David Worthington

Take Two Strikes Deal with MLB Players

A little more than a month after the National Football League granted exclusive rights to Electronic Arts, America's favorite pastime struck out a deal of its own. The Major League Baseball Players Association has entered into a seven-year exclusivity agreement that makes Take Two Interactive the official third-party video game vendor for almost everything baseball.

The agreement, which begins at the start of the 2006 playing season, grants the video game maker the right to develop and market "manager-style baseball video games" for "current and next-generation" gaming consoles, PCs and hand-helds. It is unknown whether or not the agreement is sanctioned by Major League Baseball (MLB).

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'Whidbey' Beta 2 Expected Late March

Sources close to the development of Visual Studio 2005, code-named Whidbey, are indicting that a second beta is in the cards for late March or early April. The beta release may be given a "Go Live" license that clears the way for developers to roll out solutions built with Whidbey.

If the Beta 2 timeframe, first reported by eWeek, is forecasted correctly, its progress augurs well for a release candidate to arrive by mid-September.

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Microsoft Puts Beta Search on MSN.com

Microsoft's MSN unit has taken its beta search engine live at the MSN.com production site. Some users noticed Friday that search results have been branded with the "beta" logo, which indicates that MSN is scaling up its tests beyond the beta search site.

The new MSN search engine is being developed in-house by Microsoft and will be used in lieu of Yahoo once the code is finalized. At that time, the beta tag will be removed from the site.

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eXeem Decentralizes BitTorrent Sharing

The file sharing community has once again proven its resiliency against the courtroom tactics of the entertainment industry, and has begun openly distributing a new BitTorrent-based file sharing program called eXeem. The software is different from previous clients because a "tracker" is built into the peer-to-peer network, eliminating the need for centralized servers.

eXeem is the successor to SuprNova, which was chief among a cadre of related BitTorrent Web sites targeted by the Motion Picture Association of America in lawsuits filed in December.

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Microsoft Tests Search Clustering

Microsoft Research is testing a search toolbar that utilizes an experimental search result clustering (SRC) technique to automatically categorize search results into groups by topic. But Microsoft isn't the only one who sees potential in the feature; America Online this week implemented clustering into its revamped AOL Search.

Clustering brings a semblance of order to search results, which are traditionally arranged by their ordinal ranking without much emphasis on making navigation more convenient.

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Think Secret Enlists Help to Fight Apple

Mac rumor site Think Secret has thrown down the gauntlet in its legal fight against Apple, obtaining the services of Terry Gross, a specialist in Internet law and formerly the first counsel to the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Gross's San Francisco-based public interest law firm will defend dePlume Organization LLC -- Think Secret's parent company-- against allegations that it revealed "trade secrets" in its news reporting.

In the days leading up to this month's Macworld, things were as they typically are prior to any major Apple release event: Apple donned its ever-present veil of secrecy and remained silent.

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AOL Search Ventures Beyond Desktop

BetaNews has learned that by the time that AOL Desktop Search exits private beta testing, it will be capable of doing much more than its name suggests.

America Online intends to provide its subscribers with a method to seamlessly search across a circle of content: files from computer hard drives, members-only content and the Web.

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America Online Relaunches AOL Search

Today, America Online will deploy an overhauled version of AOL Search for its members followed by a wider public release this coming Monday. AOL Search has been updated with a streamlined tabless interface and is banded together with vertical search capabilities that the company expects will return better results.

What's more, AOL has extended the portal's utility by expanding its fledgling collection of search-related Web properties and striking up new partnerships. Strategic partnerships were critical to the site's launch because the company -- acknowledging it is a media company above all else -- has turned to third parties to develop the technology that powers many of its core features.

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Microsoft Agrees to Patch Media Player

UPDATED Microsoft has seemingly taken an about-face in a decision it made just last week not to change the way Windows Media Player handles files that are encoded to download digital rights management (DRM) licenses.

Security-minded sleuths revealed last week that WMP could mislead users into actually downloading malware or viruses instead of a license to playback DRM content.

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S.W.A.T. 4 Goes Multiplayer with Beta

Vivendi Universal Games, Irrational Games and FilePlanet want to enlist some elite beta testers to join their S.W.A.T team. S.W.A.T. 4, the latest game in the tactical shooter franchise, has gone multiplayer and is available as a free beta download on a first-come first-served basis, but space is limited.

Like many games in its genre, S.W.A.T. 4 loosely mirrors reality; players are charged with using their wits as virtual law enforcement officers from a Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) squad to defuse potentially deadly situations that threaten the public.

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Philadelphia to Build Largest Wi-Fi Network

From South Philadelphia to the top of Willian Penn's hat onto the far Northeast, the entire city of Philadelphia will soon be the first municipality to go wireless on a grand scale with a program that will provide low-income residents with affordable Internet access, in addition to complimentary service in public parks.

While the very idea may resonate like a pipedream, Chief Information Officer Dianah Neff and her team have opted not to acquiesce to the hype and have officially outlined the city's proposal to activate a citywide high-speed wireless network by the summer of 2006.

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Microsoft Previews 'Avalon' Graphics

Make mention of Longhorn and Microsoft may still reflexively hold its cards close to its chest. But as the launch date draws closer, the company has begun to show its hand. Nearly three months after granting MSDN subscribers a November sneak preview, Microsoft has made public a consumer technical preview of its Avalon graphics subsystem.

Avalon is a unified presentation subsystem for Windows that is scheduled for release sometime in 2006. Although originally intended to be exclusive to Longhorn, Avalon will now ship as an add-on to Windows XP, Windows Server 2003 and other future Windows releases.

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MS Recruits Outsiders for Patch Testing

Microsoft is beefing up its quality control process for engineering software security patches by calling on external testers, according to a report in eWeek. Testers who participate in the program, officially named the Security Update Validation Program, will be given access to patches before they are made available to the public.

An elite group of testers will form dedicated evaluation teams that will be responsible for carrying out application compatibility, stability and reliability verification tasks in production class environments.

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Amazon Reveals Sony PSP Launch Date

Sony is inching closer toward meeting its self-imposed deadline for the worldwide delivery of its PlayStation Portable (PSP) handheld gaming device. Amazon.com's UK Web site has revealed that the PSP will be released to suppliers on March 18, 2005, firing the opening shot in Sony's mission to unseat Nintendo as the dominant player in handheld gaming.

Although rumors about component procurement problems continue to persist, the company has already managed to distribute the PSP in Japan where it sold approximately 510,000 units inside of a month.

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Microsoft Polishes Apple Messenger

Microsoft's Macintosh Business Unit has made its first contribution to Macworld: a new version of its MSN Messenger software for Mac OS X. Messenger 5.0 for Mac boasts improved security, support for Live Communications Server, extended e-mail and contact information integration, and sports a new user interface.

Microsoft also took advantage of the Macworld spotlight to announce several new add-ons for Office 2004.

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