French police bid adieu to Microsoft software
Reports: Sprint, Clearwire could be renewing WiMAX talks
MySpace set to launch developer platform Tuesday
With rival Facebook's open API gaining traction, MySpace on Wednesday said that it would launch its own API on February 5.
The launch will also herald the promotion of the market-leading social network's business development chief Amit Kapur to the position of chief operating officer. Kapur will be tasked with heading up the program.
Firefox share up again in Europe
The average usage share of Mozilla's browser among European nations rose to 28 percent in December, up .7 percent from the month previous, XiTi Monitor finds.
A report by the Web survey institute XiTi Monitor released yesterday showed that, when European nations' averaged their Web sites' usage shares together, usage share for Firefox appeared to rebound slightly.
BroadbandTV, Vuze join to advance IPTV platform
BroadbandTV hopes that the acquisition of Vuze will solidify its position in the IPTV market, which progressively looks to be the content delivery platform of the future.
BroadbandTV is a Vancouver, British Columbia company that specializes in the "aggregation, optimization, tracking, monetization of video content" over the Internet, according to its company profile. It was founded in 2005.
Rapidshare's future in doubt following legal defeat
The popular file-sharing service may be forced to shut down if it can not control the uploading of pirated music to its service after a German court ruling.
The German equivalent of the RIAA, GEMA, won a legal battle in district court in Düsseldorf last week which found that Rapidshare should be held responsible for the uploading of infringing material to its site.
UK retailer Woolworths moves Blu-ray exclusively
With Blu-ray rapidly gaining momentum in the next-gen DVD war, UK retailer Woolworths has announced it will stop stocking Toshiba's HD DVD format in stores.
HD DVD players will still be available from its online store after March, which is when the company will sell Blu-ray players exclusively in its 820 locations throughout the UK.
O2 beefs up iPhone plans in UK to boost sales
British cellular carrier O2 has overhauled its iPhone plans in a likely effort to make the device more appealing to a broader customer base.
In addition to currently available plans, O2 has introduced a new heavy usage plan for customers who may use their iPhones more frequently. Also, customers of one of its plans will be moved down to a less expensive tier.
Qtrax hits roadblock in effort to launch legal P2P
The self-proclaimed legal file sharing service is either not so legal or not so sharing: None of the big four music labels have agreements with the service, according to news reports.
Qtrax had planned to launch at midnight Monday, but with its latest round of troubles, it missed its initial launch date. All four major record producers say that while they are in negotiations with the service, none of them have signed final agreements.
Sweden to indict Pirate Bay owners by end of month
The Pirate Bay's days are increasingly looking numbered as Sweden will move this week to press charges against its owners for copyright infringement.
Charges will be filed in a district court in the country on January 31. If the owners are successfully convicted, they may be forced to pay fines and spend up to two years in jail.
Halo effect not enough to prevent Xbox 360 sales decline
Even though Microsoft's best selling game came out right before the holiday quarter, sales of the Xbox 360 console dipped slightly year-over-year.
Microsoft said it had shipped 4.3 million consoles during the final calendar quarter of 2007, down 2.3% from the year previous. Halo 3 was released about a week before the quarter began.
Amazon MP3 looks to expand outside of US
The online retailer said over the weekend that it would begin to roll out its music store worldwide during this year in an effort to more broadly compete with market-leader iTunes.
Amazon launched its MP3 store in September of last year, and has since expanded to include music from all four major labels as well as 33,000 independent labels. The company says that it has the broadest DRM-free offering of any service.
Local online advertising to become big business in next decade
A host of research firms are saying that local ads are the next big thing, with the latest being Jupiter Research saying it will be a $9 billion business by 2012.
Jupiter is certainly not the first to address the market; others have made their predictions as well. While some are not as optimistic, a few even say that the market could potentially grow larger than that.
UK concerned over Facebook's profile deactivation methods
British officials are set to question Facebook over its data retention methods after a user complained that personal information remained on its severs after he deactivated his account.
Facebook's current system still retains some data even after an account is deleted. So far, it has defended the practice claiming that it is in full compliance with UK privacy laws.
Steve Jobs criticizes Microsoft on Zune, says Blu-ray won
The Apple CEO was blunt that he believes the Zune is a failure, and that Blu-ray may have won the format war, but has probably lost the HD content battle.
His comments came as part of an interview with CNBC's Jim Goldman on Tuesday. While Jobs is not necessarily known for his subtlety, his statements are about the most direct on either topic so far.
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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