In an impromptu test this afternoon conducted jointly in Reston, Va. by BetaNews' Nate Mook and InformationWeek's Nick Hoover, a successful Xohm connection was made -- indicating that service is also extending to the suburbs.

Initial tests show the Reston connection to yield 4.8 Mbps downstream and 1.3 Mbps upstream. That's even faster downstream than our Baltimore test three weeks ago, where we achieved 2.6 Mbps downstream and 2.4 Mbps upstream. A wireless upstream connection of over 1.0 Mbps is still a considerable achievement.

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There's fewer reports of malware in the wild for the entire industry, Microsoft said this morning -- an indication, it says, that the security field is getting smarter. But once again, do undisclosed vulnerabilities simply not count?

In a more circumspect report than those the company published previously, Microsoft is saying today that the general trend toward malware distribution worldwide is continuing on a decline, and that Microsoft may be contributing to that decline through a reduction in Windows-targeted malware by more than one-third.

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Sprint today restored its network connection to Cogent Communications for the time being, after service disruptions rocked customers during the month of October.

Communications between the the networks of Sprint and Cogent are now temporarily up and running, following Sprint's restoration of ten interconnections severed between October 7 and October 30.

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First appearing over the weekend on BestBuy.com, Western Digital has officially debuted its WD TV HD Media Player -- a way to expand the reach of its portable hard drives into the DTV realm with the aid of USB.

Introduced as a companion to WD's My Passport portable media drives, the WD TV player acts as a TV docking station for USB storage devices. Photos, movies, and music can be navigated on the user's TV through HD menus with the included remote control. Up to two USB storage devices can be simultaneously hooked up.

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Today, Circuit City confirmed earlier reports that it will be closing 155 stores as a cost-cutting measure, and eliminating 17% of its workforce, or roughly 7,800 jobs.

Following a quarter that showed the company worked at a $162.7 million loss, reports arose that Circuit City was contemplating store closures as a cost-cutting measure.

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Silverlight-powered movie streams are now available to Netflix subscribers, with the promise of better performance and greater HD. Right now, though, the trial is limited to Intel-based systems.

Last week, Netflix announced its instantly viewable movie streams, which had heretofore been inaccessible to Mac users, would be available through Microsoft's Silverlight platform to those without Windows Media Player.

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Semanti Corp. today has released its free semantic search browser plug-in that now works for Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft Live Search.

SemantiFind debuted in September at DEMOfall08 as a plug-in to add semantic searching to Google. The company promised an update within 30 days that would make that feature compatible with other search engines. Today, that update has been released. SemantiFind is now capable of working with Yahoo and Microsoft Live Search in addition to Google, and can be downloaded for free

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Every year, PDC sets the pace and the mood for commercial software development over the next 12 months. So has the trumpet been sounded for the great exodus into the cloud? All this week, we've listened for the signs.

LOS ANGELES - The mood at this year's Microsoft Professional Developers' Conference was noticeably changed among both attendees and company representatives -- not altogether replaced, but certainly altered. In nearly each and every venue, there was a palpable energy, but I wouldn't call it "enthusiasm." I would, however, definitely call it "motivation."

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Apple's competitors are trying to enforce non-compete clauses in court as a way of preventing executive talent -- and maybe valuable intellectual property -- from flowing in Apple's direction.

At least two high-level industry executives hired away by Apple lately have beem slapped by ex-employers with charges of breaking non-compete pacts. Mark Papermaster, sued by IBM this month, follows Michael Fenger, who got hauled into court by Motorola in July.

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The organization representing the lion's share of online ads sales in the US is looking to streamline the process of getting those ads in front of you. Mad Men material it's not... or is it?

At its annual Ad Operations Summit in New York this week, the IAB (Interactive Advertising Bureau) rolled out five industry initiatives that are meant to improve efficiencies between ad sellers and the sites that present those ads -- and hey, a little sales growth stimulation wouldn't hurt either.

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Two projects recently revealed by Microsoft are helping government officials figure out which way is up and what was said about it.

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In yet another sign that it's getting harder to gain -- and keep -- "business method" patents, a pair of inventors lost an appeals court bid this week to patent an energy-related risk management system.

Can an inventor patent an "abstract process," something involving nothing more than thoughts? A US appeals court this week said "no" in a case concerning a patent request around a system for managing energy costs.

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With the debut of Windows 7, Office 14 and its Web counterpart, along with a completely new Windows "operating system" for the cloud called Azure, PDC 2008 was a week that didn't let up. For those who didn't catch all of the news, here's a quick recap of our coverage.

Microsoft welcomes a new member to the Windows family: Azure

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All in the same week, AOL opened up user access to outside social networks, while starting to shut down user access to its own AOL Pictures, Xdrive and Bluestring services.

AOL told users this week that it's closing down access to its own AOL Pictures, Xdrive, and Bluestring services as of the end of this year. Yet at the same time, the company went ahead with previously announced plans to link the AOL Home Page to various outside services.

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The United States Department of Justice has conditionally approved Verizon's acquisition of Alltel, provided Verizon divests from 100 markets.

Verizon and Alltel issued joint statements last summer announcing the $28.1 billion acquisition. The combination would result in the single largest mobile network in the United States. As such, the Antitrust Division of the U.S Department of Justice has also required one of the biggest mobile sell-offs thus far in order for the merger to take place.

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