Microsoft is debuting new mouse technology called BlueTrack which it says offers better tracking on virtually any surface, it says -- even carpet.

The blue beam produced by the new laser in Microsoft's Explorer Mouse series is about four times as large as the beam used in current laser mice, according to a Microsoft statement yesterday. This, coupled with better tracking technology, can make its new model usable even on surfaces such as carpet, it said.

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The Wilmington, North Carolina area has become the first all-digital TV broadcast market in the United States, despite tropical storms, and despite what some media outlets called an unprepared populace.

BetaNews spoke to Wilmington local television stations last week about the potential for Tropical Storm Hannah to interfere with the official "switch throwing," and the consensus among station managers was that the whole affair was under control and they were ready.

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Sony Ericsson said today that its Xperia X1 phone will be available in the fourth quarter in parts of Western Europe, Central Europe, the Middle East, Asia/Pacific, Africa, and Latin America...yet not in North America.

The Xperia X1 will premiere on Tuesday, September 30, in the company's home base countries of Great Britain, Germany, and Sweden, the company stated today ahead of press events scheduled throughout Europe. But no release dates were given for the US or Canada.

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Download Opera 9.6 Beta 1 Build 10424 for Windows from FileForum now.

The first publicly released builds of the latest Opera browser suggest developers are working to clean up the rendering engine and spruce up its features, in light of new, bright, and shiny competition seemingly from out of nowhere.

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There's a mountain of evidence to support the theory that T-Mobile will be the first US carrier to feature RIM's eagerly awaited BlackBerry 8220, the manufacturer's first clamshell phone.

Although neither Research In Motion nor T-Mobile are confirming the news, clues point to the BlackBerry 8220 "Flip" making its way to the nation's fourth largest carrier. The first clue comes from RIM itself, which in a statement this morning listed UMA support. T-Mobile is the only carrier in the US thus far to fully embrace the technology.

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AOL's Truveo has opened a mobile search site, culling results from 300 participating sites and moving AOL further into the mobile space where it intends to become an important fixture.

Earlier this year in Barcelona, AOL demonstrated its Open Mobile Platform concept, where it converted many of its Web properties into lightweight cross-platform applications and wrapped it together with AOL's Platform-A advertising services. This platform is based upon proprietary AOL technology common among many handsets, and is comprised of an XML-based markup language, a mobile device client, and an application server.

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In attempting a quick fix for declining sales, will smartphone maker Nokia be able to tip the tables a bit against ascending rival RIM? Certainly, the potential demand for mobile Microsoft Exchange access seems to be real.

All 43 of Nokia's S60 3rd Edition devices will now feature the Mail for Exchange mobile e-mail application, Nokia announced this morning. The application will also be available out-of-the-box in future releases of Nokia Eseries and Nseries devices, Nokia said in a statement today.

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The departure of one of America's leading antitrust attorneys from his law firm, and his subsequent hiring by the US Dept. of Justice, suggests very strongly that the DOJ may be preparing for its most serious antitrust offensive in years.

Sanford Litvack, who was antitrust chief during the Carter administration and former Vice Chairman of the Walt Disney Company, has reportedly been hired by the US Justice Dept., apparently to look over Google's ad deal with Yahoo. This follows weeks of depositions and subpoenas in the DOJ's investigation of the deal, which began last April and which recently became a formal inquiry.

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As a first step toward serving as an Internet "launchpad," AOL now lets users view Yahoo Mail, Gmail, and Hotmail from AOL.com. Then, over the next two months, the company intends to "open up" to additional third-party content and services.

AOL.com is finally letting down the walls of its proverbial "garden" a bit, moving more in the direction of an Internet portal or starting point -- first by giving access to external e-mail services, and next with links to outside social networks and other non-AOL content.

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Sony's PlayStation Network, while considerably less mature than Microsoft's Xbox Live, especially in terms of software support, will soon grow with the release of banner online titles for the Christmas season.

For annual subscribers to Qore, the PlayStation online magazine, and North American customers who pre-ordered Resistance 2 from retailer GameStop, a beta of the online FPS has begun. The title is the sequel to the popular PS3 first person shooter Resistance: Fall of Man.

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While Verizon Wireless has been busy with its ongoing campaign to convince you that "it's the network," Sprint -- whose network has not been its strong point in recent years -- is placing new bets today that it's really the phone.

Just in time for the CTIA show, Sprint has officially confirmed that it is adding two of the most intriguing new Windows Mobile-based HTC Touch phones to its lineup of 3G touchscreen smartphones, which already includes the original HTC Touch and the best-selling Samsung Instinct.

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While the current beta edition of Chrome currently runs on Windows only, open source developers -- including some from Mozilla -- are now working on getting Google's new browser to operate on Linux and Mac, too.

The developers' site for Chromium, an open source project rolled out by Google at the time of its launch of the Chrome browser, also contains build instructions for Windows, Linux, and Mac. There, in addition to making the source code for Chrome available under a BSD license, Google explains how to submit patches and submit bug reports. The source code for Chrome's high-performance V8 JavaScript engine is also downloadable.

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Download iTunes for Windows 8.0 from FileForum now.

While Apple is pushing a major update to its client software filled with several new features, easily the biggest new one appears to be its music recommendation engine, called Genius.

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