Power Mac G5 Gets a Speed Boost
Apple made updates to its Power Mac product line and dropped the prices of its Cinema Displays Wednesday ahead of the release of Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger on Friday. The computers will ship with the new operating system and include dual G5 processors. The high-end machine, running at 2.7 GHz, is Apple's fastest computer ever.
"The Power Mac G5 continues to deliver the ultimate performance for our most advanced customers running bandwidth- and compute-intensive applications," said Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing.
Real Puts iPod Back in Harmony
The cat and mouse game continues. In between a major update to its online music store and a warming to Microsoft's digital rights management (DRM) standard, RealNetworks on Tuesday quietly slipped in an update to its Harmony technology that will allow songs from its stores to be played on all flavors of Apple's popular iPod.
Harmony is a technology that translates between competing DRM standards. The software does not remove or disable any DRM in audio files, instead allowing it to be understood by the software of players that do not play Real content natively.
Wal-Mart Offers Custom Music CDs
Wal-Mart on Tuesday launched a new service exclusively through its Web site that will allow users to create their own custom CDs from the company's 500,000 song library. Customers will also be able to select their own packaging options to personalize the purchase.
The base price is $4.62 and includes the CD, packaging and three free songs. Each additional song will cost 88 cents, which is what Wal-Mart currently charges its music downloads. A maximum of 20 songs is allowed on one CD, meaning the most a custom CD from the service would cost is $19.58.
Nokia Adds Yahoo Services to Phones
Yahoo will soon be appearing on new Series 60 handsets from Nokia thanks to an agreement announced Tuesday. Nokia's Series 60 is the proprietary operating system for the Finnish company's smartphones, and one of the biggest competitors to the Windows and Palm smartphone platforms.
The agreement will allow users access to Yahoo e-mail and search, as well as an area where users will be able to download wallpaper, ringtones and games.
Trend Micro Apologizes for Update Snafu
Customers of antivirus firm Trend Micro are being notified of an erroneous update sent out by the company on Friday afternoon. Customers who installed the update during that time and met certain software criteria experienced high CPU usage causing systems to either become unusable or crash.
"The update was released to combat new threats called 'Bots'", Michael Sweeney, public relations director at Trend Micro, told BetaNews. Bots are a new type of threat where infected machines become beacons for spam e-mails and worms by sending out infected e-mails unbeknownst to the user.
Microsoft Pushes PC Design Innovation
Microsoft on Monday announced the start of a design competition to rethink the desktop computer. The company thinks it is time to move beyond the big beige box, offering a top prize of $125,000 to the group or person with the best PC design. Microsoft hopes that the contest will challenge participants to think outside the box while using Longhorn as a guide.
Details of the contest appeared on the StartSomethingPC.com, a site that appeared about a week ago with a vague description and teaser video on the front page.
Qwest Gains Upper Hand in MCI Battle
The three month buyout drama between Verizon, Qwest and MCI took a surprising turn over the weekend after MCI's Board of Directors declared Qwest's latest offer, which stands at nearly $9.9 billion, superior to Verizon's. The board on Saturday gave Verizon until April 29 to submit a revised offer.
While MCI's board has accepted the Qwest offer, it still recommends the Verizon agreement. Under the new deal, MCI has until May 3 to change their recomendation. Verizon in a statement said they would continue to weigh their options, including taking the offer to shareholders. "In light of the change in this process, we will consider all of our options and determine how best to serve Verizon shareholders."
Creative Sells 2 Million MP3 Players
Creative late Thursday announced its quarterly results for the first three months of 2005, saying it had sold another 2 million music players, equaling its totals from the holiday quarter of last year.
While Creative is one of the few Windows-based players having success in a market dominated by the iPod, the company admitted that strategic pricing by Apple has cut into its profit margins.
Bill Proposes Ending Free Weather Data
The Internet has made weather data more freely accessible to those who want it. Thanks to new policies instituted by the National Weather Service, users can obtain free access to such things as live radar, weather forecasts, and even receive weather on their cell phones. However, a bill introduced last week by Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA) may end all that.
"NOAA's actions threaten the continued success of the commercial weather industry," Santorum said in a Senate session last week. "It's not an easy prospect for a business to attract advertisers, subscribers, or investors when the government is providing similar products and services for free."
Dead Marine's E-Mail Opened to Family
A Michigan court has ordered Yahoo to hand over the contents of a Marine's e-mail account who was killed in Iraq last November. The family of Justin Ellsworth, 20, had been fighting with Yahoo since December to gain access to the man's personal e-mail account, however the company refused to give the family Ellsworth's password.
The family later filed an injunction to prevent Yahoo from deleting the account according to its 90-day inactive account policy. Both sides expressed support for the court decision. However, Yahoo said its privacy policy will not change despite the ruling, and it will continue to honor the privacy of account holders.
Qwest's Latest MCI Bid Nears $10 Billion
Calling it its "best and final offer," Qwest Thursday raised its bid for long distance provider MCI to $9.9 billion, or $30.40 a share. This latest offer is some $2.1 billion higher than Verizon's bid, which MCI accepted amid complaints from its shareholders.
According to Qwest, financing has been secured for $7.25 million of the purchase price, and it has also gain commitments on equity from major shareholders.
iTunes Phone Due Within Months
Motorola CEO Ed Zander said in a conference call with analysts that the much anticipated -- and oft delayed -- iTunes-enabled phone "will be coming out in the next few months." A Motorola representative later confirmed that the phone is due to be released in the first half of this year.
Questions have arisen over the past few days regarding what carriers will offer the phone to customers. According to BusinessWeek, Verizon, Sprint and Cingular have all passed on the iTunes phone. That leaves Nextel and T-Mobile as the only two remaining major U.S. wireless players.
Next-Generation DVD Deal May Be Near
A prominent Japanese business newspaper reported Thursday that a deal may be close between Toshiba and Sony over the next-generation format of DVDs. The news comes a little over one week after a Sony Media Group official said publicly that one high-definition format would be in the best interests of the consumer.
The two companies appear increasingly wary of a 21st Century version of the Betamax and VHS format wars of the 1980s. Each format has their strengths: HD-DVD has backward compatibility with most current DVD players, while Blu-ray offers nearly twice the space of HD-DVD.
Verizon Internet Users Go to the Movies
Verizon has struck a deal with Movielink to offer a co-branded portal where users of the company's high-speed Internet service will be able to download movies to watch on their home computers. Starting at a cost of 99-cents per flick, users can watch films as much as they like in a 24-hour period for up to 30 days from the date of download.
Movielink was the first broadband online video rental service to allow legitmate downloads of major motion pictures. Verizon says that the new service brings added value to its customers. "Entertainment is one of the hottest categories of broadband applications, and Verizon customers can count on us to deliver the latest and most sought-after services," the company said in a statement.
Comcast, Time Warner Buy Adelphia
Time Warner and Comcast announced that their three-way deal with cable provider Adelphia completed on Thursday, valued at $12.7 billion. As part of the deal, Comcast will cash out its 17.9 percent stake in Time Warner's cable division and 4.7 percent stake Time Warner Entertainment.
In exchange, Comcast will receive nearly $2 billion in cash and cable systems serving approximately 733,000 Time Warner Cable households. Time Warner stands to gain the most from the transaction - nearly 7.5 million customers in total. Comcast will gain about one million customers from the purchase of Adelphia combined the Time Warner trades.
Ed's Bio
Ed Oswald is a freelance journalist from the Reading, PA area. Although he has written across a variety of subjects, Ed’s passion and focus has been on technology and gadgets. His work regularly appears on tech news sites BetaNews, PCWorld, and Technologizer, and has been syndicated to eWeek, Time’s Techland blog, VentureBeat and the New York Times.
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