Ed Oswald

AOL rolled out new features earlier this week to its AOL and AIM Mail, saying it plans to continue to improve the service through the upcoming months. Among the enhancements are "quick actions," which allow the user to perform common actions with one click, and new panels that allow for simultaneous access of Calendar, Address Book and Tasks while working within the AIM or AOL Mail client.

The new Web mail client also provides tighter integration with AOL Calendar, allowing for users to create and manage events or tasks within the service. Finally, AOL Mail will now allow for the linking of up to eight AOL or AIM email addresses to a single mail account, without having to log in separately to check each account. Each address would be displayed in a pull down menu with the number of e-mail messages, AOL said.

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Ahead of a June 29 wireless spectrum auction, the Federal Communications Commission on Wednesday voted to allow anonymous bidding if the agency felt a certain level needed to be present. The move would be a change from past auctions, where bidder's identities and bids were revealed at the end of each round.

The FCC expects to raise some $8 to $15 billion from the auction, but the agency said it worried that some would use the openness of the process to communicate with each other. This could result in lower than market value prices, or companies intimidating others into withholding bids.

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System recovery software maker Winternals said Wednesday that it had been granted a temporary restraining order over alleged copyright infringement by Best Buy and its Geek Squad subsidiary. Winternals claims the retailer has been using pirated and unlicensed copies of its Windows recovery software following a breakdown in licensing talks.

The restraining order was part of a lawsuit filed by Winternals last Thursday in a U.S. District Court in Austin. The suit says Best Buy has been knowingly using the pirated software, including ERD Commander 2005.

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Google said Wednesday it did the right thing in appeasing the Chinese government in order to offer service in the country. The comments were made by CEO Eric Schmidt during a press conference in China to announce a Chinese-language brand name and research center to be located in Beijing.

The search giant was heavily criticized in January following the launch of its Chinese language Web site. Searches on the topics of human rights, Tibet, the Dalai Lama, and democracy omitted certain Web sites and redirected to Chinese government URLs.

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Users of the TiVo service via DirecTV will be supported through 2010 thanks to an agreement finalized Wednesday. However, the deal does not mean that the satellite provider would begin selling the popular digital video recorders again.

DirecTV began selling its own DVR last year based on technology from NDS, a subsidiary of parent company News Corp. The company is also looking into ways of providing new services through that device, such as downloadable videos.

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Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser was the focus of a majority of the fixes in Tuesday's monthly security update from the Redmond company. Altogether, five updates were issued, including three "critical," one "moderate," and another rated "important."

The Internet Explorer update was issued as a cumulative fix addressing ten vulnerabilities within the browser. The patch includes a fix for the much-publicized "createTextRange()" flaw, as well as fixes for HTML parsing errors, script executions, and address bar spoofing issues among others. All the flaws could result in a remote code execution risk, Microsoft said.

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Since its launch late last year, Sling Media's Slingbox has become a cult favorite, selling nearly 100,000 units with little advertising other than word-of-mouth. Retailers have noticed its growing popularity, and have given it prominent placement in their stores.

The success has surprised the company, says Sling Media vice president of Market Development Jeremy Toeman. He says the reception has been more than they had expected -- especially considering the entire company employs less than 60 people.

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Fujitsu will become the first computer manufacturer to ship computers with integrated Blu-ray drives when it releases desktops with the technology in Japan this June, the company said Tuesday. The news follows an announcement by Toshiba Monday that it would begin shipping HD DVD-enabled laptops by mid-May.

The company is covering all bases; Fujitsu will also release an HD DVD-capable laptop around the same time as the desktop. Either way, the new models will come with a steep price tag for the Japanese market.

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After announcing an initiative to work with Sprint on ways to combine cellular service with cable television offerings, several of the cable companies involved have begun to disclose their testing plans. Sprint's 20-year deal, which is exclusive for three years, was announced in November of last year.

The agreement calls for more than a simple reselling of Sprint's cellular service. Instead, the companies plan to integrate the cable television experience into that of the cell phone. Together, this would allow customers to watch and schedule DVR programming remotely, as well as provide other potential services.

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Disney said Monday that it would further expand its online programming options by making four popular ABC prime time television shows available online the day after they air. The offering is part of a two-month trial that would begin in May.

The free TV episodes would be advertiser supported, with AT&T, Ford, Procter & Gamble and Universal Pictures already having bought ad space in the online broadcasts.

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A group of broadcasters unveiled their plans to further promote high-definition radio receivers by announcing new deals with retailers that would make it easier for consumers to access the service. Altogether, some $200 million in advertising and promotions is planned this year.

HD Radio promises to give FM broadcasts a free boost to near-CD quality, and gives AM near-FM quality sound. Also, radio stations are able to broadcast up to two digital sub-stations on top of the traditional frequency.

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Time Warner will pay $2.65 billion to end a shareholder lawsuit after a U.S. District Judge approved a proposed settlement. The company initially agreed to the settlement last August, admitting it had inflated AOL's revenue in order to have the merger approved.

Judge Shirley Wohl Kram approved the payout on Thursday, calling it "fair, reasonable and adequate." Nearly 600,000 Time Warner shareholders have signed on to the class action lawsuit.

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Security firm McAfee has put out a request for beta testers to trial the latest version of its Secure Content Management Appliances application. The suite includes three products: Secure Messaging Gateway, providing secure content management for SMTP and POP3; Secure Web Gateway for secure content management for HTTP, ICAP and FTP; and the Secure Internet Gateway, combining the above two products to provide secure content management for both web and messaging protocols.

Participants would need the appliance that sits at the gateway in order to participate, although this is pretty common in IT environments, McAfee said. Compatible units have been listed on the application's beta site. As a prize for the best feedback, the SCM engineering team will be giving away iPods to three testers. The initial release of the beta is already out, with a refresh due later in the month and release candidate expected in May.

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Microsoft gained nearly five percent market share in the Web server market, however still lags well behind market leader Apache, research and security firm Netcraft said Friday. Nonetheless, it was the biggest one-month swing in the history of the industry.

With more than 80 million Web sites on the Internet, Microsoft now claims a 25.2 percent share, up 4.7 percent from March. Apache still leads by a wide margin, however it was down close to 6 percent to 62.7 percent. Sun remained a distant third, down slightly to 2.36 percent.

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Normally, one would associate the word virus with something negative, whether it is a malfunctioning desktop computer or a sickness. However, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have "trained" viruses in a lab to create a miniature battery.

By manipulating a few genes within the virus, researchers were able to get the organism to grow and then assemble itself into a functional electronic device. They hope to be able to build a battery that could be as small as a grain of rice.

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