As expected, Apple has launched a Canadian version of its iTunes Music Store, further expanding the service's global reach. The Canada store offers songs at 99-cents CDN, which puts the cost slightly below that for US customers despite a weakened dollar. Over 700,000 tracks currently fill the Canadian iTunes library with the same usage rights as Apple's US and recently unveiled European stores. Apple is also rumored to be working on an iTunes Music Store for Japan.

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Microsoft has announced plans to open its third research facility outside the United States, selecting Bangalore, India as the new locale. The Bangalore lab is scheduled to open in January and will employ about two-dozen scientists, interns and support staff the company said. Microsoft Research has had a presence in India since 2001 working with universities, and the new lab will build upon these relationships while investigating multilingual systems, technologies for emerging markets, geographical information systems, and sensor networks.

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AOL has unveiled a prototype of its revived Netscape Browser, which serves as a test bed for several new features. The new Netscape is based on Firefox, but with a twist - it includes support for switching to Microsoft's IE engine.

BetaNews has also learned that Netscape's development was not done in-house by AOL, but rather outsourced to Canadian software firm Mercurial Communications.

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FreeWorld Online is accepting tester sign-ups on a first-come first-served basis for an alpha test phase of the upcoming massive multiplayer online role playing game (MMORPG) game that will begin December 15, 2004. The developer told BetaNews that since the game is in alpha, many of the gameplay systems and final art have yet to be added. Users who want a more stable and polished product are suggested to hold off until the beta version of the game is released. Gameplay will be open until January 15, 2005.

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INTERVIEW Following our two-part interview with Microsoft's Internet Explorer product manager, BetaNews sat down with Firefox architect Blake Ross to discuss the recent launch of the browser that has challenged IE's reign. Ross fires back at Microsoft's claims of superiority and offers insight into the future goals of the open source Firefox.

19 year-old Blake Ross seems an unlikely foe for a company that has taken on the U.S. and European governments, but this Stanford student and his fellow Mozilla developers are adamant in their mission: Take back the Web. As downloads of Firefox 1.0 surpass 6.5 million, the new browser has garnered the attention of even Microsoft's top brass.

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Windows enthusiast site Neowin is reporting on a new beta program that allows Windows XP Media Center Edition users to remotely schedule television show recordings. The beta will likely develop into a Web-based MSN service that interfaces with Media Center PCs, similar to remote scheduling offerings from rivals such as TiVo. MCE 2005 users who wish to join the public beta must fill out a short survey by visiting BetaPlace with the Guest ID: myshows.

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Microsoft is taking the holiday break to give thanks to its Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1 beta testers, inviting selected participants to test the next Windows Server release code-named "R2." R2 is slated to be a fairly minor interim release between SP1 and Longhorn Server, which is not expected until 2007.

"Due to the outstanding contributions you made during the recent Windows SP1 beta, the Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Beta Team would to extend the opportunity to participate in the upcoming "R2" beta program," Microsoft beta coordinators wrote in an e-mail to testers.

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Computer and Communications Industry Association (CCIA) president Ed Black, one of the most outspoken critics of Microsoft, has personally walked away with almost half of Microsoft's $20 million settlement payout, according to documents obtained by the Financial Times.

Microsoft made the payment to the CCIA and announced it would join the association on the same day it ended a longstanding antitrust dispute with Novell in a $537 million cash settlement. In exchange, the CCIA agreed to withdraw from the European Commission's six-year antitrust case against Microsoft and drop any unresolved complaints.

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With the constant deluge of spam and viruses wreaking havoc on corporate e-mail systems, securing the inbox has become a necessity for most businesses. To this end, beta test provider Centercode is seeking Outlook users to trial a secure mail add-in.

Although the test requirements are strict, Centercode will be offering iPods and cash incentives.

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Time Warner is close to a deal with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that would put to rest allegations of accounting fraud within America Online, The Washington Post reported. Time Warner is said to have agreed to a settlement figure of almost $750 million, but the SEC and U.S. Department of Justice would continue separate investigations of AOL employees. Time Warner was being investigated for its purchase of Bertelsmann's share in AOL Europe and for improper booking of AOL advertising revenues.

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Usage of Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser has dropped 5 percent since May, while Mozilla's Firefox has catapulted to a 4.58 percent total usage share, according to Web analytics provider OneStat.com. Despite the pressure from its new rival, Microsoft still holds just under 90 percent of the market. The biggest gains were seen in Internet Explorer 6.0, which alone covers 81 percent of global browser usage - a 12 percent increase over May tallies.

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French technology and electronics company Thomson has joined Microsoft and Time Warner in the buyout of digital rights management provider ContentGuard from parent Xerox.

ContentGuard offers technology to prevent copying of protected files and has created eXtensible rights Markup Language (XrML), which it is pushing for industry adoption.

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Following an initial beta last July, Trend Micro is preparing to beta test the second generation of its Mobile Security product, which provides an antivirus and SMS spam detection for mobile phones and PDAs. Mobile Secuirty 1.1 extends Trend's protection to Smartphone 2003/2003SE, Pocket PC 2003 and Pocket PC 2003 Phone Edition platforms. Trend Micro is seeking feeback from testers during a two-week beta program that runs from December 4 to December 17. For more information and to join the test, visit the Trend Micro Beta Portal.

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At Microsoft's Asian Government Leaders Forum in Singapore, CEO Steve Ballmer told attendees that Linux violates over 228 patents, and "somebody will come and look for money owing to the rights for that intellectual property," according to Reuters. Company representatives later toned down the statement to Microsoft Watch, but not before uproar from the open source community claimed Microsoft is using scare tactics to sell its products. Microsoft says Ballmer was simply citing a recent Open Source Risk Management report.

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Microsoft is apologizing to MSN subscribers after accidentally sending them a test message with incomprehensible text that was meant to remain internal. Users encountered the notice after logging in to Hotmail following a system upgrade that boosted user storage space.

The seemingly random message worried some MSN users who feared their e-mail accounts may have been compromised, but Microsoft was quick to quell any speculation.

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