AOL Readies 'Wilson' Mac OS X Client
Time Warner's America Online business unit is currently producing "Wilson." Although it may sound like a sequel to Tom Hanks' "Cast Away," Wilson is the code-name for a refreshed Mac OS X version of the AOL client software. An AOL spokesperson told BetaNews that Wilson will not bring on any new features, but to expect a number of bug fixes. Wilson is currently available to AOL's Mac beta testers, and a final release date has not yet been set.
Microsoft: No Counterfeit XP Swap in US
Last week, Windows enthusiast sites picked up on an offer of clemency that is posted on Microsoft's United Kingdom Web site. The software giant offered to replace counterfeit Windows XP CDs with genuine versions. BetaNews has learned that Microsoft will not extend the same courtesy to customers in the United States who inadvertently find themselves with unlicensed copies of Windows XP running on their PC. The program was established in response to "high quality" counterfeit versions of Windows that were recently uncovered in the UK, and will only run until December 31, 2004.
Trend Micro to Test New Antivirus Engine
Trend Micro is set to begin beta testing Virus Scanning API (VSAPI) 7.5, the next generation scanning engine for its entire antivirus product line. Enhancements have been made to the software's configuration, decompression, performance, and cleaning capabilities. Testers must trial the new engine in a live production environment and meet at least three of the test's required criteria. To sign up for the VSAPI 7.5 beta, complete the online survey.
AOL Takes 'SingingFish' Search Off Ice
Nearly one year after America Online netted itself a SingingFish, the company is ready to go public as a destination site. Come Wednesday, the SingingFish audio and video search engine -- which one existed solely as a demonstration for its licensees -- will go live with a brand new face and renewed purpose: To provide users with rapid access to streaming media that they cannot find with traditional search engines.
Until recently, AOL relegated SingingFish to the back end, using the service to power the AOL client software's AV search tab until it noticed an emerging trend; Due to word of mouth marketing, the search engine began receiving approximately 700,000 queries per day on its Web front-end out of a grand total of nearly 7 million queries per day between the search page and back-end.
Industry Trio Details 'Cell' Chip
In a joint press release, IBM, Sony and Toshiba offered up the most comprehensive information to date on the upcoming "Cell" microprocessor ahead of February's International Solid State Circuits Conference (ISSCC) when the chip's technical details will be disclosed.
Cell is the code-name for an advanced microprocessor that is being jointly developed by the trio for placement in next-generation computing application and consumer electronics.
Opera Resizes the Web in Beta Browser
Opera Software is pitching a new idea that promises to put and end to the problem of rendering Web pages effectively regardless of screen size.
Opera's Extensible Rendering Architecture (ERA) blends together all of the company's existing rendering technologies -- including Small- and Medium-Screen Rendering (SSR/MSR) for mobile devices and TV-rendering -- to tackle the problem head on with dynamic resizing.
Peer Impact to Offer Legal P2P Sharing
Wurld Media was teamed up with three the world's largest record labels to pioneer a new peer-to-peer distribution system for licensed content.
Sony BMG Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group will open up their media vaults to the service, called Peer Impact, which will in turn provide customers with access to legal music, videos and other miscellaneous forms of content. The proprietary service is billed as being a low-cost infrastructure for file sharing that respects artists and copyright holders.
Valve Tells Pirates to Walk the Plank
Game developer Valve has revealed that it has banned in excess of 20,000 accounts from its Steam online gaming service. The banned accounts are accused of using either pirated or cracked copies of Half-Life 2 that bypass the game's activation sequence. Despite having a flock of users complaining about lost access in its forums, Valve claims that the number of legitimate users that are unable to play is "VERY small." The accounts, said Valve, were largely from people who tried to "rip off" the game rather than paying for it.
Tegic Updates T9's Language Support
America Online subsidiary Tegic will announce today the availability of version 7.2 of its T9 predictive text input software for mobile phones and PDAs. Version 7.2 is a point release that expands multi-lingual support so that users can switch back and forth while texting. The software will also bundle three new dictionaries, making the total supported languages 45. The new languages are: Bengali, Tamil and Urdu. The release builds upon software that shipped earlier this year with improved word completion and next word prediction.
ICQ Strives to Become a Better Mailman
Monday, ICQ will take the wraps off of an improved worldwide e-mail system. ICQ, in partnership with Mail2World, will enrich the ICQmail service with features including antivirus scanning, spam filtering, instant e-mail translation, and some extra customization features.
Also launching today is a premium tier of the service that offers two gigabytes of storage space, personal calendaring, file compression, the ability to send and receive video e-mails as well as other more advanced options.
AOL Adds Presence to Outlook
The AOL Running Man is making its presence known to users of Microsoft's Outlook. America Online will soon publicly unveil a beta that deepens AOL's commitment to provide customers with open e-mail access.
Called AIM Sync by Intellisync, the service integrates AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) presence awareness into Outlook contacts. Reciprocally, the software will provide users with the option of adding Outlook contacts to their Buddy List.
RIAA: P2P Lawsuits 'Educational Tool'
The Recording Industry Association of America has initiated a new round of litigation in its ongoing quest to stamp out music piracy. A total of 761 file sharers -- primarily college students -- have been served with copyright infringement lawsuits.
Most of the individuals targeted in the suits were using "unauthorized" peer-to-peer applications such as eDonkey, LimeWire and Kazaa.
MSN Launches Web Messenger
MSN's Web-based real-time communications service has left the sandbox. On Thursday, MSN launched a production version of MSN Web Messenger after nearly four months of beta testing. While initial tests were limited to eight target markets, the service is now active in a total of 25 markets worldwide. MSN Web Messenger is accessible through a Web browser, intended for situations where members cannot access the actual client software.
AOL Trials Online Backup System
America Online is beta testing an online backup system for its subscribers, PC World first reported Friday. AOL members may save duplicates of their personal files, pictures and documents to redundant AOL datacenters as insurance against computing catastrophe.
AOL tells BetaNews that backup data is encrypted and password protected to deny others unauthorized access. The backups are recurring and performed automatically.
VMware Targets Microsoft with New Beta
Sources familiar with testing have told BetaNews that VMware has released Beta 1 of Workstation 5.0 to a select group of testers.
This latest release of VMware's virtual desktop software includes a host of new features ranging from improved collaboration and networking, better performance and surer security, to enhanced cloning capabilities and Microsoft Virtual PC compatibility.
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