Paramount Pictures, MGM, and Lionsgate have formed a joint venture that will plan to distribute a premium television channel as well as a video-on-demand service.

The group project could fundamentally change the current status of premium cable television, where a third-party would sign deals to distribute content through its network rather than the studios directly.

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Maintaining its free computer-to-computer video, voice, and instant messaging, peer to peer telephone company Skype announced today an "unlimited" €8.95 monthly calling plan for connecting to international cell and landlines.

"Unlimited" is a bit of a misnomer, as the plans are limited to 10,000 minutes per month, which Skype equates to more than 5 hours a day, but the flat fee allows users to call any of 34 countries.

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Making an AMD-like play for the cost-conscious computer enthusiast, Western Digital has found a way to release what should be a laptop drive, but repackaged for the desktop builder at what could be perceived as a respectable price.

Typically the notion that smaller is faster applies to the microprocessor realm, but today, hard drive manufacturer Western Digital is demonstrating that notion applies to storage as well. This week, WD is premiering its first 10,000 rpm enthusiast-class hard drive; and to accomplish its transfer speed, rather than try to rev up a conventional 3.5" form factor, it's taking a 2.5" HDD and encasing it in a 3.5" form factor heat sink.

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It is the type of vulnerability that Microsoft wanted to head off as long as possible, especially since Windows Vista's new kernel was designed to thwart this possibility.

Now, as the company acknowledged in a security bulletin yesterday, a malicious program running as a local or network service can leverage another local or network service running in the same system, to elevate its own privilege and potentially cause damage.

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The newly reorganized Motorola phone manufacturing company, soon to be spun off, will undergo a radical realignment that eliminates the bureaucratic barrier between software and hardware divisions, according to a company memo.

To get Motorola ready for a planned spinoff of its mobile phone business, Motorola CEO Greg Brown issued a memo to employees outlining a reorganization into new product and "Go to Market" (GTM) teams, also announcing the names of execs in new roles, including those of leaders of the new "Mass Market" and "Mid and High Tier" product groups.

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Yesterday, a supplier of Linux for driving time critical applications -- such as intercepting ballistic missiles -- released RedHawk Linux 5.1, its latest "real-time" operating system distribution.

Concurrent is a Linux distributor specializing in real-time technologies that can be utilized by some very serious businesses. For example, Concurrent is the key supplier of RedHawk Linux for the US Navy's Aegis cruisers, which are equipped with anti-air, anti-surface, and anti-submarine weapons systems.

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The mess surrounding Facebook's Beacon service is still claiming victims: a Texas woman has sued Blockbuster over its involvement.

Cathryn Harris sued the movie rental chain on April 9 in US District Court for the Eastern District of Texas. Harris claims that by sharing her rental information with Facebook, the company ran afoul of the Video Privacy Protection Act of 1988. Even after Facebook users opt out, she contends, their information is still being sent on to the Web site.

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A provision to a tax reform bill offered by Rep. Sam Johnson (R - Texas) aims to remove the requirement that employees keep track of their cellular phone usage for tax purposes.

In an earlier day, when cellular phones were lugged in briefcases, their use was recorded by the minute. It was also more expensive, so businesses didn't really use cell phones all that often; and as a result, tracking cell phone usage was considerably easier. Thus the IRS compelled businesses to track usage of these devices in order that they may calculate deductions.

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In the never ending video console war, Microsoft's Xbox 360 has now stepped back ahead of Sony's PlayStation 3 in terms of unit sales, says a new study by the leading industry analyst group on the subject.

But both platforms got outperformed by Nintendo's Wii and the portable Nintendo DS and Sony PlayStation Portable, within a total US video game market that reached a $1.7 billion milestone in March.

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Computer maker Dell and the US Environmental Protection Agency have a computer recycling event tentatively scheduled for this weekend in the metropolitan Washington, DC area.

Recycling service TechTurn and the National Recycling Coalition also are involved in the event, which will take place for five hours at Freedom Plaza on Sunday, April 20.

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After having exited the travel business once before by spinning off Expedia, the Redmond company appears to stepping back in by scooping up a Washington-based startup.

Farecast is not exactly like Expedia, or other travel sites for that matter. Instead it essentially provides forecasts of whether fares would rise or fall on a specific route. From there, it provides a recommendation of whether to buy the ticket now or wait.

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The long road to writing with black ink again may at last be coming to an end, said AMD's chief executives yesterday. But that depends on more than a handful of factors boding well, including Opteron CPUs suddenly giving it no more trouble.

There may yet be light at the end of AMD's dark tunnel, its chief executives tried to reassure analysts during its quarterly conference call yesterday afternoon. That light will start to shine in the second quarter, and could be pretty bright by the third quarter.

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With $5.9 billion in first quarter 2008 revenues -- a whopping 42 percent gain over the same period in 2007 -- Google is enjoying a wave of success at a time when a lot of other stocks are tanking.

"It's clear to us that we're well positioned for 2008 and beyond, regardless of the business environment we're in," acknowledged Google CEO Eric Schmidt, in a conference call with financial analysts yesterday. "It's also interesting to note that paid clicks growth is much higher than has been speculated by third parties."

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Electronic Arts said Friday that it would extend the expiration date of its $2 billion takeover offer of Take-Two buy about one month. The deal was originally scheduled to expire on Friday.

However, the Federal Trade Commission said Thursday that it was opening up a second line of inquiry on the merger, and so far Take-Two has rebuffed EA's offer. Now, the deal will expire on May 16.

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Mixing technical concerns with a truckload of business issues, Red Hat has stealthily acknowledged slipping its deadline for Red Hat Global Desktop (RHGD), which might have given it an edge against Novell's competing SuSE Linux.

Unlike the existing Red Hat Enterprise Desktop (RHED), the planned RHGD is aimed exclusively at small, reseller supplied implementations in emerging geographic areas such as Brazil, China, and India. Red Hat also sponsors a community project called Fedora, which develops and maintains a free desktop product.

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