Fourteen states' attorneys general join opposition to XM + Sirius
If the merger must go through, a group of states' legal leaders now contend, then at the very least, the FCC could mandate that the merged Sirius publish its specifications for interoperable receivers as open source.
In a phone conference July 1 with US Federal Communications Commissioner Deborah Taylor Tate, representatives of fourteen states' attorney generals' offices, including the attorneys general of Tennessee and Connecticut, collectively voiced their opposition to the merger of Sirius and XM satellite radio recently approved by the Justice Dept. And in a filing with the FCC Thursday, the Tennessee A-G's office states they questioned the DOJ's logic that compelling or forcing the merged parties to develop a standard for interoperable radios would be anti-competitive.
After dumping German plant, Nokia to pitch in on 'Growth for Bochum'
Although Nokia has now made a financial concession to Bochum, Germany worth well over $30 million USD, the city will still be left without its main source of income, after Nokia pulls up stakes and moves its factory to Romania.
Through an initiative announced July 3, Nokia will contribute 20 million euros -- the current equivalent of 31.4 million US dollars -- to help fund a new program rather ironically entitled "Growth for Bochum."
Mozilla: Firefox is our RIA platform
"This is where we think the future of the Internet is going -- you can start to see these applications breaking out of the confines of the browser space, and try to move onto the desktop," a key Mozilla engineer told BetaNews.
The term "rich Internet application" is almost becoming a misnomer; there truly is no worthy Internet application that, in at least some respect, isn't rich. The original idea of "richness" was in describing a function that justifies the use of technology above and beyond what is typically used for laying out HTML Web pages. Any more, if you're using AJAX, Flash (especially with Adobe's AIR), or Microsoft's Silverlight to develop your application, you've automatically crossed into the zone of "rich."
British film board ready to review video games for younger audiences
The agency responsible for classifying movies in the UK wants more power to review and pass judgment on video games intended for younger audiences, and is answering critics who claim it would create a monumental bureaucracy.
The British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) currently reviews 250 to 300 game titles, 500 to 600 movies, and at least 10,000 DVDs per year. Although movies are watched from start to finish, only the first five hours of a video game is played, with reviewers often times using cheat codes so material in later levels can be reviewed.
Report: Third-generation Toyota Prius to sport solar panels
When Toyota's popular hybrid gets a makeover in 2010, the car will now harness the power of the sun to operate its own air conditioning.
The first Priuses shipped in 1997 in Japan, and worldwide in 2000. Toyota last redesigned the car in 2003 to make it quicker and more efficient, and automotive analysts have widely expected another revision to come soon with additional enhancements.
Nokia's adds cloud-based file-sharing service to Ovi
Nokia's Ovi portal has added a fifth service called Files, offering subscription-based cloud storage for exchanging files between PCs and mobile devices.
Ovi launched with three services: Nokia's reborn N-Gage mobile gaming platform, Nokia maps, and a music store that is currently available in 10 countries (UK, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Singapore, Australia, France, Sweden, Spain). The service then grew with the addition of Share, the document-sharing service (still in beta) originally developed by startup Twango.
Telus hopes to provide an alternative to high-priced iPhone in Canada
Canada's top wireless mobile phone service provider plans to offer the HTC Touch Diamond phone to its customers later this summer, which will mark the North American premiere of this model.
Telus hopes its so-called "iPhone killer" will be able to help the company compete with Rogers and its 3G iPhone, expected to be released later this week.
How's that again? Gartner revamps its Q1 server revenue data
HP didn't push IBM off the top spot in worldwide server revenues after all, according to Gartner. In revised statistics issued by the analyst firm late last week, the firm cut its overall server revenue numbers for the Q1 almost in half.
For Q1 of 2008, worldwide server revenues increased by only 2.5 percent, instead of the 4.3 percent originally announced in May, according to a statement issued by the Gartner.
Fix for free anti-virus generating fake traffic
The freeware version of Antivirus software AVG 8 was released with a feature called LinkScanner at the end of May that was found to create massive amounts of fake traffic, enraging webmasters, and skewing site rankings.
Download AVG Anti-Virus Free 8.0.138a1332 from FileForum now.
It's a date: Small Business Server 2008, EBS 2008 set for November 12
Windows for networks had its roots in small business. But with Windows Server for enterprises shipping since last February, Microsoft's SMB bundles will finally be ready to ship nine months later.
This morning, a Microsoft spokesperson informed BetaNews that the final release date for its Small Business Server 2008 and Essential Business Server 2008 operating system bundles -- based on Windows Server 2008 -- is November 12. That's a little later than was thought back in February, when the company launched Windows Server 2008.
Report claims Apple not happy with Rogers, carrier disagrees
A blogger says sources within Rogers are saying the Cupertino company is punishing the carrier over its meager iPhone plans, although the carrier says nothing's changed.
Canadian consumers are also up in arms: over 44,000 have signed a online petition on RuinediPhone.com demanding better plans from the company.
Google adds privacy link, avoids trouble
On Google's main page, one of the few places on the Internet where a dearth of content is beneficial, it's easy to notice when a single word changes, especially when it's one as hot as "privacy."
Where it once said "©2008 Google" at the bottom of the page, it now says "©2008 - Privacy." The change was announced on Thursday before the Independence day holiday as a word-for-word identical passage in blogs by Marissa Mayer Search Products and User Experience Vice President and Pablo Chavez, Senior Policy Council.
Microsoft is open to Yahoo deal with Icahn's board, not Yang's
Sometimes it takes a grown-up's help to cut a steak into easily digestible, bite-sized pieces. This morning, it looks like Microsoft wouldn't be ashamed to have Carl Icahn do the honors, if it means getting Yahoo out of its way.
In an open letter to Yahoo shareholders this morning, the facts of which Microsoft subsequently acknowledged, investor Carl Icahn stated he has recently met with Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, and that Ballmer expressed interest in a partial or whole transaction with Yahoo should Icahn be successful in replacing its current board of directors with his alternate slate.
Pioneer to demo optical discs with 400 GB capacities
The Japanese electronics company says it has successfully developed a optical disc which includes 16 layers of data.
Each layer would be capable of containing 25 gigabytes, meaning the disc could hold 400 gigabytes of data in total. Such high capacities would prove beneficial to those content providers that offer multi-volume titles presently.
Apple cuts price of MacBook Air with SSD by $500
About six months after launching the MacBook Air at Macworld San Francisco in January, Apple has now cut the price of the top-of-the-line edition of its thin and light notebook by $500.
The deluxe model of the MacBook Air -- which comes with a miniaturized version of the 1.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor and a 64 GB solid state drive (SSD) -- has now been reduced in price from $3,098 to $2,598. Meanwhile, the price of the base model -- which uses a 1.6 GHz flavor of the same processor -- is still $1,799.
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