Gates: MS Will Be 'Very Responsive'
Microsoft chairman Bill Gates remained in Europe on a "courtesy visit" this week and met with EU Commission heads to talk about progress towards the stipulations of last year's controversial ruling against the company.
Gates told the Belgian parliament Monday, where he was received before heading to the Commission, that Microsoft would be "very responsive" in implementing the required changes - including the removal of Windows Media Player from its operating system.
After CEO, TiVo President Resigns
Citing family concerns, TiVo President Marty Yudkovitz announced he will be leaving the company Tuesday. This is the second high-profile resignation at TiVo in only a few weeks, following the departure of its CEO Michael Ramsay. Yudkovitz plans to stay with TiVo for a limited time in a consulting role even though his resignation takes effect immediately.
"When I joined TiVo I planned to move my family to California, but as the demands of my role grew, the need to spend even more time on both coasts grew as well, requiring a heavy commute no matter where I lived," Yudkovitz said. "I've chosen instead to find the most logical time to resign as president and re-acquaint myself with my wife and kids."
IBM Adds Anti-Theft Tech to ThinkPad
IBM announced Tuesday that it will be incorporating remote anti-theft functionality in its ThinkPad notebook computers, starting with the T series. Created by Vancouver-based Absolute Technologies, the technology is embedded in the BIOS of computers to prevent data theft and assist in recovery.
Absolute's technology works as a subscription service and would allow the computer owner to find where an owned laptop is connected to the Internet, as well as delete sensitive information remotely to prevent data theft.
iPods Could Appear in Wal-Mart in April
In what could signal trouble for the Windows Media based digital music industry, reports indicate that retail giant Wal-Mart is set to receive shipments of the iPod shuffle in April of this year. According to sources, the flash based-music player may be made available in all of the chain's 5,000 stores.
Wal-Mart will feature the iPod shuffle in its March flyer and announce availability, says Mac enthusiast site AppleInsider, which first reported the news.
Verizon Wireless VCAST Goes Live
Verizon Wireless has upped the ante on the race for wireless broadband, today launching its high-speed data service for consumers called VCAST. Billed by the company as "the nation's first 3G wireless broadband multimedia service for consumers," VCAST will offer on-demand content from a variety of sources, as well as 3D games to phones compatible with the next-generation network.
As previously reported, VCAST promises speeds of 300kbit to 500kbit per second, roughly the same as a low-grade DSL connection. However, initial trials in Southern California showed speeds that topped out around 150kbit per second.
Take Two Hits Home Run with MLB
Video game maker Take Two figuratively hit a home run on Monday and announced that not only did it strike an agreement with the MLB Players Association as reported last Monday, but it has also struck deals with Major League Baseball Properties (MLBP) and Major League Baseball Advanced Media (MLBAM).
This means Take Two will have the exclusive rights to produce true-to-life Major League Baseball video games starting in 2006. The length of the agreements was not disclosed, and there was no mention of how much Take Two paid for the rights. However, media reports last week put the value of the MLBPA deal alone at $80 million to $150 million.
New Sober Worm Surfaces
Antivirus company McAfee has upgraded the W32/Sober.k@MM to a "medium-risk worm" after receiving more than 50 reports of the virus to its AVERT (Anti-virus and Vulnerability Emergency Response Team) team since Sunday evening.
According to McAfee, the virus is a "mass mailing threat that contains its own SMTP engine to construct outgoing messages, which are written in German or English. It harvests addresses from local files and then uses the harvested addresses to send itself. This produces a message with a spoofed 'From' address."
TiVo Offers SDK to Extend Service
Digital video recorder maker TiVo invited developers Monday to create applications and services to extend TiVo's capabilities.
TiVo released an SDK, or software development kit, which opens up its set-top boxes to developers for the first time. The company said it expects a variety of new programs from multiplayer games, to sports and weather information services.
AOL, Road Runner Ink Cable Deal
America Online and Time Warner Cable Monday announced a deal that will bring a custom version of the AOL service to Road Runner broadband users. As part of the deal, the new Road Runner homepage will optionally be the AOL.com portal, and AOL will manage the search and advertising opportunities for the new service.
"This agreement provides another way for America Online to extend the subscriber lifetime of AOL dial-up members who want to move to broadband," said AOL CEO Jonathan F. Miller. "This partnership will also make it easier to reach a new pool of broadband consumers and monetize an even bigger broadband audience through advertising, search, commerce and select premium services."
Developer: Firefox 1.1 to be Delayed
Firefox lead engineer turned Google developer Ben Goodger announced on his Web log late this week that version 1.1 of Firefox will be delayed.
The next major release of the browser had originally been scheduled for a March debut. However, Goodger said the release date had to be pushed back because of "the realities of the work remaining to be done," including a lot of bug fixes and testing to ensure a stable application.
Blaster Author Sentenced to 18 Months
A Minnesota man received a sentence of 18 months in prison and 10 hours of community service for releasing a variant of the "Blaster" worm that infected nearly 50,000 computers in the summer of 2003.
Jeffrey Lee Parson was a 19 year-old high school senior using the computer alias "teekid" when he modified the worm. Parson originally pled not guilty, but changed his plea last summer in hopes of avoiding a longer sentence.
EU to MS: Fix Windows, or Face Fines
The European Union Friday threatened to fine Microsoft further if it does not soon comply with a ruling that Windows' multimedia features must be removed from versions sold in the EU. Microsoft said this week that WMP-free editions of Windows will ship within weeks, but no visible progress has been made towards compliance, according to EU officials.
As first reported by BetaNews, Microsoft is expected to name the new Windows "Reduced Media Edition," but European regulators are concerned the moniker will be unappealing to consumers.
Google Releases AdWords API Beta
Google late Thursday released a beta of an API, otherwise known as an application program interface, for its successful AdWords program. The API will allow developers to better manage campaigns on their own, as well as further innovate the delivery of Google's text-based search ads.
"The AdWords API beta program is an open invitation to developers to explore new concepts (and then write great software) for managing Google AdWords advertising campaigns," Josh McFarland, Google AdWords Product Manager, and Nelson Minar, software engineer wrote, in the Google Blog.
64-Bit Windows Ready for April?
According to reports, Microsoft's 64-bit edition of Windows XP may finally be ready for a retail release on April 24. The operating system, which has been in extended beta testing, will be released to manufacturing in March, sources say.
Intel also has said that it will be releasing its consumer line of 64-bit processors around that time, including the Celeron 64. But according to the company, the timing is purely coincidental. AMD has been shipping its 64-bit Opteron and AMD64 processors for consumers since last year.
Amazon Adds Pictures to Yellow Pages
If Amazon has its way, soon your mouse will do the walking through a virtual tour of 10 major U.S. cities.
Call up a local business in one of those cities on Amazon's A9 Yellow Pages, and it will not just give you the phone number and address. Alongside the listing will be a picture of the business with an option for "block view" that displays adjacent storefronts.
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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