NEC is offering the remedy to an issue which causes its computers to smoke and smell as if plastic is burning.

NEC says the defect was caused by a design flaw. Wiring installed too close to the main part of the computer causes the wiring to apparently melt, emitting smoke and the smell of burning plastic. In certain cases, the display is also affected.

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Although there have already been public betas of Microsoft's new relational database, most notably one launched last February, the latest release candidate lets you reliably test the development environment's most critical new feature.

Download Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Release Candidate 0 from FileForum now.

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Disney Entertainment has begun streaming full-length movies on its Web site immediately following their airing on ABC television this summer

ABC is a part of Disney's entertainment and news television properties, and will air a different Disney film every Saturday night during the summer, on "The Wonderful World of Disney." That's nice for slumber parties and kids who get to stay up late, but as some parents have noted, even 11:00 pm Eastern time is past many young viewers' bedtimes.

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Time Warner Cable now plans to boost its high-def TV line-up to 100 channels by the end of 2008 in New York City, its COO said. Yet elsewhere -- including Los Angeles, where it's currently being sued -- it has no similar plans.

Speaking at the Deutsche Bank Media & Telecommunications conference this week, Time Warner Cable COO Landel Hobbs said that, by the end of this year, his company will almost double its current HDTV capacity in New York, in addition to launching two other services in that city by then: Start Over and "price-lock guarantee."

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An agreement first signed in 2004 called for Sony and Bertelsmann music groups to continue their joint venture Sony BMG through 2009. Now media reports indicate Bertelsmann is ready to exit early.

Indications that the German publishing giant was about to sell first appeared in The New York Times a week ago. Another report appeared in the German paper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) on Tuesday, citing unnamed sources. This morning, German broadcaster Deutsche Welle reported Bertelsmann's interest in a sale as a verified fact.

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With search and social networking sites vying hard for developers' attention, AIM Money -- an incentive launched today -- is giving developers a cut of the action on ad revenues derived from their AIM-based applications.

"AIM Money is a new revenue-share platform that allows you to make money from ad views generated in your Open AIM application. The more ads displayed, the more money you make. It's that simple. There are no fees to participate, and monthly payments are issued only via PayPal," according to a blurb posted on a new AIM Money page.

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Don't expect the next version of Cupertino's operating system to be anything new. However, it will focus on performance and quality, to "lay the foundation" for the future.

Apple's popular "I'm a Mac; I'm a PC" commercials have recently made light of the perceived stability and unreliability of Vista. So the coming release of Mac OS X 10.6, code-named "Snow Leopard," could theoretically put Apple at risk for the same brand of criticism.

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EMI has withdrawn from the RIAA complaint against XM Satellite Radio over the Pioneer Inno, an XM receiver that allows users to record the satellite service directly to MP3 or WMA.

The RIAA's suit, filed in May 2006, alleged the Pioneer Inno was a device built for the express purpose of copyright infringement, and asked for huge reparations for every song that users copied.

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Users of a classified ad service running on Windows Live, called Expo, began receiving on-screen notices last week that the service will cease to exist on July 31, and that no new applications for accounts are being taken.

As far back as November 2005, Microsoft had major plans to develop an online marketplace for individual advertisers, based around a regular -- if not particularly innovative -- API. The plan there was to create a new channel for the influx of users to Windows Live services, including Messenger, in light of the very sudden rise to popularity of services such as Craigslist -- services that newspaper chains believe are threatening their very existence, by usurping one of their principal revenue streams.

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Among the changes in AT&T's updated deal with Apple are the end of revenue sharing and special plans for the iPhone, as well as a new requirement for phones be activated in-store.

The carrier, while confirming it will maintain its exclusive rights to the iPhone 3G, also confirmed Monday that it will no longer share revenues with Apple. Instead, as was rumored, the cost of the phone will be subsidized by AT&T.

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Today AOL opened a new version of radio.aol.com, with CBS terrestrial radio stations now available through a dramatically revised front console.

AOL Radio offers over 200 free online radio stations and 150 local CBS Radio affiliate stations. When users tune into an AOL Radio station, an "album view" image is shown in the main window, offering more information on the artist, song, and album on AOL Music. Certain tracks have "Buy" icons that link to download shops such as iTunes for purchase.

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Europe's legislator and administrator for competition suggested this morning that free enterprise alone -- letting markets decide standards -- may not be an effective means of ensuring interoperability, and that penalties should apply.

During a panel discussion this morning in Brussels, which included European legislators and minor heads of state, European Commissioner for Competition Neelie Kroes took a very hard line stance in favor of open standards in software, going so far as to propose the consideration of new legislation that would actually mandate their use by "dominant players" in order for their software to be sold in Europe.

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While Amazon is not disclosing what exactly caused its site to fail for two hours on Friday, the world's largest online retailer may find its problem comes from the site design itself.

Amazon.com first failed around 1:25 pm EDT on Friday. For a two-hour period, customers attempting to access the site were greeted with an error message. Once the site began to return, portions of Amazon remained largely inaccessible.

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Though unofficial news leaked this morning, this afternoon, independent sources are acknowledging a new fact: A computer made with IBM Cell and AMD Opteron processors can process a thousand trillion operations per second.

This afternoon, the itinerary of the International Supercomputing Conference in Dresden was officially altered to make way for a special panel, acknowledging what the US Department of Energy had announced a few hours earlier: Its Roadrunner supercomputer, built by IBM as a unique hybrid of Cell BE and AMD Opteron processors, has recorded an official throughput speed above one quadrillion floating point operations per second -- one petaflop.

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AR Communications Senior Vice President Carmi Levy sits down with BetaNews' Ed Oswald to make sense of Apple's announcements at WWDC 2008. In the first of two parts, the enterprise and data features of the iPhone are discussed.

Ed Oswald, BetaNews: Carmi, thanks for taking the time to help us sort through the news today. It's been a big day for Apple, especially when it comes to the distribution. What do you make of that?

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