Although no official announcement has come from Apple itself, Orange on Thursday said that it had won the contract to bring the device to its customers in France. Like the German deal, no pricing details were given, however the company also declined to specify any launch date. In all likelihood, the phone would ship there on November 9, as that is the date that has been selected for both the UK and German launches.

Apple has shipped one million of the phones here in the United States, and has activated anywhere from 750,000 to 900,000 of them according to BetaNews estimates. Whereas it was originally planning to ship about 1.5 million Phones next quarter, it plans to attempt to ship nearly double that. This moves the target number of shipped phones from 3.6 to 4.8 million for the entire year.

Continue reading →

Galileo, once billed as a potential rival to the US Department of Defense's GPS system, is now facing serious issues following disagreements over the development of the system by eight companies tasked with its build-out. However, the European Commission is proposing to shift money in the bloc's 2007-2013 budget to come up with extra funds to ensure its completion. Public funds were initially supposed to cover about one-third of the cost, said to be around 3.5 billion euros.

EU officials say the additional money -- some 2.4 billion euros -- will come from unspent money elsewhere. They are making the case by saying that the Galileo project is a strategic necessity, and would lessen the dependence on the US GPS system. The EU's positioning system would improve coverage in higher latitudes, and be interoperable with the GPS system through a recently announced deal. Member countries will still need to approve the bailout before it can proceed, however.

Continue reading →

On Tuesday, CBS became the second network behind Fox to indicate that it will likely be staying on iTunes. In comments to the Merrill Lynch Media and Entertainment conference, CEO Les Moonves said the company will be staying out of the battle and that the network "likes our relationship with iTunes." Moonves' comments follow that of News Corp, which owns the Fox network.

Shortly after NBC Universal pulled its own programming, News Corp's president Peter Cherin told Reuters that they planned to stay on the network and had "a perfectly good relationship with Apple." Later, the company said they expected the negotiations to be contentious, however it is still expected that the two sides will eventually come to a deal.

Continue reading →

Following the New York Times' announcement Tuesday that it would be doing away with its premium online content, Rupert Murdoch hinted that the Wall Street Journal may be considering a similar move in the future at a conference for media held by Goldman Sachs in New York. Many have said giving away WSJ content online for free may hurt the paper's overall revenues, however Murdoch says he isn't buying that argument.

The media mogul seems to be following the same reasoning that the Times did: that by opening it up, and with good content, the revenues from selling advertising on its pages could far surpass any revenues it may have made off a subscription-only format. The current format has constrained any considerable online advertising, as it has caused the sites customer base to be more US-centric, and consumers generally frown upon ads in premium services.

Continue reading →

Nokia said Tuesday that the US International Trade Commission would begin investigating its claims of unfair business practices and patent infringement against Qualcomm. The cellular phone maker said there is significant evidence that Qualcomm has used its technology in both GSM and CDMA chips, and filed a complaint with the ITC on August 16. It is seeking to have the offending chips banned from importation.

The two sides have been locked in a legal tit-for-tat since April of this year, when a patent licensing agreement between the two expired. In this case, the patents have to do with technologies that improve the performance and efficacy of wireless communications. This enhancements result in lower manufacturing costs, better battery life, and make it possible to develop smaller phones.

Continue reading →

Although its aim was to bring the price down, the organization behind the so-called "$100 laptop" is moving further away from its goal. The One Laptop Per Child Foundation said the device, now known as the XO Laptop, will now cost about $188. This is up $12 from the price tag the group gave in May of this year. Behind the price increase are rising costs of certain components and currency fluctuations, says OLPC, however they are committed to keeping it from rising any further.

Reports say the OLPC has commitments for about three million devices, but the group will not confirm where the devices are going until production begins in October. While the device currently uses AMD chips to power it, Intel recently dropped its efforts to deride the project and said it was working with the group to put its chips in the second version of the XO Laptop, though no release date for that has been set.

Continue reading →

YouTube may soon be facing yet another suit over the use of copyrighted music in one of its videos, this time from the company that owns the rights to the music produced by the Village People. Can't Stop Productions is apparently not too amused with a parody that has appeared on the social video site which edits footage of Adolf Hitler and other nazi soldiers appearing to dance and sing the group's hit song "YMCA." The video may be especially offensive to the group considering two of the performers are Jewish.

A search for "YMCA Hitler" brings up two copies of the video, although clicking them brings up the message "This video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by CAN'T STOP PRODUCTIONS / SCORPIO MUSIC." Another video appears below it, with Hitler and others appearing to sing Patrick Hernandez's 1978 disco hit "Born to Be Alive." That video was still available as of press time.

Continue reading →

Nokia has joined forces with competitors Samsung and Sony Ericsson as well as memory chip makers Micron, Spansion, STMicroelectronics, and Texas Instruments to promote a single flash storage technology for mobile phones. Called Universal Flash Storage, the companies want to eliminate the need for various adaptors to read the multitude of different types of media now available.

While the standard is still in development, a final version is expected in 2009. It is hoped to provide a higher degree of performance and reliability than the formats currently available. "The proliferating use of flash memory as a storage medium underscores the importance of introducing a universal connectivity to memory cards where high performance and reliability are critical," Samsung president Jon Kang said in a statement.

Continue reading →

Pop star Prince said Thursday that he plans to sue social video site YouTube, online auction site eBay, and file trading site Pirate Bay in an attempt to reign in piracy of his work on the Internet. On a statement on his Web site, Prince said that while YouTube was already filtering out pornography, it was not filtering music and film content because it "is core to their business success." The move is somewhat surprising, considering Prince has had a history of challenging the music industry and its business practices.

Prince is working with British company Web Sheriff to assist in having the offending material removed. So far, it has successfully had about 2,000 unauthorized videos of Prince removed, however it said that new content is constantly appearing on the site. It had also removed about 300 items from eBay. "Prince strongly believes artists as the creators and owners of their music need to reclaim their art," the statement read.

Continue reading →

Apple has began sending out invitations to members of the UK press on Thursday, as it planned to hold an event at its flagship store in London on Regents Street next week. In typical Apple fashion, few details were given in the invitation other than the tagline "Mum's no longer the word." Speculation is rampant, with most analysts expecting the Cupertino company to announce its UK carrier for the iPhone.

It is expected that O2 will be the carrier of the much-hyped device, although representatives for the company would not comment to the press on any plans. There is the slight possibly that the announcement may have nothing to do with the iPhone at all and is rather about an iTunes announcement such as the adding of the Beatles catalog. However, such announcements will likely happen in a venue other than an Apple store.

Continue reading →

China is once again being blamed for cyberattacks on a foreign country, with New Zealand secret service officials saying the Chinese were behind an attack on its systems. The country's prime minister Helen Clark said in a press conference Wednesday that no classified information had been compromised, however she did say foreign-government spies were behind the attack. Clark added that the government knew who was the source, but wouldn't elaborate.

However, like the US case, a government official identified the source of the hack through the media. In an interview with The Dominion Post, Security Intelligence Service director Warren Tucker hinted that the Communist country was behind it. If true, and China was behind the attack, New Zealand becomes the fourth known target of Chinese government hackers behind the US, UK, and Germany.

Continue reading →

Microsoft is using the back-to-school season as the backdrop for its latest promotion to increase sales of its Office 2007 productivity suite. Beginning today in the US, Canada, and UK, and beginning September 20 in Spain, Italy, and France the company is offering students the chance to purchase Office Ultimate 2007 for $59.95 USD. The promotion runs through April 30, 2008.

Office Ultimate includes nine applications from the suite including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Access, Publisher, OneNote, Groove, and Infopath. Microsoft had run a pilot program of the offering in Australia which received good results. "We're listening to students who have told us they need Microsoft Office for their studies and want more flexible ways to get the latest version," said Alan Yates, general manager of Worldwide Education at Microsoft. More information on the offering can be found on the Microsoft website.

Continue reading →

Amazon is attempting to drum up interest among developers for its Web Services offering by sponsoring a contest which looks for the best business venture that makes use of its technologies. A first prize of $50,000 cash, $50,000 in web service credits, and a possible financing offer will be awarded to the winner, while others could receive up to $5,000 in credits for their entries. All qualifying entrants receive up to $25 in web service credits for participating.

Web Services from the retailer actually has nothing to do with e-commerce on the site: rather, the engineering and technology back end is made available for developers to use in whatever form they would like. Over 265,000 developers have signed up to use the service since it was launched in July 2002, the company said. More information on the contest can be found on the company's website.

Continue reading →

Ending speculation that it would follow NBC Universal's lead in pulling its programs from Apple's iTunes, News Corp president Peter Cherin said the company had no plans to do so. He did, however seem to agree with NBC on one thing: that networks should have more control over what is charged for their programming. Cherin's comments were made to Reuters during a stop in Poland, where the media conglomerate is relaunching a television channel.

"Right now, we have a perfectly good relationship with Apple," he told the news wire. Cherin's comments are no doubt good news for Apple, and may help stem the tide of content provider discontent Apple has been riding over the past several months. It began last year with Apple's insistence to keep 99 cent music pricing, which may have led to Universal's canceling of its long-term contract. This was soon followed by NBC Universal's announcement that it would pull its television programming from the service.

Continue reading →

Preparing itself for the eventual release of Apple's iPhone in the UK, Vodafone on Tuesday unveiled a new music store that allows the unlimited download of tracks to compatible phones. While the British cell phone carrier was thought to be an early favorite, it now appears that O2 has won the contract for the country. Vodafone's service includes about one million tracks and is available for $4 per week.

According to the carrier, most users will not need to upgrade their phones in order to take advantage of the service. However, it features new phones in its store including Nokia's N81 and N95 devices. Other devices will also be offered from Samsung and Sony Ericsson, and most will support the music store and other interactive features such as eBay, MySpace, and YouTube access.

Continue reading →