Infinium Labs hopes to finally put to rest claims of vaporware and fraud at the Consumer Electronics Show in January along with a new backer: Microsoft. Redmond will join Infinium to demo its much-hyped and controversial Phantom Game Service, which has yet to be shown in a fully workable state.

The Phantom Game Service is a subscription-based system that delivers video games to the living room over broadband. The console hardware runs Windows XP Embedded with standard PC components, including an AMD Athlon processor and NVIDIA graphics chipset.

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A European court has denied Microsoft's request to suspend antitrust remedies levied by the EU last March, ordering the company to immediately ship a version of Windows without its bundled media player. The WMP-free versions of Windows XP Home and Professional will tentatively go by the moniker "Reduced Media Edition," BetaNews has learned.

The new Windows XP RME will ship to European OEMs in January and make its way to retail outlets by February. Pricing will remain the same as current Windows XP editions, Microsoft says.

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As part of its growing endeavor to establish Office as a full-fledged platform rather than application suite, Microsoft will host the first Office System Developer Conference in early February 2005. Over 800 attendees will learn how to build solutions atop the company's Office infrastructure.

Microsoft Chairman and Chief Software Architect Bill Gates will give a keynote address, indicating the importance of the conference to Redmond.

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Electronic Arts announced Monday it is buying 20 percent of Ubi Soft, Europe's third largest video game publisher and maker of the popular game "Prince of Persia." Financial details of the deal were not disclosed, but reports place the purchase between $85 million and $100 million.

Despite the news boosting share prices for both companies, Ubi Soft does not see the purchase as positive and says its consider EA's move "hostile." Analysts don't disagree with that assertion; EA, which dominates the gaming industry, is not expected to leave its ownership at a mere one-fifth.

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Time Warner has unwrapped a holiday gift for its cable Internet subscribers: faster downloads. The company plans to roll out increased speeds of 5Mbits and 8Mbits per second, a 2Mbit boost for its standard and premium RoadRunner cable offerings. Customers in New York will see the improved download speeds starting next Tuesday, while the rest of the country will reap the benefits come January. Time Warner says it will not increase prices for its 3.7 million broadband users.

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Despite recent reports that Verizon was interested in making a bid for Sprint's wireless unit, Nextel and Sprint have officially announced plans to merge companies. The new company, which will be the third largest U.S. wireless carrier, will eventually migrate Nextel users off its iDEN network onto Sprint's CDMA infrastructure.

In the deal, which closely mirrors earlier speculation, Nextel shareholders will receive 1.3 shares of Sprint stock, along with a small cash payout not to exceed $2.8 billion in total. Sprint CEO Gary Forsee will stay on as Chief Executive of Sprint Nextel, while Nextel CEO Timothy Donahue becomes Executive Chairman.

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In an agreement with five major libraries, Google has begun an ambitious project to scan and index millions of books and periodicals. The information will be integrated into Google's Web search over the next several years.

Launched in October, Google Print already offers glimpses of new books, but focuses primarily on publishers rather than libraries.

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The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), which oversees Web addresses, has given preliminary approval two new top-level domains: .jobs and .mobi. The .mobi domain would set apart Web sites tailored for mobile devices such as cell phones, while .jobs is targeted at human resources. For example, a company may list its career opportunities on a .jobs domain rather than on its main site.

ICANN will now begin negotiations with companies who have bid to operate the new domains, but the process could take months and it is possible the domains are not accepted in the end. In October, ICANN gave similar approval to .post for postal services and .travel for the travel industry. However, ICANN has not granted final approval to any new top-level domains since 2000.

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With MSN Desktop Search out the door, Microsoft is expected to continue ratcheting up its beta MSN offerings with "MOOL."

As first reported by BetaNews, MOOL, or Microsoft Office Outlook Live, extends MSN Outlook Connector and Hotmail integration beyond MSN's Premium service. Microsoft unveiled its long-awaited Desktop Search Monday as part of the new MSN Toolbar Suite Beta.

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Putting to an end over a year of resistance and heated courtroom battles, PeopleSoft has agreed to be acquired by Oracle for a total of $10.3 billion in cash. Oracle finally met the approval of PeopleSoft's board by raising its offer from $24 to $26.50 per share.

The deal will help Oracle better compete in the enterprise application market against giants such as SAP by adding PeopleSoft's almost 13,000 customers and $2 billion in annual revenue.

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Sprint and Nextel have reached a tentative agreement to merge, paving the way to create a unified wireless phone giant called Sprint-Nextel with 39 million subscribers, The Wall Street Journal reported. For each share of stock, Nextel shareholders will receive 1.3 shares of Sprint stock, along with a small cash payout in a deal valued at $36 billion.

If the deal is completed, Sprint will retain more than 50 percent of the combined company, as it plans to spin off its local phone carrier. Sprint CEO Gary Forsee will stay on as Chief Executive of Sprint-Nextel, while Nextel CEO Timothy Donahue becomes Executive Chairman.

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Customers of Apple's iTunes Music Store now have a new payment option when buying songs, audio books and gift certificates: virtual wallet PayPal. Apple has integrated PayPal into its United States store, opening the door for music fans without a credit card. PayPal, owned by auction king eBay, was recently added to iTunes rival Napster as well. To promote the addition, Apple is giving away five songs to the first 500,000 new customers to open an iTunes account using PayPal.

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As part of its new policy to give advance notice of upcoming fixes to Windows before the monthly "Patch Tuesday," Microsoft says it has prepared five security bulletins. No details about the vulnerabilities will be released until the patches go live on December 14; however, Microsoft says "The greatest maximum severity rating for these security updates is Important." Last week, Microsoft issued an unscheduled patch for an IFRAME vulnerability that it deemed critical.

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Looking to boost its subscriber base in the face of growing competition from Blockbuster and Wal-Mart, Netflix is testing out a new form of marketing: social networking. The online DVD rental firm plans to allow members to invite friends to read their movie reviews and create linked relationships between reviewers. Subscribers will be able to easily view the opinions of those connected to them, instead of only those selected by Netflix.

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In its never-ending quest to one-up search competitors, Google is beta testing a new featured called Google Suggest, which guesses what users are typing and offers suggestions. Google Suggest is the latest development to come out of Google Labs, a testing ground for the company's new search technologies.

Google Suggest pops up a menu below the search bar as letters are typed, much like auto-complete features found in modern browsers. Instead of basing suggestions on a user's search history, however, Google recommends queries based on popularity and even displays the number of results directly in the menu. Google Suggest works with most browsers using JavaScript and cookies.

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