Ed Oswald

Microsoft considered forcing its partners to stop bundling rival music software under new marketing plans that would only allow Windows Media Player to be shipped with portable MP3 players, but scrapped the plan after one manufacturer complained, several media sources reported Friday.

Legal analysts were shocked at the news, saying the tactic would have violated the Microsoft's antitrust settlement, and likely flew in the face of the required antitrust training employees are expected to complete.

Continue reading →

Unhappy iPod Nano customers are taking Apple to court over scratching issues they have experienced with their players. The suit, filed in a U.S. District Court in San Jose, alleges the screens scratch even during normal usage, "causing Plaintiff class members to incur loss of use and monetary damages."

The plaintiffs have asked for class action status in the suit.

Continue reading →

Call it procrastination on steroids. AOL this week unveiled a new way to waste time on the Web that builds upon the obsession to view AIM profiles and away messages. The beta service, called AIM Buddy Info, allows users to leave comments on each other's away messages and IM profiles.

Comments can be viewed on the Buddy Info Web page, or by people on the user's buddy list through the AIM profile. According to an upcoming IM trends survey, more than half of all teens change their away message once a day, and a fifth change it every time they step away from the computer. AOL did not specify when it plans to take the service live.

Continue reading →

Netflix on Wednesday said that its planned movie download service is on hold indefinitely due to licensing problems with Hollywood studios. Word of a possible download service first leaked out in July when a glitch in the Netflix system revealed that the company was planning to offer online movies.

Netflix CEO Reed Hastings made the announcement during a conference call with analysts. "When the content climate begins to thaw," the service will be launched, Hastings said. Work is continuing on the necessary infrastructure in order to make a launch possible, but Hastings did not specify how movies would be delivered.

Continue reading →

The world famous Wembley Stadium in London will soon have a new sponsor: Microsoft. The Redmond company announced Thursday that it had reached a deal with Wembley's owners worth $8.8 million, according to media reports.

The stadium is scheduled to reopen in mid-2006 after a five-year project to demolish and rebuild a new state-of-the-art venue in its place. Microsoft will receive premiere placement of its logo at the entrance, as well as on 100 advertising plaques around the stadium.

Continue reading →

VMware on Wednesday introduced VMware Player, a free tool that enables users to run virtual machines on a Linux or Windows PC. The company says that the program would be ideal for those beta testing software, or evaluating pre-built application environments. The release of the Player comes during VMworld, a yearly convention held by the company focusing on virtualized computing.

While VMware Player cannot create virtual machines like the company's Workstation software, it does offer a few pre-built applications that can be downloaded from VMware. VMware Player is also compatible with machines created in Microsoft's Virtual PC and Symantec LiveState Recovery disk formats. Download VMware Player 1.0 from FileForum.

Continue reading →

eBay CEO Meg Whitman went toe-to-toe with a financial analyst during the company's quarterly earnings conference call Wednesday over the purchase of VoIP provider Skype. Analysts have criticized the buy, saying eBay overpaid for a technology that, at least at first look, will not advance its core business.

However, Whitman disagreed with that assessment. "By combining the two leading ecommerce franchises, eBay and PayPal, with the leader in Internet voice communications, we will create an extraordinarily powerful environment for business on the Net," she said at the time.

Continue reading →

Digital music player manufacturer Creative has apparently started to ship the

Continue reading →

Aiming to serve the professional photographer set, Apple on Wednesday released Aperture, a post-production tool that will allow for the editing of RAW images. The company compared the product to Final Cut Pro, its tool for editing of video content.

RAW images are uncompressed, meaning no quality is lost when the picture is taken.

Continue reading →

The Association of American Publishers on Wednesday announced that it has filed a lawsuit against Google to stop the search giant from copying books for its Google Print Library Project. The group said it filed the suit after talks with Google broke down.

The AAP is the second organization to take Google to court over the project. In September, the Author's Guild, a non-profit organization that lobbies for writers, accused Google of "massive copyright infringement." It also asked a U.S. District Court in Manhattan to stop the company from copying books.

Continue reading →

Apple on Wednesday refreshed both its PowerBook and Power Mac lines, adding SuperDrives and high-resolution displays to its popular laptops and dual-core G5 processors to its top-of-the-line desktop system.

It now appears all but certain that the PowerBook will not receive the boost to G5 chips that Steve Jobs promised at Macworld in 2004. Many analysts expect the PowerBook line to be one of the first to receive Pentium chips when Apple makes its transition to Intel processors starting next year.

Continue reading →

Microsoft on Wednesday introduced its first controller that would work on both the Xbox 360 and Windows XP PCs. The cross-platform support is another effort by the company to integrate the gaming console as tightly as possible into the Windows ecosystem.

Although the wired controller that comes with the Xbox 360 will also work with Windows after downloading the necessary driver, Microsoft is offering a dedicated retail package designed for Windows gamers. The controller would also work automatically with the Xbox 360.

Continue reading →

A patent dispute between two companies has the potential to disrupt prepaid wireless service for millions of users in the U.S. The dispute is between Freedom Wireless and Boston Communications Group (BCGI), and revolves around technologies used to manage prepaid customers.

An injunction was placed against Boston Communications earlier this week, which gives the company 90 days to stop using the technology or begin paying royalties to Freedom Wireless. A court had also ordered Boston Communications previously to pay $147.7 million in damage and lost royalties.

Continue reading →

IBM on Wednesday launched new software that it says will improve the effectiveness of collaboration between teams in a software company and reduce project failures. Called the Rational Method Composer, it replaces the Rational Process Workbench with new process customization tools.

On October 12, IBM donated about a half-million lines of code to open source that fell under the Rational Unified Process. The latest offering will also fall under the RUP and add new best practices to their method.

Continue reading →

Sony entered the digital living room Tuesday with a new Media Center PC that takes advantage of the latest updates to the operating system. The XL1, is a result of collaboration between Sony and Microsoft and features a 200-disc DVD changer with burning capability.

The XL1 uses a virtual library to keep track of the DVD or CD collection. When inserted into the changer, the computer automatically reads the disc, downloads metadata such as actor, director or genre. This will then allow the user to easily search through his or her library without much difficulty.

Continue reading →