Latest Technology News

9:50 am EDT July 11, 2008 - Customers at Apple Stores across the country were told to wait, as it appeared that Apple's iTunes system it is using to activate the iPhones on AT&Ts network crashed.

Unlike last year's premiere, all 3G iPhone activation must take place in-store, rather than enabling customers to activate their phones manually. Transactions are having to be re-run and are still failing, report customers from inside Apple Stores in Maryland and Michigan.

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The second-generation iPhone won't go on sale for another 9 hours, but some intrepid souls are already lining up outside AT&T and Apple stores to be among the first to use the device. We spoke with two as they began their night-long wait.

At an AT&T store in downtown Baltimore, which saw early morning lines form before last year's nighttime iPhone launch, was preparing for big crowds. Shortly after the close of the store at 8pm, plastic posts and chains were being setup to guide the expected line.

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Yahoo has announced that it will be offering ad-subsidized versions of popular casual games for download, and anticipates as many as 400 will be available by the end of the year.

Yahoo Games prominently features games with unlimited free trial versions as well as for-pay downloads. Today, the company announced it will be adding free, ad-supported versions of those downloads.

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A court in the country has ruled that Internet users who are victims of Wi-Fi theft cannot be held responsible for illegal P2P activity if it occurs as a result of that incident.

The development could lend support to efforts elsewhere to clear victims of any liability when it comes to copyright infringement. The argument that router owners are indeed liable, has been used by Davenport Lyons in its work with the industry in the UK.

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Best Buy announced this week that the Samsung Instinct from Sprint has become the retailer's best selling handset of the last two years, apparently outselling all 95 other phones the retailer carries.

It's quite an understandable feat, though, since Best Buy is the device's exclusive non-Sprint retail provider.

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With beta tests of WiMAX in Baltimore/Washington and Chicago under way, Clearwire is now conducting a test in Portland, Oregon, and preparing commercial deployments in Las Vegas, Atlanta, and Grand Rapids for 2009, BetaNews has learned.

Clearwire is readying WiMAX wireless deployments in four more US cities this year which will use equipment from Motorola, said Jeff Orr, a senior analyst with the Maravedis market research firm, during an e-mail Q&A with BetaNews this week.

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Known locally as "the iPod tax," the Japanese government has been pushing for the levy since at least 2005. But now it appears as if the idea will be permanently shelved.

A tax of anywhere from 1 to 3 percent of the total media player purchase price would be tacked onto purchases. The measure is similar to proposals in Canada and elsewhere, where levies or taxes are used to compensate for losses due to piracy.

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A study released today shows 15.6 percent of mobile Internet subscribers use the mobile Web -- the highest penetration of any country. With 40 million users, the firm believes the mobile Web has reached 'critical mass' for mobile ads.

Mobile Web usage expanded from 22.6 million users to 40 million here in the US since 2006. There is room for much growth: as many as 95 million may be paying for mobile Web services but not using them.

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Rumors are rapidly being substantiated as the launch date approaches: A price reduction is evidently being planned for the 20 GB Xbox 360, which looks like it'll go on sale this Sunday, July 13, with a price tag of $299.99.

Leaks from Best Buy, K-Mart, and Gamestop have all provided similar information: the Xbox 360 Pro retailing for $349.99 in the United States will experience a $50 drop in price in time for Microsoft's Monday E3 press conference.

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The compromise legislation will enable a court to decide on a case-by-case basis whether telcos that cooperated with the US government will be granted immunity from prosecution. Prominent Democrats were among those voting for the compromise.

By a final vote of 69 - 28, with three senators not voting, the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 passed the US Senate yesterday afternoon. With all three major amendments offered to the bill having been soundly defeated, the provision enabling a FISA court to grant immunity from prosecution to telecommunications companies that may have participated in surveillance activities in the wake of 9/11, remained intact.

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To help make more of a dent in the Google-dominated search and ad markets, Yahoo is rolling out an initiative that will open the door wider to its search service, but mainly for developers and ISVs willing to host Yahoo ads on their sites.

"BOSS [Build Your Own Search Service]...is an API to tap into Yahoo's prized search infrastructure. It allows developers, start-ups, and established consumer Internet companies to leverage the power of Yahoo," contends a BOSS API Guide newly posted on Yahoo's developers site.

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Now that the iTunes App Store is officially open, BetaNews has pushed aside the dozens of card games and social network companion programs to look at those apps that best take advantage of the iPhone's capabilities.

A viral video which was immensely popular not long ago featured two iPhones and a Nintendo DS creating improvised ambient music, the first "iBand." Of several apps available adding to the quiver of instruments for the budding iMusician, the most comprehensive is Band from Moocowmusic. This app offers touchable drums, piano, guitar, bass, and even applause which can be recorded, mixed and sequenced into full songs. This $9.99 app is already among the top ten most downloaded.

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Okay, I'll admit it. The iPhone makes me giddy with excitement. It's been a year since I first opened its box, feeling like a boy on Christmas morning. Looking at the 2.0 firmware file on my Desktop, all those feelings came rushing back. Except this time around, the software is what I'm most interested in.

This day has been promised by Steve Jobs for over 6 months, and the global release of the iPhone 3G ensured that the new firmware and App Store would be available to US consumers one day early. A direct link to the iPhone 2.0 software, not yet officially available, has enabled early adopters to test out the newly opened platform and the third-party applications it brings with it.

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The status code for the ISO's publication of OXML as an international standard has been on hold since four countries appealed the outcome of a ballot resolution meeting. That roadblock may now be lifted as soon as next month.

A spokesperson for the International Organization for Standardization confirmed this morning that, should the recommendations of the ISO Secretary-General and the International Engineering Consortium be agreed upon, the process of publishing the already approved Open XML document format suite as ISO/IEC 29500 will resume where it left off.

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The carrier has sued by several consumers nationwide over its early termination fees. While VZW admits no wrongdoing, this week's payout settles those cases.

A total of $21 million would be split among the plaintiffs and cover attorney's fees. In addition, it would cap the amount that Verizon Wireless would have to pay to settle individual early termination fee (ETF) claims.

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