Ed Oswald

REVIEW Ask many an audiophile what their number one complaint about digital music is, and you'd likely get the same answer from just about everyone: quality.

The door has been left wide open for a high-fidelity music download service, and with the further ubiquity of broadband and larger capacity digital music players, file size is no longer an issue.

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Add Yahoo to the list of possible suitors for America Online. Two financial outlets, TheStreet.com and the Wall Street Journal, reported on Friday that the company has shown interest in buying a stake in AOL from Time Warner.

Like MSN, Yahoo is eyeing AOL as another avenue to expand the reach of its search engine. However, unlike its smaller rival, antitrust regulators would likely review such a deal more carefully, as it would combine the two largest properties on the Web today.

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It's back to the courtroom for Microsoft and Google, as the two companies are scheduled for a hearing Friday in California. Earlier in the day, a judge tentatively stayed Google's lawsuit against Microsoft over the hiring of Kai-Fu Lee, striking a blow to the search giant's case.

Originally, Google had filed suit against Microsoft in a California state court to ask that Lee's former Microsoft contract be voided. The case was moved to Federal court in August. Separately, the companies have already met in a Washington state court, which ruled that Lee's hiring may stand, but placed restrictions on his activities within Google.

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As reported earlier in the week, Microsoft released the second major update to Windows XP Media Center Edition, and Xbox 360 is playing a central role. With the console and a Media Center PC, users will have the ability to stream multimedia from the computer to anywhere in the home.

The feature is made possible through the inclusion of Media Center Extender in every Xbox 360. Microsoft hopes that the new functionality will drive not only Xbox sales, but PC sales as well.

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Samsung has plead guilty to charges of price fixing computer memory and will pay a $300 million fine to settle the case, the U.S. Department of Justice said late Thursday.

The decision revolves around the company's actions from 1999 to 2002 where it colluded with other memory chipmakers to keep prices artificially high. Memory remained expensive even while the tech industry crumbled, raising eyebrows at the Justice Department and spurring an investigation in 2002.

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Digital photo buffs that find themselves shelling out a lot of money to have actual prints of their images may be in luck. Australia-based Faces.com officially launched in the United States on Thursday, giving these prolific digital photographers a low-cost option to store and print their photos.

Storing photos will be free on the service, which offers users 500MB of space for each account. Users will be able to download a program, called PhotoSync, that would sync their My Pictures folder with their account.

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MTV earlier this week re-launched its college channel MTV Uber (mtvU), making it the first channel from the network to be available in its entirety online. Previously, mtvU was only available on the cable systems of about 730 college campuses.

The channel will feature music videos plus short-form series and other content, as well as student-produced material. MTV said it made the change based on "overwhelming student demand."

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Without any public announcement, Symantec earlier this week raised prices on its renewal licenses for its software by as much as a third. The move could be an attempt to maximize profits one last time before Microsoft enters the security software space next year, analysts say.

The price of a renewal for Symantec's popular Norton AntiVirus and System Works products rose to $29.99 USD, a 20 percent increase. Upgrading Norton Personal Firewall now costs $19.99 USD and $39.99 USD for Norton Internet Security - both up 33 percent.

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Three men were indicted on Wednesday in what is being called the biggest pirated-CD ring in U.S. history. Altogether, some 325,000 music and software CDs were produced, which contained Latin music and Symantec security software. All three have been released on bail and await trial, scheduled for October 27.

Ye Teng Wen, 29, Hao He, 30, and Yaobin Zhai, 33 -- all of the San Francisco area -- are charged with placing labels on CDs to make them appear as legitimate copies, which even included the FBI warning against piracy. The pirate copies made it to stores as far away as Chicago and were widely distributed, officials say.

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Google and Comcast are reportedly in talks over a possible joint purchase of a portion of the AOL business, several media outlets reported late Wednesday. According to at least one source, the value of the deal could be worth as much as $5 billion.

The search giant apparently approached Comcast last week about a joint deal. Discussions were ongoing throughout the summer between the three companies, but were very preliminary.

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In a development that could upset Firefox fans, at least one major provider of browser usage statistics is now saying that market share numbers for Firefox may have been artificially inflated due to the way tracking tools were recognizing the new Netscape browser from March to July of this year.

Netscape 8.0 allows for a user to view Web sites with either Firefox's Gecko or Internet Explorer's display engine, but Gecko is used by default. Because of this capability, Netscape was reporting itself as being a Mozilla browser rather than Netscape itself.

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Palm will emphasize its brand name over product line names in future handhelds, a company spokesperson told BetaNews on Wednesday. The company introduced two new handhelds earlier in the day that carry similar functions to Palm's former Zire and Tungsten lines, but without any special nomenclature.

"The name Palm TX handheld and Palm Z22 organizer leverage the strong brand equity of Palm while making reference to Palm's popular Tungsten and Zire lines of business and consumer devices," Palm spokesperson Becki Fowler said.

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Nokia has introduced three phones that it plans to market to the business community. The company said Wednesday that its new "E" series would carry features that will appeal to corporate users and will be designed different than other Nokia phones.

The phones will support popular business e-mail services, including BlackBerry, GoodLink, Seven, and Visto Mobile. All E series devices will be built atop Nokia's Series 60 operating system for smartphones, and will be 3GSM compatible with support for alternative connectivity options.

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Palm on Wednesday introduced its two newest handhelds, bringing color to its low-end models as well as built-in Wi-Fi for its higher end models. However, noticeably different is the absence of brand names - the company has decided to do away with the Tungsten and Zire designations.

The Palm Z22, which would have formerly been part of the Zire family, is the first sub-$100 handheld from Palm with a color screen. The company said that the handheld has been built with the first-time user in mind in order to reach those reluctant to buy a PDA over fears of difficulty of use.

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Microsoft plans to issue its second refresh to Windows XP Media Center Edition on Friday, code-named "Emerald." The update, according to a report in Microsoft Watch Wednesday, will be supported by new partnerships from AOL and MTV among others.

New features expected in "Rollup 2" release are easier access to online movies and multimedia, as well as souped up e-mail and shopping capabilities. Microsoft is apparently changing the focus of Media Center, the site reports, to on-demand content rather than the user's personal content.

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