New NBC Universal Chief Takes Hard Line on YouTube
The day of his coronation as the new CEO of NBC Universal, replacing long-time executive and GE appointee Robert Wright, Jeff Zucker wasted no time taking a stand against YouTube, taking the video sharing site and NBCU partner to task for failing to implement copyright protections.
The public statement, along with the new division of labor in his organization in addition to comments made for The New York Times this morning, are fueling speculation that Zucker's company may be planning to expand its own experiment in video sharing, perhaps becoming a competitor to YouTube.
Microsoft Acknowledges Anti-Virus Failed VB100 Test
A Microsoft spokesperson confirmed to BetaNews this afternoon that it has learned its Windows Live OneCare anti-virus package has failed a test conducted by the respected British laboratory Virus Bulletin using Windows Vista Business Edition, disqualifying it from carrying the "VB100" logo denoting 100% detection of a selected battery of common "in the wild" viruses.
However, the information Microsoft gave us indicates the company is not yet certain - at least officially - why it failed the VB100 test, nor has it apparently tested to verify Virus Bulletin's results.
Sony Ericsson Revamps Handsets with Java-based Phones
Among a plethora of revamped handsets announced by Sony Ericsson this morning is one very thin Walkman phone that peeked out from behind the curtains at CES last month, and whose official announcement enthusiasts weren’t expecting for maybe another three months. The handsome W880 is expected to replace the already successful W850 and W810, while reducing its profile to a mere 9.4 mm.
As a Sony Ericsson spokesperson confirmed to BetaNews this afternoon, the Java Platform 7 platform on which the W880 and seven other models released today are based, includes support for a game rendering engine called MascotCapsule Micro3D, a compatible version of the Mobile 3D Graphics API for Java.
Transmeta Exits Engineering Business to Concentrate on Licensing
The company that at the start of this decade appeared poised to beat Intel and upset AMD in the race to produce a low-power notebook processor for the masses, announced yesterday it is exiting the engineering business altogether. Transmeta will be laying off up to 68% of its current workforce by the end of the third calendar quarter, concentrating the remainder of its resources on the licensing of its existing designs to AMD and others, as well as to pursue the final resolution of its courtroom battle against Intel.
Since last June, Transmeta has been licensing its low-power CPU design to AMD for use in its Efficeon processor line, which is marketed exclusively to emerging markets. Efficeon-based systems utilize a Microsoft technology called FlexGo, which lets lower-income families purchase PCs on an enforced version of the installment plan.
Wal-Mart Tests Movie Download Service with All Major Studios
This morning, the US' leading retailer is rolling out what it calls a "beta" of its pay-per-download video service, though the "pay" part is clearly turned on. What immediately differentiates Wal-Mart's Video Downloads Store from its competition -- other than undercutting their prices by about 11 cents -- is that it features new and recent releases from every major Hollywood studio, including Sony (Columbia, Screen Gems, MGM), Warner Bros., 20th Century-Fox, Disney, Paramount, Universal, and Lionsgate.
So while studios continue their long bargaining process with technology brands such as Netflix, Amazon's Unbox, and Apple's iTunes, holding firm on their retail price "suggestions," it behooves them to not risk alienating themselves from their principal retail outlet, which analysts estimate is responsible for at least 40% of all DVD sales to US customers.
First AMD 45-nm CPUs May Omit Novel HK+MG Transistors
In an interview with Reuters this morning, AMD's new senior vice president for technology development, Douglas Grose said that the new high-k-plus-metal-gate (HK+MG) transistor technology IBM unveiled two weeks ago might not be integrated with AMD's manufacturing process in time for its first 45-nm CPUs to be produced in 2008.
Saying the decision on when AMD will use its partner's technology depends on his assessment of AMD's roadmap, Grose explained that for now, that time appears to be "in the 45-nanometer timeframe or the 32 node application."
PS3 Effect May Be Boosting Blu-ray Movie Sales
Beginning with its first issue in February, Home Video Magazine has been presenting "scale-tipping" graphs depicting the current status of the battle between HD DVD and Blu-ray movie sales worldwide, based on data provided by Nielsen VideoScan.
With only the second installment, readers have noticed a striking trend that bodes well for Blu-ray: In one week's time, the number of Blu-ray movies sold for every 100 HD DVD movies sold since data was first tracked, increased from 85.05 in the first week of January to 92.4 in the second.
Another Malformed String Exploit Plagues Excel
This morning, Microsoft acknowledged the discovery of a new and active exploit involving a malformed string that can trigger a typical overflow in Excel, with the usual bypassing of privilege dangers that ensue. Although the company says the attacks it has seen thus far appear limited and targeted, it’s repeating its warning to users not to open spreadsheets sent in e-mails from untrusted users.
Contrary to some interpretations, this is not an Outlook problem. = Instead, it appears to involve spreadsheets that contain intentionally malformed records where the image data for embedded bitmaps in a record, or IMDATA, have been malformed to trigger buffer overflows.
Can Dell Recover Directly?
Regardless of the outcome of the Dell shareholders' class-action lawsuit against their company, the task before the once and future CEO of Dell Computer is gargantuan: to restore customer faith in the nation's #1 brand, and the world's #2 brand, in computers.
Carmi Levy is senior research analyst for Info-Tech Research Group, and helped us assess the shareholder suit Friday afternoon. Levy was able to make a preliminary assessment of the complaint, and assessed it this way:
Inside the Dell Shareholder Lawsuit: Did Dell and Intel Conspire?
The class-action lawsuit filed against Dell Computer on Wednesday makes a complex case, and does not provide much evidence to back up some of its principal pillars other than citing Internet blogs and press reports. Intel is involved, though only peripherally. There are leaps of logic one must take to accept its premises. But whatever the case's outcome, it has already damaged Dell - CEO Kevin Rollins is gone, and Michael Dell is stepping in, perhaps permanently, to run damage control.
There are 241 pages of allegation, but once the long citations of blogs and financial analysts' reports are excised, it's easier to boil down the Dell shareholders' case against their company: The story begins in late 2002, when Dell began a cost-cutting program not unlike so many other companies in the computing field. But the suit alleges the cuts directly and substantively impacted the company's production and service capabilities in ways that the company failed to report.
Microsoft IP Licensing Program Adds Three Protocols
This afternoon, Microsoft confirmed to BetaNews it has added three sets of APIs and protocols to its intellectual property portfolio, for availability to corporate developers and other partners between now and next June. It’s generally not a free license, but the intention is to give partners who do have the intention to build on these protocols a way to do so, without Microsoft giving away secrets to its competitors.
Based on information we just received, here’s the three protocol sets being added:
Seagate Shows Off Wireless Portable Storage
If Seagate had shown the DAVE device at CES last month, it might very well have been the hit of the show: a portable hard drive that borrows the WiFi or Bluetooth connection to make up to 20 GB of storage available to cell phones or handsets from a distance of up to 30 feet.
For a great many consumers, that may be all they need to know about the Digital Audio Video Experience (DAVE) device - they could even forgive Seagate the silly acronym.
YouTube Studio Deals Unraveling
Reuters is reporting that Viacom, the parent company of MTV Networks, whose Comedy Central unit produces The Daily Show and South Park, among others, has retracted its agreement with Google's YouTube unit reached last October, and is asking Google to remove videos of programming it produces from public access.
Relations between the two organizations have been shaky since May 2005, when Viacom Corp. issued a subpoena to YouTube (which was then not owned by Google) asking it to remove extended clips of the movie Twin Towers, produced by Viacom-owned Paramount Pictures. Last October, Viacom, Inc. had appeared to reach an agreement with YouTube that would have enabled it to carry clips of MTV Networks-produced shows.
Symantec Struggles to Separate 'Exploit' From 'Vulnerability'
A tremendous amount of confusion has arisen in recent days over whether security firm Symantec actually discovered a new vulnerability in Microsoft Word three days ago, or simply uncovered a new exploit of an existing problem that Microsoft already acknowledged. In what appears to be an effort at backtracking, Symantec today appears to be saying both simultaneously.
In a blog posting three days ago, a Symantec engineer stated the company had found new Word documents which its anti-virus program already detected as Trojan.Mdropper.X. "We believe this is a new vulnerability, making it the fifth currently unpatched Office file format vulnerability," the engineer wrote, even though the anti-virus program obviously reported this as an existing exploit.
AMD: With Vista, Time to Re-evaluate Price/Performance
Since last July, when Intel introduced its Core 2 Duo processors and, perhaps more importantly, effectuated a complete U-turn in its microarchitecture, experts and enthusiasts in computing have judged Intel to have regained the performance lead from AMD in CPUs, which includes the lead in providing processor performance per dollar.
But in its multi-faceted campaign to wrest back the title of hero, if not yet leader, in consumers' minds, AMD is leveraging its fusion with ATI and ATI's cooperation with Microsoft to make a bold new case for itself: Now that the Windows Vista era is upon us, AMD's executives and managers believe the time has come to throw out the old XP-based benchmarks, and re-evaluate AMD's current line of processors using more updated metrics.
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