Tim Conneally

The newest Wi-Fi protocol, 802.11r, which has become the de facto "Wireless VoIP standard", is now a published standard of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) standards board.

802.11r has been in the works since 2004, with the express purpose of developing a Wi-Fi connection that can quickly pass between access points. A go-ahead for publishing the final draft of the standard was given by the 802.11r task group last January.

Mozilla has renewed its agreement with Google that was set to expire in November, extending it into 2011. The deal carries with it the reinstatement of the Mozilla and Eclipse Public Licenses that were recently cast aside.

Though the terms of the existing agreement between Mozilla and Google are confidential, its value to Mozilla has already been made apparent. In Mozilla Chairman Mitchell Baker's blog earlier this year, she said that the vast majority of his company's 2005 revenue was associated with search functionality in Mozilla Firefox, "and the vast majority of that is from Google."

Deceased television network The WB has been resurrected, at least on line, emerging from beta as an ad-supported streaming TV show repository.

Launched in beta last May, The WB.com features full episodes of programs such as Babylon 5, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Smallville, Everwood, Friends, and The O.C.

A blogger going by the name of Skwerl on music site Antiquiet was arrested by the FBI at 7:00 am PDT on Wednesday for making nine demo tracks from Guns N' Roses' upcoming album "Chinese Democracy" available to the public for download.

Skwerl, nee Kevin Cogill, admitted to authorities that he had posted the songs on Antiquiet, and was charged with violating federal copyright laws.

Yesterday, Federal Judge Howard R. Lloyd dismissed a copyright infringement lawsuit against video sharing site Veoh, granting it "safe harbor" under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

In June 2006, adult entertainment company IO Group preemptively sued Veoh for hosting ten of its videos that averaged 20 minutes in length. Due to the unique conditions surrounding the suit, IO may have inadvertently set a legal precedent for future DMCA safe harbor cases.

Immersion, the corporation which owns patents for haptic technologies used in the automotive, industrial, medical, and entertainment fields, will have to pay Microsoft $20.75 million to finally end litigation that began over six years ago.

In 2002, Immersion sued both Microsoft and Sony for allegedly using its patented technology in game controllers that vibrate in response to on-screen action. Microsoft and Sony took divergent routes in dealing with the suit. Microsoft chose to settle out of court, while Sony defended its controllers.

While the main upgrades to Photoshop.com are not expected until October, the public beta for Photoshop.com Mobile will open a month sooner.

Prospective beta testers will be wise not to expect even a fraction of Photoshop's transformative power, but rather the stripped-down functions of the Photoshop Express beta in a dedicated mobile UI.

Microsoft has begun promoting the "Wave 3" Windows Live Hotmail update that promises a UI and functionality upgrade that will make the web-based mail client more like Outlook.

The UI upgrade, according to Microsoft, will be a combination of Hotmail's Classic and Full versions, listing the mailboxes' content to the left of a central "reading pane." In addition, Microsoft is promising more "cool stuff," which includes an increased amount of storage, and integration with other Live services like Calendar and Messenger.

How long could an "open" system effectively been kept in the dark? The facts are stacking up, and HTC's "Dream" G1 Android phone has all but been completely revealed.

AndroidGuys, a blog dedicated to what else but Google's Android and its related handsets, has published a design drawing and compiled a list of specs for the highly anticipated HTC/T-Mobile/Google handset.

Google has launched Suggest, a search feature that offers query suggestions as the user types in the search field.

A full year after Yahoo's Search Assist was launched, Google has its own brand for a very similarly behaving predictive text search tool. Granted, the Google Toolbar already had a similar feature, and it has existed in Google Labs for a considerable period of time, but it is now a default feature on Google's main page.

Adobe has launched Photoshop Elements 7 and Premiere Elements 7, the company's hobbyist-level photo and video editing suites which are now more closely tied into the company's growing online toolkit.

The major innovation in these releases in their tie-in with a soon-to-be-revised Photoshop.com, that is expected to divide its service into basic, "plus," and mobile tiers. In fact, the announcements regarding Adobe's online service alone practically outnumber the new features in Elements series 7.

Not one week after music sharing site Muxtape was pulled down at the request of the RIAA, a clone service called Opentape has arisen in its place, with a single pivotal change: Users must host their own tapes.

Muxtape let its users upload as many as twelve MP3s to a user-assigned Muxtape subdomain ("username.muxtape.com") that was publicly searchable and "tradable." In hosting all the MP3s, Muxtape established itself as the responsible party if artists, labels, or the RIAA had complaints.

Fresh analysis indicates that Amazon's popular Kindle device may eventually serve a second purpose: as a provider of college texts and other materials for students. For that reason, Amazon may be marketing the device towards students.

For many college students, a walk between classes is the equivalent of ROTC basic training. The reason, of course, is textbooks. They're too numerous, they're too heavy, and they're too expensive.

Vudu, a start-up streaming set top service that launched one year ago with a notably large price tag, is experiencing a shift that may move it away from its pay-per-view movie roots.

Though attention was brought to Vudu this week when reports surfaced that the company had laid off up to 30 percent of its work force (including its vice president of marketing), and that its support lines had gone down, these blurbs were only partially true. The company has, however, made announcements that show the rookie HD streamer is looking to branch out in different directions.

First a property of ATI that became AMD's through its acquisition of the graphics company, Broadcom announced today that it will be acquiring the Xilleon system-on-a-chip (SoC), as well as the rest of AMD's family of TV-related products, a move that will aid in finally pulling AMD out of debt.

The deal, first announced by Broadcom this morning, was first thought to be part of AMD's effort to move toward profitability by eliminating non-core businesses that will put it in a position for its "Asset Smart" project. It's a move that could aid in finally pulling AMD out of debt.