WMA (Windows Media Audio) format, but has not published sales figures for the two formats.
Analysis
Some see the release of tracks in MP3 format, without DRM, as a big gamble for record labels, as nothing prevents buyers from uploading them to file-sharing networks.
In reality, DRM does little to stop such behavior, but makes life harder for legitimate music users, said analyst Mark Mulligan, a vice president at Jupiter Research in the U.K.
"Most of the DRM in place is not going to stop piracy. You've got limits on CD-burning, but all of that is cracked immediately if you burn it onto CD and rip it back in again. Anyone with an ounce of tech-savvy is going to know how to get around that," he said.
But the fact that there's nothing to stop listeners copying and sharing MP3 files could work to record labels' advantage, said Mulligan.
"It's going to be implemented more as marketing than anything else," he said.
Major record labels are starting to look more seriously at MP3 distribution because of the success of eMusic.com, which Mulligan says is the second-largest online music download store in the U.S., after that of Apple. EMusic sells music from independent record labels in MP3 format.
Yahoo Shake-Up Prompts Reorganization
Wednesday, December 06, 2006 01:00 PM PST
Yahoo will reorganize into three new units, as part of a shake-up that will see chief operating officer Dan Rosensweig leave the company, Yahoo said today.
The company said that the new groups will help it focus on its most important customer segments--the consumer audience, advertisers, and publishers--so that it can compete more aggressively.
Once an Internet and Wall Street darling and consistently one of the Internet's top three sites, the company has struggled in the face of a changing Internet landscape, including the rise of social networking sites and sharp competition from rivals such as Google.
The move was not entirely unexpected. Last month, an internal document now known as the "Peanut Butter Memo" called for reorganization. The memo's author, Yahoo senior vice president of communications and communities Brad Garlinghouse, accused the company of involving itself in too many separate activities, spreading itself too thin, like a layer of peanut butter; Garlinghouse said that Yahoo should focus instead on key areas. He also recommended imposing up to a reduction in headcount of 20 percent, though no cuts were announced in Yahoo's Tuesday statement.
Reorganization
The new units at Yahoo are named the Audience Group, the Advertiser & Publisher Group, and the Technology Group. Each group's head will report directly to CEO Terry Semel.
The Audience Group will focus on the company's existing consumer products, such as search, Web-based e-mail, and news aggregation, while also developing social networking, mobile and handheld content, and international offerings. Yahoo said that a search was underway for a group head.
The Advertiser & Publisher Group will handle advertising and relationships with Yahoo partner publishers. It will be responsible for creating a global advertising network both on and off Yahoo sites, though the company did not go into operational specifics; recently Yahoo partnered with U.S. newspapers to provide targeted local advertising. Yahoo's chief financial officer, Susan Decker, will oversee this group, relinquishing her current title. The company will seek a replacement for her as CFO, Yahoo said.
Yahoo's new Technology Group will be charged with building and maintaining the infrastructure for these new efforts, and will continue its work on Project Panama--an initiative that is believed to involve development of a new advertising system to compete with Google's AdWords, with ads served according to search terms that users enter. The company's chief technology officer Farzad Nazem will head the unit.
The new units and titles will take effect beginning January 1, 2008. Rosensweig will leave at the end of March, Yahoo said. The company did not announce a replacement for Rosensweig as COO.
Yahoo will reorganize into three new units, as part of a shake-up that will see chief operating officer Dan Rosensweig leave the company, Yahoo said today.
The company said that the new groups will help it focus on its most important customer segments--the consumer audience, advertisers, and publishers--so that it can compete more aggressively.
Once an Internet and Wall Street darling and consistently one of the Internet's top three sites, the company has struggled in the face of a changing Internet landscape, including the rise of social networking sites and sharp competition from rivals such as Google.
The move was not entirely unexpected. Last month, an internal document now known as the "Peanut Butter Memo" called for reorganization. The memo's author, Yahoo senior vice president of communications and communities Brad Garlinghouse, accused the company of involving itself in too many separate activities, spreading itself too thin, like a layer of peanut butter; Garlinghouse said that Yahoo should focus instead on key areas. He also recommended imposing up to a reduction in headcount of 20 percent, though no cuts were announced in Yahoo's Tuesday statement.
Reorganization
The new units at Yahoo are named the Audience Group, the Advertiser & Publisher Group, and the Technology Group. Each group's head will report directly to CEO Terry Semel.
The Audience Group will focus on the company's existing consumer products, such as search, Web-based e-mail, and news aggregation, while also developing social networking, mobile and handheld content, and international offerings. Yahoo said that a search was underway for a group head.
The Advertiser & Publisher Group will handle advertising and relationships with Yahoo partner publishers. It will be responsible for creating a global advertising network both on and off Yahoo sites, though the company did not go into operational specifics; recently Yahoo partnered with U.S. newspapers to provide targeted local advertising. Yahoo's chief financial officer, Susan Decker, will oversee this group, relinquishing her current title. The company will seek a replacement for her as CFO, Yahoo said.
Yahoo's new Technology Group will be charged with building and maintaining the infrastructure for these new efforts, and will continue its work on Project Panama--an initiative that is believed to involve development of a new advertising system to compete with Google's AdWords, with ads served according to search terms that users enter. The company's chief technology officer Farzad Nazem will head the unit.
The new units and titles will take effect beginning January 1, 2008. Rosensweig will leave at the end of March, Yahoo said. The company did not announce a replacement for Rosensweig as COO.
Microsoft Offers Book Search
Wednesday, December 06, 2006 07:00 AM PST
Microsoft has developed a book-search service that will compete with a similar offering from Google while taking a more conservative approach to scanning works.
Microsoft plans to launch today a beta version of Live Search Books, which, like Google Book Search, is a service that indexes and makes searchable the full text of books.
Like Google, Microsoft is striking up partnerships with libraries, universities and publishers. Microsoft is even participating in the collective project Open Content Alliance with rival Yahoo, which doesn't have a standalone book search service. However, unlike Google, Microsoft has chosen to index in-copyright books only if it has permission from the copyright owner. Both companies are also scanning books in the public domain.
Google Draws Lawsuits
But Google is taking an approach that is more aggressive, and some say illegal, regarding copyrighted books, opting to scan them without always securing permission from the copyright owners. Last year, the Association of American Publishers (AAP), acting on behalf of five of its members, and the Authors Guild and three of its member authors filed separate but similar lawsuits accusing Google of copyright infringement.
Google argues that it is protected by the fair use principle, because it displays only short text snippets from copyrighted books. The plaintiffs say the very act of scanning and storing a digital copy of a book without permission constitutes infringement. It's very likely that it will take years for a definitive legal answer to emerge to this debate.
In the short term, Google may gain an edge with a larger book index for its service, but its approach may backfire in the end, said industry analyst Roger Kay, president of Endpoint Technologies Associates. The most obvious setback would be a court ruling against Google, but already Google is probably causing great harm to its long-term relationship with publishers and authors, Kay said. "Microsoft's approach is sound, prudent and correct," Kay said.
First Libraries
Starting today, the service will feature books scanned from the collections of the University of California, University of Toronto, and the British Library, said Danielle Tiedt, a Live Search general manager. The books are either in the public domain or those whose copyright is owned by the libraries, she said. Microsoft is also scanning books from Cornell University's library and has just struck a partnership with the New York Public Library and the American Museum of Veterinary Medicine.
Microsoft is in conversations with many publishers right now and, as those agreements are finalized, plans to begin adding copyrighted books to the service, likely starting in early 2007, she said.
Microsoft also plans to integrate its book index with its general Web search service, so that book results surface as a result of general Web search queries, she said. The main point of scanning books is to increase the amount of authoritative, useful information available to people via the Microsoft search engines, and most people go the main Web search service, Tiedt said.
Revenue from Live Search Books will come from various avenues, like advertising and revenue-sharing with book sellers, Tiedt said.
Live Search Books will be available as an option on the main Live.com site or directly here. For now, it will be hosted only in the U.S. for English-language books, although Microsoft plans to roll out international editions of the service in the future.
Other Search Efforts
In a few weeks, Microsoft also plans to upgrade Live Search Academic, a beta service to search scholarly and academic journals and articles. The upgrade will consist of articles from the biomedical field, which will quadruple the index of the service, which already includes articles from engineering, computer science and physics.
Microsoft has developed a book-search service that will compete with a similar offering from Google while taking a more conservative approach to scanning works.
Microsoft plans to launch today a beta version of Live Search Books, which, like Google Book Search, is a service that indexes and makes searchable the full text of books.
Like Google, Microsoft is striking up partnerships with libraries, universities and publishers. Microsoft is even participating in the collective project Open Content Alliance with rival Yahoo, which doesn't have a standalone book search service. However, unlike Google, Microsoft has chosen to index in-copyright books only if it has permission from the copyright owner. Both companies are also scanning books in the public domain.
Google Draws Lawsuits
But Google is taking an approach that is more aggressive, and some say illegal, regarding copyrighted books, opting to scan them without always securing permission from the copyright owners. Last year, the Association of American Publishers (AAP), acting on behalf of five of its members, and the Authors Guild and three of its member authors filed separate but similar lawsuits accusing Google of copyright infringement.
Google argues that it is protected by the fair use principle, because it displays only short text snippets from copyrighted books. The plaintiffs say the very act of scanning and storing a digital copy of a book without permission constitutes infringement. It's very likely that it will take years for a definitive legal answer to emerge to this debate.
In the short term, Google may gain an edge with a larger book index for its service, but its approach may backfire in the end, said industry analyst Roger Kay, president of Endpoint Technologies Associates. The most obvious setback would be a court ruling against Google, but already Google is probably causing great harm to its long-term relationship with publishers and authors, Kay said. "Microsoft's approach is sound, prudent and correct," Kay said.
First Libraries
Starting today, the service will feature books scanned from the collections of the University of California, University of Toronto, and the British Library, said Danielle Tiedt, a Live Search general manager. The books are either in the public domain or those whose copyright is owned by the libraries, she said. Microsoft is also scanning books from Cornell University's library and has just struck a partnership with the New York Public Library and the American Museum of Veterinary Medicine.
Microsoft is in conversations with many publishers right now and, as those agreements are finalized, plans to begin adding copyrighted books to the service, likely starting in early 2007, she said.
Microsoft also plans to integrate its book index with its general Web search service, so that book results surface as a result of general Web search queries, she said. The main point of scanning books is to increase the amount of authoritative, useful information available to people via the Microsoft search engines, and most people go the main Web search service, Tiedt said.
Revenue from Live Search Books will come from various avenues, like advertising and revenue-sharing with book sellers, Tiedt said.
Live Search Books will be available as an option on the main Live.com site or directly here. For now, it will be hosted only in the U.S. for English-language books, although Microsoft plans to roll out international editions of the service in the future.
Other Search Efforts
In a few weeks, Microsoft also plans to upgrade Live Search Academic, a beta service to search scholarly and academic journals and articles. The upgrade will consist of articles from the biomedical field, which will quadruple the index of the service, which already includes articles from engineering, computer science and physics.
Sametime Now Chats With Other Messaging Services
Wednesday, December 06, 2006 07:00 AM PST
IBM's Sametime has gained interoperability with public instant messaging networks from AOL and Google, and will interoperate with the one from Yahoo in a matter of weeks.
IBM plans to make the announcement today, almost a year after disclosing its intention to provide this interoperability for Sametime 7.5, the newest version of the enterprise IM system.
Snubbing Microsoft?
The gaping hole in the announcement is Microsoft Windows Live Messenger, which, with AOL's AIM and Yahoo Messenger, is one the world's three largest consumer IM networks.
Microsoft sells an enterprise IM system called Live Communications Server that competes directly with Sametime. It interoperates with AIM, Yahoo Messenger, and Windows Live Messenger.
Akiba Saeedi, program director for Real Time Collaboration products at IBM's Lotus division, declined to comment on why Windows Live Messenger is missing from the Sametime interoperability picture.
No Extra Fees
The Sametime interoperability comes via a separate gateway server to which connectors for each IM network can be added at no extra cost beyond the price of the Sametime license, Saeedi said.
The gateway server provides a variety of management capabilities for IT departments to establish user policies and access rights and in general have control over the IM communications employees engage in with people on the Yahoo, AOL, and Google networks.
Initially, the interoperability will be limited to exchanging text messages, but IBM wants to expand and deepen it to include other types of communications that have become common in IM services, like voice and video chats, file sharing, and Web conferencing.
Instant messaging has in recent years become an essential tool in the workplace, so opening Sametime up to these external IM networks will allow its users to communicate with clients and partners who use AIM, Yahoo Messenger, and Google Talk for business, Saeedi said.
IBM's Sametime has gained interoperability with public instant messaging networks from AOL and Google, and will interoperate with the one from Yahoo in a matter of weeks.
IBM plans to make the announcement today, almost a year after disclosing its intention to provide this interoperability for Sametime 7.5, the newest version of the enterprise IM system.
Snubbing Microsoft?
The gaping hole in the announcement is Microsoft Windows Live Messenger, which, with AOL's AIM and Yahoo Messenger, is one the world's three largest consumer IM networks.
Microsoft sells an enterprise IM system called Live Communications Server that competes directly with Sametime. It interoperates with AIM, Yahoo Messenger, and Windows Live Messenger.
Akiba Saeedi, program director for Real Time Collaboration products at IBM's Lotus division, declined to comment on why Windows Live Messenger is missing from the Sametime interoperability picture.
No Extra Fees
The Sametime interoperability comes via a separate gateway server to which connectors for each IM network can be added at no extra cost beyond the price of the Sametime license, Saeedi said.
The gateway server provides a variety of management capabilities for IT departments to establish user policies and access rights and in general have control over the IM communications employees engage in with people on the Yahoo, AOL, and Google networks.
Initially, the interoperability will be limited to exchanging text messages, but IBM wants to expand and deepen it to include other types of communications that have become common in IM services, like voice and video chats, file sharing, and Web conferencing.
Instant messaging has in recent years become an essential tool in the workplace, so opening Sametime up to these external IM networks will allow its users to communicate with clients and partners who use AIM, Yahoo Messenger, and Google Talk for business, Saeedi said.
Bug Opens Word to Attack
Wednesday, December 06, 2006 06:00 AM PST
There's now one more reason to be careful about opening Microsoft Office attachments. Microsoft has warned of a new, unpatched memory corruption error in the word processor, saying it is investigating reports of "limited" attacks that exploit the problem.
Dangerous Bug
The bug can be exploited by adding a string of characters in a Word file that can corrupt the PC's memory and allow the attacker to run unauthorized software on the system, Microsoft wrote in a security advisory. The bug affects many versions of the software, including Word 2000, 2002, and 2003, the Word Viewer 2003 and several versions of Microsoft Works. It is rated "critical" by the FrSIRT Web site, which compiles a list of software vulnerabilities.
As automatic security updates have become commonplace, attackers have focused more on developing attacks that leverage this kind of unpatched hole in the software, sometimes called zero-day (or 0day) attacks. This trend has forced Microsoft to produce a growing number of software updates in recent months.
Targeting Office
In particular, hackers turned their attention to Microsoft's Office products, which some researchers consider to be a more fruitful source of bugs than the Windows operating system.
"Cyber criminals know that 0days are very vulnerable and can be used to make lots of money," said Cesar Cerrudo, CEO of security research firm Argeniss, in Parana, Argentina. These vulnerabilities can be exploited to install spyware or dangerous Trojan horse programs, or to add the victim's computer to a network of compromised PCs, called a botnet, which can then be used to send out spam or attack other systems, he said.
Microsoft's next set of security updates is due to be released on December 12.
There's now one more reason to be careful about opening Microsoft Office attachments. Microsoft has warned of a new, unpatched memory corruption error in the word processor, saying it is investigating reports of "limited" attacks that exploit the problem.
Dangerous Bug
The bug can be exploited by adding a string of characters in a Word file that can corrupt the PC's memory and allow the attacker to run unauthorized software on the system, Microsoft wrote in a security advisory. The bug affects many versions of the software, including Word 2000, 2002, and 2003, the Word Viewer 2003 and several versions of Microsoft Works. It is rated "critical" by the FrSIRT Web site, which compiles a list of software vulnerabilities.
As automatic security updates have become commonplace, attackers have focused more on developing attacks that leverage this kind of unpatched hole in the software, sometimes called zero-day (or 0day) attacks. This trend has forced Microsoft to produce a growing number of software updates in recent months.
Targeting Office
In particular, hackers turned their attention to Microsoft's Office products, which some researchers consider to be a more fruitful source of bugs than the Windows operating system.
"Cyber criminals know that 0days are very vulnerable and can be used to make lots of money," said Cesar Cerrudo, CEO of security research firm Argeniss, in Parana, Argentina. These vulnerabilities can be exploited to install spyware or dangerous Trojan horse programs, or to add the victim's computer to a network of compromised PCs, called a botnet, which can then be used to send out spam or attack other systems, he said.
Microsoft's next set of security updates is due to be released on December 12.
NEC Shows Rugged Laptop
Wednesday, December 06, 2006 05:00 AM PST
TOKYO -- NEC launched its latest laptop PC this week with a splash: executives poured a bottle of water over the computer while it was operating to demonstrate its toughness to harsh environmental conditions.
The "Shield Pro" FC-N21S laptop is rated to IP54, an environmental protection rating developed by the European Committee for Electrotechnical Standardization. IP54 signifies that the machine is protected against ingress of dust at levels that would harm operation and also against splashes of water from all directions.
It can also be dropped from waist height onto a hard surface and survive, as NEC also demonstrated at news conference here. NEC guarantees the machine will be safe when dropped as long as drop is not more than three feet, the machine is switched off, and its lid folded down.
Notebook Specs
The computer has a 12.1-inch touch panel LED-backlit screen and is a convertible-type laptop, which means the screen can be flipped around and folded down on the keyboard so that it resembles a tablet PC. At its heart is an Intel Core Solo processor running at 1.2GHz. NEC looked at using a Core Duo processor but the desire to keep the PC fanless meant that it wasn't possible to use a more powerful chip because of the amounts of heat that it would generate.
Users can choose between a 60GB Serial ATA or 40GB Ultra ATA hard-disk drive. Users also get to choose between Windows XP Professional or Linux as the operating system.
The machine will go on sale in Japan in January for between $2165 and $2600. NEC is still considering its international sales plans.
Other Models
Several other vendors have marketed rugged notebook computers with varying success, although most are used in specialized applications. Tough notebook cases sometimes bring unusual challenges, however, such as overheating.
In March several new models will be launched including a laptop that can stand up to a wider range of temperatures than the standard model. It will be able to operate at between -4 degrees and 122 degrees Fahrenheit. A model with an 8GB solid state disk made up of flash memory chips will also be available.
TOKYO -- NEC launched its latest laptop PC this week with a splash: executives poured a bottle of water over the computer while it was operating to demonstrate its toughness to harsh environmental conditions.
The "Shield Pro" FC-N21S laptop is rated to IP54, an environmental protection rating developed by the European Committee for Electrotechnical Standardization. IP54 signifies that the machine is protected against ingress of dust at levels that would harm operation and also against splashes of water from all directions.
It can also be dropped from waist height onto a hard surface and survive, as NEC also demonstrated at news conference here. NEC guarantees the machine will be safe when dropped as long as drop is not more than three feet, the machine is switched off, and its lid folded down.
Notebook Specs
The computer has a 12.1-inch touch panel LED-backlit screen and is a convertible-type laptop, which means the screen can be flipped around and folded down on the keyboard so that it resembles a tablet PC. At its heart is an Intel Core Solo processor running at 1.2GHz. NEC looked at using a Core Duo processor but the desire to keep the PC fanless meant that it wasn't possible to use a more powerful chip because of the amounts of heat that it would generate.
Users can choose between a 60GB Serial ATA or 40GB Ultra ATA hard-disk drive. Users also get to choose between Windows XP Professional or Linux as the operating system.
The machine will go on sale in Japan in January for between $2165 and $2600. NEC is still considering its international sales plans.
Other Models
Several other vendors have marketed rugged notebook computers with varying success, although most are used in specialized applications. Tough notebook cases sometimes bring unusual challenges, however, such as overheating.
In March several new models will be launched including a laptop that can stand up to a wider range of temperatures than the standard model. It will be able to operate at between -4 degrees and 122 degrees Fahrenheit. A model with an 8GB solid state disk made up of flash memory chips will also be available.
Tips & Tweaks: Post-Holiday Time Wasters
Wednesday, December 06, 2006 12:00 AM PST
You can't fool me: I know you're not working. NPR already spilled the beans, announcing that some pundit figured out everyone's using their employers' high-speed connections to do their online shopping this week instead of their jobs.
I'm certainly not working; I've been trolling the Net for entertainment instead. I'm fascinated by all the nifty videos I've found of airplanes landing, taking off, nose-diving, and otherwise getting into trouble. Some of them are stunning, others heart stopping.
So take a break from your shopping (or if you're a goody-two-shoes, your work) and spend some time watching a bunch of amazing aviation videos.
First warning: The sound levels on these videos are all over the map, so I recommend you turn down the volume before starting any of them.
Second warning: A few of these files are huge, so I've put the file size in brackets when I think you need a heads up. My copyeditor said she never did watch some of them because, unlike you, she's way too impatient. [Note from Copyedit: Stuff it. --ksk]
My Top Three
First up, my absolute favorite: I've watched this 9-minute video a dozen times [11MB file]. I love the smile on the brave guy's face as he takes a backseat ride in a jet. The pilot hands over the controls and talks him through a roll, first to the left, then to the right. Very cool. (BTW, I found the video on Wild Child and there are tons more where that came from.)
Now watch Bob Hoover as he turns the engines off and flies his plane like a glider [9MB].
Finally, enjoy some Japanese aerobatics [20MB].
Don't Try This Stuff at Home
And now for some really crazy stuff, like the pilot doing an intentional stall, which I learned is a standard training procedure [22MB], and here's someone doing a 360 in a 747.
But let's not forget the idiot trying to fly off the Eiffel Tower (in a Pathe movie from the twenties or so), someone flying under a bridge upside down, or the guy who survived (yes, he did) being sucked into a jet engine, or the experimental plane flown without a pilot and entirely by computer (probably running on OS/2, from the looks of it).
Here are a couple of really nasty crashes involving an F-22 and a Mig--and the pilots actually survived.
Had enough trick flying and spectacular crashes? Then watch a YouTube video of a radar tracking FedEx planes flying to their Memphis hub. There's nasty weather approaching the airport (watch the colors) and the black arrows are the planes. Pay attention as the airplanes are diverted when the heaviest cell of the storm hits the airport. If you watch carefully, you'll see some of the planes almost hovering while waiting for the storm to pass.
And if you've ever wondered about flight patterns, watch one of these videos and you might wonder why there aren't more collisions.
Want more? You can find what seems like zillions of aviation-related videos on this well-hidden page.
Even More Videos
Lest you think I'm obsessed with aviation--a reasonable assumption, I know--here are even more videos I found floating around the Web.
Time Lapse: I didn't know what is about time lapse photography that fascinates me. TimeLapse.com has scads of videos, including clouds, cities, people, landscapes, and others. They're all for sale, but watching them is free.
The World's Most Dangerous Comic: The show is America's Got Talent and this video shows how "The World's Most Dangerous Comic" takes his title to heart. [Thanks, Charlie L.]
Moonwalking Bird: This video documents the courtship ritual of a Red-Capped Manikin--and it looks like Michael Jackson's moonwalk (without the glove).
Amazing Cat: I don't know what motivated this cat to stuff itself into a fishbowl, but it sure seems to be having fun.
Flying Through a Storm: A combat mission flies through a thunderstorm while over Iraq. Things start getting intense at about 4:30 minutes in this 9-minute video, shot by one of the crew members. (Okay, so I guess I am obsessed with airplanes...)
Steve Bass writes PC World's monthly "Hassle-Free PC" column and is the author of PC Annoyances, 2nd Edition: How to Fix the Most Annoying Things About Your Personal Computer, available from O'Reilly. He also writes PC World's daily Tips & Tweaks blog. Sign up to have Steve's newsletter e-mailed to you each week. Comments or questions? Send Steve e-mail.
You can't fool me: I know you're not working. NPR already spilled the beans, announcing that some pundit figured out everyone's using their employers' high-speed connections to do their online shopping this week instead of their jobs.
I'm certainly not working; I've been trolling the Net for entertainment instead. I'm fascinated by all the nifty videos I've found of airplanes landing, taking off, nose-diving, and otherwise getting into trouble. Some of them are stunning, others heart stopping.
So take a break from your shopping (or if you're a goody-two-shoes, your work) and spend some time watching a bunch of amazing aviation videos.
First warning: The sound levels on these videos are all over the map, so I recommend you turn down the volume before starting any of them.
Second warning: A few of these files are huge, so I've put the file size in brackets when I think you need a heads up. My copyeditor said she never did watch some of them because, unlike you, she's way too impatient. [Note from Copyedit: Stuff it. --ksk]
My Top Three
First up, my absolute favorite: I've watched this 9-minute video a dozen times [11MB file]. I love the smile on the brave guy's face as he takes a backseat ride in a jet. The pilot hands over the controls and talks him through a roll, first to the left, then to the right. Very cool. (BTW, I found the video on Wild Child and there are tons more where that came from.)
Now watch Bob Hoover as he turns the engines off and flies his plane like a glider [9MB].
Finally, enjoy some Japanese aerobatics [20MB].
Don't Try This Stuff at Home
And now for some really crazy stuff, like the pilot doing an intentional stall, which I learned is a standard training procedure [22MB], and here's someone doing a 360 in a 747.
But let's not forget the idiot trying to fly off the Eiffel Tower (in a Pathe movie from the twenties or so), someone flying under a bridge upside down, or the guy who survived (yes, he did) being sucked into a jet engine, or the experimental plane flown without a pilot and entirely by computer (probably running on OS/2, from the looks of it).
Here are a couple of really nasty crashes involving an F-22 and a Mig--and the pilots actually survived.
Had enough trick flying and spectacular crashes? Then watch a YouTube video of a radar tracking FedEx planes flying to their Memphis hub. There's nasty weather approaching the airport (watch the colors) and the black arrows are the planes. Pay attention as the airplanes are diverted when the heaviest cell of the storm hits the airport. If you watch carefully, you'll see some of the planes almost hovering while waiting for the storm to pass.
And if you've ever wondered about flight patterns, watch one of these videos and you might wonder why there aren't more collisions.
Want more? You can find what seems like zillions of aviation-related videos on this well-hidden page.
Even More Videos
Lest you think I'm obsessed with aviation--a reasonable assumption, I know--here are even more videos I found floating around the Web.
Time Lapse: I didn't know what is about time lapse photography that fascinates me. TimeLapse.com has scads of videos, including clouds, cities, people, landscapes, and others. They're all for sale, but watching them is free.
The World's Most Dangerous Comic: The show is America's Got Talent and this video shows how "The World's Most Dangerous Comic" takes his title to heart. [Thanks, Charlie L.]
Moonwalking Bird: This video documents the courtship ritual of a Red-Capped Manikin--and it looks like Michael Jackson's moonwalk (without the glove).
Amazing Cat: I don't know what motivated this cat to stuff itself into a fishbowl, but it sure seems to be having fun.
Flying Through a Storm: A combat mission flies through a thunderstorm while over Iraq. Things start getting intense at about 4:30 minutes in this 9-minute video, shot by one of the crew members. (Okay, so I guess I am obsessed with airplanes...)
Steve Bass writes PC World's monthly "Hassle-Free PC" column and is the author of PC Annoyances, 2nd Edition: How to Fix the Most Annoying Things About Your Personal Computer, available from O'Reilly. He also writes PC World's daily Tips & Tweaks blog. Sign up to have Steve's newsletter e-mailed to you each week. Comments or questions? Send Steve e-mail.
MySpace Tries to Root Out Sex Offenders
Tuesday, December 05, 2006 01:00 PM PST
Stepping up efforts to keep sex offenders off MySpace.com, the popular social networking Web site has partnered with an online identity and background verification company to build a national sex offender database in the United States, and will dedicate staff to checking the database against MySpace profiles.
Sentinel Tech Holding will build a searchable database containing information on sex offenders in the United States who are registered with various federal and state law enforcement agencies. The database will be updated frequently and will include details such as name, age, physical appearance, and distinguishing features (tattoos and scars, for example).
MySpace staff will constantly monitor the site for profiles submitted by sex offenders who are on the list. Staffers will remove any matching profiles that they find.
More Restrictions Wanted
MySpace has been lobbying for new legislation to help it take the program a step further. The company wants a law that requires sex offenders to register their e-mail addresses in a national sex-offender database. The law would stipulate that using an unregistered e-mail address constitutes a parole or probation violation, forcing offenders back to jail. If such a law were passed, MySpace would find it easier to identify sex offenders who have profiles on its site, the company said.
Some observers have criticized MySpace for permitting profiles by registered sex offenders. Earlier this year, journalists around the country began cross-checking sex-offender databases against MySpace profiles, finding matches, and publicizing their results. MySpace responded by hiring a chief security officer to oversee safety and law enforcement affairs and by introducing an advertising campaign to promote online safety.
MySpace still faces some thorny issues. For example, most sex offenders aren't legally prohibited from creating a MySpace page, so it's unclear whether MySpace will trigger a backlash over its policy of removing certain profiles.
Stepping up efforts to keep sex offenders off MySpace.com, the popular social networking Web site has partnered with an online identity and background verification company to build a national sex offender database in the United States, and will dedicate staff to checking the database against MySpace profiles.
Sentinel Tech Holding will build a searchable database containing information on sex offenders in the United States who are registered with various federal and state law enforcement agencies. The database will be updated frequently and will include details such as name, age, physical appearance, and distinguishing features (tattoos and scars, for example).
MySpace staff will constantly monitor the site for profiles submitted by sex offenders who are on the list. Staffers will remove any matching profiles that they find.
More Restrictions Wanted
MySpace has been lobbying for new legislation to help it take the program a step further. The company wants a law that requires sex offenders to register their e-mail addresses in a national sex-offender database. The law would stipulate that using an unregistered e-mail address constitutes a parole or probation violation, forcing offenders back to jail. If such a law were passed, MySpace would find it easier to identify sex offenders who have profiles on its site, the company said.
Some observers have criticized MySpace for permitting profiles by registered sex offenders. Earlier this year, journalists around the country began cross-checking sex-offender databases against MySpace profiles, finding matches, and publicizing their results. MySpace responded by hiring a chief security officer to oversee safety and law enforcement affairs and by introducing an advertising campaign to promote online safety.
MySpace still faces some thorny issues. For example, most sex offenders aren't legally prohibited from creating a MySpace page, so it's unclear whether MySpace will trigger a backlash over its policy of removing certain profiles.
Cordless Phones to Get VoIP
Tuesday, December 05, 2006 09:00 AM PST
HONG KONG -- Consumers who know nothing about new Internet telephone technologies but don't want to miss out on the action could be interested in this development: Manufacturers of cordless digital telephones plan to add IP capability to a new generation of home communication and entertainment devices.
Suppliers of DECT phones (Digital Enhanced Cordless Telecommunication), represented through their industry association the DECT Forum, have agreed to build new phones that can easily connect to broadband IP networks and offer services such as Voice over IP, Web-based phone directories, and audio streaming, the association said today at the Telecom World conference and exhibition in Hong Kong.
The DECT Forum will be in charge of certifying the new generation of phones, called CAT-iq, which stands for Cordless Advanced Technology-internet and quality.
VoIP First, Then Audio Streaming
Although the phones are IP-enabled, they are not designed for Web surfing, according to DECT Forum Chairman Erich Kamperschroer. "You'll continue using your PC for surfing, but in the future, instead of booting up your computer to check an online phone directory or listen to Internet radio, you'll use your CAT-iq phone instead," he said.
The first line of products, expected in the third quarter of 2007, will provide VoIP capability. By mid-2008, manufacturers intend to add audio streaming, with additional features planned through the end of the decade.
The European Telecommunications Standards Institute is expected to approve a new release of the CAT-iq standard early next year, according to Kamperschroer.
The CAT-iq work group has also cooperated with the Home Gateway Initiative to ensure interoperability between phones and residential gateways.
The new IP-enabled phones will use the same frequency band already allocated to DECT and have the same range of around 300 meters.
Telecom World, which is organized by the International Telecommunication Union, a United Nations agency, runs through Friday.
HONG KONG -- Consumers who know nothing about new Internet telephone technologies but don't want to miss out on the action could be interested in this development: Manufacturers of cordless digital telephones plan to add IP capability to a new generation of home communication and entertainment devices.
Suppliers of DECT phones (Digital Enhanced Cordless Telecommunication), represented through their industry association the DECT Forum, have agreed to build new phones that can easily connect to broadband IP networks and offer services such as Voice over IP, Web-based phone directories, and audio streaming, the association said today at the Telecom World conference and exhibition in Hong Kong.
The DECT Forum will be in charge of certifying the new generation of phones, called CAT-iq, which stands for Cordless Advanced Technology-internet and quality.
VoIP First, Then Audio Streaming
Although the phones are IP-enabled, they are not designed for Web surfing, according to DECT Forum Chairman Erich Kamperschroer. "You'll continue using your PC for surfing, but in the future, instead of booting up your computer to check an online phone directory or listen to Internet radio, you'll use your CAT-iq phone instead," he said.
The first line of products, expected in the third quarter of 2007, will provide VoIP capability. By mid-2008, manufacturers intend to add audio streaming, with additional features planned through the end of the decade.
The European Telecommunications Standards Institute is expected to approve a new release of the CAT-iq standard early next year, according to Kamperschroer.
The CAT-iq work group has also cooperated with the Home Gateway Initiative to ensure interoperability between phones and residential gateways.
The new IP-enabled phones will use the same frequency band already allocated to DECT and have the same range of around 300 meters.
Telecom World, which is organized by the International Telecommunication Union, a United Nations agency, runs through Friday.
Japanese Groups 'Seriously Concerned' About YouTube
Tuesday, December 05, 2006 09:00 AM PST
A broad group of companies and associations covering most of the Japanese entertainment industry is calling on YouTube to be more proactive in policing its Web site for copyrighted material.
In a letter sent Monday to YouTube Chief Executive Officer Chad Hurley and Chief Technology Officer Steve Chen, the group requests YouTube start a system that proactively identifies and removes copyrighted material rather than making rights holders find it and send in complaints.
File Deletion Ineffectual
"Taking into account the current status of your service, we believe that your company should not just wait for rights owners to take the 'Notice and Take down' procedures but should bear the responsibility to prevent, in advance, copyright infringements such as illegal uploads and distributions, or to avoid those infringements," said the letter, a copy of which was distributed to media today by the Japanese Society for Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers (JASRAC).
Monday's letter is signed by JASRAC and 22 other organizations including the Motion Picture Producers' Association of Japan, the Japan Video Software Association, the Association of Japanese Animations, all of the major commercial TV broadcasters, the Japan Satellite Broadcasting Association, the Recording Industry Association of Japan, and Yahoo Japan.
It comes a month and a half after YouTube deleted 29,549 files based on a complaint filed by JASRAC. The association said the files in question infringed on the rights of 23 Japanese content companies. Neither that complaint nor YouTube's action could stop users from re-uploading content to the site, and plenty of clips from Japanese TV shows can again be found on YouTube.
Prompt Action Requested
"We are seriously concerned about the current situation where the Notice and Takedown scheme, aimed [at preventing] copyright infringements, is not functioning well due to the large amount of illegal uploads," the letter said.
"While we expect you to promptly take adequate and necessary measures to prevent copyright infringement on the YouTube Web site, until you do so, we request you to take provisional measures ... in order to prevent illegal uploads of audio-visual works, which copyrights are neither owned by the persons posting the works on the Web site themselves nor licensed by the right owners."
The preventative measures requested by the group include the posting of a message in Japanese on the YouTube home page warning that posting copyrighted material can be illegal and that users may be liable to civil or criminal prosecution; and a register of names and addresses of users posting content and the termination on-request of user accounts that are used or have been used since June 2006 illegally to upload copyrighted material.
The group also requests a reply to the letter by December 15.
YouTube could not be immediately reached for comment.
A broad group of companies and associations covering most of the Japanese entertainment industry is calling on YouTube to be more proactive in policing its Web site for copyrighted material.
In a letter sent Monday to YouTube Chief Executive Officer Chad Hurley and Chief Technology Officer Steve Chen, the group requests YouTube start a system that proactively identifies and removes copyrighted material rather than making rights holders find it and send in complaints.
File Deletion Ineffectual
"Taking into account the current status of your service, we believe that your company should not just wait for rights owners to take the 'Notice and Take down' procedures but should bear the responsibility to prevent, in advance, copyright infringements such as illegal uploads and distributions, or to avoid those infringements," said the letter, a copy of which was distributed to media today by the Japanese Society for Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers (JASRAC).
Monday's letter is signed by JASRAC and 22 other organizations including the Motion Picture Producers' Association of Japan, the Japan Video Software Association, the Association of Japanese Animations, all of the major commercial TV broadcasters, the Japan Satellite Broadcasting Association, the Recording Industry Association of Japan, and Yahoo Japan.
It comes a month and a half after YouTube deleted 29,549 files based on a complaint filed by JASRAC. The association said the files in question infringed on the rights of 23 Japanese content companies. Neither that complaint nor YouTube's action could stop users from re-uploading content to the site, and plenty of clips from Japanese TV shows can again be found on YouTube.
Prompt Action Requested
"We are seriously concerned about the current situation where the Notice and Takedown scheme, aimed [at preventing] copyright infringements, is not functioning well due to the large amount of illegal uploads," the letter said.
"While we expect you to promptly take adequate and necessary measures to prevent copyright infringement on the YouTube Web site, until you do so, we request you to take provisional measures ... in order to prevent illegal uploads of audio-visual works, which copyrights are neither owned by the persons posting the works on the Web site themselves nor licensed by the right owners."
The preventative measures requested by the group include the posting of a message in Japanese on the YouTube home page warning that posting copyrighted material can be illegal and that users may be liable to civil or criminal prosecution; and a register of names and addresses of users posting content and the termination on-request of user accounts that are used or have been used since June 2006 illegally to upload copyrighted material.
The group also requests a reply to the letter by December 15.
YouTube could not be immediately reached for comment.
Toshiba Develops 1.8-Inch 100GB Hard Drive
Tuesday, December 05, 2006 08:00 AM PST
Higher capacity music players and laptop computers could be on the way thanks to a new hard drive from Toshiba that manages a 25 percent jump in storage space over current models.
The new 1.8-inch hard drive can store 100GB of data whereas current models hold a maximum of 80GB. The drives are about the same size as a PC Card and are commonly used in music players, like Apple's iPod, and compact laptop computers.
Production Starts in 2007
Toshiba plans to start mass producing the drives in January next year. The company doesn't sell them direct to end-users but to other companies for integration into their products. In the past device makers have typically incorporated higher capacity drives quickly into their products.
The drive will be on show at the Consumer Electronic Show, which takes place in Las Vegas from January 8 to 11.
Toshiba first developed a 1.8-inch drive in 2000. The device, which was at the time the highest capacity such drive available, could hold up to 2GB of data and cost around $740 at the time. Today the drives have not only risen in capacity but also fallen in price to the point where an Apple iPod, which includes an 80GB drive and color screen, costs $349.
Higher capacity music players and laptop computers could be on the way thanks to a new hard drive from Toshiba that manages a 25 percent jump in storage space over current models.
The new 1.8-inch hard drive can store 100GB of data whereas current models hold a maximum of 80GB. The drives are about the same size as a PC Card and are commonly used in music players, like Apple's iPod, and compact laptop computers.
Production Starts in 2007
Toshiba plans to start mass producing the drives in January next year. The company doesn't sell them direct to end-users but to other companies for integration into their products. In the past device makers have typically incorporated higher capacity drives quickly into their products.
The drive will be on show at the Consumer Electronic Show, which takes place in Las Vegas from January 8 to 11.
Toshiba first developed a 1.8-inch drive in 2000. The device, which was at the time the highest capacity such drive available, could hold up to 2GB of data and cost around $740 at the time. Today the drives have not only risen in capacity but also fallen in price to the point where an Apple iPod, which includes an 80GB drive and color screen, costs $349.
Antispyware Company to Reimburse Some Customers
Tuesday, December 05, 2006 06:00 AM PST
Washington's attorney general has settled the first case prosecuted under the state's 2005 Computer Spyware Act.
The settlement announced today is with antispyware vendor Secure Computer. The White Plains, New York, software company was accused of marketing its product via deceptive spam and pop-up ads, which offered free spyware scans that always detected a problem with the computer that was scanned.
The company and its president, Paul Burke, will pay $725,000 in legal fees and $200,000 in penalties, and will reimburse Washington state customers $75,000, said Paula Selis, senior council with the attorney general's office. "Given the scope of the defendants' practices and the amount of consumer harm out there, we feel this is a very fair settlement."
More than 1100 state residents purchased the company's Spyware Cleaner software since it went on the market in 2004, Selis said. Those customers will now be e-mailed by Secure Computer and offered a refund for the $50 product, under terms of the settlement.
Additional Penalties
Secure Computer, which admits no wrongdoing in the matter, is also prohibited from using deceptive marketing techniques to promote its software, and the company must now review the advertising of its marketing affiliates to make sure they comply with the settlement.
That seems like an unlikely possibility, however, because Spyware Cleaner was pulled from the market shortly after the lawsuits were filed in late January, and Secure Computer is now out of business, according to the company's Web site. Representatives from Secure Computer could not be reached for comment.
Update: Burke, who was Secure Computer's president, has formed a new company called Safe App Software LLC, which is now selling a registry cleaner product, Selis said. That product is not being sold in the U.S. she added.
Secure Computer and four of its business partners were sued by Microsoft and the Washington attorney general in January, but charges against three of the men have already been settled. A fourth man, Manoj Kumar of Maharashtra, India, could not be located the attorney general's office said.
Update: Burke and Secure Computer settled the Microsoft lawsuit about two months ago, said Spencer Freeman, an attorney with Freeman Law Firm who represented the defendants in the case. Freeman declined to comment on Monday's settlement.
Washington's attorney general has settled the first case prosecuted under the state's 2005 Computer Spyware Act.
The settlement announced today is with antispyware vendor Secure Computer. The White Plains, New York, software company was accused of marketing its product via deceptive spam and pop-up ads, which offered free spyware scans that always detected a problem with the computer that was scanned.
The company and its president, Paul Burke, will pay $725,000 in legal fees and $200,000 in penalties, and will reimburse Washington state customers $75,000, said Paula Selis, senior council with the attorney general's office. "Given the scope of the defendants' practices and the amount of consumer harm out there, we feel this is a very fair settlement."
More than 1100 state residents purchased the company's Spyware Cleaner software since it went on the market in 2004, Selis said. Those customers will now be e-mailed by Secure Computer and offered a refund for the $50 product, under terms of the settlement.
Additional Penalties
Secure Computer, which admits no wrongdoing in the matter, is also prohibited from using deceptive marketing techniques to promote its software, and the company must now review the advertising of its marketing affiliates to make sure they comply with the settlement.
That seems like an unlikely possibility, however, because Spyware Cleaner was pulled from the market shortly after the lawsuits were filed in late January, and Secure Computer is now out of business, according to the company's Web site. Representatives from Secure Computer could not be reached for comment.
Update: Burke, who was Secure Computer's president, has formed a new company called Safe App Software LLC, which is now selling a registry cleaner product, Selis said. That product is not being sold in the U.S. she added.
Secure Computer and four of its business partners were sued by Microsoft and the Washington attorney general in January, but charges against three of the men have already been settled. A fourth man, Manoj Kumar of Maharashtra, India, could not be located the attorney general's office said.
Update: Burke and Secure Computer settled the Microsoft lawsuit about two months ago, said Spencer Freeman, an attorney with Freeman Law Firm who represented the defendants in the case. Freeman declined to comment on Monday's settlement.
AMD Shrinks Desktop Chips to 65nm
Tuesday, December 05, 2006 06:00 AM PST
Advanced Micro Devices began selling its top chip for desktop PCs made with a 65-nanometer design today, continuing its efforts to keep up with Intel as the industry migrates from 90nm design to a faster, more efficient generation of processors.
By manufacturing its dual-core Athlon 64 X2 chip on the smaller geometry, AMD will be able to increase manufacturing output while improving the chips' performance and power efficiency, said Jack Huynh, a market development manager for AMD.
Some PC vendors are selling the new chip in computers already, and by the first quarter of 2007 that list will include Acer, Dell, Founder Electronics, Hewlett-Packard, Packard Bell, and Tsinghua Tongfang, according to AMD.
The move to 65nm manufacturing is crucial for AMD as the company strives to keep up with a flurry of new processors from Intel. Intel had a rough year in 2006, losing ground to AMD in market share, but has rallied in recent months. The company launched its Core 2 Duo family of desktop chips in July and its quad-core Core 2 Extreme in November. Intel switched its chip manufacturing plants to a smaller architecture months ago, and already sells more 65nm chips than 90nm chips.
Chips Keep Shrinking
A chip made with 65nm process technology has smaller features--such as transistors and the wires that connect them--than a chip made with 90nm technology, said Rob Willoner, a technology analyst with Intel's technology and manufacturing group. That progression is the engine that drives Moore's Law, the prediction that the number of processors on a microprocessor will double every 18 months.
One nanometer is one-billionth of a meter, meaning that the wires on 65nm design chips are far slimmer than human hairs. Minuscule as that is, chip vendors already have plans to shrink the parts even smaller. Intel has already announced plans to use chip features of 45nm by 2007, 32nm by 2009, and 22nm by 2011.
As chip features continue to shrink, engineers struggle harder to take each new step. But as long as customers demand smaller, more efficient computers, there's plenty of economic incentive for the process to continue, he said.
"There's bound to be an end at some point, but we can't see it yet," Willoner said. "At one point, people said it was 1 micron, which is 1000nm, but the industry passed that without blinking about a decade ago. Now some people are saying it's 5nm. I don't see it happening before 2020 or 2025, and by then we could have radically different technologies to compensate."
Single-Core Chips Go to 65nm in 2007
AMD chose to apply the new "Rev G" 65nm design to its high-end, dual-core desktop chip first because the company's midrange, single-core Athlon and Sempron chips are already fairly efficient, running at 62 watts using a 90nm design, said AMD's Huynh.
The Athlon 64 X2 chip operated at a high 110 watts when it was first launched in June 2005, but this migration will bring it down to just 65 watts, he said. AMD will continue to produce both 90nm and 65nm Athlon 64 X2 chips until it phases the larger-design chips out completely by the second half of 2007.
Next, AMD plans to apply the 65nm design to its single-core Athlon and Sempron chips, shrinking them by the end of 2007. And the company has already begun work on the next step, shrinking its chips to a 45nm design, although AMD did not give a specific date for that goal.
AMD is selling the 65nm Athlon 64 X2 chips at prices of $301 for a 2.6-GHz 5000-series chip, $271 for the 2.5-GHz 4800 series, $214 for the 2.3-GHz 4400 series, and $169 for the 2.1-GHz 4000 series, all priced in lots of 1000.
Advanced Micro Devices began selling its top chip for desktop PCs made with a 65-nanometer design today, continuing its efforts to keep up with Intel as the industry migrates from 90nm design to a faster, more efficient generation of processors.
By manufacturing its dual-core Athlon 64 X2 chip on the smaller geometry, AMD will be able to increase manufacturing output while improving the chips' performance and power efficiency, said Jack Huynh, a market development manager for AMD.
Some PC vendors are selling the new chip in computers already, and by the first quarter of 2007 that list will include Acer, Dell, Founder Electronics, Hewlett-Packard, Packard Bell, and Tsinghua Tongfang, according to AMD.
The move to 65nm manufacturing is crucial for AMD as the company strives to keep up with a flurry of new processors from Intel. Intel had a rough year in 2006, losing ground to AMD in market share, but has rallied in recent months. The company launched its Core 2 Duo family of desktop chips in July and its quad-core Core 2 Extreme in November. Intel switched its chip manufacturing plants to a smaller architecture months ago, and already sells more 65nm chips than 90nm chips.
Chips Keep Shrinking
A chip made with 65nm process technology has smaller features--such as transistors and the wires that connect them--than a chip made with 90nm technology, said Rob Willoner, a technology analyst with Intel's technology and manufacturing group. That progression is the engine that drives Moore's Law, the prediction that the number of processors on a microprocessor will double every 18 months.
One nanometer is one-billionth of a meter, meaning that the wires on 65nm design chips are far slimmer than human hairs. Minuscule as that is, chip vendors already have plans to shrink the parts even smaller. Intel has already announced plans to use chip features of 45nm by 2007, 32nm by 2009, and 22nm by 2011.
As chip features continue to shrink, engineers struggle harder to take each new step. But as long as customers demand smaller, more efficient computers, there's plenty of economic incentive for the process to continue, he said.
"There's bound to be an end at some point, but we can't see it yet," Willoner said. "At one point, people said it was 1 micron, which is 1000nm, but the industry passed that without blinking about a decade ago. Now some people are saying it's 5nm. I don't see it happening before 2020 or 2025, and by then we could have radically different technologies to compensate."
Single-Core Chips Go to 65nm in 2007
AMD chose to apply the new "Rev G" 65nm design to its high-end, dual-core desktop chip first because the company's midrange, single-core Athlon and Sempron chips are already fairly efficient, running at 62 watts using a 90nm design, said AMD's Huynh.
The Athlon 64 X2 chip operated at a high 110 watts when it was first launched in June 2005, but this migration will bring it down to just 65 watts, he said. AMD will continue to produce both 90nm and 65nm Athlon 64 X2 chips until it phases the larger-design chips out completely by the second half of 2007.
Next, AMD plans to apply the 65nm design to its single-core Athlon and Sempron chips, shrinking them by the end of 2007. And the company has already begun work on the next step, shrinking its chips to a 45nm design, although AMD did not give a specific date for that goal.
AMD is selling the 65nm Athlon 64 X2 chips at prices of $301 for a 2.6-GHz 5000-series chip, $271 for the 2.5-GHz 4800 series, $214 for the 2.3-GHz 4400 series, and $169 for the 2.1-GHz 4000 series, all priced in lots of 1000.
Office 2007, OpenOffice.org Work Together
Monday, December 04, 2006 04:00 PM PST
Microsoft and Novell have wasted little time in demonstrating there is real work being done as part of their recent Linux interoperability pact. Just a month after the historic deal between the companies, Novell said today it will support the proprietary document format in Microsoft Office 2007, Open XML, in its open-source version of the OpenOffice productivity suite by the end of January.
Novell also will release software that will bi-directionally translate word processing, spreadsheets, and presentations between its version of OpenOffice.org's productivity suite and Microsoft Office to the OpenOffice.org project so Open XML can become a part of that open-source project, the company said.
However, this does not guarantee that Open XML will be integrated into the OpenOffice.org code, said Justin Steinman, a Novell director of marketing for Linux. "We are going to release the code to the open-source community. Whether it gets integrated or not is up to the community," he said.
Novell and Microsoft worked together on the translation project, which will allow users of a new release of OpenOffice due in January to create, save and send files as Open XML documents, Steinman said.
Teaming Up
Creating interoperability between the OpenOffice and Microsoft Office suites was a goal that was part of the companies' deal, announced November 2, to make Microsoft's proprietary software work more seamlessly with Novell's SuSe Linux and other open-source software from the company.
The Open XML work will ultimately allow users to more easily share files between Microsoft Office 2007 and OpenOffice, which support different document formats, Steinman said.
The native document format in OpenOffice is OpenDocument Format (ODF), an XML-based file format recognized as a standard by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). Microsoft so far has chosen not to support ODF and instead created its own file format, Open XML, for Office 2007.
Microsoft's lack of support for ODF has been controversial, and the company further stirred up concern in the industry that it was trying to promote its own proprietary file format as an industry standard instead of ODF by submitting Open XML to Ecma International in November 2005. Ecma is a standards organization that can fast-track technology standards through the ISO.
Ecma plans to vote on whether to approve Open XML for submission to the ISO as an international standard on December 7.
Microsoft released Office 2007, which supports Open XML, last week to business customers. The suite is expected to be widely available to consumers in retail outlets on January 30
Microsoft and Novell have wasted little time in demonstrating there is real work being done as part of their recent Linux interoperability pact. Just a month after the historic deal between the companies, Novell said today it will support the proprietary document format in Microsoft Office 2007, Open XML, in its open-source version of the OpenOffice productivity suite by the end of January.
Novell also will release software that will bi-directionally translate word processing, spreadsheets, and presentations between its version of OpenOffice.org's productivity suite and Microsoft Office to the OpenOffice.org project so Open XML can become a part of that open-source project, the company said.
However, this does not guarantee that Open XML will be integrated into the OpenOffice.org code, said Justin Steinman, a Novell director of marketing for Linux. "We are going to release the code to the open-source community. Whether it gets integrated or not is up to the community," he said.
Novell and Microsoft worked together on the translation project, which will allow users of a new release of OpenOffice due in January to create, save and send files as Open XML documents, Steinman said.
Teaming Up
Creating interoperability between the OpenOffice and Microsoft Office suites was a goal that was part of the companies' deal, announced November 2, to make Microsoft's proprietary software work more seamlessly with Novell's SuSe Linux and other open-source software from the company.
The Open XML work will ultimately allow users to more easily share files between Microsoft Office 2007 and OpenOffice, which support different document formats, Steinman said.
The native document format in OpenOffice is OpenDocument Format (ODF), an XML-based file format recognized as a standard by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). Microsoft so far has chosen not to support ODF and instead created its own file format, Open XML, for Office 2007.
Microsoft's lack of support for ODF has been controversial, and the company further stirred up concern in the industry that it was trying to promote its own proprietary file format as an industry standard instead of ODF by submitting Open XML to Ecma International in November 2005. Ecma is a standards organization that can fast-track technology standards through the ISO.
Ecma plans to vote on whether to approve Open XML for submission to the ISO as an international standard on December 7.
Microsoft released Office 2007, which supports Open XML, last week to business customers. The suite is expected to be widely available to consumers in retail outlets on January 30
Dell Unveils 'Green' Servers
Monday, December 04, 2006 09:00 AM PST
Computer maker Dell's solution to the data center energy crisis is to market more energy-efficient versions of its PowerEdge line of servers.
Dell is introducing today the PowerEdge Energy Smart model 1950 and 2950 servers, which the company claims deliver a 25 percent improvement in performance per watt compared to the standard 1950 and 2950.
The announcement follows Dell's September launch of Energy Smart OptiPlex business desktop computers.
Energy Smart Specs
The Energy Smart server features include a processor that draws only 40 watts of power versus the 65 watts or 80 watts drawn in standard servers. Energy Smart servers will also offer only 2.5-inch disk drives, smaller than the typical 3.5-inch drives.
Those design changes may diminish performance in a way some customers would find unacceptable, said Jay Parker, director of PowerEdge Servers in the Dell Product Group. But for others, the goal is energy efficiency.
"We would expect somewhere in the 10 to 20 percent range of our customers to be interested in this product and to ultimately migrate to this. But there is a whole other set of customers who need more configurability or [for whom] power efficiency is not a priority," Parker said.
The Energy Smart servers also feature redesigned power supplies and cooling fans, as well as software that regulates the processors and memory to power the server up and down as computing demand changes.
Pricing for the Energy Smart 1950 starts at $2449, $100 more than the standard 1950, Parker said. Pricing for the Energy Smart 2950 starts at $2619.
Conserving Power
Vendors of servers, desktops, and other enterprise hardware are on an energy-saving kick these days, addressing the need to cut data-center power consumption. The lifetime operating cost of powering servers and cooling them with air conditioning is becoming more of a concern to data center managers than the price of the server itself.
Hewlett-Packard unveiled on November 28 what it calls "Dynamic Smart Cooling" for data centers. Heat sensors on server racks send signals to a control panel that adjusts the air-conditioning output.
HP's technology doesn't address the energy problem as directly as Dell does by making the server energy-efficient, Parker said.
"You have to optimize the server, because ultimately that has a huge ripple effect on the other infrastructure pieces in the data center. In our mind [HP's technology] seems to ignore the first obvious step, which is to address the server itself," he said.
Computer maker Dell's solution to the data center energy crisis is to market more energy-efficient versions of its PowerEdge line of servers.
Dell is introducing today the PowerEdge Energy Smart model 1950 and 2950 servers, which the company claims deliver a 25 percent improvement in performance per watt compared to the standard 1950 and 2950.
The announcement follows Dell's September launch of Energy Smart OptiPlex business desktop computers.
Energy Smart Specs
The Energy Smart server features include a processor that draws only 40 watts of power versus the 65 watts or 80 watts drawn in standard servers. Energy Smart servers will also offer only 2.5-inch disk drives, smaller than the typical 3.5-inch drives.
Those design changes may diminish performance in a way some customers would find unacceptable, said Jay Parker, director of PowerEdge Servers in the Dell Product Group. But for others, the goal is energy efficiency.
"We would expect somewhere in the 10 to 20 percent range of our customers to be interested in this product and to ultimately migrate to this. But there is a whole other set of customers who need more configurability or [for whom] power efficiency is not a priority," Parker said.
The Energy Smart servers also feature redesigned power supplies and cooling fans, as well as software that regulates the processors and memory to power the server up and down as computing demand changes.
Pricing for the Energy Smart 1950 starts at $2449, $100 more than the standard 1950, Parker said. Pricing for the Energy Smart 2950 starts at $2619.
Conserving Power
Vendors of servers, desktops, and other enterprise hardware are on an energy-saving kick these days, addressing the need to cut data-center power consumption. The lifetime operating cost of powering servers and cooling them with air conditioning is becoming more of a concern to data center managers than the price of the server itself.
Hewlett-Packard unveiled on November 28 what it calls "Dynamic Smart Cooling" for data centers. Heat sensors on server racks send signals to a control panel that adjusts the air-conditioning output.
HP's technology doesn't address the energy problem as directly as Dell does by making the server energy-efficient, Parker said.
"You have to optimize the server, because ultimately that has a huge ripple effect on the other infrastructure pieces in the data center. In our mind [HP's technology] seems to ignore the first obvious step, which is to address the server itself," he said.
Samsung Shows Video Phones
Monday, December 04, 2006 08:00 AM PST
HONG KONG -- Samsung Electronics plans to release a mobile handset in January that is designed for watching video and supports the DivX video codec.
Both the high-end and video-ready Ultra Video F500 and the Ultra Audio F300 handset, which also plays some video formats, are being shown at the International Telecommunication Union's Telecom World 2006 exhibition and conference here this week.
Information on where Samsung will sell the handsets was not immediately available.
Video Phone Previewed
The Ultra Video F500 is a candy bar-shaped handset with a TFT LCD screen that offers 262,000 colors and resolution of 240 pixels by 320 pixels. The screen can also swivel, allowing users to find the optimal screen angle for watching video in one of several formats: DivX, MPEG4, H.264, and Windows Media Video.
Samsung claims the $350 phone is the first to support DivX, a video codec based on MPEG4 that allows a DVD to be compressed to a much smaller size, allowing longer videos to be downloaded more easily.
Along with video, the Ultra Video F500 handset supports several digital music formats--MP3, Advanced Audio Coding (AAC), AAC+, e-AAC+, and Windows Media Audio (WMA). AAC is the file format used with Apple's iTunes music download service.
In addition to playing a range of music file formats, the Ultra Video can be used with music download services that support WMA digital rights management (DRM) and Microsoft's Media Transfer Protocol. Other features include a microSD slot for a removable Secure Digital memory card, support for Bluetooth version 2.0, and a 2-megapixel digital camera.
Although the handset is on display at Telecom World, it is not switched on and visitors are not able to test its features.
Ultra Audio F300 Specs
Samsung also showed off its upcoming Ultra Audio F300 handset, which will hit the market in January, priced at $250. Shaped like a candy bar, the Ultra Audio does not support third generation (3G) networks and has a slightly smaller screen than the Ultra Video. The Ultra Audio's screen measures 2.1 inches across the diagonal.
Ultra Audio F300 supports the same audio file formats as the Ultra Video. It can also play back MPEG4 and H.263 video files.
HONG KONG -- Samsung Electronics plans to release a mobile handset in January that is designed for watching video and supports the DivX video codec.
Both the high-end and video-ready Ultra Video F500 and the Ultra Audio F300 handset, which also plays some video formats, are being shown at the International Telecommunication Union's Telecom World 2006 exhibition and conference here this week.
Information on where Samsung will sell the handsets was not immediately available.
Video Phone Previewed
The Ultra Video F500 is a candy bar-shaped handset with a TFT LCD screen that offers 262,000 colors and resolution of 240 pixels by 320 pixels. The screen can also swivel, allowing users to find the optimal screen angle for watching video in one of several formats: DivX, MPEG4, H.264, and Windows Media Video.
Samsung claims the $350 phone is the first to support DivX, a video codec based on MPEG4 that allows a DVD to be compressed to a much smaller size, allowing longer videos to be downloaded more easily.
Along with video, the Ultra Video F500 handset supports several digital music formats--MP3, Advanced Audio Coding (AAC), AAC+, e-AAC+, and Windows Media Audio (WMA). AAC is the file format used with Apple's iTunes music download service.
In addition to playing a range of music file formats, the Ultra Video can be used with music download services that support WMA digital rights management (DRM) and Microsoft's Media Transfer Protocol. Other features include a microSD slot for a removable Secure Digital memory card, support for Bluetooth version 2.0, and a 2-megapixel digital camera.
Although the handset is on display at Telecom World, it is not switched on and visitors are not able to test its features.
Ultra Audio F300 Specs
Samsung also showed off its upcoming Ultra Audio F300 handset, which will hit the market in January, priced at $250. Shaped like a candy bar, the Ultra Audio does not support third generation (3G) networks and has a slightly smaller screen than the Ultra Video. The Ultra Audio's screen measures 2.1 inches across the diagonal.
Ultra Audio F300 supports the same audio file formats as the Ultra Video. It can also play back MPEG4 and H.263 video files.
Aggressive MySpace Worm Attacks via QuickTime
Monday, December 04, 2006 07:00 AM PST
The social networking site MySpace.com is under what one computer security analyst calls an "amazingly virulent" attack caused by a worm that steals log-in credentials and spreads spam that promotes adware sites.
The worm is infecting MySpace profiles with such efficiency that an informal scan of 150 found that close to a third were infected, said Christopher Boyd, security research manager at FaceTime Communications.
MySpace, owned by News Corp., is estimated to have at least 73 million registered users.
The worm works by using a cross-scripting weakness found around two weeks ago in MySpace and a feature within Apple's QuickTime multimedia player.
How Worm Spreads
The exploit starts with a user who visits a MySpace profile infected with an embedded QuickTime movie. The movie loads JavaScript code that overlays a row of menu options on a MySpace profile with a bogus menu.
A QuickTime function, called the HREF track, can direct the player to use JavaScript commands to load Web pages into a browser frame or window.
The JavaScript feature in QuickTime has legitimate uses, "but there are a lot of legitimate uses for technology that can be misused," said Ross Paul, senior product manager with Websense.
If an option in the bogus menu is clicked, the user is directed to a fake log-in page hosted on another server where the person's log-in details are captured. This phishing-style maneuver is similar to another recent attack aimed at MySpace users.
Websense has posted a screenshot of the fake log-in page.
Exploits MySpace Features
MySpace's "seemingly random tendency" to expire user sessions or log out users makes it less noticeable to victims that an attack is under way, according to a November 16 advisory by the Computer Academic Underground.
Additionally, the worm places an embedded QuickTime movie on the user's profile, which will then repeat the infection process for anyone who visits the profile.
The worm has another malicious function. Once a profile is infected, the worm sends spam to other people in the user's contact list.
Those spam messages contain a file that appears to be a movie but instead is a link to a pornographic site that also hosts adware from Zango, Boyd said. Zango, formerly 180 Solutions, settled in November with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission for $3 million because of complaints it didn't properly ask the consent of users before its adware was installed.
Worm Ducks Detection
Boyd said he's heard anecdotal stories of users removing the worm's JavaScript manually from their profile, but the worm reappears after some time if one of their friend's profiles is infected. Several variants of the worm have also appeared, he said.
While some of the Web sites hosting the malicious QuickTime movie have been taken down, others have appeared, Boyd said.
The Firefox 2.0 browser was flagging some of the bogus log-in sites as phishing sites, Boyd said. However, phishing sites can be active for several hours before they are flagged, he said.
MySpace officials in London couldn't immediately comment Monday morning.
The social networking site MySpace.com is under what one computer security analyst calls an "amazingly virulent" attack caused by a worm that steals log-in credentials and spreads spam that promotes adware sites.
The worm is infecting MySpace profiles with such efficiency that an informal scan of 150 found that close to a third were infected, said Christopher Boyd, security research manager at FaceTime Communications.
MySpace, owned by News Corp., is estimated to have at least 73 million registered users.
The worm works by using a cross-scripting weakness found around two weeks ago in MySpace and a feature within Apple's QuickTime multimedia player.
How Worm Spreads
The exploit starts with a user who visits a MySpace profile infected with an embedded QuickTime movie. The movie loads JavaScript code that overlays a row of menu options on a MySpace profile with a bogus menu.
A QuickTime function, called the HREF track, can direct the player to use JavaScript commands to load Web pages into a browser frame or window.
The JavaScript feature in QuickTime has legitimate uses, "but there are a lot of legitimate uses for technology that can be misused," said Ross Paul, senior product manager with Websense.
If an option in the bogus menu is clicked, the user is directed to a fake log-in page hosted on another server where the person's log-in details are captured. This phishing-style maneuver is similar to another recent attack aimed at MySpace users.
Websense has posted a screenshot of the fake log-in page.
Exploits MySpace Features
MySpace's "seemingly random tendency" to expire user sessions or log out users makes it less noticeable to victims that an attack is under way, according to a November 16 advisory by the Computer Academic Underground.
Additionally, the worm places an embedded QuickTime movie on the user's profile, which will then repeat the infection process for anyone who visits the profile.
The worm has another malicious function. Once a profile is infected, the worm sends spam to other people in the user's contact list.
Those spam messages contain a file that appears to be a movie but instead is a link to a pornographic site that also hosts adware from Zango, Boyd said. Zango, formerly 180 Solutions, settled in November with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission for $3 million because of complaints it didn't properly ask the consent of users before its adware was installed.
Worm Ducks Detection
Boyd said he's heard anecdotal stories of users removing the worm's JavaScript manually from their profile, but the worm reappears after some time if one of their friend's profiles is infected. Several variants of the worm have also appeared, he said.
While some of the Web sites hosting the malicious QuickTime movie have been taken down, others have appeared, Boyd said.
The Firefox 2.0 browser was flagging some of the bogus log-in sites as phishing sites, Boyd said. However, phishing sites can be active for several hours before they are flagged, he said.
MySpace officials in London couldn't immediately comment Monday morning.
Jihadists Publish Cybersecurity E-Zine
Monday, December 04, 2006 06:00 AM PST
Jihadists now have their own security magazine.
Technical Mujahid, a 64-page electronic magazine, began circulating last week on jihadist discussion forums, said Adam Raisman, an analyst with the the terrorist tracking organization Search for International Terrorist Entities (SITE) Institute.
SITE, based in Washington, has published an analysis of the new publication.
The magazine is distributed by the al-Fajr Information Center, a group that in the past has distributed jihadist videos, according to SITE.
Seeking Tech Support
The magazine's editors say their publication comes in response to a call for technical support from Abu Hamza al-Muhajir, who is reportedly al-Qaeda's leader in Iraq.
Their purpose is "to help prevent acts of aggression against Muslims [in cyberspace], and to assist the mujahideen in their efforts," according to a translation provided by the Middle East Media Research Institute.
"The Internet provides a golden opportunity... for the mujahideen to break the siege placed upon them by the media of the Crusaders and their followers in the Muslim countries, and to use [the Internet] for [the sake of] jihad and the victory of the faith," the translation states.
Like early hacking magazines, Technical Mujahid takes information that has already been published in discussion forums and Web sites and compiles it into one single source, Raisman said. It represents an evolution in the jihadist's documentation of computer security information, he added. "It's interesting to see it in a magazine format, where everything is all included."
Technical Mujahid's first issue, published last week, contains articles on encryption, video encoding, global positioning systems, and how to use virtual machine technology to conceal files, Raisman said.
Future issues will cover topics such as concealing one's identity on the Internet and how to set up a jihadi Web site, he said.
No Attack Plans
Interestingly, Technical Mujahid does not provide technical information on how to conduct online attacks--a subject that was put front and center in the U.S. this week, when the Department of Homeland Security's United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT) warned that Islamic militants were threatening to attack U.S. financial institutions during December.
The magazine shows that militants share many of the same security concerns as many IT professionals, said Marcus Sachs, deputy director with research group SRI International's Computer Science Laboratory.
"Western media only covers the story that the jihadists are out to destroy us," he said. "In fact they're just as worried about Internet security in the same way were are."
Introducing PC World Videos
Friday, December 01, 2006 11:00 AM PST
We have dozens of informative, helpful, and exciting videos now playing here at PCWorld.com, and you can begin to enjoy them today by visiting our new Video section. And many more videos are coming to you in the very near future.
When you visit our Video section, you'll find our most recent clip at the top of the page. A bit below that is our Video Library, where you'll find our complete listings.
Check out our How-To section, where you'll learn how to easily accomplish some fairly daunting but common tasks, such as installing RAID, reinstalling Windows XP, and setting up a Wi-Fi network.
Over in our Reviews section, you'll see reviews of the season's hottest products, including the Sony PlayStation 3 and the Nintendo Wii. For a taste of what's there.
showVideoPlayer("365");
And then there's the "Cool Tools" section, which includes a potpourri of quick reviews covering all sorts of gadgets ranging from MP3 sunglasses to the BlackBerry Pearl to products that convert vinyl record albums to CD.
We all hope you'll enjoy this new part of your PCWorld.com experience. Tell me what you think by adding your comments below.
HP Faces Expanded Civil Lawsuit In Spying Case
Friday, December 01, 2006 08:00 AM PST
A shareholder lawsuit against Hewlett-Packard for attempting to spy on board members and reporters has been expanded to include charges of insider stock trading.
An amended complaint filed Wednesday in the Superior Court of California for Santa Clara County accuses HP Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Mark Hurd and seven other company executives of selling $41.3 million worth of HP stock at "inflated prices" shortly before the company revealed that its investigators had used questionable and possibly illegal techniques to gain access to personal records such as phone call logs.
The eight executives sold 1.7 million shares of stock between Aug. 21 and Sept. 6, according to the lawsuit. In an Aug. 31 filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), HP said an outside investigator used the practice of pretexting, pretending to be someone else, to gain access to personal records.
Criminal Charges
Former HP Chairman Patricia Dunn and four others face criminal charges stemming from their alleged participation in the spying, which also used e-mail tracer technology, according to testimony before a U.S. congressional committee.
HP also tried to prop up the value of its stock price by announcing on Aug. 21 it would repurchase $6 billion worth of its stock, the lawsuit says.
"In the midst of this acrimony HP executives cashed in," says the complaint, filed by the Lerach, Coughlin, Stoia, Geller, Rudman & Robbins LLP law firm.
HP issued a statement calling the lawsuit "baseless." The lawsuit "represents a transparent effort to exploit issues related to HP's recent investigation for personal gain at the expense of HP, its shareholders and its employees," the statement said. "HP will defend itself vigorously."
HP acknowledged that it had obtained the phone records of 12 people by using pretexting.
Spying Scandal
The stockholder lawsuit, originally filed in September, asks the court to declare that HP's executives have "committed breaches of their fiduciary duties" and to order executives to repay the amount the company has been damaged by the spying scandal. The lawsuit also asks the court to require HP to reform its corporate governance and to extract punitive damages from Dunn, Hurd and other HP executives
Ohio County Eyes Switch To Optical-Scan E-Voting
Friday, December 01, 2006 08:00 AM PST
Ohio's Cuyahoga County Board of Commissioners is considering scrapping a $17 million investment in touch-screen electronic-voting hardware and switching to precinct count optical scan devices.
Cuyahoga County, which includes Cleveland, runs Diebold Election Systems' AccuVote TSX systems. Board members are concerned that the systems now in place can't handle a growing number of voters. By contrast, optical scan systems could accommodate increased numbers of voters by allowing officials to add more places for them to fill out paper ballots in heavy-turnout elections.
Paper Trail
The use of touch screen systems in the county's May 2 primary was the subject of a critical report by the Election Science Institute (ESI). Based in San Francisco, ESI is a nonprofit group that works to promote the development of auditable election systems. The report noted that the performance of the paper trail system used by the machines to record votes was flawed, as well.
That the commission is considering swapping out Diebold's TSX gear in favor of optical scan technology is noteworthy, said Steven Hertzberg, project director at ESI. "Diebold's rhetoric about the performance of its direct record electronic (DRE)-based election system does not withstand objective scrutiny, and the Cuyahoga Commissioners obviously now know this." He also said he believes the county spent more money, effort and energy evaluating the system than perhaps any other jurisdiction in the nation.
Diebold, however, is claiming its systems work very well with large numbers of voters. Diebold spokesman David Bear noted that the vendor has sold DRE systems in huge jurisdictions, including the states of Utah and Georgia, and the machines are able to support high numbers of voters there. Moreover, the issues in Cuyahoga County involving DRE use have tended to result from training issues and familiarity with the devices, rather than the performance of the technology itself.
Diebold also sells optical scan devices, which have their own advantages, as well, said Bear. "Cuyahoga County will make the decision appropriate to itself and we'll be there to work with it," he said.
Verification of Accuracy Infeasible
Meanwhile, members of the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have posted a draft set of recommendations (download PDF) related to the use of voting systems. The federal agency develops and promotes measurement, standards and technology and in their paper, NIST researchers offered several recommendations for the 2007 Voluntary Voting Systems Guidelines (VVSG).
Perhaps the most significant of the recommendations is that NIST believes there should be a requirement for software independence placed in the VVSG. Software independence means a system's electronic counts can be independently audited, or that there is an auditable paper trail, such as exists in optical scan technology. NIST asserted that DREs are software dependent -- that is, they don't produce a voter-verified audit trail.
The verification of DRE accuracy is "so complex as to be infeasible" and current testing methods cannot guarantee DRE accuracy, NIST said in the report. It urged that no software-dependent approaches be allowed in the 2007 guidelines.
The NIST report is expected to be presented at the Technical Guidelines Development Committee (TGDC) meeting next week in Gaithersburg, Md.. The TGDC helps set elections regulations.
AMD Receives DOJ Subpoena Over Graphics Processing
Friday, December 01, 2006 07:00 AM PST
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has subpoenaed Advanced Micro Devices(AMD) as part of an antitrust investigation into the market for graphics processors and graphics cards, AMD said Thursday.
AMD recently entered the graphics chip business with its acquisition of ATI Technologies, which was finalized last month. The DOJ has not made any allegations against AMD or ATI, and AMD intends to cooperate with the investigation, it said.
Price Fixing
While the DOJ hasn't said specifically what it is investigating, one industry analyst speculated that the case could be about price fixing. The DOJ has already charged a number of chip companies in the DRAM (Dynamic RAM) memory chip market for price fixing, and is investigating several in the SRAM (Static RAM) chip market.
"If the DOJ wanted to, it could just go down every line in the semiconductor industry and find the same issue," said Gartner analyst Richard Gordon. That's because there are a relatively few number of suppliers in the chip industry and an open flow of communication between competitors and customers, who may not define price fixing the same way the DOJ does, he said.
The investigations are unlikely to benefit end users, according to Gordon. Historically, prices in the chip industry have gone up and down based on supply and demand and he doubts that such investigations will result in lower pricing.
A spokeswoman for AMD in Europe, Hollis Krym, said she did not know if the investigation has a broad scope and includes other graphics chip companies or if it is in the context of the ATI acquisition. U.S. antitrust authorities have already approved AMD's merger with ATI.
Widespread In Industry
In the DRAM market, the DOJ has charged Samsung Electronics, Hynix Semiconductor America, Elpida Memory and Infineon Technologies with price fixing and sentenced the companies to pay multi-million dollar fines.
Sony, Cypress Semiconductor and the U.S. arms of Mitsubishi Electric, Samsung Electronics and Toshiba have all been asked to turn over information to the DOJ for an investigation into SRAM price fixing.
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has subpoenaed Advanced Micro Devices(AMD) as part of an antitrust investigation into the market for graphics processors and graphics cards, AMD said Thursday.
AMD recently entered the graphics chip business with its acquisition of ATI Technologies, which was finalized last month. The DOJ has not made any allegations against AMD or ATI, and AMD intends to cooperate with the investigation, it said.
Price Fixing
While the DOJ hasn't said specifically what it is investigating, one industry analyst speculated that the case could be about price fixing. The DOJ has already charged a number of chip companies in the DRAM (Dynamic RAM) memory chip market for price fixing, and is investigating several in the SRAM (Static RAM) chip market.
"If the DOJ wanted to, it could just go down every line in the semiconductor industry and find the same issue," said Gartner analyst Richard Gordon. That's because there are a relatively few number of suppliers in the chip industry and an open flow of communication between competitors and customers, who may not define price fixing the same way the DOJ does, he said.
The investigations are unlikely to benefit end users, according to Gordon. Historically, prices in the chip industry have gone up and down based on supply and demand and he doubts that such investigations will result in lower pricing.
A spokeswoman for AMD in Europe, Hollis Krym, said she did not know if the investigation has a broad scope and includes other graphics chip companies or if it is in the context of the ATI acquisition. U.S. antitrust authorities have already approved AMD's merger with ATI.
Widespread In Industry
In the DRAM market, the DOJ has charged Samsung Electronics, Hynix Semiconductor America, Elpida Memory and Infineon Technologies with price fixing and sentenced the companies to pay multi-million dollar fines.
Sony, Cypress Semiconductor and the U.S. arms of Mitsubishi Electric, Samsung Electronics and Toshiba have all been asked to turn over information to the DOJ for an investigation into SRAM price fixing.
PlayStation 3 Sales Drop Sharply On Low Supply
Friday, December 01, 2006 06:00 AM PST
Sales of the PlayStation 3 console during its first full week of availability in Japan were sharply lower than those during the two days immediately following its launch, according to estimates published this week.
During the seven days from Nov. 13 to Nov. 19, there were 43,378 of the consoles sold in Japan compared with 88,400 sold on Nov. 11 and Nov. 12, according to figures published by Enterbrain Friday. The company publishes local gaming magazine Famitsu and its figures are generally regarded in the industry as reliable.
Another local market data supplier, Media Create Co., estimated sales in the first full week at 42,099 units and said they dropped further to 32,622 units in the week from Nov. 20 to Nov. 27. Media Create earlier estimated launch weekend shipments were 81,693 units.
Supply To Blame
Sony Computer Entertainment in Tokyo wouldn't comment on the estimates but said that it is continuously shipping new consoles to retailers in Japan and the U.S.
The sharply lower number of consoles sold is likely due to tight supply of the machines. Sony has faced problems procuring blue-laser diodes for the PlayStation 3's Blu-ray Disc drive and was forced to cut-back on launch plans. It had originally planned to have 2 million consoles in Japanese, North American and European retailers for launch week but this was reduced to 500,000 units and the European launch was pushed back to March 2007.
As a result the consoles have been in high demand and fetching premium prices on Internet auction sites.
Game Sales Not Much Better
Software sales for the PlayStation 3 have also gotten off to a slow start. Sales have been lower than expected in part because a large number of early buyers were getting the console to resell for a profit online. Enterbrain estimated that in Japan, less software than hardware was sold at launch, while in the U.S. retailer Gamestop said an average of 1.5 games were sold with each console. In comparison the retailer reported average software sales for the Nintendo Wii were three titles per console.
The highest ranking software title for PlayStation 3 on Media Create's chart for the week of Nov. 20 to Nov. 27 was Ridge Racer 7, taking the 29 position.
Pick the Perfect Holiday Gift
Friday, December 01, 2006 01:00 AM PST
If you've been to a computer or electronics store recently--or even visited stores' Web sites--you know that there are more products to choose from than ever. Selecting just the right item seems impossible, whether you're shopping for a family member, for a friend, or even for yourself. Eventually you have to narrow down your choices, keeping budget, product quality, and appropriateness in mind.
We can help. We've pinpointed some of the best and most popular products for this holiday season at all price ranges in ten categories: HDTVs, cell phones, digital cameras, camcorders, audio and video players, games, gadgets, desktop PCs, laptops, and printers.
For even more assistance, turn to our expert buying guides, which offer advice on selecting the perfect product in a variety of categories.
HDTV: Higher Definition at a Lower Cost
With its glossy black finish, the 50-inch plasma screen of Pioneer's PDP-5070HD is as handsome when the TV is off as it is when the TV is on. But considering this flat screen's startlingly vivid color decoding and accurate video processing, you'll want it on all the time. The high-end video performance and generous features are pricey, though: This model will cost you around $2850--significantly more than many other plasma TVs today.
The PDP-5070HD, which has a native resolution of 1365 by 768, comes with dual-tuner PIP (picture-in-picture), an integrated ATSC tuner for reception of off-air local HDTV channels, and a CableCard slot for box-free digital cable reception. Pioneer even throws in the programmable TV Guide on-screen service. You also have a generous choice of video inputs: two HDMI inputs and a host of component video connections, including S-Video, composite, RF, and a VGA input for PCs. The included speakers are on a single, detachable bar below the screen, but you can add higher-powered external speakers.
If the 50-inch Pioneer plasma is too expensive for you, consider the $1400 (list) Vizio P42HDTV, a 42-inch plasma flat-screen model with a sharp, bright screen and impressive contrast. The Vizio includes PIP, but it does not have a CableCard slot or a DVI input for use with a PC. Still, with its analog NTSC and digital ATSC tuners and built-in speakers, this is a full-fledged HDTV available at a bargain price.
For more tips on what to look for when purchasing HDTVs, see "The Lowdown on HDTV."
Thin Phones, Big Features
Motorola had a runaway hit with its ultraslim Razr cell phone. Taking the next step--combining the wow factor of the svelte Razr and the convenience of a QWERTY keyboard--was a no-brainer. The Moto Q offers a camera, a music player, and e-mail access in a low-priced, South Beach Diet-size package. The device is available from Verizon Wireless for $199 with a two-year contract.
Running Microsoft's Windows Mobile 5.0, the Bluetooth-enabled Q boasts a crisp 2.4-inch color LCD--all the better to show off the photos and videos you take with its 1.3-megapixel camera. The full keyboard and side thumb wheel make navigation and text entry easy. The e-mail send and receive functions are optimized for Microsoft Exchange clients, but the unit also supports e-mail from POP3 servers, as well as full Web browsing.
The built-in pair of stereo speakers in the half-inch case might not make your MP3s (or any of the seven supported audio formats) sound great, but they do enhance the Q's speakerphone capabilities. A headphone port gives optimum stereo audio, and a miniSD card slot allows for expanded memory. Oh, yes, the Q works great as a phone, too.
If you're shopping for someone who doesn't need a flood of features, check out the Sanyo Katana (available from Sprint Nextel for $80 with a two-year contract). This slim clamshell model has a VGA camera with dedicated controls that make the feature easy to use; the Bluetooth-enabled phone can send photos wirelessly or by e-mail, too. Available in pink and black, the Katana certainly mimics the Razr V3, but it still has its own high-tech style.
If you've been to a computer or electronics store recently--or even visited stores' Web sites--you know that there are more products to choose from than ever. Selecting just the right item seems impossible, whether you're shopping for a family member, for a friend, or even for yourself. Eventually you have to narrow down your choices, keeping budget, product quality, and appropriateness in mind.
We can help. We've pinpointed some of the best and most popular products for this holiday season at all price ranges in ten categories: HDTVs, cell phones, digital cameras, camcorders, audio and video players, games, gadgets, desktop PCs, laptops, and printers.
For even more assistance, turn to our expert buying guides, which offer advice on selecting the perfect product in a variety of categories.
HDTV: Higher Definition at a Lower Cost
With its glossy black finish, the 50-inch plasma screen of Pioneer's PDP-5070HD is as handsome when the TV is off as it is when the TV is on. But considering this flat screen's startlingly vivid color decoding and accurate video processing, you'll want it on all the time. The high-end video performance and generous features are pricey, though: This model will cost you around $2850--significantly more than many other plasma TVs today.
The PDP-5070HD, which has a native resolution of 1365 by 768, comes with dual-tuner PIP (picture-in-picture), an integrated ATSC tuner for reception of off-air local HDTV channels, and a CableCard slot for box-free digital cable reception. Pioneer even throws in the programmable TV Guide on-screen service. You also have a generous choice of video inputs: two HDMI inputs and a host of component video connections, including S-Video, composite, RF, and a VGA input for PCs. The included speakers are on a single, detachable bar below the screen, but you can add higher-powered external speakers.
If the 50-inch Pioneer plasma is too expensive for you, consider the $1400 (list) Vizio P42HDTV, a 42-inch plasma flat-screen model with a sharp, bright screen and impressive contrast. The Vizio includes PIP, but it does not have a CableCard slot or a DVI input for use with a PC. Still, with its analog NTSC and digital ATSC tuners and built-in speakers, this is a full-fledged HDTV available at a bargain price.
For more tips on what to look for when purchasing HDTVs, see "The Lowdown on HDTV."
Thin Phones, Big Features
Motorola had a runaway hit with its ultraslim Razr cell phone. Taking the next step--combining the wow factor of the svelte Razr and the convenience of a QWERTY keyboard--was a no-brainer. The Moto Q offers a camera, a music player, and e-mail access in a low-priced, South Beach Diet-size package. The device is available from Verizon Wireless for $199 with a two-year contract.
Running Microsoft's Windows Mobile 5.0, the Bluetooth-enabled Q boasts a crisp 2.4-inch color LCD--all the better to show off the photos and videos you take with its 1.3-megapixel camera. The full keyboard and side thumb wheel make navigation and text entry easy. The e-mail send and receive functions are optimized for Microsoft Exchange clients, but the unit also supports e-mail from POP3 servers, as well as full Web browsing.
The built-in pair of stereo speakers in the half-inch case might not make your MP3s (or any of the seven supported audio formats) sound great, but they do enhance the Q's speakerphone capabilities. A headphone port gives optimum stereo audio, and a miniSD card slot allows for expanded memory. Oh, yes, the Q works great as a phone, too.
If you're shopping for someone who doesn't need a flood of features, check out the Sanyo Katana (available from Sprint Nextel for $80 with a two-year contract). This slim clamshell model has a VGA camera with dedicated controls that make the feature easy to use; the Bluetooth-enabled phone can send photos wirelessly or by e-mail, too. Available in pink and black, the Katana certainly mimics the Razr V3, but it still has its own high-tech style.
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