Yahoo: MS Buyout Not Going to Happen
Microsoft has apparently already approached Yahoo about buying a percentage of its search business, but was rebuffed by Yahoo chairman and CEO Terry Semel. Additionally, rumors of a Microsoft takeover of Yahoo were untrue, Semel said at a talk at Syracuse University.
He admitted that discussion over Microsoft owning a portion of Yahoo's search business came as a result of talks over the continuation of a search advertising partnership. The Redmond company decided to end the partnership, opting to go with its own search advertising platform called adCenter.
Ballmer Dismisses Google's IE7 Concerns
Microsoft's outspoken CEO accused Google Thursday of wanting special treatment, saying the company is attempting to force Microsoft to change the way Internet Explorer 7 does search. Steve Ballmer made the comments following a speech given at the Churchill Club in Santa Clara, Calif., to CNET News.com.
Google has claimed that IE7 would allow Microsoft to have an unfair advantage by making its search engine the default for new users. However, both Microsoft and now Ballmer have disputed this notion. Microsoft will do nothing to change a user's search preference, they say.
Report: Search Engines Spread Malware
McAfee said Friday that the epidemic of spyware and viruses could be linked to search engines. According to research from the company, even seemingly benign search terms could bring up sites loaded with nasty payloads.
The study looked at the five major search engines -- Google, Yahoo, MSN, AOL, and Ask -- and covered a period from January through April. Researchers found that in every search engine, popular keywords returned sites that could be potentially dangerous.
Apple Issues Security, App Patches
Apple late Thursday issued its third security update of the year, along with updates to its Front Row and QuickTime applications. The security patch fixes flaws in 16 of the operating system's components, including Finder, Mail, Preview and Safari.
A vulnerability within Finder was patched to prevent arbitrary code execution from the use of an Internet location item, such as "http://". A stack buffer-overflow issue in Preview was patched, which could trigger code execution through a maliciously crafted directory structure.
Google Click Fraud Settlement Hits Snag
Lawyers representing several Internet search advertisers who use Google's AdWords service have filed suit hoping to block a proposed $90 million settlement over allegations of click fraud. The plaintiffs claim that the settlement does not adequately compensate those affected.
"Advertisers must decide: take the pennies offered by Google and be happy with the status quo or opt out and pursue legal restitution through a lawsuit," Dylan Pollard, a Los Angeles-based plaintiffs' click fraud attorney, said earlier this week. "Either way, they don't have much time to decide."
Memory Makers Settle Antitrust Lawsuit
Three PC memory manufacturers will pay $160 million to settle an antitrust case brought against them by small to medium sized businesses that purchased chips directly from the companies. Not all have settled, however, with five other defendants set to appear in court in February 2007.
Samsung will pay $67 million, and Infineon $21 million in the class action suit. Hynix would also pay $73 million, but its settlement is not expected to gain approval by the court until next week. In the end, lawyers say total damages could be worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
MPAA Employs Piracy-Sniffing Dogs
There is two new members in the fight against pirate DVDs: two black Labrador Retrievers named Lucky and Flo. The MPAA has backed the Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT) in training the two dogs to sniff out DVDs in packages coming into the United Kingdom.
The groups claim that pirated DVDs are often smuggled in packages with other contents. In their first test at FedEx's British hub at Stansted Airport in Essex, England, Lucky and Flo successfully sniffed out packages and parcels containing DVDs.
Xbox Head Compliments the Wii
Microsoft has informally allied itself with competitor Nintendo in the fight for supremacy in the next-generation video game race. Microsoft's vice president Peter Moore said that for the price of the top of the line PlayStation 3, a gamer could buy both the Xbox 360 and Wii.
Moore's comments were reported by Reuters Thursday, and indicate that Microsoft is ready to escalate its battle with Sony, both on the hardware front and the court of public opinion. Such talk could benefit Nintendo as well, and sway public opinion against the market leader.
Google Downplays Microsoft Battle
At its annual Press Day Wednesday, Google introduced three new services while attempting to kill the popular story in the media that it is involved in a fierce winner-take-all battle with Microsoft. Instead, Google CEO Eric Schmidt said that there would never be a single victor.
Schmidt said that having a single search engine would stagnate innovation. Competition, on the other hand, would support growth as well as advertising prices, and he added that there was room in the industry for more than one strategy.
Calif. Men Guilty of Xbox Modding
Two California men will plead guilty to charges that they participated in a conspiracy to modify Xbox consoles so they could play pirated video games. Jason Jones and Jonathan Bryant, owners of the ACME Game store in Los Angeles, were selling the consoles for anywhere from $225 to $500 USD.
The posh store counts among its customers Snoop Dogg and actor David Arquette. Pricing on the modded Xboxes depended on what changes was made to the console. However, Jones still denies the charges, and says the store would remain open, possibly moving to a bigger location.
NSA Has Record of US-to-US Calls
The National Security Agency has been collecting phone call records from AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth containing the phone calls of tens of millions of Americans. However, the program does not involve the NSA listening to the phone calls, sources told the USA Today in a story published Thursday.
The lists include calls made within the United States, something the Bush administration has previously denied. Officials have said the spying program, uncovered in December, only involves international calls. But this latest revelation seems to indicate that this is not the case.
ICANN Says No to '.xxx' Domain
Internet domain regulator ICANN voted down a proposal that would have created a special domain for adult sites Wednesday in a nine to five vote. If approved, the ".xxx" domain would have created a virtual "red light district" on the Web. However, conservative groups railed against the proposal, saying it essentially sanctioned pornography.
Supporters vehemently disagreed, pointing out the fact that it would be easier to avoid porn through a special domain created for the subject. ICANN said that the politics surrounding the issue played no part in the final vote.
iTunes DRM Likely Safe in France
The ability of Apple to keep iTunes DRM closed in France, as well as the service's future in the country, may be safe thanks to an amendment to a copyright bill to be voted on by the Senate this week. Under the amendment, music stores would be allowed to keep their exclusivity only after receiving the go-ahead from copyright holders and artists.
Lawmakers are attempting to tone down a bill that would essentially make closed digital rights management technologies illegal in the country. The changes have received the blessing of the government and several consumer groups, and the bill passed the lower house of the French legislature in late March.
TiVo to Receive Web Video Content
Brightcove and TiVo said Wednesday that they had reached an agreement that would bring content from the video service onto Series2 TiVo boxes. Brightcove counts among its customers Farmers' Almanac, National Lampoon, Barrio 305, and Shipwreck Central.
The company provides tools to companies in order to allow them to publish and distribute video content on the Web. The deal with TiVo would now allow these publishers to showcase their content on television as well.
Opera Browser to be Included in Wii
Opera Software said Wednesday that the Nintendo Wii will use a customized version of its browser within the console, allowing gamers to browse the Web between games. Opera in February had announced a similar deal for the Nintendo DS. Users will be able to navigate the Web through the Wii Remote, Opera said.
"For our Wii console launch in 2006, we required a browser that was fast and secure with support for the latest standards including AJAX. Opera proved perfect for our purposes and is an exceptional addition to both the Nintendo DS and the Wii console," Nintendo's senior managing director Genyo Takeda said in a statement.
Ed's Bio
Ed Oswald is a freelance journalist from the Reading, PA area. Although he has written across a variety of subjects, Ed’s passion and focus has been on technology and gadgets. His work regularly appears on tech news sites BetaNews, PCWorld, and Technologizer, and has been syndicated to eWeek, Time’s Techland blog, VentureBeat and the New York Times.
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