Ed Oswald

Sun continued to show a resurgence in the worldwide server market in the second quarter of 2006, as the industry overall showed positive revenue growth for the first time in three quarters, research firm IDC said Wednesday. All of the growth could be attributed to the volume server market, as both the mid- and high-range enterprise server market continued to contract.

Overall, revenue grew .6 percent to $12.3 billion in the second quarter, the first time since the third quarter of 2005, with demand in the US and the Asia-Pacific regions excluding Japan contributing to this growth. Volume server revenue grew 6.2 percent year over year, while the mid-and high-range enterprise server market shrank 3.5 and 6.9 percent, respectively.

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Netflix's apparent attempts to force Blockbuster out of the online rental market were stopped for the time being on Tuesday, as a federal judge ruled that Blockbuster would be allowed to proceed with its antitrust case against Netflix. The lawsuit was filed in response to a patent infringement suit filed by Netflix in April of this year.

That case attempted to shut down Blockbuster Online through an injunction. Netflix claims Blockbuster infringes on two patents, one related to the automatic queue, and another that allows for the automatic receipt of new DVDs as well as reorganization of the queue.

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The former owner of eMachines announced Wednesday that he made an unsolicited offer to acquire Gateway's retail operations for $450 million, saying he felt the best way to increase the competiveness of the company would be to separate the retail business from other operations.

Lap Shun Hui, who owns Joui International, said he was also considering a deal to purchase all outstanding shares. He says he believes in both the Gateway and eMachines brands.

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Looking to cash in on the fast-growing user-generated content industry, Sony Pictures on Wednesday announced it had acquired Grouper for $65 million. Under the terms of the deal, the company would retain its independence, although it would work closely with a team at Sony Pictures.

"This acquisition demonstrates the breadth of involvement of Sony Corporation in the field of digital online entertainment," Sony Pictures chairman and CEO Michael Lynton said. "It makes sense to complete the circle by having Grouper be a part of Sony Pictures Entertainment, which itself creates so much content for people around the world."

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EchoStar's legal woes continued Tuesday as the U.S. Supreme Court denied the company's request for an emergency stay of an injunction barring it from rebroadcasting local television channels to its customers who live in distant locales where reliable over-the-air reception is not possible.

Both DISH Network, which is owned by EchoStar, and DirecTV offer the major networks from large market stations to subscribers who cannot receive them over-the-air. However, networks say that both companies are providing the service to those who can receive the channels via broadcast, which is a violation of copyright.

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Sling Media said Tuesday that it would give a free registration key for its mobile viewing software to new customers of its flagship Slingbox "placeshifting" product. Normally $29.99 USD, the software would be free for those who have purchased a box between August 15 and September 16. Customers would be able to choose between the Pocket PC or Windows Smartphone versions of the software. Current customers can receive a 30-day free trial of the application.

In addition to the announcement of the promotion, Sling Media also said it had released a new version of the Smartphone software. Blake Krikorian, Sling Media co-founder and CEO, said the promotion increases the value of the Slingbox unit. "It's a two for one deal -- buy a Slingbox and not only have the ability to watch and control your home TV on your computer anytime, anywhere, but also watch and control it on some of the hottest mobile phones and handheld computers on the market," he said.

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SnapStream is looking for beta testers to try out its new TV listings and community Web site. The company plans to eventually turn the service, code-named "Columbus," into a social networking site that revolves around various television shows. The ideal tester would be an avid television viewer, have prior experience as a tester, and does not work for any of SnapStream's competitors.

According to SnapStream president and CEO Rakesh Agrawal, Columbus will eventually be integrated into the company's popular BeyondTV product. "I can't say much more past that without getting into confidential stuff we don't want to be revealing yet, but rest assured that Columbus will bring a lot of innovation around both TV Web sites and around all types of PVRs," he told BetaNews. Those interested should complete a beta application survey.

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Possibly looking to compete with the Apple iMac, Sony on Tuesday introduced an all-in-one unit that merges an LCD television with a desktop PC to conserve space. The unit includes a 19-inch widescreen display, with the computer's internals behind the monitor much like Apple's bestselling desktop computer.

The Sony VAIO LS1 is powered by an Intel Core Duo processor. It also includes 2GB of RAM, a 250GB hard drive, built in wireless 802.11b/g and the capability to watch and record television. The PC is Windows Vista Premium ready, Sony said, and will ship with Windows XP Media Center Edition.

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An internal company memorandum indicates that AOL's chief technology officer Maureen Govern has resigned after only one year with the company. Govern oversaw the division that released the search data on over a half million AOL subscribers, which created a firestorm for the company earlier this month. AOL's former CTO John McKinley would reassume his position while the company searches for a replacement.

Govern's departure is not the only one related to the data release. Sources told Reuters that at least two researchers have also left as a result: the researcher who oversaw the release and his manager. The Wall Street Journal termed all three departures as "firings," indicating that the dismissals may have come as a result of the negative publicity AOL has faced since the snafu. AOL has declined to comment on the situation.

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A new zero-day exploit was disclosed over the weekend for an unpatched flaw in Microsoft's PowerPoint software, which could allow for an attacker to take complete control of an affected system and run arbitrary code.

Although details on the exploit are scant, it is known the malware that is distributing the exploit is a trojan horse.

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SanDisk on Monday launched the largest flash-based MP3 player on the market, an 8GB version of its e2xx model player. At $249 USD, it is the same price as the largest iPod nano, yet twice the capacity. In addition, SanDisk lowered the price of its smaller capacity players to make them price competitive to the nano.

Low prices from SanDisk have catapulted the company more known for its flash card memory products to second place in U.S. MP3 player sales. Although it's 9.7 percent market share in the second quarter was far behind Apple's 75.6 percent share, it was still nearly twice that of its nearest competitor, Creative.

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Microsoft released a new version of its patch intended to fix a problem in Windows Server service, which was highly publicized as a possible worm threat, saying the original patch could cause programs to fail if they request more than one gigabyte of contiguous memory. According to an advisory on the issue, the problem only affects 32-bit versions of applications. Native 64-bit programs are not affected.

The issues have appeared on 32-bit versions of Windows Server 2003 with SP1, Windows Server 2003 with SP1 for Itanium-based systems, x64-based versions of Windows Server 2003, and Windows XP Professional x64 Edition. The patch is not the first from this month's batch to cause problems; Microsoft's cumulative patch for Internet Explorer had to be reworked after the company found it was causing the browser to crash when visiting certain Web sites.

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Apple said late Thursday that it had taken steps to address claims of worker abuse at one of its major manufacturers of the iPod music player, noting it found that the supplier was in compliance with most of Apple's Supplier Code of Conduct. However, Apple did say its investigation uncovered some troubling issues.

The Cupertino company mandates that its suppliers follow a set of rules "designed to safeguard human rights, worker health and safety, and the environment." Apple said it takes any violation of these policies very seriously. In the investigation, the company interviewed over 100 employees in a variety of positions with Foxconn, a major iPod supplier.

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After suffering a major court defeat that required EchoStar to disable DVR functionality used by millions of its subscribers, the satellite TV company has won a temporary reprieve. The Federal Circuit Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C. has temporarily stayed the injunction won by TiVo.

"As a result of the stay EchoStar can continue to sell, and provide to consumers, all of its digital video recorder models," the company said in a statement. "We continue to believe the Texas decision was wrong, and should be reversed on appeal. We also continue to work on modifications to our new DVRs, and to our DVRs in the field, intended to avoid future alleged infringement."

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Although Microsoft is fond of saying that Windows Vista is the most secure operating system ever, a member of the operating system's security team disclosed this week that the OS will be the first beta product to be serviced by security updates. At least two of the patches from this month's Patch Tuesday are also intended for Vista.

Fix MS06-042, the cumulative patch for Internet Explorer, and the fix for MS06-051, concerning a vulnerability in the Windows kernel, have been updated to include a version of the patch for Vista Beta 2 systems. Both flaws are rated "critical."

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