What's the Dell 'Adamo?' Inadvertent catalog entries give clues
Gee, what do you suppose Dell's super-secret new Adamo brand, due to premiere at the next CES, could be? We could ask a slew of analysts for their best advance speculation...Or we could just Google it.
About one hundred percent of the media speculation today over the identity of a curious new Dell brand device called Adamo centered around the possibility that it is an ultralight computer, probably an offshoot of its existing XPS series, designed to compete with Apple's super-thin MacBook Air.
Invitation to final beta test of Ad-Aware 2009 edition
The makers of one of the Internet's first and most respected anti-adware products are on schedule to release their 2009 edition next month, though they need some help from registered testers to make it happen.
A Lavasoft representative asked BetaNews today to spread the word about Beta 3 of its 2009 edition of Ad-Aware, which was released last December 8 along with the company's latest adware signatures.
RIAA to discontinue litigation strategy, coordinate more with ISPs
Rather than pursue suspected file-sharers in court, the recording industry will take a more technological approach to finding, penalizing, and then potentially suing individuals when it has more evidence against them, BetaNews has learned.
A spokesperson for the Recording Industry Association of America confirmed to BetaNews this morning that, in an agreement with New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, the Association's members will discontinue their strategy of seeking widespread litigation against large numbers of individuals suspected in trafficking in unauthorized recordings. Instead, they will adopt a strategy of coordinating with Internet service providers to notify individual customers of suspected violations via e-mail.
Congressmen accuse FCC of violating law in delaying AWS-3 vote
Chairman Kevin Martin can't win for losing. Taking the President's and a powerful senator's advice yesterday in delaying a critical vote on nationwide free broadband...again, two more congressmen are sounding legal alarms.
After the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission took the advice of both President Bush and powerful senators this week, delaying a vote on the auctioning of the so-called AWS-3 block of spectrum until sometime after the DTV transition next February, a pair of congressmen sent a joint letter to FCC Chairman Kevin Martin advising him that he may have broken the law in so doing.
Live Search looks even more like Yahoo with Goldberg's exit
The Online Services division of Microsoft may look, work, and behave very differently come next quarter, as the marketing managers who had responsibility for it this year are making room for what could be a very new breed of executive.
Ending a string of appointments to general management and oversight positions in search of the one that would be just right, Microsoft announced yesterday the departure of Brad Goldberg, the one-time general manager of its most troubled Online Services division. The move could be indicative of a shift of mindset in the Live Search division from marketing to research, after the appointment of Dr. Lu to a president's post in charge of Online Services, effectively overseeing the post vacated by Kevin Johnson, that in turn oversees Goldberg's former post.
Firefox patches address three critical vulnerabilities
Download Mozilla Firefox 3.0.5 for Windows from FileForum now.
Internet Explorer is apparently not the only browser this week that's the subject of preventative measures, as Mozilla revealed this morning that the real reason for issuing Firefox 3.0.5 was to prevent a possible wave of page hijacks.
Microsoft: The IE threat is real, and so is the fix
Though it remains uncertain if anyone has actually been affected by an Internet Explorer browser flaw that has made national news headlines, Microsoft's tactic today is to treat it as though it's real, and respond the same way.
In a statement to BetaNews early this morning, the author of a Microsoft security vulnerability team blog post yesterday said his team is aware of exploit sites that are trying -- if not yet successful -- to discover the exploit for a problem that the company discovered in response to reports of an active exploit in the field.
Apple to pull out of Macworld 2010, if there is one
In a completely unexpected announcement today, Apple Inc. stated that next month's appearance at IDG's Macworld Expo will be the company's last, as it scales back its appearances at other presenters' trade shows worldwide.
Monday, January 5, will be Apple CEO Steve Jobs' final address to the Macworld Expo at Moscone Center in San Francisco, the company said in a prepared statement today. The company has released no details as to why, though it's likely that the company will continue to produce its own rollout events, probably at Moscone, at times and dates of its own choosing.
Can XStreamHD pull off its 1080p on-demand service this year?
At CES 2009, a startup company called XStreamHD plans to demonstrate an innovative new satellite delivery system for on-demand, high-definition video...wait a minute, haven't we done this one?
Last January, we called it the "real deal" -- a digitally-streamed, on-demand movie programming service in full high definition, delivered via satellite. At CES 2008, XStreamHD gave the press, including BetaNews, hands-on demonstrations of an innovative HD streaming service -- maybe not quite "on-demand" in terms of time of delivery, but certainly a way to get high-quality movies of the consumer's choice delivered directly into the home, outside of the Internet.
Microsoft to issue out-of-cycle patch for the 'unknown exploit'
We're not even really sure if the reports of new exploits affecting Internet Explorer browsers are actually valid, but in case they are, Microsoft will issue a patch that addresses the problem those exploits may be targeting.
It's the kind of development that could give "zero-day" a whole new meaning: a wave of alleged Internet Explorer exploits, the total number of experimentally validated cases of which apparently numbers zero. Still, the subject matter is of some concern: the apparent ability of an ActiveX control -- for the dozens upon dozens of sites that still use them -- to leave code in memory after cleanup that's still capable of being executed without privilege.
Microsoft prepares developers for ODF in Office 14
In a move designed to intentionally eliminate all surprises, Microsoft posted a detailed guide to its planned implementation of OpenDocument Format in the next edition of Office, to an interoperability Web site it launched last March.
By designating point-by-point how it intends to implement elements of the ODF 1.1 standard in Word, Excel, and other future editions of the suite still, for now, named "Office 14," Microsoft may quite literally be seizing the initiative. Specifically, by pre-empting its own effort in documenting how it will implement Open XML -- the internationally standardized derivative of the XML-based format Office 2007 already put in motion -- the company appears to be taking public steps to document what could easily become the most deployed ODF-supporting application come next year.
Toshiba, SanDisk to slash NAND production amid spending cuts
The world's CE products, especially portables, depend on flash memory. But even with demand continuing to grow, albeit less briskly than before, a global glut in NAND is forcing two of the world's top producers to cut production.
Amid warnings that the semiconductor industry as a whole could spend significantly less to retool and maintain their factories in 2009, two of the largest producers of flash memory said they will jointly take steps to make those capital expenditure cuts this month, beginning with a temporary shutdown of two of their biggest production facilities.
Rise of complaints follows Apple Mac OS X 10.5.6 update
An unusual spike in comments posted to Apple's support forums since yesterday afternoon points to the possibility of certain problems in particular with the company's latest rollup to the Mac operating system.
The blue screen has typically been the unofficial Windows logo, at least in and around Macintosh circles. But this morning, users of Mac OS X have been reporting a number of problems, most of which fall into the same category, and some of which are leaving users' computers booting up with nothing on their screens but a field of blue.
Windows Live Essentials re-emerges in an all-new beta
Download Microsoft Windows Live Essentials Beta installer from FileForum now.
Over two years since Microsoft's everyday online product suite entered its first round of testing, its "Wave 3" beta is complete, with the result being that the suite that includes its newest online mail client...is entering beta?
Protest rally against Australian government plan to censor broadband
A new, left-of-center politician seizes power in a wave of change against an unpopular right-winger who supported the war in Iraq. With him comes sweeping new policies that could change the fabric of society. But this isn't America.
It's Australia, where a popular uprising is gaining strength against a plan to force that country's ISPs to disallow Web access to two government-maintained blacklists of sites, including some that are known to provide child pornography. The protest comes just two days after the Canberra government's new Minister for Broadband, Sen. Stephen Conroy (L - Victoria), put forth an ambitious plan that would effectively guarantee taxpayers' accessibility to broadband service throughout the country.
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