South Korea Delays MS Antitrust Ruling
South Korea's Fair Trade Commission said that it would delay its decision on antitrust allegations brought against Microsoft by Daum Communications. Although the two companies have since brokered a $30 million dollar settlement, the FTC said it would continue its investigation.
Filed in 2001, the complaint alleges that Microsoft broke antitrust laws in South Korea by bundling its instant messaging and media player applications with Windows. A deadline for a final ruling is now set for November 30, when the committee overseeing the case will meet again.
BitTorrent, Hollywood Reach Piracy Deal
BitTorrent and the MPAA struck a deal on Tuesday that may prevent future legal action against the file sharing network, and will make it tougher for users to find feature films through the service.
In May, Bram Cohen, the creator of BitTorrent, introduced technology that allowed users to search the Internet for Torrent files. A good deal of the content found was legal, the company claims, but searches also found copyrighted material, such as movies and television shows.
Microsoft Proposes RSS Extension
Microsoft Chief Technical Officer Ray Ozzie said this week that his company is working on a new extension to RSS that would help users with different contact and calendar software and services synchronize each other's information.
Called Simple Sharing Extensions (SSE), the specification is currently at version 0.9 because Microsoft believes that it has a high degree of usefulness in its current state. Howver, Ozzie cautioned anyone from building production applications on top of it just yet.
Google Donates $3M to Digitize Docs
Google on Tuesday announced that it would be making a $3 million donation to the Library of Congress to begin an effort to create digital copies of rare documents from around the globe, called the "World Digital Library."
The project would be similar to the Library's American Memory project, which it first started work on in 1994. The site now includes more than 10 million items on various topics, including the nation's founding, baseball cards and documents from World War I and II.
Froogle to List Local Store Inventories
Google has plans to tie Google Base into its Froogle shopping search, which would allow users to scour a third-party database of product inventory. Such a service would take the guesswork out of finding what stores have the products a consumer wants, Google said.
The offering, for example, would allow a user to type a search term into Froogle such as "Xbox 360 Philadelphia" or "PSP New York," and receive a map showing retail locations with the product in stock.
iTunes Outsells Brick and Mortar Stores
Research firm NPD Group said Monday that Apple's iTunes Music Store broke into the top ten list of music retailers, marking the first time a digital music store has done so.
With the iPod still selling briskly and the holiday season now upon us, it is likely that Apple will increase its share of music sales even further and possibly rise higher in the rankings next quarter.
Jamster Tries to Clean Up its Act
The company that was made famous with its annoying yet popular Crazy Frog ringtone is trying to make peace with angry parents. Under investigation in the UK and sued in California for its business practices, Jamster rolled out a brand new ad campaign along with parental controls over downloading.
Parents are now able to enter phone numbers into Jamster's new Guardian service that would block those phones from downloading content. Critics of the service say the company misleads customers by advertising free ring tones that actually cost SMS charges in addition to a $1.99 fee. VeriSign, the company that now owns Jamster, believes these new features will help to allay such concern.
Apple to Buy Intel-Micron Flash Memory
Intel and Micron Technology said on Monday they have agreed to form a new company to produce NAND flash memory chips for use in consumer electronics. Called IM Flash Technologies, the company would combine Micron's strengths in the NAND market with Intel's experience in multi-level cell technology.
One of the company's first customers will be Apple, who plans to pay $250 million to both Intel and Micron to secure a supply of flash chips for its popular iPod music players through the year 2010.
First Blu-ray Movie Disc Completed
Sony Pictures has completed the first full-length Blu-ray disc and will be shipping it to hardware manufacturers for player testing. The movie, "Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle," was recorded in MPEG-2 high definition, which offers a resolution of 1920x1080 pixels.
The move by Sony follows recent criticism by Blu-ray detractors over a vague launch date for the next-generation DVD technology. Sony has still not committed to a time frame for public availability, only stating that mass production of Blu-ray movies would begin in the "near future."
Xbox 360 Launch Set for Midnight
Electronics retailers across the country are preparing for the expected onslaught of excited gamers as the Xbox 360 officially launches on Tuesday. At least one major retailer will open its doors early, and over 4,500 others nationwide will open at midnight to begin selling the console.
To celebrate the impending launch, Microsoft held a special event called "Xbox 360: Zero Hour" in California's Mojave Desert that began Sunday night. Attendees will have the chance Monday night to buy the console, games and accessories before leaving the invite-only party.
TiVo to Transfer Video to iPod, PSP
TiVo on Monday announced plans to enable customers to transfer video recorded on its popular digital video recorders to Apple iPods and Sony PlayStation Portable devices. Previously, the company only supported devices that ran Microsoft's Windows Media Video format.
At CES 2005, the DVR maker rolled out TiVoToGo to allow users to transfer TV shows off of its players and onto their laptops or desktops. To prevent piracy, TiVo implemented DRM technology from Macrovision that required the use of a password set by TiVo.
NBC Universal Licenses Content to P2P
Marking the first time a major studio has agreed to work with a peer-to-peer service, NBC Universal on Friday announced a deal with Wurld Media, creator of the legal Peer Impact P2P service. The agreement would allow users to download Universal movies and NBC TV events for a fee.
Customers would be able to "rent" movies from the service and view them within a 24-hour window. NBC said that it wanted to give its viewers another way to access the studio's content in a way that protects it from illegal distribution.
Alltel Acquires Midwest Wireless
Rural cellular carrier Alltel said on Friday it would acquire Midwest Wireless in a deal worth just over $1 billion. The purchase would give Alltel another 400,000 customers, and help it better compete with the four major carriers. Midwest would add to Alltel's network across the states of Minnesota, Iowa and Wisconsin.
The Midwest merger is Alltel's second this year. In January, the company merged with Western Wireless in a $6 billion transaction. Analysts say they expect more consolidation in the industry. Possible buyout targets include local GSM operators Centennial and Dobson, mixed network operator Rural Celullar, and CDMA provider Leap Wireless.
Critical Flaw Found in Apple's iTunes
Security firm eEye Digital Security on Thursday warned of a critical flaw in Apple's iTunes software that could allow for remote code execution, and has rated it as a high-risk vulnerability. The flaw affects both iTunes for Windows and Mac OS X on "various" versions of the software.
According to the advisory, a flaw exists "that allows arbitrary code to be executed in the context of the logged in user." The discovery comes just a few days after Apple patched another security hole in the Windows version of iTunes. That vulnerability involved using the iTunes 5 helper application to launch a potentially malicious program.
Exploit Puts Windows 2000, XP at Risk
Microsoft warned on Thursday that exploit code had been published that would allow attackers to take advantage of vulnerabilities in both Windows XP Service Pack 1 and Windows 2000. The flaw has been given a "moderate risk" by the French Security Incident Response Team.
According to researchers, someone could launch a denial of service attack on Windows 2000 machines as long as he or she had access to the RPC port. The flaw is harder to exploit on Windows XP SP1, as the attacker would have to authenticate themselves in order to launch the DoS.
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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