Ed Oswald

REVIEW With satellite radio entering the mainstream, it was only a matter of time before we'd see units that would allow the customer to break free from the automobile and home and enjoy their music just about anywhere.

Enter the $350 Delphi XM MyFi. The first radio based on XM Satellite Radio's "xm2go" philosophy, the unit brings a full-featured satellite radio into the size of a cassette walkman. With recording features as well, MyFi is also first device capable of archiving satellite radio programming for later use.

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By this fall, Boston commuters will be able to use their laptops and PDAs with wireless capability in the city's subways. Wireless access will be available in the Park Street, Downtown Crossing, Government Center and State Street stations, as well as connecting tunnels, thanks to a 15-year agreement with InSite Wireless.

The city hopes to expand the Wi-Fi service to the entire subway system over the next few years. T-Mobile, meanwhile, already provides wireless access at the stations for its customers.

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"You can click, but you can't hide," reads the message on the front page of LokiTorrent, ordered Thursday by Dallas Federal Court to immediately shut down. The warning rings especially true now that the Motion Picture Association of America has won a key court victory that allowed it access to LokiTorrent's visitor logs.

LokiTorrent, like many now-defunct BitTorrent Web sites, offered links to torrent files that are used to download and share illicit content. One of the most popular BitTorrent houses, SuprNova, recently went underground and launched a decentralized client called eXeem for accessing torrent downloads.

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Apple announced Friday that a 2-for-1 stock split would take effect February 18 for all shares held on that date, with the shares trading on a split-adjusted basis beginning February 28. The news follows announcements last month that its earnings had grown to 70 cents a share, from 17 cents a year earlier.

Analysts point to the iPod's success as the reason for the turnaround in the company, whose stock was trading as low as $14 early in 2003. When news of the split hit the market, Apple shares jumped over $2 to $80.41 in early trading on Friday.

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Napster's financials improved in the third fiscal quarter ending December 31, 2004 thanks to a doubling of its subscriber base, as well as increased revenues from digital music sales. The company posted a $16.4 million loss versus a $25.6 million loss for the same period of 2003.

However, when including the sale of its Roxio division, which made CD-burning software, the company posted a small gain for the quarter. At the end of the year, Napster said it had 270,000 paying subscribers, including about 44,000 from universities. The number was up 50 percent from the second quarter, Napster reported.

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Microsoft announced Thursday that it has teamed up with drug company Pfizer to combat the increasing amount of Viagra-related spam it has been receiving on its MSN Hotmail service over the past year. The expressed aim of the lawsuits is not only to stop the spam, but also to end the illegal manufacture of generic Viagra overseas.

So far, 17 lawsuits have been filed by the two companies for various violations of the CAN-SPAM act, as well as state and federal laws.

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Symantec admitted to a critical flaw in its software that could potentially open the door to viruses. The problem affects its entire antivirus product lineup, including the widely used Norton AntiVirus. Symantec has since issued a patch and has urged all users of the software to install it as soon as possible.

"The impact of this vulnerability is exaggerated by the fact that many e-mail and other traffic routing gateways make use of file-scanning utilities that make use of the vulnerable library," Symantec said in an advisory.

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EarthLink announced Wednesday that it has filed another round of lawsuits against spammers in California, Florida, Nevada, and Washington State in an effort to curb spam for its customers. The suits, filed in January, follow a successful courtroom win by EarthLink that shut down the "Alabama Spammers."

In a statement, assistant general counsel for EarthLink Larry Slovensky said that the company's actions were made in order to protect the entire Internet. "We will continue to pursue litigation, technical solutions, consumer education and legislative support to help ensure the quality of the Internet experience for all users," he said.

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AirTran announced late Tuesday that 20 planes will soon be outfitted with XM Satellite Radio for its passengers to fulfill a standing deal with the service. Currently available on three planes, the expansion will be complete by the summer.

Passengers will be able use standard headsets to listen to XM while they fly. To mark the deal, AirTran penned an agreement with pop star and XM-booster Elton John to have his image displayed on planes that have the service.

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As previously reported by BetaNews, former CEO of MP3.com Michael Robertson announced the official launch of MP3Tunes on Wednesday. Songs can be downloaded for 88 cents each, or $8.88 per album.

All MP3Tunes songs have no digital rights management, meaning there is no protection to stop the music from being distributed through P2P networks. Record labels have balked at putting their content on services that cannot guarantee some kind of security, thus MP3Tunes' 300,000 songs are mostly from smaller independent artists and labels.

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A headset maker has created a gadget for those who can't get enough of their iPod. Plantronics dove into the iPod add-on market Wednesday by announcing the availability of a headset that can be plugged into a user's cell phone and iPod at the same time.

"People want to be able to listen to music, but still receive an important phone call," said Dean Hovey, vice president for Plantronics. "Now, someone can listen to their iPod and easily answer an incoming call via a simple switch on the headset cord."

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After months of speculation that Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina would either resign or be pushed out over disagreements on the future of HP, it was made official Wednesday morning. Fiorina's resignation took effect immediately, elevating Chief Financial Officer Robert Wayman to interim CEO.

According to HP officials, the resignation was over disagreements on how to run the company. HP board member Patricia Dunn will serve as chairman.

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RealNetworks is attempting to encourage its premium users to sign up for a yearly plan by adding a "handling fee" to its SuperPass and Internet radio services when paid on a monthly basis. The new fee will be extended to all Real offerings by the end of the year, according to the company.

The fee of 79 cents will be waived if the user selects to pay yearly. The company also says other discounts will be offered to its annual subscribers as well. The move comes as RealNetworks hopes to secure its user base in the face of increasing competition on the subscription front. Last week, Napster unveiled a new monthly offering for portable devices called Napster To Go.

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Apple is further expanding its retail base for iPod sales. Mac enthusiast site AppleInsider reports that officials at Circuit City confirmed they will "soon" be carrying the iPod Shuffle. The electronics retailer was the first to allow for pre-orders of the Shuffle through its Web site.

Some stores have already received some small shipments of the larger 1GB model, albeit only 3 to 5 at a time in each shipment. Normally 20 a time are shipped from Apple. According to the story, Circuit City officials are "excited" about the Shuffle, saying, "it's one of those products that generates a lot of excitement with the public."

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Continuing its aggressive moves in the area of protecting consumers, Microsoft announced Tuesday that it had finalized plans to acquire Sybari Software, most commonly known for its work in antivirus protection for messaging and collaboration servers. According to Microsoft, the acquisition is a key part of its security strategy.

Sybari is Microsoft's second purchase in the antivirus space after acquiring GeCAD Software in July 2003. "Through this acquisition, we're excited to be able to provide customers with a server-level anti-virus solution that delivers advanced file and content-filtering capabilities and the use of multiple scan engines," said Mike Nash, corporate vice president of Microsoft's Security Business and Technology Unit.

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