Latest Technology News

A new search service available for Sprint Wireless users claims to be able to retrieve information about anything they can take a picture of.

After users send a photo to [email protected], the Thrrum MMS Search will send search results back to their phone that pertain to what's in the picture, especially if that picture contains something textual. 23half also designed the service so users can take pictures of book covers, product labels, printed material, and train schedules; the system can respond with extended information about what it finds.

France's Cultural Minister Christine Albanel introduced a bill to discourage the consumption of pirated media, under the threat of revoking the perpetrator's Internet access. Yesterday, that bill was approved by the Council of Ministers.

In addition to establishing the creation of a new state agency to be called HADOPI (High Authority for Copyright Protection and Dissemination of Works on the Internet), the "key measure" of Albanel's project is the three-strikes policy (or riposte graduée, lit. "gradual response") it will impose upon illegal downloaders.

A new draft of foreign intelligence legislation to be debated tomorrow could give the President what he's been seeking: acknowledgment of his authority to declare US telcos immune from prosecution for aiding anti-terrorism investigations.

Multiple news sources in Washington are reporting that a deal has been worked out between House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D - Md.) and the White House, on compromise language for legislation regarding a hardening of federal law regarding warrantless surveillance. Though drafts of this compromise language have yet to be made public, it's widely believed that a mechanism may be put in place for US telecommunications companies to eventually be granted immunity for having cooperated with the White House in anti-terrorism investigations since 9/11/2001, which may have been contrary to US law at the time.

Bowing to end user pressure, Microsoft has admitted a change of heart with regard to a decision it announced in April, to discontinue authorization for music downloaded through its old MSN Music service.

Those who downloaded music through that service will now have three more years -- instead of a little over two more months -- to get license keys for authorizing their music downloads, or authorizing new computers and devices for playing that music.

During a Webcast to employees yesterday, Hewlett-Packard's print division chief Vyomesh Joshi announced that the division will soon undergo restructuring to consolidate five business units into three.

The parts of the company which will will feel these "disruptive" changes, according to spokespeople, will include the LaserJet and Commercial Printer units, and the inkjet (DeskJet) and consumer supplies units, which will become two new units of the company.

With hundreds of millions of user names already tapped out, Yahoo has now decided to add two more domains -- ymail.com and rocketmail.com -- to its e-mail addresses for Web users.

Sign-ups for the new e-mail addresses will probably commence later today, BetaNews has learned.

Sources told Australian IT Thursday that Telstra will offer the iPhone 3G, making it the third carrier to do so in the country.

Telstra is Australia's biggest 3G carrier with over 2 million customers. It has a little over 9 million subscribers overall, according to a company fact sheet.

Late Tuesday, Sprint Nextel filed for an extension in its relinquishment of portions of the 800 MHz spectrum which will be used for public safety purposes.

The FCC's original plan for rebranding the 800 MHz spectrum dates back to 2004, when the Commission initiated practices to "remedy the interference problem" in this band occurring between Cellular architecture systems and "high-site non-cellular systems" used by public safety agencies (19 F.C.C.R. 14,969, 14,972).

Download OpenSUSE 11.0 GM from FileForum now.

One of the closest-knit of the many Linux communities is trumpeting the public release of its latest distribution, whose functional and graphical features may give it some powerful value propositions compared to Windows Vista.

Continuing its dominance in the music industry, iTunes has passed yet another milestone in its storied history.

With the number of iPods and iPhones increasing ever more rapidly, sales on iTunes have followed a similar path, and have also been accelerating as well.

A group of researchers collaborating on behalf of security firm TippingPoint has claimed it has written a report concerning a "critical vulnerability" in the just-released Firefox 3.0, and has presented that report to the Mozilla organization.

The nature of the vulnerability has not been publicly released, and TippingPoint states its policy is to notify the vendor first.

Verizon will double its speeds across its entire fiber-based Internet footprint, with promised speeds topping out at 50 Mbps.

Customers in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and Florida already had a 20 Mbps symmetrical option as well as a 50 Mbps download / 20 Mbps upload option.

Download Flock 2.0 for Windows Beta 1 from FileForum now.

Even though the official release of Mozilla Firefox 3.0 was stealing all of the headlines, social Web browser Flock was quietly preparing the rollout of its first beta of version 2.0.

Download Firefox 3.0 Final Release for Windows from FileForum now.

The early estimates from the Mozilla organization show its servers (when they were up and running) cranked out enough bytes to cover 11.07 million downloads of Firefox 3.0, and were registering as many as 283 downloads per second.

A slimmer version of Samsung's series of optical disc drives, due next July, will connect directly to digital cameras and will enable faster burns of multimedia content than internal PC drives, the manufacturer told BetaNews today.

NEW YORK CITY (BetaNews) -- In an interview with BetaNews during an invitees-only press event here today, Richard Aguilera, Samsung's national sales manager for optical storage, told us that the company's next round of external TruDirect drives (model SE-T084M) will let consumers burn videos, photos, and music in a fraction of the time it would take for them to burn content onto a PC's hard drive.