Nate Mook

Microsoft developer Ashish Thapliyal has published a roadmap for the Silverlight 2 Web platform, confirming a final launch scheduled for the summer, and noting that Silverlight won't be able to play back .flv Flash video files.

Silverlight 2.0 Beta 1 made its debut at MIX 08 last month with a limited non-commercial license. Beta 2 is slated for release this quarter and will allow developers to launch commercial applications built atop the platform. Microsoft typically lets developers to do this with its near-finished betas using what it calls a "Go-Live" license.

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While the iPhone may be in short supply in the United States amidst rumors of a forthcoming 3G model, the iconic device doesn't appear to be selling as well in Germany. In turn, Deutsche Telekom's T-Mobile arm is lowering the price to just 99 euros ($122 USD) for two months.

The promotion runs from April 7 to June 30, and is a sharp discount from the iPhone's suggested retail price of 399 euros. The 99 euro offer is for the 8GB model only. In the United States, the sells for $399, although for a time, buyers could pick up the discontinued 4GB model for $299.

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The man who became the public face for Windows Vista -- and often bore the brunt of criticism directed at the OS -- through blog posts and community events has resigned from Microsoft.

Nick White is leaving the Redmond company to take a position at BuzzCorps, a blog-oriented viral marketing company founded by former AMD communications manager Chris Aarons. White has worked with Aarons in the past on marketing efforts for Windows Vista.

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Opera on Thursday released a beta version of Opera Mini 4.1, the company's free Web browser for mobile phones that runs on Java. Most notably, the new release is now signed, which means the phone will not prompt users every time they run the software.

Aside from eliminating the annoying Java security pop-ups, version 4.1 noticeably speeds up Web surfing by up to 50% thanks to improvements to Opera Mini's rendering engine. Accessing sites will be quicker, too, as the browser saves previously entered URLs and auto-completes them for users.

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Ian Rogers, who pushed the music industry to drop DRM, is resigning as general manager for Yahoo Music to take the helm at a new startup called Topspin Media, which calls itself "the future of digital artist services."

Rogers, though his appearance will fool you, is a long-time veteran of the music business. He helped start the Internet Underground Music Archive, and worked with the Beastie Boys on Grand Royal Records. Rogers also worked on Winamp in the early days with creator Justin Frankel and built a streaming music service called Muse.Net before joining Yahoo over four years ago.

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TiVo will roll out a new software update to all subscribers in the next few weeks, which promises to remedy a common complaint among TiVo users since the service launched over eight years ago: speed.

TiVo software version 9.3 will significantly speed up nearly all of the common tasks that customers do with a TiVo. No longer will the DVR pause for nearly a minute while it reorders Season Pass priorities or stall for half a minute when a Season Pass is created. Users will see between 10 and 30 second speed improvements in these areas.

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Signs coming from Microsoft indicate that Windows XP Service Pack 3 is finally ready for public release. But is the company just playing an April fools joke?

The long-awaited update for the aging operating system (now over 6 and a half years old) was expected to arrive last month, but instead Microsoft released a "Refresh" of Release Candidate 2, asking testers to try out a new Windows Update mechanism for delivering the SP3 bits.

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With Windows Vista Service Pack 1 out the door, Microsoft was largely expected to release Windows XP SP3 last week or this week. It didn't, instead making public a Refresh build of SP3 Release Candidate 2.

Microsoft says it "made this release candidate available in order to receive further user feedback prior to the release of Windows XP SP3." But many users are wondering what's taking the company so long, as SP3 is largely a roll-up of existing updates and includes no major new features.

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3:40 pm ET March 21, 2008 - In response to consumer feedback on the issue, Sony will drop the $50 added fee for "Fresh Start" beginning tomorrow.

"Starting March 22, Sony will offer Fresh Start free of charge. We want VAIO users to have the best experience possible with our PCs, and we believe Fresh Start will help ensure that happens right out-of-the-box," the company said in a statement to BetaNews.

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Apple issued firmware updates for its AirPort Extreme and Time Capsule base stations late Wednesday, bringing back a feature it initially touted for Mac OS X Leopard, but later dropped.

AirPort Disk was supposed to allow users to hook up an external hard drive to their AirPort Extreme base stations and perform automated backups using Leopard's new Time Machine feature. Shortly before the operating system launched last October, however, the feature was removed from Apple's Web site.

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A personal letter from Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos graced the front page of the online retailer Thursday, apologizing for the lack of Kindle electronic book readers and promising that production is being sped up.

Since the Kindle made its debut last November, the device has been in very short supply. Many buyers are waiting upwards of six weeks for their Kindle to arrive, and the situation hasn't improved much even after the holidays.

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Sony detailed its plans Thursday to deliver the long-awaited Profile 2.0 update for Blu-ray to its PlayStation 3 later this month. Sony expects the PS3 to have a 10-year lifecycle.

Because the Blu-ray specification was incomplete when Sony launched the format to compete with HD DVD in 2004, consumers have had to wait for more advanced features already found in the rival -- and now defunct -- format. Picture-in-picture wasn't added until Profile 1.1 -- known as Bonus View -- and Internet connectivity and local storage come with Profile 2.0, which has been dubbed BD-Live.

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Now that the format war is over and Blu-ray is the only choice for next-generation DVDs, retailer Best Buy is attempting to make amends with customers who bought HD DVD players before Toshiba pulled the plug.

All Best Buy customers who purchased an HD DVD player or HD DVD add-on for the Xbox 360 earlier than February 23, 2008 are eligible to receive a $50 gift card. The retailer says it will be distributing $10 million in cards, which means 200,000 individuals bought into the losing format from Best Buy alone.

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In a major blow to the struggling satellite TV provider, a new EchoStar satellite destined to expand the HD lineup of Dish Network failed to reach proper orbit over the weekend. Meanwhile, the company asked a judge to rehear its patent dispute with TiVo.

HD is the new competitive battleground, as cable, satellite and IPTV operators vie to attract more customers by offering the most high-definition channels. Most companies, including Dish Network, are playing catch-up to DirecTV, which has over 90 HD channels.

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Censors in China blocked access to YouTube and Google News on Sunday, along with other news outlets carrying images and video of protests in Tibet, which turned violent late last week.

The communist government frequently tries to control what information its citizens can access, particularly on sensitive topics such as the autonomy of Tibet. But with over 210 million Internet users in China, that job has become vastly more difficult than when the government sought to suppress reports on the Tiananmen Square protests and massacre in 1989.

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