Ed Oswald

With noise pollution becoming an ever-increasing problem in today's society, its no surprise that more companies are looking into ways to quiet things down a bit. Enter Sony's new MDR-NC50 headphones, which the company claims will reduce white noise -- a term used to describe everyday unavoidable noise -- by up to 80 percent.

Behind the technology is a microphone within the headphones. This detects the sound and sends it to a new noise-canceling circuit developed by Sony. Any noise that is below the 300 hertz level, which would include jet engines, leaf blowers, subway trains, server fans and household appliances, could be virtually eliminated.

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The latest incarnation of the Sober worm is making its way across the Internet, prompting security firm McAfee to call the Sober.p variant a "medium risk" worm. This version attempts to prey on World Cup fans by offering tickets to the 2006 games in Germany. Both German and English versions of the worm have been found.

As with previous Sober versions, the e-mail comes with a zipped attachment that contains the infected file. Like with most worms, it requires the file to be executed in order for a computer to become infected. McAfee said that users of its VirusScan software have been protected from this threat since March of this year.

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Merrill Lynch on Monday called Apple's PC outlook "rosier" and said it expects the company to achieve a 4 percent market share during the year. Leading the way is Apple's Mac Mini, which the research firm believes will appeal to first time Mac buyers as an attractive entry point to Apple's platform.

"We expect new Mac users will decide on lower cost desktops than notebooks as Apple attempts to convert Windows users," Merrill Lynch said in a note to clients. "The new desktop weapon is the Mac mini, which provides a new low price point for the Mac line. The Mac mini takes the line to a new price point, which should be attractive to switchers and education."

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Motorola announced on Monday that the Ojo, its consumer oriented videoconferencing solution, would be on display at several high-end electronics retailers across the country ahead of its debut later this month, when the company will start taking orders for the unit.

The Ojo (pronounced oh-joe) promises full motion video and works over a broadband Internet connection. The device will also work as a cordless phone over regular telephone lines when not used for a videoconference. While the Ojo carries a hefty price tag at $799 USD, Motorola hopes that the demonstrations will spark consumer interest.

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Podcasting got another major boost Monday as Sirius Satellite Radio announced that it had struck a deal with Adam Curry, former MTV VJ and so-called "father of podcasting," to broadcast podcasts from his newly formed network. Podcasts are user-created radio shows that range in topics from music to politics.

Curry started to promote podcasting in mid-2004, and according to some estimates, nearly 6 million people have listened to the mini-broadcasts. The name podcast comes from the iPod music player, which the concept was originally intended for.

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In what could be the final move in the buyout drama that is entering its third month, Verizon and MCI announced Monday that they had reached a new agreement worth $8.45 billion. The board of MCI declared the bid as superior to one from Qwest and recommended that shareholders approve the deal.

However, several shareholders have made it clear that they will vote against any deal that is less than what Qwest has already offered. The company's latest bid for MCI stood at $9.9 billion, which according to Qwest was its "final offer."

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Mozilla announced Friday that its Firefox Web browser had reached the 50 million download mark, less than six months after its official launch last November. The news comes just a day after research firm OneStat.com released its latest figures showing that Mozilla browsers are still gaining market share, although at a slower rate.

To celebrate the milestone, Spread Firefox, the promotions arm of the Mozilla Foundation, gave out commemorative medallions to selected users who sent in their stories of how they promoted the upstart browser.

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Patents recently filed by search giant Google reveal that it plans to soon rank news stories by the quality and credibility of the source, rather than just by date or relevance as it currently does in its searches.

Presently, entering a search term such as "Longhorn" into Google's news search will not only return articles from more reputable and established news sites, but also from Web logs and enthusiast sites as well. Google's current methods do not consider reputation and will instead bring up more recent or keyword relevant information regardless of source.

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Sun CEO Scott McNealy has denied rumors that an investment firm is planning to buyout the software company. According to an article in BusinessWeek on Friday, Sun was planning to take itself private through Silver Lake Partners, the same company that helped Seagate. McNealy said the rumor was part of a scheme to raise the stock price of the company.

"Why would a supposedly credible rag like BusinessWeek quote an anonymous hedge fund guy on a totally unsubstantiated rumor designed to spike the stock price?" McNealy told CNET News.com. While Sun has reversed years of revenue declines as it was hit hard by the tech bust, it has had stagnant revenue and has remained barely profitable since then.

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Usage share of Microsoft's Internet Explorer continued to slip in April, although at slower pace than in previous months, research firm OneStat.com has reported. 86.63 percent of Internet users were browsing with Internet Explorer, down 0.65 percent from the end of February.

However, it seems as if the rapid growth of Firefox was also slowing, as the upstart browser only recorded a 0.24 percent gain to sit at 8.69 percent total usage.

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Events are being planned ahead of today's launch of Mac OS X 10.4 "Tiger" across Apple's 105 retail stores worldwide and in participating resellers such as CompUSA beginning at 6 p.m. At that time, Apple will unleash the new version of its operating system, said to include some 200 new features.

Reviews thus far have praised Tiger as being worth the $129 USD it will cost users to upgrade. Apple itself has pointed to additions such as Tiger's Spotlight desktop search and Dashboard widgets - features that will not be available on the Windows platform until Longhorn launches late next year.

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Both Sirius and XM this week reported strong results through the first three months of 2005, further proving that the nascent satellite radio business is taking hold among consumers. Both companies hope to continue to move toward profitability during the year.

Sirius Thursday reported it had added 305,437 subscribers during the quarter, a 237 percent increase over the year ago quarter. While the company was adding subscribers, however, its net loss widened from $144 million in the year ago quarter to $193 million this quarter.

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New York Attorney General Elliot Spitzer sued Internet marketer Intermix Media of Los Angeles on Thursday, over claims that the company installed spyware and adware on computers that came in contact with its advertisements. This included the attempted installation of toolbar items, and programs that delivered unwanted ads.

Spitzer announced the suit had been filed in New York City shortly following the conclusion of a six-month investigation into the company's practices. The investigation found that Intermix had installed its software on computers across the country, and had violated New York's advertising and business practice laws.

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Microsoft began a surprising effort to remove any unofficial screenshots of its next-generation operating system, code-named Longhorn, Wednesday. The move raised questions as to whether or not the company is attempting to do damage control over increasing criticism of its latest preview build of the new version of Windows.

The effort was apparently expansive and included long-time supporters and evangelists for the platform, even those who have been exempt from Microsoft's non-disclosure agreements in the past. Company representatives e-mailed several sites pointing to an often overlooked portion of the beta licensing agreement that says no screenshots are allowed to be made of the software. Many sites were quick to comply with Redmond's demand.

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The European Commission is beginning to lose its patience with software giant Microsoft, and told CEO Steve Ballmer to either begin complying with the EU's March 2004 judgment or face fines.

Microsoft sent a letter to the commission on April 4 accepting most of the Commission's demands to satisfy antitrust concerns, but asked for further dialog some matters regarding the licensing of its source code. Microsoft has accepted 20 out of the EU's 26 demands and said that it will work as quickly as possible to settle the remaining six.

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