Ed Oswald

Microsoft's Windows Live desktop search project has been shelved "indefinitely," although not much reasoning has been given as to the reason for its demise.

Windows Live enthusiast blog LiveSide.net reported Thursday that the project, as well as several others, have been set aside as a result of a recent unannounced reorganization of the Windows Live and MSN divisions.

Continue reading →

United Online, which owns the NetZero and Juno brands, made its first moves into broadband on Thursday, announcing it would offer DSL service via infrastructure leased from Verizon. The company is one of the last major providers to begin to migrate its business to broadband.

The moves come at a time where consumers are increasingly turning to broadband as a faster -- and in some cases cheaper -- alternative. AOL, which built its business on dialup users, was the first to feel the sting of migration, with EarthLink following soon after.

Continue reading →

Comedy Central plans to follow in the footsteps of YouTube by allowing its users to syndicate videos found in its "MotherLoad" video service. The changes, coming later this month, will be introduced along with a redesign of the company's Web site.

In many ways, this is also a victory for Adobe as yet another major content provider switches to the Flash video format. Once an also-ran in multimedia, the technology has quickly turned into the format of choice for its cross-compatibility with a variety of platforms.

Continue reading →

Sling Media said Thursday that it had partnered with British wireless carrier 3 Group to offer its subscribers access to home televisions through the Slingbox device. The functionality would be available on any "X-Series" device, which includes the Nokia N73 and the Sony Ericsson W950i.

SlingPlayer Mobile allows users with the set-top device to control their televisions, DVR recorders and other media devices when away from home. The company first introduced the software earlier this year, although that software was intended for Windows Mobile smart phones.

Continue reading →

Although all three companies may be bitter rivals in the race for search engine supremacy, Google, Yahoo and Microsoft have decided to work together in one area - search engine submission. Microsoft and Yahoo said Thursday that they would adopt Google's Sitemaps protocol.

Google first announced the initiative in July 2005, and it was originally supported by just Yahoo and Google as a way to ease the site submission process.

Continue reading →

AOL said Thursday that it had named former president and COO of NBC Universal Randy Falco as the new chairman and CEO of AOL. Falco replaces Jonathan Miller, who had served as the company's CEO since 2002, and confirms rumors that he was about to leave.

While publicly Time Warner executives commended Miller and disputing rumors of his exit, the Wall Street Journal says that sources within the company say a move to find a successor had been underway for months.

Continue reading →

Microsoft is expected to announce a strategic partnership with Sprint that would highlight the company's Windows Live offerings, BetaNews has learned. Sources close to Microsoft say the two companies would initially offer Redmond's Windows Live Search as early as Thursday, with additional services to come.

Sprint's implementation is believed to not only allow for searching of location-based results, but also to search Sprint's own catalog of services, including ring tones and the like. Additionally, targeted advertising opportunities would be available for businesses.

Continue reading →

Microsoft said Wednesday that it would offer a public beta of its highly anticipated "Halo 3" video game to Xbox 360 users via Xbox Live in the spring of next year. In addition, advertising for the game would begin in December, and new premium content for Halo 2 is also planned.

The company is hoping to make gamers a bigger part of the development process through the beta. Bungie Studios plans to use the feedback it receives on Halo 3 to refine the game in preparation for the final release.

Continue reading →

Those early adopters who bought a Microsoft Zune on Tuesday were greeted with an embarrassing incompatibility when they tried to install it on to their computers running Windows Vista: it doesn't work with Redmond's latest operating system.

"This operating system is currently not supported by Zune," says an error message when attempting to install the device. Zune's official Web site confirms the issue saying that Vista "is not supported at this time" and "to check back for updates."

Continue reading →

At least one analyst has publicly stated that Sony is nowhere near its earlier stated goal of 400,000 PS3 units for the U.S. launch, raising the possibility that it may be very difficult to locate an available console when it arrives on Friday.

Lazard Capital Markets analyst Colin Sebastian said those who did not preorder the PS3 might not be able to locate an available system. "We expect Sony to deliver 150-200k units to stores in the United States for the launch," he wrote in a note to clients.

Continue reading →

Microsoft and MetroFi announced a partnership Wednesday to blanket the city of Portland, Ore. with free wireless Internet access. The service would be advertiser supported, and make use of the Redmond company's adCenter platform to attract advertisers and help target their ads.

Service would be initially launched in Pioneer Courthouse Square later this year. When the project is completed, about 95 percent of the city would have Wi-Fi access. Speeds of 1Mbps downstream and 256Kbps upstream would be provided.

Continue reading →

REPORTER'S NOTEBOOK With all the hype surrounding the launch of Microsoft's Zune music player, I set out Tuesday afternoon to see if sales of the product were matching those lofty expectations. From the look of things, that hype may be exceeding reality for the time being.

For the purposes of this article, I visited four major retailers -- Target, Best Buy, Circuit City, and Wal-Mart -- all in the Reading, PA area, a city about 65 miles to the northwest of Philadelphia. While this suburb is a good ways away from the "megalopolis," it is by no means small town America.

Continue reading →

Aiming to take advantage of the rise of blogging, news wire service Reuters said Tuesday that it was investing $7 million in Web aggregator Pluck in exchange for an undisclosed stake in the Austin, Texas based company.

Reuters will offer Pluck's BlogBurst service to its worldwide customers. The service provides an edited and moderated feed of approximately 2,800 blogs to supplement traditional journalism. Customers include the Washington Post and San Francisco Chronicle in the US, and the Guardian newspaper in the UK.

Continue reading →

Soon airline passengers of six major airlines will be able to charge their iPods as well as view videos stored on the devices on the seat back displays of those airlines, Apple announced on Tuesday. The functionality is expected to be available by mid-2007.

It was not immediately clear whether the integration would also support older iPod models that do not have video support.

Continue reading →

Intel began the multi-core era by beating AMD to the punch by releasing its first quad-core chips for high-end workstations and servers. Two families would sport the architecture: the Intel Xeon 5300 series processors, and the Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6700.

The new Xeons are 50 percent faster than the 5100 series Xeons released earlier this year, and would be available in speeds run at speeds from 1.6GHz to 2.66GHz. The new Core 2 Extreme quad-core processors are up to 80 percent faster than the current model, the X6800, and available at 2.66GHz.

Continue reading →