Ed Oswald

Further opening up the once heavily guarded "walled garden," AOL on Monday announced it has launched a developer program for its video search engine product. The company will make available a number of APIs upon which developers could build search functionality into their own products.

In addition, AOL has added new features that allow for the easy uploading of video feeds by content owners to the search service through something called a AOL Director account. Videos submitted would be searchable within minutes of submission. The service, which will put AOL in competition with the likes of YouTube and Google Video, is provided at no cost.

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A Seattle-based developer of construction software sued Microsoft in U.S. District Court in Seattle Friday, claiming the Redmond company's use of the 'Forefront' brand would confuse its customers. Dexter + Chaney has been using the mark since 1988, and has asked the court for an injunction against Microsoft.

At TechEd in June, Microsoft introduced the Forefront brand for its line of security products, which was formerly known as Microsoft Client Protection. At the core of Forefront will be Client Security, along with Microsoft's new Antigen lineup.

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The House Energy and Commerce Committee on Friday expanded its probe into the Hewlett-Packard press leak scandal by asking several people involved to testify at a hearing on the matter scheduled for September 28. Among those asked to testify are chairwoman Patricia Dunn and general counsel Ann Baskins, as well as two people outside of HP.

All four have been asked to appear at the hearing, and the testimony would be part of a larger seven-month investigation into "pretexting," or the process of impersonating a person to gain access to information that is not available without the victims consent.

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Spam-fighting group Spamhaus has been ordered by a U.S. District court to pay damages to a marketing company it allegedly illegally blacklisted. However, in a statement on its Web site, the organization thumbed its nose at the judgment, and refused to abide by the ruling.

The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois ordered Spamhaus to pay e360insight and its CEO David Linhardt $11,715,000 in damages, and immediately remove his company from the blacklist. In addition, the group was ordered to publish an apology and acknowledge that Linhardt was not a spammer.

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Likely aimed at allaying European Union fears, a Microsoft-commissioned study by research firm IDC indicates 50,000 jobs would be created across six countries in Europe as a result of Vista. While the study confirmed Microsoft is expected to profit handily off the next-gen operating system, the profits for partners would be much greater, it said.

IDC expects Vista to be installed on 30 million computers across those six countries, and 105 million worldwide during 2007.

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Microsoft elaborated on its fall and winter hardware lineup on Thursday, announcing three new wireless keyboard and mouse packages, along with three new wireless mice. The first products would begin shipping this month, with launch dates throughout the winter through February 2007.

"We are pushing the envelope on hardware design to meet the new ways consumers are using their PCs at home and in the office," Microsoft hardware designer Dan O'Neil said. "Keyboards and mice are no longer just about typing and clicking - they are an extension of the individual's personality."

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CBS ruled out a purchase of social video site YouTube Thursday, although its chief executive said it would not rule out the purchase of a smaller competitor. CEO Les Moonves said at a meeting of television executives in London that the U.S. network is in the market to buy so-called "new media" ventures.

Rumors of a possible deal between YouTube and CBS began to swirl when the CBS executive was spotted talking to YouTube founder Chad Hurley. However, the social video site's asking price is probably much higher than the network is willing to pay - it is rumored the company was looking for $1 billion.

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Like many of today's cars, not even the Segway Personal Transporter is immune from its own set of problems that lead to recalls. The company announced in cooperation with the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission a voluntary recall to upgrade the software in the units to prevent users from falling off in certain circumstances.

Although the company has highlighted that it is nearly impossible to fall off the Segway, it has been documented. Shortly after its launch, President Bush took a tumble off a Segway while testing out the unit, raising questions as to its safety. However, Segway clarified to BetaNews that the President had forgotten to turn on the transporter before attempting to use it.

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Intel and Siemens announced plans Thursday to take VoIP from a largely consumer-based medium and expand its use in the corporate world. To achieve that goal, the two companies will work together on new technologies. The first focus would be on VOIP communications over secure wireless networks.

"Siemens has a strong commitment to this joint-development effort and to ongoing collaboration with Intel," Siemens enterprise division head Thomas Zimmermann said in a statement. The company is currently in the process of transforming both its telecommunications and enterprise businesses into joint ventures to save on costs.

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Nintendo provided further guidance on the release of the Wii on Thursday, including announcing a price and release date as well as accessories to ship with the console. The Wii will launch first in the United States on November 19, followed by a Japanese launch on December 2.

As expected, the console will retail for $249.99 USD. Each package would include one wireless "Nunchuk" controller, as well as a collection of five sports games on a single disc that would highlight the movement-based use of the innovative controller.

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Fantasy sports fans are about to receive a boost as Intel and Yahoo said Tuesday they would team up to offer real-time sports statistics to Viiv-enabled systems. The service would initially launch with a focus on fantasy football, allowing for detailed statistics to be overlaid on a TV screen and navigated through a remote control.

Called Yahoo Sports for TV, it is billed as one of the first applications to showcase the potential power and uses of Intel's Viiv multimedia platform. The service would eventually expand to other fantasy sports, including baseball, basketball and soccer among others.

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A crack in the digital rights management software for Windows Media caused a British television network to suspend its movie and sports content download service while it updates the DRM on its files. A program called FairUse4WM is able to strip the copy protection from files.

"In order to make an essential update to the Sky by broadband security system, we are sorry that access to all movies and some sports content has been temporarily suspended," TV network BSkyB said in a statement on its site. "We will keep you posted on progress and apologise for any inconvenience."

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Although many would not associate Microsoft with the words "open" and "promise," the company made a commitment Tuesday to not assert its patents across 35 Web services specifications. In making the move, the company hopes to spur development of new web services, as well as ease developer concerns.

The "Open Specification Promise" is essentially a promise to not take legal action against any developer, unless that developer takes or participates in legal action against Microsoft related to the patents included. It also means those using the specifications would not have to sign a licensing agreement.

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The California Attorney General said late Tuesday that he had enough evidence to bring charges against some of those involved in the HP leak probe scandal, and that the indictments may not be limited to individuals within the company. The comments were made during an interview on the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer that aired Tuesday night.

Attorney General Bill Lockyer indicated that indictments are fairly likely. "We currently have sufficient evidence to indict people, both within Hewlett-Packard, as well as contractors on the outside," he told the newscast. Lockyer's comments are certainly not good news for HP.

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While today's Patch Tuesday featured a patch for every level of importance -- one "critical," one "important," and one "moderate -- experts are saying the bigger story is what was not fixed. Notably missing was a patch for the recently publicized zero-day exploit for Word 2000.

"Microsoft did not release a patch for the zero day exploit in Microsoft Word, and it could be another month before the patch becomes available," Chris Andrew said, who is vice president of security technologies for PatchLink, a company that produces software that assists IT administrators in ensuring their systems are fully updated.

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