Ed Oswald

Microsoft on Friday commended the law-enforcement authorities in Turkey and Morocco as well as the FBI for its work on Thursday to arrest those believed responsible for the spread of the Mytob and Zytob worms.

The company's Crime Investigations Team supported the investigation by supplying the FBI with technical information and analytical support. This information was then passed onto the Turkish and Moroccan authorities by the FBI after it was determined the worms originated from those two countries.

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A judge in California's San Mateo County has given final approval to a settlement that could offer some kind of solace to nearly 1.3 million iPod owners who have had problems with defective batteries within the popular digital music player. The settlement was tentatively approved in June.

Under the terms of the deal, affected first- and second-generation iPod owners would receive $25 in cash or a $50 credit at the Apple store. Those who paid for a battery replacement could receive up to half of the cost back. Third-generation iPod owners would be eligible for a free battery replacement.

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The FCC has granted a 30-day reprieve for VOIP operators to comply with regulations that require them to inform customers of the limitations of 911 calling from a Internet-based phone.

In May, the FCC ruled that companies had until November 29 to ensure that 911 calls are properly routed in emergencies. The ruling came after several high-profile cases where emergency services either were delayed or failed to respond altogether due to the limitations of VOIP.

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Microsoft earlier this week announced that anti-phishing features would be made available to Internet Explorer 6 users through an update to the company's MSN Toolbar. The feature is also slated to appear in the final release of Internet Explorer 7 for Windows Vista and XP Service Pack 2.

The new phishing filter would require Windows XP SP2 in order to work, and will be made available shortly as a beta. The filter is just one of several plug-ins that Microsoft says will allow users to add functionality to IE6 over the coming months. Currently, the only available plug-in is one to add weather capabilities to the toolbar.

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Facing increasing market pressure, D&M Holdings, the company that owns the Rio digital music player brand, announced that it would be exiting the market at the end of September.

D&M will continue to hold the rights to the Rio brand name and could re-enter the market as it still has access to the MP3 technology it sold in July to SigmaTel.

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If companies expect consumers to get excited about subscription-based music, then the monthly fees are going to need to fall below $10 a month. Research firm Parks Associates said on Thursday it found that 41 percent of people with digital music players in the U.S. said $10 was the maximum they would pay for such a service.

It gets worse in other countries. When presented with the equivalent price in their own currency, 49 percent in France, 52 percent in Germany, 56 percent in China, and 62 percent in the United Kingdom said $10 USD per month was their maximum.

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IBM on Friday announced that it had developed new technology that will protect information stored on laptops and servers from viruses, file corruption or deletion. The software would make it unnecessary to schedule backups, as the process occurs continuously in the background.

As a user creates a file, a copy is created almost instantaneously and is stored on both the user's machine as well as a remote server. IBM says that a user could recover a file that is only seconds old through the system, meaning loss of data would be at a minimum.

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At just 25 years of age, Christopher Smith of Prior Lake, Minnesota, a southern suburb of Minneapolis, had amassed $1.8 million worth of luxury cars, $1.3 million in cash, and two homes. But Smith's fortunes obtained from sending spam came crashing down Wednesday.

Smith was arrested at his home and indicted on over a dozen federal charges. Some of the charges include conspiracy to dispense controlled substances, distributing controlled substances and introducing misbranded drugs into interstate commerce.

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Acknowledging the rise of digital music in the industry, Warner Music Group has announced plans to start a digital-only music label that it will use to promote new artists. Instead of the traditional album releases, a "cluster" of about three songs from an artist would be released every few months.

Warner says this new "e-label" would put less pressure on new artists to produce an entire album, and instead give them more time to concentrate on only a few songs.

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Delivering on promises first made at CES 2005 in January, Sirius Satellite Radio announced that it would launch its first portable satellite radio in October. To compete with larger rival XM, Sirius has taken a cue from Apple's iPod and designed its player to be sleek and small.

Like portable players from XM, the Sirius S50 will be able to record scheduled programming. But Sirius is also attempting to differentiate itself from other players by adding unique features. For example, the S50 will record content automatically from the user's three most commonly listened to stations, as well as allow playback of MP3 and WMA files.

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The need to change a laptop battery every few hours may soon be an annoyance of the past. Intel and Matsushita, the maker of Panasonic brand products, are jointly developing technology that would produce laptop batteries with 8 hours of power per charge.

To be finished by next April, the battery is based on lithium-ion technology that can store up to 30 percent more power and has a lower end-of-discharge voltage, which means it can run longer before needing a recharge. The battery would work with current power-saving techniques used by Intel in order to extend its usable life.

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TiVo reported its first ever profitable quarter and announced a new deal with a cable provider on Wednesday, as it moved to wean itself from long-time supporter DirecTV. However, the company also warned that it would be willing to sacrifice profitability in order to gain new subscribers.

"Driving growth in the number of subscriptions at TiVo is the biggest critical challenge we face," companyCEO Tom Rogers said. "We will forgo reaching our goal of sustainable profitability by the fourth quarter."

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It's been a successful video game, and thanks to two deals signed Wednesday it could become a successful motion picture. A spokesman for Universal Pictures said that its studio, along with Twentieth Century Fox, had struck a deal with Microsoft to produce a movie based on the "Halo" and "Halo 2" video games.

The studios will pay Microsoft $5 million plus 10 percent of domestic ticket sales. According to reports, this number is lower than Microsoft wanted - the company had initially asked for $15 million and 15 percent of ticket sales. The studios hope to have the film released in the summer of 2007.

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If Intel has its way, consumers will soon be asking if their home entertainment PC has "VIIV" (rhymes with "five") inside.

In his keynote address at the Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco, Intel Digital Home Group general manager Don MacDonald unveiled the new technology, which combines Intel's in-house software, processor and chipset to enable a system to perform entertainment tasks with ease.

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VoIP provider Skype announced on Wednesday that it would open up its platform next week to allow its service to be integrated into Web sites and applications. After just two years in existence, Skype already claims some 51 million users worldwide.

Skype's goal is to create the largest instant messaging platform in the world, and says the move opens up the service to a variety of uses in gaming, e-commerce and communications tools.

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