Latest Technology News

Some Mac veterans are in an ecstasy of grief over the absence of Apple's own FireWire port from the new low-end MacBook. But what does it mean?

Mac support and discussion forums have been blazing away since Tuesday's announcements, with users of FireWire video gear, musical equipment, and peripherals bewailing the absence of FireWire from the lower-end MacBook. The port is still present in FireWire 800 form on the MacBook Pro; FireWire 400 is no longer offered.

This week, Sony updated the system software to both its PlayStation Portable and PlayStation 3 video game consoles. Finally, Sony's portable console received its own access to the PlayStation Store.

Sony's PS3 software version 2.5 was made available this week, adding a handful of new features in video and system settings as well as peripheral support. With this update, the PS3 now offers Scene Search, a feature that breaks videos into one, two, or five minute scenes for quicker location of individual parts.

During a pre-launch event for customers and the press in New York City last night, Randy Myerson, a T-Mobile senior product manager, told BetaNews that the Android-based G1 is still on track to ship on October 22 -- and that, by the time it does, the number of third-party apps in Google's Android Marketplace will amount to approximately 50.

T-Mobile demonstrated three of those Android apps -- BreadCrumbz, ShopSavvy, and Ecorio -- at last night's event.

Without the addition of any new hardware, DirecTV Plus HD DVR users will be able to stream recorded HD content from their DVR to local PCs, or watch live TV on their PC while recorded content is being watched on the DVR.

It's a far cry from Slingbox functionality, but the DirecTV2PC beta adds the ability for multi-user households to freely watch content on multiple screens without an extra device. Parents should note that the parental control settings on the DVR are not automatically ported over to the DirecTV2PC software.

The irony of John McCain's tussles with YouTube over his campaign's video clips is rich stuff for techies who have been observing the mayhem the Digital Millennium Copyright Act has engendered over the years.

Recapping the uproar, the McCain-Palin campaign on Monday asked YouTube, a Google subsidiary, to stop taking down campaign videos that incorporated clips of news broadcasts. YouTube replied that it was doing so at the request of the broadcasters, who were objecting to use of their copyrighted footage. As per the DMCA, YouTube pulled down the videos and will not allow them to be reposted for at least 10-14 days.

UPDATED Microsoft was forced to issue an official statement following CEO Steve Ballmer's comments yesterday morning at Gartner ITXpo. Ballmer's remark that a Microsoft acquisition of Yahoo still makes sense caused an upward jolt in Yahoo's stock value.

The company's official word came later: "Our position hasn't changed. Microsoft has no interest in acquiring Yahoo!; there are no discussions between the companies."

The NAB today sharply criticized the credibility of an FCC report on white spaces. But in focusing on wireless interference issues that appeared in early field tests, the broadcasters appear to have ignored later test results.

A major TV broadcasting industry association today challenged the viability of an FCC report, calling for a period of public comment on whether devices operating in the so-called "white spaces" will interfere with broadcasting equipment if the spectrum is freed for public access.

By the end of next year, white space devices ranging from HDTV home video systems to self-organizing wireless meshes for rural connectivity will probably hit the market...or maybe not, WIA members said today.

White space device advocates from Motorola, Phillips, and other organizations said in a press teleconference today that if, as expected, the US Federal Communications Commission approves free access to unused spectrum on November 4, vendors will be ready with new white space devices about a year later, after a period of testing and certification.

2008's Blog Action Day was observed on Wednesday. The eighth annual iteration of the group blogging event included 12,808 sites, all posting at least once on the day's discussion topic -- this year, poverty.

Organizers estimate that 13,498,280 visitors saw one of more of these poverty-related posts. Many blogs or blog readers also donated to charities working on the issue, and some corporate blogs at firms such as Google and Wells Fargo got involved as well. (Those numbers do not appear to include posts on Twitter and similar microblogging services.)

BetaNews continues its side-project of tracking of the E-pizza zeitgeist as Pizza Hut launches a Facebook app that allows users to order food through the social network.

Online media analysis firm comScore ranks Facebook as the most-trafficked social media site in the world, and the fourth most trafficked site altogether. Its application platform is an ideal place for companies to engage and intelligently target users, and has already been capitalized upon by the likes of Levi Strauss & Co., CBS, and Neutrogena.

Google's Android Marketplace carries a warning that Google has the power to remotely remove applications that violate the developer distribution agreement, putting the G1 on par with the iPhone at least in the kill switch department.

In August, attention was brought to a blacklist for unauthorized applications located in the iPhone's CoreLocation API -- a blacklist that is tied to a remote "kill switch" for malicious programs. The existence of such a kill switch was later confirmed by Steve Jobs himself to The Wall Street Journal.

To paraphrase Yogi Berra, "It ain't over." As the wireless industry's most significant brawl brings itself to a boil once again, the victory upon which Broadcom had pinned its hopes has been eliminated by an appeals court ruling.

In a decision that could completely even the score between long-feuding Qualcomm and Broadcom, the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday threw out a December 2006 decision of the US International Trade Commission, upholding a ruling of patent infringement on Broadcom's power-saving technology by Qualcomm.

Macrovision sells TV Guide magazine to a VC firm for $1 -- about one-third as much as the $2.99 newsstand price for a single issue -- while holding on to TV Guide Channel.

With purported dreams of profitability in publishing, OpenGate Capital has acquired TV Guide magazine for $1 from Macrovision, a company which still owns the TV Guide Channel.

A revised security architecture in the new version of Flash may drastically reduce malicious users' ability to "clickjack" their way into remote code execution. But it requires admins of content provider sites to take notice.

The cross-site scripting vulnerability problem with Adobe Flash has been known for some time. Since Macromedia first made it possible for Flash clients to receive content and instructions from sites outside the domain that launched them, it's been an even bet that the mechanism relied upon to maintain the integrity of Flash sessions would be the target of malicious attack.

Capitol v. Thomas, the infamous copyright infringement case against a Minnesota woman who made copyrighted material available on Kazaa five years ago, ended in a $222,000 victory for the RIAA...that was thrown out.

A few weeks ago, the district court Judge who presided over the Thomas case retracted the verdict and declared the case a mistrial on the grounds that the jury had been falsely instructed about the culpability of those simply "making files available", where no evidence showed that any downloads had taken place.