In a move that could help cloud computing leader Amazon realize much of its revenues almost a year earlier, the company this morning announced an alternative payment structure for users of its EC2 cloud-based hosting service. For subscribers willing to pay up front for a one-year contract between $325 for a standard virtual machine instance and $2,600 for a CPU-intensive instance, their per-hour usage charges can be reduced around 75% - 80%.

The typical usage charge for a standard hosted Windows Server 2003 instance is $0.125 per hour, or $0.10 for Linux. Those charges will both decline to $0.03 per hour for subscribers who pay up front $325 for a one-year contract, or $500 for a three-year contract. "Extra Large High-CPU" instance usage charges drop from $1.20 per hour ($0.80 for Linux) to $0.24 per hour, for up-front payments of $2,600 for one-year, or $4,000 for three-year.

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Since the newest iPod shuffle requires iTunes 8.1 to function properly, Apple has released an update to the desktop music organization software. Though the update was brought around for the new iPod, the real benefits of the update go to multi-iPhone user groups.

ITunes 8.1 has eliminated "Party Shuffle," which is also known as "random," and has been replaced with "iTunes DJ." When iTunes is playing music largely at random, anyone with an iPod Touch or iPhone equipped with iTunes Remote (version 1.2) can request a song and vote when it will play. Betanews also attempted to use the feature this morning with Android Tunes Remote, but it looks like that software will also need to be updated to bring Android users into the DJ booth.

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Download Firefox 3.1 Beta 3 for Windows from Fileforum now.

The rollout of what's still being called Firefox 3.1 Beta 3 is now under way, although Mozilla's official announcement to the general public is still forthcoming. In the meantime, the organization has been actively calling upon its contributors to give one final round of tests, for what it's calling a worldwide test day.

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TV.com -- CBS Interactive's answer to video sites like Hulu, Veoh, and Joost -- has announced today that it is beta testing streams in full 1080p high-definition.

The beta site includes clips of popular CBS properties CSI, Survivor, The Late Show With David Letterman, and even a classic Pink Panther cartoon.

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A trio of reports released by the US Government Accountability Office in the wake of Congressional testimony last week warn that despite numerous warnings, crucial technology still isn't in place for the upcoming decennial (ten-year) census.

The 2010 Census Day is scheduled for April 1 (sound off! 1,2,3,4,5...) and expected to cost over $14 billion. However, before the government counts us, it has to figure out where we are -- not to mention what constitutes a house these days -- and get its counting tools in order.

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A trio of Google product developers on Wednesday night blogged the arrival of Google Voice, a new service for phone and voicemail management. The application, which includes such features as SMS text searches and voicemail transcripts, will preview first to GrandCentral subscribers.

Craig Walker, Vincent Paquet, and Wesley Chan posted the notice, advising GrandCentral users to expect changeover instructions via e-mail. (The rest of us can sign up to get on the invite list.) A full list of Google Voice features, including more mundane phone-service capabilities such as conference calling and voicemail forwards, is available on the site and demonstrated by a collection of short videos showing the service's integration with Gmail's contact list and an ordinary handset.

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A piece of malware known alternately as Syzor and Tigger.A is gaining interest from security researchers thanks to its unusual behavior, and from stock and options-trading firms thanks to targeting customers and employees in that sector.

Tigger takes advantage of a vulnerability in Windows' privilege-escalation fuctionality, a vuln reported in MS08-066 and patched in October. The privilege-escalation exploit allows the malware to override whatever limitations might be on the account. In other words, if you're sensible enough not to run your machine in administrator mode, this malware sidesteps your puny attempt at safe computing. But wait, there's more!

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Speculation has been rampant this week around Cisco on a couple of fronts. The company is variously rumored to be (a) eyeing an acquisition of Pure Digital Technologies, maker of the Flip camcorder, and (b) planning the rollout of a data center server that will rival high-end offerings from IBM, Hewlett-Packard, and Dell.

While Cisco was reticent about the details, the world's major enterprise router maker confirmed to Reuters earlier this week that a data center announcement -- involving new technologies and partners -- is in the works for this coming Monday. However, neither Cisco nor Pure Digital has confirmed to anyone that rumors of a Cisco buyout of the Flip camcorder manufacturer are in any way true.

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When Microsoft first introduced Silverlight a few years ago, it was with the stated promise of becoming a truly cross-platform development system for graphic interactivity and video. The full extent of that promise is still being delivered, in ways that many at the time hadn't really anticipated. The latest such crossover was previewed yesterday: a release candidate for an open source development toolset for the Eclipse development environment -- which itself is available in free and commercial versions -- that enables programmers to build applications that use Silverlight front-ends without having to rely on Visual Studio or Expression Studio.

Up to now, Silverlight has been considered a UI toolset that's made to be developed using Visual Studio. Now, Eclipse4SL from Soyatec -- a company that has received funding from Microsoft for this project -- gives developers tools for creating and deploying Silverlight panels, including the accompanying C# functionality and XAML interface code, that are very similar to their counterparts in Microsoft's commercial Visual Studio versions. All this in an environment that's better known as the IDE of choice among Java and JavaScript developers.

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Networking and telecommunications market research company the Dell'Oro group released research today that shows the IPTV subscriber base grew to 23 million, nearly doubling the total of the prior year. As a result, the set-top box business is booming.

Cisco and Motorola were the top STB makers in both cable and IPTV, and Thomson was at the top of satellite boxes. While Europe receives the most IPTV set-top boxes, Verizon and AT&T's aggressive IPTV marketing made North America a major contributor to the market's growth.

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A spokesperson for Dell Inc. confirmed to Betanews this afternoon that the company is undertaking a new round of staff reductions at locations worldwide. This in response to an official with the Dell desktop computer manufacturing facility in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, confirming some 300 staff reductions there today, to the local NBC affiliate station.

Though it was couched as not an official announcement, the spokesperson told Betanews, "We did make some staff reductions today in North Carolina and in other Dell locations globally. Today's actions are consistent with the streamlining that has been underway in our business for more than a year as part of our ongoing initiative to remain competitive by enhancing our efficiency and underlying cost structure."

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With two weeks to go before the original eight-week deadline for Microsoft to present its response to the European Commission's latest Statement of Objections, the EC announced late today it has granted Microsoft's request to extend the deadline another three weeks, to April 21. This from EC spokesperson Jonathan Todd, in statements to Reuters and other sources.

Microsoft was ordered to prepare an oral statement for the EC as a defensive response to the Statement. That defense would center on the company's continued bundling of Internet Explorer with Windows. How the EC receives that response will determine whether it pursues legal action against Microsoft, the result of which could include a new round of fines. Spokesperson Todd has also intimated to several sources that Microsoft may also be compelled to give customers who are setting up or upgrading to Windows 7, the option of installing alternate Web browsers.

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New York governor David Paterson and leaders of the state legislature stated on Wednesday that thanks to incoming federal stimulus money, the state will stand down on plans to "nuisance tax" a wide assortment of goods, including music, movie and ebook downloads. For now, anyway.

The proposed 2009-10 budget also included an extension of sales tax to cable and satellite TV and radio; like the 4% "digital property sales tax," that idea has been dropped. Other items from which the threat of new taxation has been lifted include non-diet soda, live theater, haircuts, and bowling. The NYS budget is due on April 1.

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Infinite SMS, an iPhone app that allowed free text messages through an experimental open Google protocol, has been shut down.

Google debuted the SMS in Chat lab at the very end of 2008, which allowed Google Talk users to send messages to mobile phones from their instant messaging window.

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At Tuesday's first inter-agency meeting in Washington, DC around the US government's new $7.2 billion broadband stimulus package, the government put out strong calls for public input in the form of both comments and program proposals.

Government interest is particularly big on the question of "how there can be better inter-agency coordination of broadband initiatives in order to develop a report on rural broadband strategy," said Michael Copps, acting chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, one of three federal agencies involved in divvying up the hotly sought after funds among Internet access providers of various shapes, sizes, and persuasions.

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