Ed Oswald

Two days after calling on broadcasters to support changing local regulations that are hindering its rollout of a television service, Verizon took its case directly to Capitol Hill to have the laws changed by the lawmakers themselves.

Appearing in front of the House Subcommittee on Telecommunications, Verizon Retail Markets President Robert Ingalls said the benefits of allowing the company to enter the TV industry far outweigh any negatives. Action is needed immediately to "promote broadband deployment, new technologies and increased investment by any provider," he said.

Continue reading →

Details of a payola scheme by NBC tech analyst Cory Greenberg surfaced Wednesday, in which he was receiving upwards of $15,000 a piece from technology companies to positively promote their products on NBC's Today Show. The news underscores an emerging trend of questionable review practices, both online and off.

According to the Wall Street Journal, which broke the story, Apple, Sony, Hewlett-Packard, Seiko Epson, Creative Technology, and Energizer all had at one time paid Greenberg for his services.

Continue reading →

While online auctions for actual physical items are more commonly known to most people thanks to eBay, an underground auction community is emerging that trades virtual goods -- or computerized possessions -- for use in various multiplayer online games.

Now Sony is joining the virtual trend with Station Exchange, which was announced on Wednesday. The auction site will initially serve the Everquest II community.

Continue reading →

Although it may not be a case of identity theft yet, Ameritrade has disclosed it is missing a backup tape containing nearly 200,000 current and former customers' personal information.

The company says that the tape has been missing since February, when the box it was shipped in was damaged. Three of the four tapes were recovered, but the fourth has yet to be located.

Continue reading →

Northeastern customers of telecommunications giant Verizon will soon be able to drop their landline phone service, but still keep their high-speed Internet. The program will first be offered in the areas formerly served by Nynex and Bell-Atlantic.

Initially, only customers already subscribed to both services will be allowed to take advantage of the new option. However, Verizon has plans to eventually extend it to its entire service area and allow anyone to subscribe to the "naked DSL" service.

Continue reading →

A case of identity theft involving retailer DSW Shoe Warehouse was revealed to be much worse than first thought. Investigators said 1.4 million people -- over 10 times more than initially believed to be affected -- will be alerted that their personal information may have been accessed.

The thefts occurred between November of last year and February, involving 108 of the retailer's 178 stores across 25 states. DSW Shoe Warehouse has provided a list of stores affected on its Web site.

Continue reading →

Verizon on Monday touted its FiOS television service as "a compelling alternative" to cable TV. However, the company has a major roadblock ahead: laws. Currently, to offer any kind of video across its fiber networks, the law stipulates that Verizon would have to obtain a second franchise from local authorities.

The requirement could prove critical in Verizon's rollout of its proposed television service, which would be the first major threat to cable operators since satellite TV. Using its ultra-fast fiber optic lines, Verizon can deliver advanced phone, Internet and television services to residential customers in a single package.

Continue reading →

Intel announced that the first PCs using its Pentium Extreme Edition dual-core processor hit the market Monday. Three companies are selling PCs equipped with the chip, including Alienware, Dell and Velocity Micro. Intel says that the target market for these new machines is computer hobbyists and gamers who require the extra processing power.

The processor comes in at a price of $999 for a 3.2GHz version with the chipset at an additional $50. Also announced was a motherboard with the chipset already built in.

Continue reading →

Seagate announced Monday that it will soon begin shipping a 120GB laptop hard drive, which would be the largest available on the market today. The disk maker will also release a 100GB drive. The 100GB version will come in both 5400 and 7200-rpm versions, and the 120GB in a 5400-rpm model.

The company says that the two drives are in response to consumer demands. "People on-the-go need notebook computers that deliver desktop PC performance yet can withstand the rigors of travel and extend battery life," said Jeff Loebbaka, Seagate vice president of Global Marketing.

Continue reading →

Intel announced the availability of its first WiMAX-enabled chips Monday, which it touted as a way to fill in the areas where DSL and cable cannot provide service. WiMAX stands for Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access and promises to offer broadband-like speeds at up to a 15-20 mile radius from the transmitter itself.

The WiMAX technology is making possible large-scale wireless networks, such as those planned in the city of Philadelphia and elsewhere, because of the far better signal strength over technologies such as 802.11b.

Continue reading →

VOIP provider Skype announced on Friday that it had surpassed 100 million downloads, and launched two new premium features. The first paid offering, SkypeIn, is a service that allows users to redirect their fixed or mobile phone calls to their Skype number when traveling.

Skype also launched a subscription voicemail service appropriately dubbed Skype Voicemail, which allows users to manage their voicemail messages.

Continue reading →

After experiencing three nights of network outages in less than a week, BetaNews has learned that in at least one case in southeast Michigan, a customer received a credit of $2.86 on their bill to compensate for the two days of service he complained about.

While the number may seem arbitrary, it's actually the $42.95 monthly charge divided by 30, which yields a $1.43 a day fee for access to the service.

Continue reading →

Industry sources are saying that Amazon is looking to enter the online DVD rental market – although the retailer would rather partner with an already existing service than launch its own. According to Reuters, Amazon has already approached Netflix and Blockbuster, although no details were given as to the status of negotiations with either company.

Amazon is already in the online DVD rental business in the UK, having launched a service there late last year. All companies involved declined to comment on the information.

Continue reading →

Highlighting a growing concern in the tech industry regarding proper methods of making security vulnerabilities public, a senior analyst with Yankee Group has criticized security firms Secunia and HexView – the two companies responsible for the disclosure of the most recent flaw in Microsoft's software.

According to HexView, the company alerted Microsoft to the problem on March 30; however, it never received any response from Redmond officials. It decided to make the issue public via a mailing list the next day. Secunia later published an advisory on the issue this Wednesday, which involved Microsoft's Access database that comes with Office.

Continue reading →

Apple rumor site Think Secret said Thursday that "reliable sources" are pointing to a refresh of the Power Mac G5, iMac G5 and eMac systems to coincide with the April 29 release of Mac OS X 10.4, known as Tiger. All three models will see upgraded video cards to take advantage of better graphics capabilities within Tiger.

The PowerMac G5 will now feature up to dual 2.7 GHz processors with Apple's SuperDrive as a standard option. It is also rumored that Apple may replace the G5's current single core processor with the dual-core PowerPC 970MP chip. The iMac G5, meanwhile, will now sport a 2GHz processor in its high-end models, and include Bluetooth 2.0.

Continue reading →