Ed Oswald

Tensions between eBay and Google rose on Wednesday after the auction site decided to pull some of its ads from the search engine's AdWords program.

The move only affects ads within the United States. eBay will continue to run ads through the program outside of the country. While the company is saying the move is part of a regular switch in strategies to determine the best use of advertising dollars, some are saying differently.

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Microsoft said Wednesday that it had ended its multiplayer beta of Halo 3, adding that it had attracted over 820,000 unique participants contributing over 12 million hours of game play.

The company now turns its focus to promotion through Halo-themed merchandise, such as a special edition wireless controller and wireless headset. While the accessories are not available until September, Microsoft is building buzz by permitting pre-orders.

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YouTube plans to launch a video identification system that will help the company sniff out copyrighted material, it said earlier this week. Tests begin initially with Walt Disney and Time Warner.

In about a month, the company will start using clips supplied by the media companies to identify unique characteristics within clips posted by users. If a match is found, the content owner is alerted.

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Intel and Google are heading a group comprised of both technology and environmental groups aimed at promoting energy efficient computing.

Called the Climate Savers Computing Initiative, the group also includes Dell, HP, Microsoft, The World Wildlife Fund and about 20 other companies and groups. Altogether, the group aims to save $5.5 billion USD in energy costs and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 54 million tons.

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Microsoft released six updates to address various issues across its products on Tuesday, including four which were rated critical, and three that affected Windows Vista.

The first is an important fix that addresses two issues within Microsoft's Visio product. The first is a remote code execution vulnerability in how the product handles a specially-crafted version number within a Visio file. The other revolves around an issue in how Visio handles parsing of packed objects.

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Attempting to move in on Parallels' turf, VMware on Tuesday announced the pre-order for a previously announced product that allows users to run any x86 operating system simultaneously.

A preorder special would give consumers the opportunity to purchase VMware Fusion for $39.99, some $40 cheaper than its rival. When the general availability of Fusion arrives in August, the price will be pegged at $79.99.

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Blockbuster stepped up its battle for customers with rival Netflix on Tuesday by adjusting its online rental prices down.

Online rental plans now start at $4.99 per month, with the price of its standard three-at-a-time movie rental package lowered to $16.99 per month. Pricing is available to new as well as old subscribers.

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In an effort to appease EU regulators, Google on Tuesday said it will limit the amount of time it keeps user data to 18 months.

However, it left the door open to return to its original high-end time period of two years depending on data retention laws, it warned. After this period, the identifiable information will be removed, however Google will still retain the data.

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Nokia said Tuesday its Wibree technology is becoming part of the Bluetooth standard, meaning the ultra low power technology will likely see much broader adoption as a result.

Wibree offers Bluetooth-like performance at up to 10 meters (30 feet) at a speed of up to 1Mbps, and operates in the 2.4GHz band. Nokia has been developing the technology in its labs since 2001.

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Not even a day after it had boasted about rapidly increasing player sales, Toshiba said Tuesday it would lower its sales target for HD DVD players in North America.

On Monday, the Toshiba-backed HD DVD Promotions Group said it regained its lead over Blu-ray, now holding 60 percent of all high-definition set-top players sold. In addition, the format was able to set an all-time record for titles sold in May, with 75,000 discs shipped.

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Adobe took the wraps off of AIR on Monday, its cross-operating system platform that allows developers to use Web-centric programming languages and environments to create desktop applications.

AIR, formerly code-named "Apollo," works hand-in-hand with with Flex, Adobe's framework for creating rich Internet applications. Together, "the masses would be able to create applications," senior product manager for Adobe AIR Louis Polanco told BetaNews.

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The HD DVD Promotions Group said Monday that its strategy of price cuts seems to be paying off - sales have skyrocketed, it claims.

HD DVD has regained its lead over Blu-ray, now holding 60 percent of all high-definition set-top players sold. In addition, the format was able to set an all-time record for titles sold in May, with 75,000 discs shipped.

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With its upgrade to Cayman complete, AOL is focusing on adding features to its web e-mail client that will help it to catch up and surpass its competitors in features.

The first of the new features is full integration with its AIM messaging product, something the first iteration of Cayman began, but only did so in a rudimentary form.

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WWDC 2007 - For many, the biggest complaint about the Mac is it's lack of games. Apple wants to change that. The company said Monday that EA Games would return to the platform in addition to several other developers, helping to further make the Mac as a platform for gamers.

Among the games coming to the Mac would be Command & Conquer 3, Battlefield 2142, Need for Speed Carbon, and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. The games are expected to simultaneously release in July.

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Google is being taken to task by a UK-based privacy group over its apparent lack of a commitment to the privacy of its users. However, the company is doing what it can do discredit the report.

Privacy International said Saturday that the Mountain View, Calif.-based search engine had the lowest possible grade of any of the 22 online companies it surveyed, a level which it called "comprehensive consumer surveillance and entrenched hostility to privacy."

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