Ed Oswald

Senators John McCain of Arizona and Barack Obama of Illinois have thrown their weight behind an online effort to bring easier access to social services. Called the Public Internet Channel, the site brings together information on topics such as public safety, emergency services, education, health care and jobs and makes it available in both English and Spanish. The effort is being spearheaded by non-profit group One Economy, that hopes to raise $20 million for the effort.

"If we do this right, the Public Internet Channel can do for accessing social services what Yahoo! has done for accessing entertainment or what Craigslist has done for accessing local goods for sale," Obama said. Prototypes of the service are planned for next year, starting in Baltimore, and will be launched in other cities over the next two years.

Continue reading →

A U.S. appeals court upheld the government's authority to force ISPs to give access to their networks for surveillance purposes, rejecting on Friday a petition to overturn a decision that mandated their compliance with federal wiretapping laws.

Such compliance was mandated by the FCC, who said companies had until May 14, 2007 to make the necessary changes.

Continue reading →

The concept of net neutrality received what could be a serious blow on Thursday, as the U.S. House of Representatives rejected a Democrat-backed amendment that would have put net neutrality regulations into an upcoming telecom bill now being debated in Congress.

In a vote that fell mostly along party lines, the amendment was rejected 269-152, with 14 members not voting, and occurred after a day of debate. Republicans represented the large majority of votes to strike down the amendment, with most Democrats supporting the legislation.

Continue reading →

Microsoft's IPTV platform will make its debut first in Europe, with Club Internet selling the company's services in France. The technology will allow for a user to watch high-definition TV, two programs at the same time, and record up to 50 hours of video.

The service will be offered first to existing customers, who would be able to sign up beginning at the end of the month. New customers would be able to receive the service in August.

Continue reading →

Both Microsoft and Mozilla downplayed a JavaScript bug that security researchers say poses a risk of system compromise, saying it was difficult to exploit. The bug could allow an attacker to download files, but it requires quite a bit of user interaction in order to exploit.

For that reason, neither company will offer a separate patch for the issue; instead, both plan to address the issues in a future release of their browsers. Mozilla and Microsoft pointed to the amount of user interaction and lack of a code execution risk as reasons for holding off on a fix.

Continue reading →

Microsoft announced Friday that it had enhanced Windows Live Book Search, adding a new feature that would allow publishers to submit their in-copyright books to become part of the service. Additionally, more material would be added as a result of the addition of the University of California and the University of Toronto libraries, Microsoft said.

The University of California library contains some 34 million books across 100 libraries on ten campuses, making it the world's largest academic library. The University of Toronto's collection spans some 15 million volumes and its considered one of the top research libraries in North America.

Continue reading →

Microsoft plans to release twelve updates as part of its monthly Patch Tuesday program, its largest since February of last year and second largest overall. Of the dozen patches, nine are intended for Windows issues, two for Office, and one for Exchange.

At least one of the Windows updates has a severity rating of "critical," as does one of the updates for Microsoft Office. The Exchange flaw has a rating of "important."

Continue reading →

Microsoft said Thursday that third-party data indicates the Windows server platform continues to grow at the expense of Apache and Linux. According to Web hosting research company Netcraft, Windows hostnames grew by 4.5 million, while Apache/Linux lost 429,000.

Percentage-wise, that equals a 29.7 percent market share for Windows, and a gain of 4.25 percent for the month. Meanwhile, Apache/Linux fell 3.5 percent to 61.25 percent in May. Furthermore, Web sites based on Windows Server 2003 have seen a 176 percent growth since April of last year, according to Microsoft research.

Continue reading →

In the seemingly never-ending list of features to be stripped from Windows Vista, yet another has fallen by the wayside. Microsoft made a decision to remove PC-to-PC synchronization from Windows Vista, Microsoft Watch reported on Wednesday.

The feature, which would have allowed a user to synchronize files between two Vista computers, was removed from Beta 2 in late May when it was first shipped to industry partners and developers.

Continue reading →

The Federal Trade Commission said that Take-Two Interactive, the maker of "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas," had agreed to settle charges it failed to disclose information about the game's content to consumers. The commission approved the settlement by a 5-0 vote.

Take-Two was accused of not disclosing the sexually explicit content that was found in the Hot Coffee modification. Gamers were able to access the scenes in the PC version through a modification available on the Internet, and a method was discovered to unlock the scenes in Xbox and PlayStation 2 versions of the game as well.

Continue reading →

CBS said Thursday that it was adding several shows from its primetime lineup to iTunes. New shows include reality show stalwart "Survivor," dramas "Numb3rs" and "NCIS," and "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation," "CSI: Miami" and "CSI: NY."

Episodes from the past season would be made available, and the network plans to add new episodes for the current season when it starts in September on the day after they are aired.

Continue reading →

Yahoo released a limited beta of its Photos site on Thursday, with a redesigned front page, enhanced functionality, and easier searching of other user's images. Additionally, Yahoo now allows for users to comment on images and download high-resolution copies.

The company says it is the most dramatic upgrade in the site's nearly six-year history. "The new Yahoo! Photos is a next generation service that introduces innovations from across the Yahoo! network -- like tagging, search, and comments -- to a mainstream audience of thirty million and counting," said Brad Garlinghouse, Yahoo!'s senior vice president of communications, community and front doors.

Continue reading →

Taking a page from Linux, Microsoft on Wednesday took the lid off its Vista Customer Preview Program, which could provide the company with millions of eager testers. Users are able to download a copy of Beta 2, released to a limited number of technical beta testers last month.

Excitement over the program was evident late Wednesday, with readers reporting to BetaNews that connections were frequently timing out as customers rushed to get the code.

Continue reading →

AOL plans to expand into security services with the release of the Active Security Monitor, expected on Thursday. The software will check for the presence of antivirus and anti-spyware programs, as well as firewall protection.

In turn it will also ensure these products, as well as the Windows operating system, are up-to-date. The program would also check to make sure Internet Explorer is properly configured to prevent security holes. Additionally, the program can inspect a user's network to ensure it is secure from possible attacks.

Continue reading →

Major League Baseball seems headed for a showdown with Sling Media after a panel discussion at the Digital Media Summit in Los Angeles turned contentious Tuesday. The league claims that Slingbox users violate their user agreements by "placeshifting" content.

The heated discussion highlights a larger issue that is pitting content providers against device makers who produce products that allow for the portability of content. However, Sling Media claims it is different since the content is only viewable by one person, and is not permitted to be stored in any way.

Continue reading →