Ed Oswald

Google made moves Sunday to enter the business software market by introducing a suite of applications that include e-mail, communications and calendaring capabilities that are already offered separately by the search provider.

The Web-based applications will be offered for free, and seem to be a competitor to Microsoft's Office Live product.

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Microsoft's latest Windows Live offering is for the most part not a new service at all, but rather a one-time download that includes a subset of the available Live applications, much like the Google Pack.

Called Windows Live Essentials, the program also features a new application called Windows Live Dashboard. The Dashboard would show the user what Live programs are installed and what is available for download, rather than requiring the user to visit the Windows Live Ideas Web site.

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A Florida man has received a six-year prison sentence after being convicted of conspiracy and copyright infringement charges related to the sale of pirated software. In addition to the jail term, he has also been mandated to pay $4.1 million in restitution.

Through his Web site BuysUSA.com, Danny Ferrer of Lakeland, Fla. sold pirated copies of software from Adobe, AutoDesk and Macromedia. Through the money made on the site, Ferrer was able to buy airplanes, a fighter jet simulator, and numerous cars. In order to repay the companies affected, Ferrer has been ordered to sell his assets.

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A recent FCC filing seems to indicate that the highly anticipated Microsoft Zune music player will be produced by Toshiba, rather than the Redmond company itself. The filing also provided the first concrete evidence of Zune's specifications and wireless capabilities.

According to the documentation, the Zune player (here referred to as the "Toshiba 1089") includes a 30GB hard drive, three-inch TFT LCD, an FM tuner, wireless 802.11 b/g, and USB 2.0 support. Details of Zune's wireless capabilities were also disclosed, including the capability to stream music to up to four other devices.

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After receiving complaints from testers, Microsoft has decided to make changes to the user interface of Office 2007 in the next refresh of the beta of the productivity suite. The change would come to the "ribbon," Office 2007's replacement for standard drop-down menus.

Microsoft says the new menu system would make the various features easier to locate. In an interview last September, the company told BetaNews that a majority of users were requesting features that were already included in Office. The most current release includes some 1,500 commands.

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AllPeers released a beta Thursday of what it called the most ambitious Firefox extension to date, a peer-to-peer application that would allow friends and family to share files and content between one another in a private setting.

Unlike the major P2P networks, AllPeers allows the sharing of files securely and privately.

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Yahoo said Thursday that it had begun to integrate Flickr photos into its search result pages, allowing users to search through Flickr's vast collection of user-submitted pictures. While the service is currently limited to a select number of keywords, Yahoo plans to expand the program in the future.

A search for "interesting photos" turns up results of images ranging from artistic photography to extreme close-ups of flora and fauna, while a search for "funny photos" would bring up images that the Flickr community has tagged as having a humorous slant.

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Cox said Thursday that it would offer select customers TiVo service in the first half of next year, by pushing a software update to compatible set-top boxes. The software would allow for standard Cox cable services like On Demand and High-Definition services, while allowing for TiVo features such as Season Pass recordings, WishList, and TiVo KidZone.

TiVo will customize its cable software for use on certain boxes. When a Cox subscriber elects to add TiVo to their service package, the functionality would be delivered as a software update, without the need for a new box or installation appointment.

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Nikon on Thursday added five new digital cameras to its lineup, all of which fall under its lower-end "point and shoot" CoolPix line. The cameras all include features that allow for in-camera editing and manipulating of pictures, as well as video recording and functionality that would allow for better pictures in low-light conditions.

The CoolPix L5 includes a 5x zoom with Lens Shift Vibration Reduction, which is found in the company's higher-end DSLR cameras. That functionality allows for better picture taking when using the zoom lens. Pricing was not specified.

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Microsoft announced Thursday that it is making available the first release candidate of Internet Explorer 7, and it says it expects to quickly progress towards a final launch during the fourth quarter of this year.

Although Beta 3 was feature complete, RC1 includes some additional enhancements mainly under the hood. The new browser runs on Windows XP SP2 and Windows Server 2003.

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AOL said Thursday that it had signed agreements with four movie studios to bring digital movie downloads to its AOL Video service, which complements a previously announced relationship with 17 networks announced in July. Download pricing ranges from $9.99 to $19.99 USD per movie.

Consumers would be able to view downloaded content on Windows-based computers, or portable media centers that support the Windows Media digital rights management format.

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A Texas federal judge has rejected calls by Microsoft and Autodesk to hold a new trial regarding a patent infringement case it lost against David Colvin, the founder of z4 Technologies. Both companies were found guilty of infringing on Colvin's patents surrounding anti-piracy technologies, and were fined $133 million.

Colvin's patents were used in Microsoft's Office productivity suite and Windows XP operating system, as well as Autodesk's AutoCad software, the suit alleged.

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Microsoft on Tuesday said it was postponing a planned fix to its August cumulative patch for Internet Explorer due to an issue that would prevent users from being able to deploy the update properly, while at the same time acknowledging the first patch also opened users up to a code execution attack.

The existence of a vulnerability in the patch was first announced by eEye Digital Security, which Microsoft has chided for publicly disclosing the flaws. However, eEye defended itself, saying that it had only mentioned that the patch was indeed exploitable, noting that the Redmond company had released the most details on the problem itself.

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After announcing in February that it would no longer produce hard-drive based MP3 players, Dell has apparently also exited the flash-based music player business as well. Rumors of the Dell Ditty's demise began to circulate after the Shuffle rival was absent from the company's August catalog, and as of Wednesday afternoon, Dell-branded players were gone its online store.

Dell had been in the MP3 player market since 2003, but as never gained any appreciable share. User reports on Dell-owned forums indicated the players were available online for as low as $39 before selling out. With the exit of Dell, only four major players in the Windows-based digital music player industry remain: market-leader SanDisk, followed by Creative, Samsung and Sony, which recently added WMA support to its devices.

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In order to snag a piece of the rapidly expanding Web security industry, IBM has acquired Internet Security Systems for $1.3 billion, a move designed to bolster its IT security portfolio. The acquisition of ISS also continues Big Blue's recent buying spree -- the purchase is its fourth in just this month alone.

ISS provides security services to companies and government agencies, which include both applications and appliances that alert of break-ins, as well as provide virus and malware detection. The purchase additionally falls in line with IBM's new strategy of transforming itself into a services-based business.

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