Ed Oswald

On Tuesday H2O Audio announced the first commercially available waterproof case for full-size iPods. The company says the product is completely submersible - meaning surfers, water skiers and swimmers can listen to their iPod, even underwater. The case comes with specially designed earphones that are waterproof as well.

"It is now possible to have your full-size iPod in the water with 10,000 songs at your finger tips wherever your sports take you." said Kristian Rauhala, president and CEO of H2O Audio. The case retails for $149.95 USD and will be available in June from select retailers and on the company's Web site.

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palmOne, the company that manufactures the Palm handheld announced late Monday that it had selected a new CEO. Ed Corrigan, 44, who had served as the interim CEO since late February, will assume the position immediately. Corrigan had been president of the company since June of 2004.

Company executives credited Corrigan's performance as interim CEO as one of the guiding factors in making their final decision. The board approved Corrigan by a unanimous vote.

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Sony released details of its upcoming gaming console, PlayStation 3, at a reception at Sony Pictures in Culver City on Monday afternoon. The announcement follows last week's unveiling of Microsoft's Xbox 360 and the expected announcement of a new Nintendo console on Tuesday.

Through several demos, the company showed a major advance in gaming from the PlayStation 2, including a boxing game demo from EA Sports so life-like that when punches were thrown one could clearly see the skin of the boxer ripple from the punch.

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Talks between Toshiba and Sony over the next generation of DVDs stalled over the weekend according to several news sources. The companies plan to try again in the coming days to see if a compromise can be reached to head off a possible costly format war between HD-DVD and Blu-ray.

Toshiba is pointing fingers at Sony, claiming the company is refusing to budge on key issue. "The Sony side failed to provide enough evidence that its format has a clear advantage over ours in terms of cost and range of applications," a Toshiba negotiator told the Nihon Keizai Shimbun business newspaper on Monday.

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Nintendo opened up its first retail location in Rockefeller Plaza in New York City on Saturday, its first company-owned store in its two-decade history. To mark the event, Nintendo called in several celebrities to celebrate the opening. The company joins the likes of Apple and Sony, who have launched similar retail outlets.

"Today's opening of Nintendo World is a milestone in our history," said George Harrison, Nintendo of America's senior vice president of marketing and corporate communications. "We know fans from near and far will want to come to New York City to experience a retail destination like none other in the world."

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Microsoft's MSN division on Monday launched its Toolbar and Windows Desktop Search product after five months of beta testing. The new toolbar promises to give a taste what search experience Longhorn is expected to bring. Noticeably missing from the final release, however, was a tabbed browsing feature that appeared in early betas.

Microsoft planned to bring a tabbed experience to Internet Explorer 6 through the toolbar, but pulled the feature shortly before release, sources told BetaNews. Microsoft plans to add tabbed browsing to the product in a future release, but fully integrated tabs will only come in Internet Explorer 7, the company said.

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Nextel on Friday launched its Wi-Fi service, which promises to offer wireless Internet access at over 7,000 locations in North America, as well as offering access in over 150,000 hotel rooms through a partnership with Wayport.

For $39.99 USD per month, users will have unlimited access to the network of wireless hotspots. Nextel is also offering an option for those who need both Wi-Fi and mobile data for a promotional rate of $54.99 per month.

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Firefox continued to gain market share during the months of March and April, garnering a 6.75 percent usage share according to Web analytics firm WebSideStory. Altogether, non-Microsoft browsers accounted for a little over 11 percent of Internet users. The report also showed a continued drop in Internet Explorer usage, although at a slower rate than in previous months.

"Given its current growth patterns, Firefox is still within range of reaching 10 percent market share in the U.S. in 2005," WebSideStory wrote in its report.

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Further bringing its alert service in-house, Microsoft announced late Wednesday it had acquired MessageCast, a company that had been providing MSN Alert capabilities to Web sites and blogs. MSN had been working with MessageCast since 2003 to provide both free and fee-based services to its customers.

Current customers will continue to be supported by MSN, and the two companies will work together to ensure the transition is as smooth as possible.

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Bill Gates told the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung in a interview published on Thursday that he believes Apple's time on top of the digital music industry is limited. "I don't think the success of the iPod can continue in the long term, however good Apple may be," Gates told the paper.

Gates compared the iPod to the Macintosh, which saw huge gains in the 1980s, but quickly faded away as Microsoft's Windows operating system became the choice of most consumers.

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Sony on Wednesday introduced the first laptop computer with built-in technology to access the Internet over wireless networks. The Vaio T530 includes an internal modem that is compatible with Cingular's EDGE network.

Although other operators have EDGE-capable networks, the laptop is locked to only work with Cingular's service. It is unclear whether the company plans to "unlock" the PC to allow it to be used on other networks as well.

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Google has won a license to operate in China, press reports indicated on Wednesday. The search giant would join rival Yahoo as the only two government sanctioned search engines available in the country, which is the second biggest Internet market. An office should be opened in China during the year, sources say.

It is unclear how Google will handle the issue of censorship in China. The Chinese government monitors Internet traffic, and looks down any searches on anything other than government-sanctioned content. Search firms voluntarily block most questionable material.

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At Mobile & Embedded DevCon 2005 in Las Vegas, Microsoft formally introduced Windows Mobile 5.0. The latest release of Microsoft's OS for smartphones and mobile devices offers updated versions of Mobile Office software, as well as Windows Media Player 10 and built-in hard drive support.

Windows Mobile 5.0 also gives manufacturers and wireless companies more control over the look and feel of devices built on the platform. While much of the mobile operating system is targeted at the smartphone market, several enhancements to the software also benefit Pocket PC users.

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Digital music player manufacturer iRiver shored up its product line on Tuesday by adding 3 new players to its H10 player lineup at sizes of 1GB, 6GB, and 20GB. All of the H10 players sport a color screen and are photo capable, which positions the model as a competitor to Apple's iPod Photo.

Compatible with Microsoft's PlaysForSure technology, the iRiver H10 has been featured by subscription service Napster-to-Go as one of it's compatible players since the service's inception. It is also compatible with RealNetwork's Rhapsody and Rhapsody-to-Go service, as well as other Janus-enabled music sites.

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Following the footsteps of Microsoft, Trend Micro announced on Monday that its U.S. division will acquire Intermute, a developer of anti-spyware programs, to strengthen its suite of security products. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Microsoft late last year acquired Giant Software in order to fight the increasing problem of spyware on Windows machines. The acquisition of the company led to the release of Microsoft Anti-Spyware Beta in early January.

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