Blu-ray to Outline Launch Plans at CES
Blu-ray assured reporters and analysts at a demonstration Tuesday that the new DVD format is still on schedule for a spring 2006 release. The Sony-led group said it also planned to have specific launch plans available in the form of product announcements at the upcoming Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
While the format seems to have the upper hand in the next-generation DVD war, recent questions have arisen over its manufacturing cost and once strong supporter HP has begun to waver in recent months. Sony has shot back, saying production costs will become competitive soon after manufacturing begins.
New Orleans to Build Wi-Fi Network
The city of New Orleans plans to offer free Wi-Fi Internet access to its citizens within a year, Mayor Ray Nagin announced on Tuesday. While most of the network's bandwidth will be marked for use by emergency responders, the remaining capacity would be opened up to the public.
The idea for a wireless network is not new to the Big Easy. The city was already using a small system to monitor security cameras in areas of high crime.
MS Warns of Exploit for Windows Flaw
Microsoft on Tuesday acknowledged the existence of exploit code that could crash vulnerable Windows computers through a flaw in image file handling. The company had provided a patch for the problem as part of its November Patch Tuesday security update.
The flaw affects the way the OS renders Windows Metafile and Enhance Metafile image formats. While the vulnerability could lead to remote code execution, Microsoft says that, based on its research, this particular exploit would only cause a denial of service attack. So far, the company has not been made aware of any reported attacks using the code.
Microsoft 'Fremont' to Rival Google Base
Microsoft has plans to launch an online marketplace similar to Google Base, according to statements made by the company on Tuesday. Codenamed "Fremont", the service will allow users to post listings akin to the way the popular classifieds Craigslist site operates.
Fremont will also be tied into the company's new Live.com, where users will be able to view local listings from their personalized pages. Microsoft has begun testing the service from fremont.live.com, however access has been restricted to Redmond employees.
ICANN-VeriSign Settlement Challenged
Calling it a violation of antitrust law, an Internet business trade group on Monday filed suit to stop the proposed ICANN-VeriSign settlement from taking effect.
The agreement, which settled a dispute over the redirection of unused domains, also gave VeriSign control of the .com top-level domain through 2012. ICANN also selected VeriSign to continue managing the .net domain.
Netgear Settles Class Action Wi-Fi Suit
Networking manufacturer NetGear said on Monday that it would add a disclaimer to its packaging, offer a 15 percent discount on its online store, and pay $700,000 in legal fees in order to settle a class-action lawsuit over misrepresentation of the speed of its wireless products. Details of the settlement were made public in a Friday filing with the SEC.
Netgear was sued in California Superior Court in 2004 for allegations that wireless devices sold by the company did not perform as fast as advertised. A similar suit filed in February was later dismissed. While Netgear has admitted no liability, it will add a disclaimer to its boxes indicating that wireless speeds can vary due to a variety of factors.
High Court to Hear eBay Patent Case
The Supreme Court on Monday granted eBay's request for a writ of certiorari in a 2003 case, which found the auction site violated patents surrounding its "Buy it Now" feature.
A federal appeals court at the time awarded patent owner MercExchange $25 million in damages and granted a permanent injunction against eBay that would bar the site from using the feature.
Sony PS3 to Feature Parental Controls
Sony's PlayStation 3 will add parental controls to limit access to violent video games, according to statements made on Monday by the Entertainment Software Association.
The commitment by Sony means that all three next-generation consoles would offer some type of method to give parents greater control over what video games their children are playing. Sony had already offered some tools to limit access to movies viewed on the PlayStation 2, but the protections did not work on video games.
TiVo Introducing Searchable Ads
Most TiVo customers use the devices to skip over commercials within recorded shows. However, the DVR maker on Monday announced that beginning in the spring of 2006, it would use the set-top box to deliver on-demand advertising to interested subscribers.
TiVo says this is the first time television would be used as a medium to deliver such targeted ads to potential customers. These commercials would be found based on keyword searches, similar to the way Internet advertising currently works.
Holographic DVD to Hold 1.6 Terabytes
Move over HD DVD and Blu-ray. Bell Labs spin-off InPhase Technologies and Hitachi Maxell are currently working on a computer disc about the size of a DVD that could hold up to sixty times the data. The companies hope to have the disc and compatible drives on the market by the end of next year.
The new discs will use a technology known as holographic memory. Data is stored on a crystal material that is sensitive to light. In order to read and write data, a light beam is split in two and one is passed through semi-transparent material. This material alters the beam to encode data.
Kazaa Working to Filter Music Files
Kazaa worked feverishly Monday to comply with a court order that mandated the use of filters to prevent sharing of copyrighted material across its network. The company has until December 5 to install a system that uses keywords, such as the name of an artist, to filter out copyrighted music files.
Federal Judge Murray Wilcox mandated the changes as part of his decision against Sharman in September. At that time, the company was found guilty of copyright infringement because it Sharman did little, if anything, to stop the trade of copyrighted material over its network.
300,000 Xbox 360s for Euro Launch
European gamers should expect similar scenes in retail stores across the continent on Friday as seen in the United States the week before. That's because Microsoft plans to only have about 300,000 units of its new Xbox 360 console available at launch, according to a company executive. Chris Lewis, Xbox's European head, told a German weekly on Sunday that there was a good chance the console would sell out across Europe as well.
The console sold out in most places across the U.S. within hours, and eager gamers are paying up to several times the retail price of the system on Internet auction sites. Microsoft is the first to release its next-generation gaming consoles; Sony is expected to launch the PS3 in spring 2006, with the Nintendo Revolution following soon after.
Microsoft Seeing Red With Xbox 360
In order to be first, sometimes you have to pay the price. That's what Microsoft could be doing with its Xbox 360, according to analyst firm iSuppli.
While the firm's teardown of the unit gave a peek into the dominance that IBM will have in the next-generation of gaming consoles, it also showed that the bill-of-materials cost for the Xbox 360 Premium reaches $525 USD, 32 percent higher than the $399 USD retail price of the device.
LG Launches Microsoft-Powered DVR
Aiming to take on the popular TiVo DVR, LG on Wednesday introduced its combination digital video recorder and DVD recorder based on Microsoft technology. The LRM-519 would be the first set-top device to use the Microsoft Program Guide, a TiVo-like service being offered by the Redmond company.
The device includes a 160GB hard drive and will run on Windows Media Center Technologies. The DVD recorder will support a range of recording formats, including DVD+R, DVD-R and DVD+R Dual Layer discs. Users will also be able to expand the storage space of the unit by connecting external hard drives to the DVR's 2 USB ports.
New UI Font Coming to Vista, Office 12
With the release of a new user interface in Windows Vista and Office 12, Microsoft will also update the font that both products use for the first time in eight years. The company says the new font is designed to take advantage of ClearType, and is more modern than its predecessors.
Dubbed "Segoe UI," the font is more humanistic and less computer-like than it's predecessor, Tahoma. Microsoft also relied on a decade of research from its Typography unit on making fonts easier to read and scan on screen.
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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