Apple strengthens its position in PC market in February

Data from NPD Group indicates that Macs accounted for about one out of every eight computers sold during the month of February in the US.

Apple garnered a 14 percent unit share during the month, a 60 percent year-over-year increase. Apple also took a quarter of all dollar revenues during February, NPD says. This higher percentage of dollar sales is due to Apple's generally higher prices than its competitors.

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Yahoo fights Microsoft buyout with its own three-year plan

Despite analyst predictions that a Microsoft buyout is inevitable, Yahoo today aimed to drive up shareholder opposition by unveiling a three-year financial plan of independence. This while Yahoo continues to find new revenue sources.

This week, Yahoo has been busy demonstrating it has the most valuable destination on the Web, in an effort to prove the company can -- and should -- stand on its own. This morning, Yahoo followed up that proof with a three-year financial plan for nearly doubling its operating cash flow and generating $8.8 billion in revenue in 2010.

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Dish Network satellite failure hurts HD rollout; TiVo suit reopened

In a major blow to the struggling satellite TV provider, a new EchoStar satellite destined to expand the HD lineup of Dish Network failed to reach proper orbit over the weekend. Meanwhile, the company asked a judge to rehear its patent dispute with TiVo.

HD is the new competitive battleground, as cable, satellite and IPTV operators vie to attract more customers by offering the most high-definition channels. Most companies, including Dish Network, are playing catch-up to DirecTV, which has over 90 HD channels.

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Apple introduces Safari 3.1, with some HTML 5 support

Apple on Tuesday released version 3.1 of its Safari Web browser for both Windows and Mac. The incremental update does little in the way of introducing new features, although the company is using it to usher in the next generation of Web standards.

Safari 3.1 is the first browser to support some of the features of HTML 5, the new standard that was released in January. That update to the base coding of the Web includes new video and audio tags, which allow for built-in support of media without proprietary technology.

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Guilty: Prolific spammer says he didn't file tax returns

A man dubbed the "king of spam" pleaded guilty last Friday to federal charges of mail and wire fraud, aggravated identity theft, and tax evasion, not to mention sending millions of pieces of spam over a four-year period.

Seattle resident Robert Soloway, the owner of Newport Internet Marketing Corp. (NIMC) pleaded guilty in the U.S. District Court in Seattle. In 2005, Soloway made $309,725 in revenue, but did not file an income tax return.

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WWW creator speaks against usage tracking

Sir Tim Berners-Lee, who is credited with inventing the World-Wide Web (the concept of hypertext documents being readable through a browser) recently spoke to the BBC voicing his opposition to ISPs tracking user habits.

Berners-Lee thinks each user's browser history is property of the user, and if a company wants to use that information in the creation of, for example, customized advertisements, that needs to be negotiated with the user directly. The user needs to understand how others can benefit from his information.

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Iomega considers revised buyout offer from EMC

After receiving an unsolicited and "inferior" buyout proposal from data storage company EMC, Iomega promptly dismissed it. Now the company has upgraded its offer, and Iomega is reconsidering.

EMC's original offer amounted to roughly $178 million, which Iomega felt was an undervaluation of the company. Today's offer to buy out all outstanding shares in Iomega amounts to roughly $205.5 million.

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Nokia sponsors a contest for Xbox Live theme builders

Disruptive Media Publishers today announced a Nokia-sponsored Content Creation Challenge aimed at giving artists the opportunity to have their work offered through the Microsoft Xbox Live Marketplace.

Disruptive Media is best known to gamers as a company created to market photos and themes to the main demographic of young, male gamers who play the Xbox 360 online.

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Six-core Intel processors coming this year

Advancing its architecture at what most independent observers would now agree is a breakneck pace, Intel offered further details today on how soon it would begin phasing out the Core Microarchitecture it introduced in the summer of 2006.

With the second phase of its 45 nm generation microprocessors -- what it calls "tock," using a metaphor that drives rival AMD mad -- Intel will move to a processor design that utilizes scalable cores, from two all the way to eight, it will introduce another new microarchitecture for processing instructions, and it will phase out the front-side bus as a component of its architecture. We've known these facts based on bits and pieces of information compiled from Intel hints over the past six months. Now we know this as absolute fact, confirmed by senior vice president Pat Gelsinger during a special presentation this morning.

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Virtual nightclub launches a private beta for 'VIPs'

A 3D world that lets users mingle in nightclubs, beaches and yachts is currently in private beta with an expected launch date of two weeks.

Created by Stable Media and the Wyndstorm Corporation, RipLounge is a free 3D world aimed at users between the ages of 25 and 40, while letting users communicate via chat, web phone and video. The two companies behind RipLounge are in the advertising business, where 25-54 is the most desired demographic.

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'P4P' could double P2P transfer speeds

In results unveiled Friday at DCIA's P2P Market Conference in New York City, P4P technology was shown to enhance download rates by 205 percent over unmanaged P2P downloads.

NEW YORK CITY (BetaNews) - After achieving much faster than usual download and data delivery rates in a field trial with Verizon and Pando, the P4P Working Group is now looking at doing trials with other ISPs and P2P network providers, said Haiyong Xie, a Working Group member who is also a Ph.D. student at Yale.

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Microsoft attempts to put positive spin on Xbox 360 sales

With 360 sales lagging behind its competitors, Microsoft is stressing the strength of its games and accessories market as evidence that there is nothing to worry about.

For the second month in a row, Xbox 360 sales according to NPD Group fell below those of the Wii and PS3 in February. About 432,000 Wii's were sold, and 280,800 PS3s. During the month, Microsoft only managed to sell about 254,600 consoles.

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Apple updates AirPort Express to support 802.11n

The company's tiny wireless base station has been updated with technology to support the high speed connectivity standard, as earlier rumored.

Apple enthusiast sites including AppleInsider began hinting at a possible release of a new version of Airport Express over the weekend. The overall design of the player has not changed much, nor has the price -- it remains at $99.

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Microsoft eyes a meaner, 'greener' P2P for Windows 7

Windows Vista already includes a P2P-enabling technology known as Teredo. But for the forthcoming Windows 7, Microsoft is contemplating adding such features as metered connections, distributed hash tables, and something called 'green P2P.'

NEW YORK CITY (BetaNews) - For the Xbox 360 game Halo 3, P2P technology is "key to the whole experience," said See-Mong Tan, Microsoft's director for P2P networking. Now, Tan tells us, the company is pursuing more options that could bring new legitimacy to a technology that is still berated today for its heritage in anonymous file-sharing.

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China blocks YouTube, Google News amid Tibet protests

Censors in China blocked access to YouTube and Google News on Sunday, along with other news outlets carrying images and video of protests in Tibet, which turned violent late last week.

The communist government frequently tries to control what information its citizens can access, particularly on sensitive topics such as the autonomy of Tibet. But with over 210 million Internet users in China, that job has become vastly more difficult than when the government sought to suppress reports on the Tiananmen Square protests and massacre in 1989.

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