Dell may try to compete with Apple's iPod once again
Talk of Dell's movements in handheld technology have been at a high recently, with rumors of a smartphone from the company and now of a new digital music player to compete with Apple's iPod.
The Wall Street Journal reported that Dell has been testing a new digital music player that could be released as early as September. Details on the device are scant other than that it will have Wi-Fi, and likely capitalize on Dell's dormant Zing property that it acquired last year.
MobileMe looks to finally be stable as Apple recovers lost e-mail
Apple said late Tuesday that mail service to customers affected by the MobileMe outage should have full access once again, ending for some what became a three week ordeal.
Since MobileMe launched on July 11, at least one percent of all users have been unable to access e-mail properly, and in some cases losing access altogether. Making matters worse, Apple said over the weekend that it lost some e-mail messages during July 18 to July 22.
Banks to lose IM security tools due to Reuters/FaceTime license fracas
Because Thomson Reuters made a licensing payment to FaceTime two weeks late, a US judge has ordered the removal of security and regulatory compliance tools from an instant messaging product used by more than 100 stock brokerages and banks.
Reuters had integrated the tools from FaceTime into Reuters Messaging, an IM service sold to dozens of customers in the financial services industry. One of the tools is designed to assure compliance with an SEC mandate to record and archive the electronic communications of securities traders and brokers.
China to block Web sites, snoop on hotel guests during Olympics
Amidst admissions by Olympics officials that China will block journalists' access to "sensitive Web sites" during the summer games in Beijing, a US senator is charging that authorities also plan to spy on foreign guests staying in Chinese hotels.
"We are going to do our best to facilitate the foreign media to do their reporting work through the Internet," said Sun Weide, a spokesperson for China's Olympics organizing group, the BOCOF, at a news conference in China.
Amazon Payments takes on eBay's PayPal, Google Checkout
Amazon has rolled out its equivalent of PayPal and Google Checkout in two flavors: Checkout by Amazon and Amazon Simple Pay. Both services fall under the Amazon Payments banner and allow third party retailers to access Amazon user accounts for payment.
The service integrates with Amazon Marketplace as well as third party sites. A "Checkout with Amazon" button takes the user to the Amazon Payments site where they sign into their account and pay for shipping.
T-Mobile's 'Gekko' becomes newest Sidekick
After months of speculation, T-Mobile has finally officially launched the next version of its popular Sidekick handheld device.
Code-named "Gekko," the phone will take the place of the older iD model as the entry level Sidekick. It will also drop any of the extra nomenclature and be simply known as the "Sidekick."
Sprint loses class action suit in battle over early termination fees
As the legal pendulum continues to swing away from cell phone carriers' early termination fees [ETFs], a judge in California this week ordered Sprint to pay $18.3 million to customers who launched a class action suit over fees charged for ending their contracts early.
Sprint must also credit another $54.5 million to customers who were charged the fees but haven't paid them yet, under the court ruling.
Real partially patches 'highly critical' RealPlayer flaws
Security firm Secunia said Tuesday that RealNetworks had fixed most of the security flaws within its RealPlayer software that were first highlighted on Friday.
Four separate issues were discovered within most versions of RealPlayer 10, 10.5, and 11 across the Linux, Mac, and Windows platforms. While the company released the patch on Monday, which Secunia noted in its advisory, the firm said the fix was not complete.
HD DVD lives on in China as CBHD, but will it have content?
While HD DVD was officially declared dead this spring, the Chinese offshoot of the format is living on, with the first production line created for China Blue High-definition Disc, or CBHD, by Shanghai United Optical Disc.
CBHD began its life as CH-DVD, and its introduction was seen as a potential trump card for HD DVD in its battle against Blu-ray last year. Although CH-DVD differed slightly from HD DVD in terms of codecs, it was essentially the same technology. That meant Chinese manufacturers could develop for the format, and flood the worldwide market with cheap HD DVD-capable players.
India wants to develop a $10 laptop for students
Even the $100 laptop long envisioned by One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) seems pricey in contrast to a $10 laptop announced this week in India.
Also aimed at school children, India's low-cost laptop is now being researched by two Indian think tanks, according to D. Purandeswai, India's Minister of State for Higher Education.
Alcatel-Lucent shakes up management, gives CEO and Chairman the boot
Two years after merging, Telecommunications company Alcatel-Lucent has not posted a single profitable quarter. Following its second quarter 2008 earnings statement, a major executive shakeup has been announced for the company.
Though revenues and sales exceeded analyst expectations, so too did the company's net losses, which amounted to €1.1 billion. Bloomberg News analysts predicted a loss of only €135 million.
Nvidia adds PhysX engine to new line of video chips for notebooks
Nvidia has unveiled a new generation of notebook video cards based upon the Ageia PhysX physics engine, which Nvidia acquired last year.
There are five new Nvidia GPUs available, with the GeForce 9800M GTX, GeForce 9800M GTS, and GeForce 9800 GT serving as the three higher-end cards. The GeForce 9700M GTS and GeForce 9700M GT are the two mid-range cards for mainstream notebooks the average customer will purchase.
Multitouch Pong? Microsoft's Sphere could head for gaming
Sending images to "the dark side" and creating "omnidirectional views" of city streets are a couple of capabilities already created for Microsoft's Sphere, a new technology that might ultimately bring as yet unforeseen commercial applications in gaming, office collaboration, and other areas of human endeavor.
Expected to be shown this week at Microsoft's annual Faculty Summit, Sphere has already served as the platform for a novel twist on the Pong game that lets you "create virtual barriers with your hands" and bounce images to other players, said Hrvoje Benko, a Microsoft researcher, during an earlier demo in Seattle. If you bounce the image up and over the sphere, rather than across it, you're said to be "sending it to the dark side."
Nokia E71 reaches US with hopes to take on BlackBerry, iPhone
Nokia has made its E71 smartphone available to North American consumers, in the company's latest attempt to successfully crack into the smartphone market outside of Europe.
The E71 has a full QWERTY keyboard, 2.4-inch LCD display, built-in 3.2-megapixel camera, microSD memory card slot, and a multimedia player. It connects both to HSDPA and GSM networks, and has WiFi and GPS connectivity. Most notably, the E71 is only 0.39-inches thick, which makes it the thinnest full-QWERTY device available to consumers in North America.
Norton answers McAfee's SiteAdvisor with Safe Web beta
Symantec is beta testing a new product called Safe Web, built on top Norton Internet Security 2009, which performs many of the same functions as competitor McAffee's SiteAdvisor.
Safe Web requires Norton Internet Security 2009 to run on the user's computer. This differs from McAfee's SiteAdvisor offering, which is a standalone plug-in for Internet Explorer, and a Firefox extension that is also compatible with the Macintosh according to BetaNews tests.
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