Ed Oswald

The European Commission's Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes told a Dutch newspaper this week that she was pressured by the United States government to go easy on Microsoft. In the article, she criticized government officials for interfering in an EU matter.

Representatives have confirmed that Kroes was annoyed by the U.S. government's attempts to intervene, although she wouldn't say it herself. "In my work, I cannot have a preference," she told the Financieele Dagblad. "I have, however, a personal opinion, but that is for Saturday night."

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In a press event in New York Tuesday, Nokia announced several new phone models, focusing on multimedia. Three of the phones are special black music editions of previously released models, while the other two highlighted at the event are completely new devices.

Nokia said it will release black versions of its N70, N73 and N91 models. In addition to the new color scheme, capacity has also been increased to 1GB, 2GB and 8GB respectively. The devices include support for podcasts, FM radio, and a music recommendation service.

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Microsoft spin-off Wallop launched its social networking service at the DEMOfall technology conference Tuesday, saying its unique business model is what sets itself apart from competing services like Facebook and MySpace.

Unlike other social networking services, Wallop is invite-only and will never include advertising. Instead, Wallop would make its money through the purchase of self-expression items that can be placed on the user's profile. Such items, online or off, generate $3 trillion in revenue per year.

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Universal Studios became the first movie studio to provide movie fans with a way to burn their downloaded movies to DVD on the day they are released in stores through an agreement with CinemaNow. Up until now, users could only burn select older movies from the service's catalog.

The first movie to participate in this offering is "The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift." On the same day the movie is released in stores, CinemaNow users will be able to download the movie, including the menus and bonus features, for $9.99 USD.

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After several delays and false starts, Sirius on Tuesday launched its first wearable live radio, nearly two years behind competitor XM. The device, to be available by the end of the month, includes Wi-Fi connectivity, recording functionality and Yahoo music purchasing software.

Called the Stiletto, up to 100 hours of content would be able to be stored on the device. The Wi-Fi connectivity would allow for a connection to Sirius Internet radio service where such connectivity is available, and the unit can play most MP3 and WMA, including PlaysForSure content.

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Attempting to work its way back onto the desktops of computer users, RealNetworks announced a new beta that would allow the user to view news and information directly on their desktop. Called RealTime, the service is comprised of three programs: a toolbar for use with Internet Explorer, an newsreader automatically filled with information based on user preferences, and a screensaver that would display headlines and images during inactivity.

Currently, the product includes content from the AP, Reuters, The Weather Channel, and AOL's Engadget. Real plans additional functionality for future betas, including sports scores and other content. RealTime utilizes RSS feeds to "push" content to the user's desktop, much like the failed PointCast network attempted in the mid-1990s. The product is scheduled for an official launch early next year.

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Whether you are using Firefox or Internet Explorer, Maxthon or Opera, there is no "safe" browser. This statement comes from Symantec as part of its twice-yearly Internet Security Threat Report, which showed attackers were no longer primarly focusing on Internet Explorer.

While Internet Explorer remains the most frequently targeted browser, accounting for 47 percent of all attacks, in the first six months of this year more vulnerabilities have appeared in Mozilla Firefox than within IE. 47 flaws were discovered in Firefox, compared with 38 for IE.

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AOL is facing a possible class action lawsuit over the release of search result data of 650,000 users in July. While the identities of those involved were scrambled, some of the data included within provided evidence of possible crimes.

The suit was filed in federal court for the Northern District of California by the law firm of Berman, DeValiero, Pease, Tabacco, Burt & Pucillo of San Francisco. It accuses AOL of violating the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, plus several California consumer and advertising laws.

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Webcasting company Mercora is debuting a new music service for mobile phones, but its concept is much different from other services. Instead of downloading a track from a users computer or an online service, Mercora's application streams music from the user's PC to his or her phone.

Dubbed Mercora M, the service is compatible with smartphones using Windows Mobile 5.0. Users install the Mercora software on their home PC, which would then be able to stream OGG, MP3 and WMA files to the phone.

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Microsoft plans to announce Monday its latest product to assist advertisers across its multiple platforms and services. Called "Microsoft Digital Advertising Solutions," the company says those using the service could potentially reach 465 million consumers.

"As today's consumers spend more and more time online across various digital devices like mobile phones and video games, advertisers are finding they can no longer reach their entire target audience by advertising on a single medium," Microsoft's chief media revenue officer and corporate vice president of marketing Joanne Bradford said.

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In a brief twenty minute press conference where no questions were taken, Hewlett-Packard CEO Mark Hurd and Michael Holston, partner with the law firm Morgan Lewis, attempted to shift the focus of the scandal away from the claims of "pretexting" and tracking of both board members and journalists, and to the actual leak itself as being the true crime in the case.

It was also revealed that chairwoman Patricia Dunn had handed in her resignation effective immediately, and would leave the HP board entirely. The company had said previously that she would step down effective in January, although retain her directorship. It was also confirmed that Hurd would appear at a Congressional hearing on the matter.

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Contradicting previous reports to the contrary, Internet and mobile test and measurement company Keynote Systems says that VoIP services outperform landline phone systems in call quality, although the technology still has some ground to make up in other areas such as audio delay.

Twelve VoIP providers were compared in the study including AT&T, Comcast, Lingo, Packet8, Skype, SunRocket, TimeWarner Cable, TrueVoice, Verizon, Vonage, Vonics and Windows Live Messenger. Performance of the services were measured in the New York City and San Francisco markets.

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A California man has been sentenced to seven years and three months in prison and ordered to pay $5.4 million in restitution as a result of a federal piracy case, software company Autodesk said Friday. In addition to Autodesk, 26-year-old Nathan Peterson also was copying and selling software from Adobe, Macromedia and Symantec, the company said in a statement.

Estimated losses to the software companies range anywhere from $7 million to $20 million. As a result of his conviction, Peterson will also be forced to forfeit any property obtained as a result of the money made from the operation, including multiple cars, homes and a boat.

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Microsoft is considering giving away its basic Microsoft Works word processing and spreadsheet software, aimed at preventing a possible challenge from Google, who bought web-word processor Writely in March, and began testing Google Spreadsheet in June.

However, the Redmond company runs the risk of hurting its Office business, which contributes a significant amount of revenue to the company's bottom line. The challenge will be how Microsoft handles the Web-based service while still making money off its Office suite.

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While many may have scoffed at the price News Corp paid for MySpace -- $650 million -- another social networking site may be close to selling itself for even more money. With only a fifth of the traffic of MySpace, Facebook has been offered over $900 million, an offer that is still being considered.

The Wall Street Journal reported in a front-page story Thursday that talks had restarted with the search engine, and a deal could be close. Facebook executives, including its 22-year-old CEO Mark Zuckerberg, have already held talks with Microsoft, Viacom and Yahoo previously.

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