Alex Sokirynsky, one of many application developers rejected by Apple's App Store, has admitted to deep-sixing his own blog post. Could Apple be using NDA clauses as a tool for silencing disenchanted developers?

In the latest twist on a series of application rejections by Apple's App Store, Alex Sokirynsky -- one of at least four impacted developers -- has pulled a blog post in which he'd vented about Apple's ongoing interference and vowed to move his Podcaster application to Google's Android Marketplace.

MySpace, the social network turned music repository, has unveiled the beta of "Promote Your..." a self-service advertising system that allows users to publish and manage banners on its network that click through to musicians' profiles.

The service is geared toward independent musicians and businesspeople, offering audience targeting, efficacy tracking, and an advertising budget range from $25 to $10,000. It also offers an ad creation wizard interface or the ability to upload pre-made 300 x 250 or 728 x 90 .JPG, .GIF, or .PNG banners that are less than 600K in size.

With Microsoft out of the picture in any future deal with Yahoo, there has been speculation over someone else potentially filling the void. But a news story yesterday made it seem like that void was being filled, and Yahoo is disputing it.

Late yesterday, following a meeting of Yahoo's board of directors, the Financial Times published a story citing someone its reporter called "one person familiar with the company's thinking" as revealing that some type of hurdle had been cleared precluding a future deal between Yahoo and Time Warner over the latter's AOL unit.

New regulations will tighten security measures around residents' personal data, but the impact of these regulations will affect businesses beyond the two states' borders.

Massachusetts' Office of Consumer Affairs and Business Regulation issued new regulations, called the Standards for The Protection of Personal Information of Residents of the Commonwealth, set to take effect on January 1, 2009. The state already has what are considered by some to be the most far-reaching information security requirements of any US state (see this PDF client advisory from a Mass. law firm for more).

Despite speculation that Google's Android might turn into a platform for lower-end "feature phones," Android is definitely shaping up into not only a smartphone platform but also an iPhone competitor, says analyst Avi Greengart.

NEW YORK, NY (BetaNews) -- A lot more applications are needed before Android fulfills its potential, suggested Avi Greengart of Current Analysis, a leading wireless/mobile analyst. Greengart spoke with reporters including BetaNews today during the launch event for T-Mobile's G1, the first Android phone.

In an attempt to give it a bigger presence in the enterprise network security market, McAfee announced today that it was acquiring Secure Computing Group for $465 million, or $5.75 per share plus $84 million for outstanding preferred stock.

Part of the attraction of Secure Computing is that it offers little overlap with existing McAfee Inc. products, said Vimal Solanki, vice president of worldwide solution marketing for the Santa Clara, Calif.-based company. Users can expect to see a suite product for network security similar to McAfee's Total Endpoint Security and Total Protection for Data, he said.

Microsoft is making plans to drop an assortment of e-mail and media-editing tools from the next version of Windows, concentrating instead on those programs' Windows Live analogues.

The Engineering Windows 7 blog, run by engineering team leaders Steven Sinofsky (senior VP of the Windows and Windows Live Engineering Group) and Jon DeVaan (senior VP of the Windows Core Operating System Division), frames the forthcoming OS as an "ecosystem" comprised of PC and hardware manufacturers, developers, users, and enthusiasts. Going extinct from that ecosystem will be the following: Windows Mail, Windows Photo Gallery, Windows Calendar, Windows Contacts, and Windows Movie Maker.

The grand launch of T-Mobile's G1 today included the rollouts of Ecorio and ShopSavvy, two applications expected be among of hundreds or more that might eventually populate Android Marketplace, Google's answer to Apple's App Store.

NEW YORK, NY (BetaNews) - During a product expo following this morning's presentation by Google, T-Mobile, and HTC, T-Mobile senior manager for product development Mitch Lustig pointed to Android's open source development platform as one big reason for the new device's appeal.

T-Mobile plans to follow up on the release of HTC's Dream phone -- now known as the G1 -- with several more Android devices, a senior T-Mobile official told BetaNews at during a New York City press event today.

NEW YORK, NY (BetaNews) - While the G1 device rolled out today in New York is aimed at providing a "Google-focused experience" to users, future Android phones for T-Mobile's emerging 3G HSPDA market will be geared to other kinds of "user experiences." This from Mitch Lustig, T-Mobile USA's senior manager of product development, although he declined to specify which kinds of experiences.

BetaNews spoke with MySpace reps last night regarding the speculation that's been going on since last week about possible antitrust actions, including in Europe, preventing MySpace Music from launching its new, dedicated site.

Much of the talk was fueled by a particular news article, which MySpace told us was "based mostly on conjecture." The article discusses precedents set by indie groups in European courts, most notably the ongoing opposition to SMEI by independent organization Impala, hinting at preferential pricing and discriminative practices by MySpace against indie music producers.

While legislation before Congress languishes in the midst of two wars and now a severe financial crisis, the major parties in the online music royalties debate have actually come to an agreement on compromise rates.

In a surprise announcement that could actually signal the beginning of the end of the long-running streaming media royalties debacle, representatives of the Recording Industry Association of America state they have reached an agreement with DiMA, the leading trade group representing digital media broadcasters. That agreement could cap the music royalties that streaming broadcasters pay to 10.5 percent of revenue.

T-Mobile's G1 is without a doubt its most hyped product launch. Practically all the information about the phone was "unconfirmed fact" one month ago, and today's release brings into perspective what the first "open" phone has to offer.

Thanks to FCC regulatory filings, we already know the general design specs and radio arrangement of the G1 (155mm x 55mm, 3.2" 480 x 320 HVGA screen, Quad-band GSM, UMTS, HSDPA 1700/2100, SUPL, 802.11b/g, GPS, non-A2DP Bluetooth). We also found out that at the heart of the G1 is the same CPU that the HTC Touch Diamond carries, the 528 MHz Qualcomm MSM7210A.

The smallest Sony devices to show Blu-ray movies on big and small screens aren't PlayStations. They're super-small, lightweight Vaio computers, and like a certain banned iPhone app, they have "I Am Rich" written all over them.

There have been, and continue to be, two classes of customers for small computer devices. One class is interested in making functionality portable enough to achieve true data mobility, and it's that class to which the latest rounds of MID and netbook form factor computers are being pitched. The other is interested in seeing how much hardware can be shrunken down to a minimum form factor -- oftentimes without regard to cost -- and it's that second class to whom Sony is playing today, with its latest miniaturized Vaio notebooks, slated to roll off the assembly lines this fall.

The parts of a product usually featured on a launch day demo may not always be the parts that will satisfy a day-to-day user. But as Angela Gunn reports, the parts of CS4 it chose to show off this morning could genuinely sway opinions.

I don't generally trust product demos when my own hands aren't on the keyboard -- not that every company does hinky things to make new software look faster or slicker or more stable than it is, but enough do so a person winds up suspicious.

Is one of North America's most prolific builders of ostentatious, custom PCs going the way of the Atari ST and the Exidy Sorcerer? The man in charge says no, but the way it's being said has not been filling folks with confidence.

A blog post from the usually forthright Rahul Sood, the CTO of the Voodoo business unit that was incorporated into Hewlett-Packard last year, is being interpreted by the hardware enthusiast community as a thinly-veiled, euphemistic notice of deep setbacks at the former VooDoo PC, and what had up until recently been called the Voodoo Business Unit.