Ed Oswald

Several musical artists have told the U.S. Supreme Court that they believe peer-to-peer networks should not be blamed for illegal file sharing. Instead, they are urging the court to keep P2P services alive in order to give musicians another outlet to distribute their work, the Washington Post reported on Tuesday.

According to the filing, the group of artists claims that not all musicians think file sharing is bad. "To the contrary, many musicians find peer-to-peer technology...allows them easily to reach a worldwide online audience. And to many musicians, the benefits of this..strongly outweigh the risks of copyright infringement," they wrote.

Continue reading →

In an announcement late Monday, Microsoft said it has tapped former AT&T Wireless executive Michael Sievert for corporate vice president of Windows product management. Sievert will be responsible for creating the marketing strategy for the next release of Windows, called "Longhorn." He replaces Tom Button who had to step down due to family medical reasons.

"Mike brings to the Windows product management team broad industry experience and deep insight into driving marketing excellence," Will Poole, senior vice president for the Windows Client Business said. "Mike's experience communicating the value of technology and services to a broad customer base will be invaluable to Microsoft's long-term efforts to grow the Windows ecosystem and to deliver 'Longhorn' in 2006."

Continue reading →

MSN has updated its Maps and Directions service to add the ability to find businesses along a travel route, enable a user to cut and paste an address to search for, and the ability to directly link to a map from external Web sites. Google, meanwhile, updated its beta Maps offering to support Safari and Opera Web browsers.

Google Maps, which initially supported only IE and Mozilla browsers, offers detailed maps in the United States and Canada. MSN has focused on global coverage to outpace its new rival, adding 11 new countries. "This new functionality combined with existing favorite features...enables users to get driving directions more quickly and easily and find addresses and points-of-interest all around the globe," Microsoft spokesperson Chris Warfield told BetaNews.

Continue reading →

In an unexpected move, XM Satellite Radio increased its monthly access fee to $12.95 per month, in line with its competitor SIRIUS. The change will take effect April 2; however, the company said customers who sign up for a prepaid plan before that date would be able to lock in the old $9.99 rate from anywhere between one to five years.

While the new rate is nearly $3 more, XM sweetened the deal for its users. All basic customers will now have access to XM Radio Online, formerly a $3.99 per month premium service. XM Online allows customers to listen to programming over a broadband connection.

Continue reading →

A study by Nielsen/NetRatings released on Monday shows that most search engine users tend to use a second site to complete their searches. However, depending on which search engine the person uses first, sometimes a second search isn't necessary.

58 percent of Google users use a second search engine, the lowest of the top three search engines, while 70 percent of MSN users and 71 percent of Yahoo users turn to another of the top three.

Continue reading →

Fujitsu introduced the largest hard drive available for laptops Monday, with a 120GB capacity. The company says it produced the larger drive in response to greater demand from portable users for capacity that equals their home computers to allow for advanced uses, but also is quiet and shock absorbent.

"Hard disk drives have to keep up as individual and organizational storage requirements increase," Joel Hagberg of Fujitsu said. "The Fujitsu MHV2120AT mobile hard disk drive is the latest in a history of industry leading drives that meet the performance, capacity and power needs of mobile computing and consumer electronics manufacturers." Fujitsu says the drive will be available to OEMs and distributors in May 2005.

Continue reading →

Xbox users across several forums including Xbox Scene are questioning Microsoft's motives for replacing just the power cords to their gaming consoles, rather than recall the entire unit. Some claim the new cords appear to be quite a bit larger than the older ones, and include a circuit breaker within the plug.

"The real problem is the Foxlink power supply. There have been numerous reports of 'loose power connectors' in Xboxes, and the cause of this is that the solder joints on the [power supply unit] have actually broken where the connector mounts to the board, which can result in the XBox not powering on, or possibly even sparks, smoke, and fire," one user wrote, calling the power supply a "timebomb."

Continue reading →

The ongoing saga between MCI, Qwest and Verizon deepened Friday as MCI CEO Michael Capellas told investors that his company "would do our utmost to complete the transaction" and make sure the deal with the nation's largest telecommunications company, Verizon, goes through despite a renewed bid from Qwest.

According to Bloomberg News Service, Capellas said that while he would review Qwest's revised bid for MCI, Verizon is still the right partner for the company. We will be "respectful to all parties," he said.

Continue reading →

The European Union has given customers of Microsoft's products a period of ten days to decide if the company's latest offer to settle its antitrust case with them and the EU is adequate.

Last year, the EU found Microsoft guilty of antitrust violations and fined the company 497 million euros. With the decision came a ruling that the company must produce a version of its Windows XP operating system without multimedia capabilities built in, which was central to the trial.

Continue reading →

The EU has signaled its intention to investigate Apple's iTunes over what users have complained is unfair pricing. While the EU maintains that this is an informal investigation and they have only requested information from Apple, the move could be seen as a victory for UK consumer group Which? who first publicized the issue in September.

According the complaint, digital downloads in Britain cost 79 pence ($1.51 USD) versus 99 euro cents ($1.31 USD) across the rest of the EU. The complaint argues that downloads should cost the same no matter where the user may be located. It should be noted, however, that a similar problem occurs in the United States; downloads in Canada cost 80 cents versus 99 cents in the US.

Continue reading →

Microsoft snagged a big name game developer this week as Hironobu Sakaguchi, creator of the popular Final Fantasy series of games, joined the Microsoft Gaming Studio as a developer for the Xbox 2. Sakaguchi will be responsible for leading development on two new role-playing games (RPGs) to be released for the new console.

"We are ecstatic to work with Sakaguchi-san and celebrate what this news means not only for Xbox, but for gamers worldwide," Peter Moore, corporate vice president of Worldwide Marketing and Publishing at Microsoft said. Sakaguchi echoed Moore's comments. "Microsoft's cutting-edge technologies in the next-generation platform will allow me to bring to life an array of ideas that I have had for many years," he said.

Continue reading →

Members of the U.S. Congress on Thursday said they supported some kind of regulation to limit the amount of data agencies can collect without federal oversight. Several Democratic lawmakers said they are preparing to introduce legislation to limit the activities of data profilers like ChoicePoint, and several key Republicans seemed receptive to the issue.

"Our system of protecting people's identity is virtually nonexistent in this country," said Sen. Charles Schumer. Schumer Thursday held a press conference where he showed that his aides were able to find out personal information, including Social Security numbers, of Paris Hilton, Brad Pitt and even Vice President Dick Cheney.

Continue reading →

Chipmaker Intel will acquire Israeli semiconductor maker Oplus Technologies, both companies announced Thursday. Although financial terms of the deal were not disclosed publicly, the Israeli media put the value of the deal at about $100 million.

Intel hopes the deal will get its chips into set-top boxes and digital televisions, a market that the company has so far been unable to break. Oplus' chips process and enhance video signals in high-definition TVs before they are displayed on the screen.

Continue reading →

The British Government has joined the virus warning business with the launch of a new Web site, ITSafe. The site aims to protect citizens and businesses based in the UK from malware by offering free advice and alerts on potential threats.

The alerts will consist of plain-language information on how to deal with specific viruses and security risks. The information will be based on data provided by the National Infrastructure Security Co-ordination Center (NISCC).

Continue reading →

An analyst with Monness, Crespi, Hardt & Co says rumors are circulating stating that Apple may be interested in acquiring TiVo, causing the stock of the company to jump 18 percent on Wednesday and an additional 8 percent in early trading Thursday. Although Apple has expressed no desire to enter the DVR market, that hasn't stopped the rumor mill.

"What we hear on the street is that Apple is interested in their business and that they are a takeout target," said analyst Steven Kroll. With a market valuation of $300 million, TiVo may be an easy target for Apple, which is riding high on the success of its iPod. TiVo CEO Michael Ramsay, however, has asserted that his company is not for sale.

Continue reading →