Corel: We are not...not for sale
The Canadian software producer published a statement this morning confirming that it is discussing a sale to undisclosed third parties.
Earlier this week, Corel announced that its majority investor Vector Capital had withdrawn its March buyout offer that valued the company at nearly $280 million, in the interest of Corel's pursuit of other "potential strategic third-party alternatives," which would best suit shareholders.
'Contractor error' suspected in $12,000 FEMA phone hack
FEMA is now investigating a hack attack against its voice mail system that racked up $12,000 in international calls, with preliminary evidence indicating that "contractor error" was probably involved.
Debbie Wing, a spokesperson with the US Federal Emergency Management Agency, told BetaNews today that the government agency -- which is part of the US Dept. of Homeland Security -- first noticed "inappropriate" calling patterns on Saturday, August 16.
McKinnon's extradition delayed again over human rights
EU courts have asked Great Britain to not send the accused mastermind of a DOD systems break-in to the US, in order that they can review his complaint that conditions in US prisons are inhumane.
Gary McKinnon is accused of "the biggest military hack of all time:" breaking into computer systems owned by the Pentagon, US Army, the Navy, and NASA systems. Motivated by a search for real-world evidence of UFOs, he is accused of doing $700,000 worth of damage to the computers he broke into.
UK law firm looks to begin prosecuting file sharers
Davenport Lyons has been working with the music industry in the UK to sniff out P2P users. Now it will ask the UK courts to force ISPs to release information to identify them.
The firm is looking to identify about 7,000 individuals in total. Representatives said they will seek an order from the High Court Wednesday, and will use the information to launch civil suits against those individuals.
Judge affirms takedown notice recipients' right to sue
A two-year-old California boy may today be the hero of the digital age, as a Federal Judge ruled that the holder of the copyright to the song he was dancing to in a YouTube video, should have thought twice before suing his mommy.
When a copyright holder believes that a person uploading a file to a public site has infringed his rights, he must take into consideration whether that upload followed US law's definition of "fair use." And if that person is sent a takedown notice by the copyright holder, she has the right to challenge its assertions in court. That's the ruling of a US District Judge in San Jose yesterday.
AT&T to form its own 'Geek Squad'
AT&T today launched ConnecTech, an in-home support team that deals with setup and repair of home media services, and not exclusively to AT&T customers.
For fees beginning at $69, AT&T will send a technician to your home to perform installation or support-related tasks. Services include: wireless network setup, setup and connection of PCs, digital media, printers, music or photo setup, PC upgrading, home theater and TV installation, as well as in-home or telephone support.
Analysts: Consumers, businesses want phones with more 'features'
Customers are now buying more costly cell phones with features such as GPS, Bluetooth, and music enablement, not just in the US but worldwide, according to recent research by two industry analyst firms.
According to a new study from analyst firm NPD, mobile handsets sold in the US during the second quarter of this year were, "by and large, more feature-rich than those sold the year prior." Meanwhile, demand is increasing throughout the world for handsets with features such as GPS, touchscreen, and multimedia, concurs a study by IDC released at the end of July.
FTC clears EA's bid for Take-Two, talks continue
The FTC has given EA the go-ahead to purchase the smaller rival, and EA has indicated that it had shifted strategies away from a hostile bid to more friendly talks.
US Federal Trade Commission approval of the deal had been something that was eluding EA for several months now. Along the way, the agency had extended its own deadline to approve the merger, most recently in early July until this Thursday.
Intel, Yahoo, Comcast to partner on widgets for live TV
Are you ready for 3D, overlaid, interactive widgets to move off of the PC desktop onto your television set? An initiative announced yesterday by a powerhouse team of developers will probably make it happen, whether you're ready or not.
In one of the many intriguing developments to come out of this year's Intel Developers' Forum in San Francisco, both Yahoo and Comcast stated yesterday they will partner with Intel in the creation of a system that will conceivably deliver interactive, overlaid widgets -- the kind you see on the Mac OS X Dashboard or the Windows Vista Sidebar -- directly through live, digital TV.
Comcast will cut back some customers' speeds after FCC order
Just one day after the Federal Communications Commission released its official opinion and order regarding the cable provider's throttling practices, Comcast has changed its ways.
Called Fair Share, the service's new protocol will slow down the connection speeds of Comcast's most bandwidth-heavy users for periods of up to 20 minutes. It will be application-agnostic, and will be triggered by the customer's overall use of bandwidth.
Apple hit with class action suit over 'defective' iPhone 3G
Claiming that the iPhone 3G doesn't really perform "twice as fast for half the price," a user in Alabama has filed a class action suit against Apple, charging that the phone is "defective" and that it has failed to live up to its hype.
The disgruntled customer, Jessica Alena Smith, issued the complaint against Apple in the US District Court in southern Alabama on behalf of herself "and all others similarly situated," a number estimated in the court filing at "thousands and perhaps tens of thousands" of other people.
Amazon Web services to get persistent storage
The Elastic Block Store (EBS), Amazon's block-level persistent storage service for its Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) has come out of beta, offering more security for databases in the event of instance failures.
For companies relying on cloud-based services, the threat of outages looms large. In July, when Amazon's Simple Storage Service went down for eight hours, dozens of popular sites such as Twitter and SmugMug were disrupted.
Coming to a 'webisode' near you, the US Postal Service
High definition "webisodes," RSS feeds, podcasts, and iTunes downloads will be integral elements of a new image-making campaign for the 256-year-old US Postal Service.
The new, multiple award-winning "Mark of the Eagle" campaign hardly represents the first time the US government agency has stepped to new technologies over the past two-and-a-half centuries. But instead of automating processes such as sorting and processing mail, the USPS' latest move is geared to drawing more business among new generations who have a lot more communications options open to them than just popping a letter into a physical mailbox.
IBM spends $300 million on data centers with 'virtual workplaces'
Today, IBM announced a $300 million investment around building upon its 154 existing data centers in 2008, with the addition of 13 new "Business Resilience" service delivery centers in ten countries, including the US.
The new data centers will be located in the New York/New Jersey metropolitan area in the US and in emerging markets elsewhere in the world, said Brian Reagan, IBM's director of business continuity and resiliency strategy, in an interview with BetaNews.
Microsoft trademark apps hint at 'private' browsing in IE
Bloggers have uncovered paperwork for two possible applications from Microsoft having to do with keeping the details of a user's browsing session private.
Critics of what could become a critical feature for Internet Explorer 8 have derided the idea of a built-in privacy feature for erasing histories and other trace elements, as nothing more than a "porn mode," allowing for surfers to cover their tracks if they are viewing questionable content. However, Mozilla -- which was set to include the feature in Firefox 3, but later pulled it -- argued for its legitimate uses.
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