Ed Oswald

Take-Two Interactive Software's Rockstar Games subsidiary may be in hot water yet again. One of its latest titles, which features a 15-year-old boy bullying his way through his new boarding school, breaches a subject still sensitive to many: homosexuality.

Rockstar was most notably in the news last year for the so-called "Hot Coffee" mod within "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas." While at first the company denied any wrongdoing, it later caved to pressure and admitted its role, while also issuing an updated version that removed the questionable scenes.

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Internet television service Brightcove said Monday that it had signed a deal with AOL to use its video service to help content owners sell videos. In addition, it unveiled the Brightcove Network, an offering that allows for the creation of Internet video channels at little or no cost.

The IPTV service has been fairly active in both expanding its reach, as well as bringing new content providers into the fold. Brightcove signed a deal with DVR service TiVo to bring content to Series2 boxes in May, and followed that up with deals with Sony BMG in June, and Warner Music Group earlier this month.

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At a conference in Greece aimed at continuing the discussion over who should control the Internet, the United Nations once again renewed calls for diminishing the U.S. government's influence over ICANN. Additionally, an UN official said parties were growing tired of the argument that most did not understand the need for U.S. control.

International Telecommunications Union Secretary General Yoshio Utsumi said that no matter what has been said before or has been agreed upon, no one "can eternally claim they are the best." However, the most critical governments -- including Cuba, Iran and China -- are some of the most oppressive when it comes to free speech.

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The first conviction related to the BitTorrent file-sharing network has been handed down, with a 23-year-old Virginia man sentenced to five months in prison plus five months home detention for his involvement in a BitTorrent node.

Grant Stanley of Wise, Va. was also fined $3,000 and would have three years of supervised release. He had earlier pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit copyright infringement and copyright infringement charges under the Family Entertainment Copyright Act.

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A Danish court has ruled that an Internet provider must block access to AllofMP3.com, the controversial Russian online music store within the country. The ruling is a victory for the recording industry and IFPI, whose Danish arm filed the case in July of this year.

The music site's days appear to be numbered as both Visa and MasterCard have now banned the site from taking credit cards, and a ruling in Germany along with court cases in Russia, Italy, and the UK are putting the site on the defensive.

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The saga for control of struggling computer manufacturer Gateway intensified on Wednesday, as a renegade group of investors that hold 10.7 percent of the company asked for representation on the company's board and asked the company to open up to the possibility of a sale.

Made of Firebrand Partners and Harbinger Capital Partners, the investor group first met with Gateway representatives in August of this year. However, they were apparently not satisfied with the results of those discussions.

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Internet television service Brightcove said Thursday that it had signed a deal with Warner Music Group to place video content from the label's library on the site. WMG plans to offer music videos, artist interviews, live performances, and "behind the scenes" footage through the service.

Brightcove's technology will appear across Warner's network of artist and label Web sites. The players could be individually customized to each site's needs. Additionally, WMG will be able to monetize the offering through advertising or a pay per view structure, the company said.

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Adobe introduced a beta version of "Soundbooth" on Thursday, intended for the average consumer who may not need the power and capabilities of its professional audio editing product, Audition. Eventually, the application will make its way into the Creative Suite product.

"Adobe Soundbooth is a completely new, highly intuitive audio creation and editing toolset designed to accelerate the integration of sound into video and Flash workflows," Adobe Dynamic Media vice president and general manager Jim Guerard said.

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Microsoft confirmed a vulnerability Thursday in the address bar of Internet Explorer 7. First reported by security firm Secunia on Wednesday, the issue occurs in popup windows. It is possible to display a somewhat spoofed address bar, the company said.

Due to this issue, a specially crafted URL with special characters may hide portions of the address. This could open the user up to attacks, including performing actions that it may not be aware of. Secunia has rated the issue as "less critical," its second lowest rating.

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At least two news outlets are citing sources claiming the final version of Windows Vista has been delayed at least a week due to a bug which could crash a system that was upgraded from Windows XP. The bug was found in build 5824, said to be the "release to manufacturing" build.

Taiwan-based DigiTimes cited sources saying Microsoft had been successful in cutting the 1,400 known bugs in Vista RC2 by a third. However, the bug caused the company to adjust its timeline on an RTM release from the fourth week of October to the second week of November.

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Amazon will not hand over information on how it searches and indexes the text of books, filing an objection in U.S. District Court in Seattle. Google had subpoenaed the online retailer in its fight against the Authors Guild, which sued the search engine in September of last year.

The information that Google requested was "highly confidential," Amazon said, and would require the divulging of trade secrets. Instead, the company directed Google to publicly available information on the Web about its book search methods.

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Yahoo made significant changes to its online bookmarking application, bringing it more in line with a similar offering from Microsoft in Windows Live Bookmarks. Whereas the company's del.icio.us product covers social bookmarking, Yahoo says the new Bookmarks product is intended for strictly personal use.

The bookmarking feature would also be more tightly integrated into Yahoo's toolbar product with a more prominent button advertising that feature. According to the company, nearly 20 million people use Yahoo Bookmarks, the most of any online service.

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Fresh off a reorganization and Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, Silicon Graphics has sued graphics chipmaker ATI for patent infringement, accusing the company of using SGI's technology in Radeon graphics processors.

SGI had just days before emerged from Chapter 11. Nearly every part of the company has changed, from a new business model, executive team, and smaller product line. Additionally, it has also acquired $115 million in financing to rebuild the company.

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Zombies continue to be the biggest threat to Windows security, Microsoft said Monday. During the six months from January to June 2006, over 43,000 new variants of so-called "backdoor Trojans" were discovered.

Additionally, the company said at least 50 percent of the computers it cleaned during the period with the Microsoft Malicious Software Removal Tool contained at least one backdoor Trojan. While this may seem quite high, it was a decrease from last year's 68 percent figure.

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Microsoft on Tuesday confirmed earlier press reports that it would offer free and discounted Vista upgrades to holiday PC buyers, however added that those with Office 2003 preinstalled would also be eligible for a upgrade to a comparable version of Office 2007.

To qualify, consumers would have to purchase a Windows XP computer between October 26 and March 15, 2007 - a two-day longer window than previously announced. Depending on the operating system version the user is upgrading from, the copy of Windows Vista would either be free or at a discount.

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