Judge Abruptly Ends Microsoft Antitrust Proceedings
The federal judge overseeing the government's antitrust case against Microsoft Corp. closed proceedings in the case on Wednesday, indicating he would side with the government's proposal to either break up the software giant or impose significant restrictions on the company's business practices.
After a full day of proceedings, US District Court Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson abruptly called an end to the drawn-out proceedings, asking the government to polish its final judgment and giving the software giant 48 hours to object.
Debian Linux Test Cycle 2 Beginning
Test cycle 2 of Debian GNU/Linux 2.2 is set to begin later this week. Test cycle 1 ends on Wednesday of this week, at which time the packages scheduled to be installed will be installed and the packages with critical bugs will be taken out. Developers will pay special attention to bugs found in 'Woody' and not in 'Potato'. Woody, stll tagged unstable by the Debian group, is the graduate of the 'Potato' release and being actively developed at this time. The official start of the second cycle is Monday, May 29th, and the boot floppies and CD images will be made available shortly afterwards. Visit Debian.org for more information about Woody and Potato.
Corel Applications To Be Served To Consumers Via ASPs
Corel Corp. today said it has reached an agreement with C Me Run Corp. that could see its desktop software served up online for consumers via their Internet service providers (ISPs) and through Web portals.
Hudson, Mass.-based C Me Run aims to help such ISPs and portals quickly becomes application service providers (ASPs) by managing the technology required to deliver an Internet-computing approach to programs typically run on desktops.
MP3.com Reports Strong Subscription Service Demand
MP3.com, Inc., is reporting surprising demand for what MP3.com says is the Internet’s first on-demand music subscription system.
Launched just after MP3.com Inc. was found liable in US States District Court for copyright infringement in an action brought by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), the MP3 subscription service offers unlimited downloading of classical music from the MP3.com Classical Music Channel.
The RIAA, which includes some of the world’s largest record labels, had claimed that the personalized MP3.com service known as My.MP3.com, allowed users access unlicensed copies of MP3-formatted music CDs, in violation of the rights of the music’s copyright owners.
In order to avoid any similar claims that MP3.com was promoting copyright infringement, MP3.com licenses and pays royalties on all of the content that is downloaded and played by subscribers to the Classical Music Channel.
“We expected healthy traffic domestically, but what really surprised us was the international demand,” said Chris Montgomery, MP3.com’s vice president of channel development and head of MP3.com’s Subscription Division. Montgomery told Newsbytes that while he could not give a specific reason for the popularity of the Classical Music Channel abroad, the subscription model was “being embraced all over.”
“Subscription channels are a way for music, video, and spoken word producers to potentially transform idle back catalogs into highly profitable, recurring revenue streams,” Montgomery said.
According to MP3.com, subscribers to the new subscription channel reside in Europe, Latin America and Asia, as well as in North America.
Subscribers to the Classical Music Channel pay a monthly fee of $9.99, which MP3.com says gives them unlimited streaming access to thousands of tracks that are fully downloadable from the MP3.com collection. In addition, MP3.com says that new releases will be featured every month, and subscribers can purchase classical music CDs at a 50 percent discount.
Montgomery would not say how many subscribers there are to the new channel. He said that MP3.com would be making an announcement in
approximately one week, at which time the service will have been in operation for about a month.
According to the company, the MP3.com subscription service offers flexible content management and administration tools whereby content providers can access daily auditing and usage statistics such as subscriber reports, artist’s page views, and the number of song plays
for precise royalty reconciliation.
In addition to monitoring tools, MP3.com’s Classical Music Channel offers a feature called “just-in-time” CD manufacturing, which allows content providers to create and sell their CDs online.
MP3.com says that its Classical Music Channel is the first of many proposed on-demand subscription channels that it will be launching. Other channels slated for release include alternative music, jazz, children’s content, and “urban.” Montgomery declined to say which offering would be next, only that an announcement would be made
soon.
More information is available from MP3.com, Inc. at
http://www.mp3.com .
Reported by Newsbytes.com, http://www.newsbytes.com
Microsoft Releases Datacenter Server Beta 2
The next big addition to the Windows 2000 family, Datacenter Server, has hit beta 2 according to Microsoft. This release will ship to Microsoft business partners, including server hardware vendors, IHVs, ISVs, and several research institutes. This is done in order to create software that cooperates well with the system, as well as to create Datacenter Server Hardware Compatibility tests. Microsoft officials told reporters that Beta 2 was "a key milestone" in completing the program. Visit Microsoft for more information.
Windows ME - RC1 'Official'
ActiveWin is reporting that rumors circulating concerning the current build of Windows Me, Build 2525.6, being Release Candidate 1 of the next Microsoft operating system have been confirmed. This build was released last week, causing many to wonder whether or not it was the "official" RC1, and Microsoft confirmed those rumors early today in an announcement to testers.
Michael Crichton and Microsoft Team Up
Best-selling novelist Michael Crichton has decided to team up with Microsoft and offer his latest "Timeline" as an eBook published using Microsoft Reader on the Pocket PC. This marks the second occurrance of a well-known author choosing the electronic format as the medium to publish a novel, Stephen King doing it at the beginning of this year with his novel "Riding the Bullet".
While the book was popular amongst computer users and Stephen King fans, it wasn't long before hackers cracked the security on the novel and began distributing it across the Internet free of charge.
Win a Cordless Mouse From Microsoft
A survey is currently being conducted by Microsoft at InstantSurvey.com that will giveaway a cordless mouse to the first 100 unique respondants in the survey. Entitled Windows 2000 Professional Quick survey, by answering a few simple questions you may be entitled to receiving the free mouse. Visit InstantSurvey.com to complete the survey.
ThunderWap Beta Testers Wanted
The mi4e (mobile Internet for ecommerce) corporation has written an interesting piece of software that is in need of beta testers. This software, entitled ThunderWap for IIS, will turn any Microsoft Information Server into a WAP 1.1 compliant server. mi4e official Markku Partanen states that ThunderWAP "eliminates response time degradation, security concerns, and separate gateway installation and maintenance problems." The developer version, which supports one WAP user, is available free of charge, while the enterprise version that supports up to 100 concurrent WAP users costs $1995.00 USD and will be available July 15, 2000. Visit mi4e.com for more information and to download the beta of ThunderWAP.
Download the MSXML Technology Preview
Microsoft has released the next technology preview for thier XML standard, so appropriately named MSXML. This preview is an update to the March release, and features various bug fixes and a host of new support, including implementation of Simple API for XML (SAX) 2 support and updated XSLT/XPath standard compliance. Download the latest technology preview from Microsoft, and get the Technology Preview SDK, which requires the new Microsoft Windows Installer.
Microsoft Outlook Patch Available
If you haven't already done so, the patch to prevent such viruses as the worldly famous, and equally devastating, ILOVEYOU worm for Microsoft's e-mail program Outlook is available for download. However, The Register is reporting that the intended fix for Outlook may be more trouble than its worth.
The patch works by preventing any external application from using the address book without user permission. But after wading through the lengthy process of upgrading your system to handle the patch, it may cause problems and prevent some of the handy features of Internet Explorer from working properly.
Microsoft Patch to Prevent DDoS Attacks
Today Microsoft patched a security vulnerability in Windows that allowed malicious users to create distributed denial of service attacks on Web sites around the globe. Such giants as eBay, Slashdot, and many others fell victim to those attacks earlier this year, which caused a massive demand for a solution to the problem.
This fix from Microsoft changes the way the packets are handled and rejoined to prevent said attacks from causing problems. Since the Windows operating system was incorrectly reassembling packets, it left the software open to such attacks.
Microsoft Blasts Feds' Assertions In New Filing
Microsoft Corp. continued to pick apart the Justice Department's argument in favor of breaking up the software giant today in yet another filing in the mounting war of briefs between the two combatants.
"The government has already admitted that the breakup of Microsoft would be 'dangerous to the economy's welfare' and 'against the public interest,'" Microsoft attorneys wrote in today's filing. Today's brief is Microsoft's official response to last week's Justice Department's reply brief, which attacked Microsoft's claim that it should be allowed to remain intact.
RealPlayer 8 Beta Released
RealNetworks has released the first beta of Real Player 8.0, its flagship software. RealNetworks has been the leader in sreaming Internet content until recently when Microsoft announced the Windows Media Player would offer better streaming capabilities with a plethora of other services including a media guide and advanced multimedia content cataloguing abilities.
Now with more competition, RealPlayer 8 hopes to quell any chance of a Windows Media Player uprising, although reviews of the latest Microsoft creation have not been the extremely positive response the software giant had hoped for.
Purplexd Designs Developing New Game
Purplexed Designs has requested the help of all the online gamers out there. The company is developing a new game entitled Unity and is looking for users to provide input and feedback as to what features they would like to see in the game. Since the game is in the early stages of development, users will have the chance to see the features they want implemented. The game itself is a 3D first person sci-fi MMORPG. Visit Purplexd Designs for more information and to view concept sketches and designs for the space station Unity.
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