It's popular with police departments, schools and other institutions where users' install rights need to be contained. But the new 3.0 version of Faronics' Anti-Executable doesn't click so well with a common touchpad driver.

Anti-Executable's page on the Faronics Web site proclaims that "PERSISTENCE IS FUTILE" -- meaning that users on Anti-Executable machines can only load programs from a carefully controlled "whitelist," no matter how badly they think they need to play Solitaire or download a file from that nice prince in Nigeria who wants to transfer some money to them. Mainly geared to enterprises, the program also comes in a single-computer version for non-enterprise installations. That's the version we tested, or began to test, at BetaNews this week.

The Google-driven WIA's efforts in advocating "white spaces" devices have been joined by two heavyweight industry coalitions: the BSA, which includes Apple; and the CCIA, which claims Linux distributor Red Hat as a member.

One week after Larry Page's FCC lobbying appearance in Washington, Google and its existing partners picked up more clout today in their fight to "unlock the unused white spaces" of the wireless spectrum. The Wireless Innovation Alliance's (WIA) campaign was officially joined by the Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA) open systems advocacy group, and the Business Software Alliance (BSA) anti-piracy group.

While it may be a rather late entry in the "handset*" field, today's launch of the Nokia XpressMusic 5800 (originally nicknamed the "Tube") has been timed to coincide with the availability of the "Comes with Music" service.

The 5800 is equipped with the tactility-enabled Symbian S60 interface that Nokia began showing off last year. Unlike other touchscreen handsets in this form factor, the 5800 is primarily a music phone. It has outward-facing stereo speakers (rather than ones mounted on the back of the device), a 3.5mm headphone jack, stereo Bluetooth, 81 MB of on-board memory expandable with an included 8 GB microSD card, and a quirky guitar pick stylus. Fortunately, that is not the device's main input device, and is more of a gimmick to accompany the numerous ways to interact with the touch UI.

Under pressure from developers, Apple has dropped the controversial NDA clause previously imposed on its iPhone OS. Many developers are expressing their happiness on Twitter and elsewhere online, sometimes in pithy language.

Admitting that the non-disclosure agreement [NDA] for developers of apps for the iPhone's App Score is creating a "burden for developers," Apple is now abandoning the agreement for released software.

The chief question in most satellite radio listeners' minds has been, would XM and Sirius subscribers always remain separate? Today, the official answer has changed from "Yes" to "Sorta," with the emergence of new "best-of" selections.

In a potentially acceptable compromise with what legislators had sought prior to the merger, Sirius XM Satellite Radio announced this morning it will be making some XM channels available to Sirius subscribers as an add-on package, and that one of its Sirius radios available now can accept a la carte programming selections.

After a couple of rumor-heavy weeks, Nintendo will officially release an upgrade to its popular touch-screen handheld game system in Japan next month.

The most celebrated feature of the DSi is its dual-camera setup. One is mounted inside the clamshell, and the other on the outside. With these 640 x 480 "eyes" come the requisite photo manipulation tools, the roots of which Nintendo included with the Game Boy Camera more than ten years ago. Pictures can be merged together, drawn upon, or distorted.

Even its proprietor says it's not a good thing when you have to join the RareShare social network, but for those suffering ultra-obscure diseases and disorders, it's a powerful resource.

The site, currently building its way through beta, is geared toward those suffering from what the National Institutes of Health call rare or orphan diseases -- those affecting about one (or fewer) Americans in 1500. The term "orphan disease" indicates one so uncommon that drug companies tend to ignore it, but if you're the only person you and your doctor have ever heard of with a highly uncommon condition, the "orphan" label feels mighty personal.

Two of AOL's efforts to keep pace with the Web 2.0 era are slipping quietly into the 404 files as the service announced plans to close AOL Journals and Hometown at the end of the month.

One BetaNews reader this morning shared the e-mail he received from AOL, which included this: "It's very important that you save your Journals content before the shutdown. We're working on a way to easily move your Journal to another blogging service -- you can expect an email within the next week with more details about how to do it. We want the transition to go as smoothly as possible for you, so you'll have two choices. You can either save your information manually and find another place to blog on your own, or choose to automatically transfer your Journal to a different blogging service we've selected."

Beyond its previously available native support for Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync, the Apple iPhone's business stature jumped up another notch this week with a free application dubbed iNotes ultralite from IBM's Lotus division.

While Apple's App Store has been rejecting applications from smaller developers, a new iNotes Web application from IBM's Lotus is one piece of software being enthusiastically welcomed into the iPhone fold.

Looking to draw fresh users into the arms of Live Search, Microsoft on Wednesday announced a half-year contest in which users can exchange clicks for tickets, and tickets for various goodies.

The SearchPerks contest, which launched Wednesday, is open to 250,000 respondents for now, though Microsoft says that it could open the gates to as many as a million if there's interest (its site's legalese says it's already expecting 1,000,000). Participants earn a "ticket" for using Windows Live, MSN, or Live Search -- up to 25 tickets every day. The contest is slated to run through April 15, 2009.

Download Hyper-V 2008 Server Stand-alone from FileForum now.

It isn't like Microsoft to give away an entire operating system for free, but beginning today, it will: A stand-alone server whose sole purpose is to be a hypervisor platform for virtualized guest operating systems, is now available free of charge.

The first beta of Skype 4.0 exposed testers to a totally redesigned UI that placed increased emphasis on video conferencing. In the second beta, released today, the Skype team provided a more familiar-feeling alternative.

Based upon what seemed to be a universally negative reaction to the amount of real estate Skype's new UI required, beta 2 of version 4.0 offers the ability to switch to a window more similar to previous versions. Skype's Mike Bartlett said the team received over 45,000 comments, with the predominant issue being the interface.

Technology from a California company could insert interactive ads and other content into the clear blue sky, or right field, or any other area on your TV or movie screens where the action isn't.

The technology, in the works since 2003 at privately held Keystream, analyzes video on the fly, detects where moving objects are going, and places its overlays somewhere unobtrusive -- for instance, upfield as a running back heads downfield. An overlay might be a simple logo, or it could be an interactive element, such as an offer to buy that running back's team jersey.

It was surprising enough when four years ago, Microsoft made an historic decision to ditch its own Web services architecture attempts and go with the flow. Today, it announced its next version of Windows will go with a different flow.

For the last four years, one of the most prominent signs of Microsoft's change of thinking with regard to the division of labor in programming, has been its embrace of Simple Object Access Protocol (now just called SOAP, after too much deliberation over the acronym) in Windows Communication Foundation (WCF). It was Web standards organizations, not Microsoft, that initially drove the widespread adoption of so-called WS-* services that use SOAP, but Windows' embrace of SOAP later cemented the standard as a fixture of Web development.

The Application Programming Interface (API) that will allow third party developers to create new tools for use with the Netflix movie and user data is now open,enabling them to build new applications based on Netflix's platform.

The free API (available here) includes JavaScript and REST APIs and ATOM feeds. The JavaScript component allows users to integrate such things as the user's queue into other Web applications.