Ed Oswald

Google detailed late Tuesday plans to become a more charitable organization, including the founding of Google.org that would serve as the search giant's philanthropic arm.

The new entity would include the Google Foundation, some of Google's own projects, in addition to becoming the starting point for partnerships and contributions for projects of other non-profit and for-profit organizations.

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IBM announced plans on Wednesday to make a donation of intellectual property that it hopes would help companies adopt and share the best practices for software development. The donation, which consists of some 300,000 lines of code, is a portion of the IBM Rational Unified Process (RUP).

"We think we will change the software process industry," IBM's manager of methods Per Kroll told BetaNews in an interview. "We think this would solve a lot of problems."

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Apple on Tuesday reported yet another record quarter for the company, finishing the best year in its history. The devil is in the details, however, and iPod sales were relatively flat compared with last quarter only increasing five percent. Macintosh sales recorded a similar five percent increase.

Even with flat sales, the company is becoming more profitable, posting revenue of $3.68 billion on a profit of $430 million. "We're extremely proud to have just completed our best year in company history," Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer said in a conference call for financial analysts Tuesday evening.

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As promised, Microsoft on Tuesday issued nine separate security patches, fixing vulnerabilities in DirectX, Exchange, Internet Explorer, and Windows itself. Three of the fixes were deemed "critical," four "important," and two "moderate."

All of the critical patches involved some type of remote code execution vulnerability. The Internet Explorer patch fixes a flaw found by eEye Digital Security and the French Security Incident Response Team back in July revolving around the COM object within IE.

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Verizon Wireless unveiled its first consumer phone that doubles as a digital music player on Tuesday. Manufactured by Samsung, the SCH-a950 will store music on a TransFlash memory card that the user will need to purchase separately.

The Samsung SCH-a950 includes a play button on the exterior of the unit that will allow for one button access to a user's music collection. Other buttons on the face of the phone will stop and skip songs in the library, while a jog dial similar to the scroll wheel on iPods will allow for even faster navigation.

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Nokia and Ericsson both committed on Tuesday to help the spread of GSM in the 450 megahertz band, which would offer operators of the worldwide wireless technology a way to cover rural areas in a less expensive manner.

The band was once used for analog cell phones, a service that has since been dropped by most carriers. Using the band for GSM service would mean providers would be able to build less base stations than with current technology, which uses the 900, 1800 and 1900 MHz bands.

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EchoStar, parent company of the DISH Network, announced on Tuesday it would begin offering handheld media devices that enable satellite TV subscribers to take content recorded from the DISH service with them in a portable manner.

The PocketDISH player will be available in three models: two that have recording capabilities and one that is playback-only. The two recorders will have HD-capable LCD screens in sizes of 4 and 7 inches with 30GB and 40GB capacities, respectively. The player will come in a size of 2.2 inches and a capacity of 20GB.

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Nero will soon release a new version of its digital media software, Nero 7. The suite now includes 18 applications including Nero Home, a new Media Center-like program that allows users to navigate their digital media on a TV screen with a remote control. Version 7 also adds support for Blu-ray and HD-DVD.

The company has also added the capability for a custom install, meaning users can select which Nero 7 applications are loaded onto their machines. Other new features include Nero Scout, a new media database application; redesigned backup and burning applications; and support for 5.1 and 7.1 audio recording. Nero 7 will go on sale October 26 for $99.99 USD. A Web-only download is priced at $79.99 USD.

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Microsoft's MSN division is looking for testers to try out its new adCenter product in the United States through a recently launched pilot program. Yusuf Mehdi, senior vice president of MSN, asked employees last week to invite businesses who might be interested in the service.

MSN adCenter was moved out of testing in France and Singapore last month, with Microsoft saying it had received positive feedback on the service.

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eBay announced Monday that it would form a strategic alliance with VeriSign in order to strengthen security on its PayPal online payment service. As part of the alliance, eBay will also purchase VeriSign's payment gateway business.

The online auction site will pay VeriSign $370 million for the payment gateway in cash and stock. The service is expected to generate an additional $100 million in revenue for eBay, the company said in a statement.

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With all the rumors surrounding a possible video-enabled iPod launch this week, at least one company is taking advantage of the heightened attention on portable media center devices.

San Francisco-based Handheld Entertainment announced on Monday plans to offer a PlaysForSure compatible portable media player next year, but remained mum on exact details of the player itself.

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Intel on Monday unveiled new dual-core versions of its Xeon server processor in an effort to catch up to rival AMD in the business market in terms of performance. AMD has had dual-core server chips available since April as part of its Opteron line.

The addition of the better performing processors got the attention of IT managers and likely was the key force in taking AMDs worldwide market share from 5.6 percent in March of this year to 7.4 percent in June, according to research firm IDC.

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Saying it wants to "enable customers to begin realizing the promise of self-managing dynamic systems," Microsoft on Monday announced changes to its licensing structure in order to accommodate the increasing popularity of virtualized computing through a project called the Dynamic Systems Initiative.

Such systems allow IT departments to virtualize computing resources in order to make them more nimble and responsive to a company's specific requirements. The new license structure would no longer require customers purchase a Windows license for each virtual server until the virtual server is actually used.

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27 companies announced on Monday that they would be joining forces to promote the next generation of wireless networking technology. The group would be known as the Enhanced Wireless Consortium and will push for the ratification of 802.11n.

802.11n promises connection speeds of up to 600 Mbps. In comparison, 802.11b maxes out at 11 Mbps, and 802.11a and 802.11ag at 54 Mbps. Supporters of the proposed standard also say it conserves battery power due to less time spent transmitting data.

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The sale of violent video games to minors will no longer be permitted in the state of California. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed legislation into law on Friday that would impose fines to those who rent or sell such games to anyone under the age of 18.

The law passed the California legislature last month, and was helped along by the scandal surrounding the revelation of sexually explicit scenes within Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. Schwarzenegger, himself a parent, said that while he supports the video game industry, such laws are essential to protecting children.

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