New legislation could lead to ISP throttling ban
Comcast's response yesterday to its public thrashing by the FCC may have had a second, more important, purpose: A prominent Congressman has introduced legislation paving the way for a ban on Internet throttling.
In the midst of an already overflowing legislative calendar, Rep. Ed Markey (D - Mass.), who chairs the House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet, introduced a bill yesterday whose end result could be the illegalization of throttling of bandwidth to certain customers by Internet service providers.
RIM blames Monday's BlackBerry outage on a faulty upgrade
Monday's three-hour BlackBerry e-mail outage now has an official excuse from Research In Motion: a software upgrade in its main servers gone horribly wrong.
This explanation should be familiar, as it is the same one BlackBerry users received for a previous outage last April. Since RIM only issues public statements regarding outages upon specific request, according to the New York Times, details of this incident are characteristically vague.
Micron's next two-megapixel handset SoC has a 0.2" footprint
Boise-based Micron today introduced a .2" system-on-a-chip with 2-megapixel imaging capabilities at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.
The MT9D113 system-on-a-chip (SoC) utilizes a 1.75-micron pixel design, with Micron's trademarked DigitalClarity light sensor technology, and surface fit lens correction to allow a camera measuring only 6.5 x 6.5 millimeters to be built upon it. A device of that size would yield video of 15 frames per second (fps) at full resolution, and 30 fps in viewfinder mode.
iSuppli: Samsung leads LCD TV Sales in 4Q
Analysis of the LCD TV market by electronics analyst firm iSuppli confirms earlier findings that established brands have vaulted ahead of upstart Vizio, making a return to the top of the charts in the fourth quarter.
But two analysts' firms have differing opinions on the breakdown. In the results of a survey from DisplaySearch, Sony took number one at 12.8%, while Samsung followed closely behind at 12.3%. iSuppli's data showed a more substantial lead for Samsung at 14.2%, followed by Sony at 12.5%.
Yahoo's 1,000 layoffs begin, along with a possible rush to Google
Even before Microsoft offered its buyout bid, Yahoo acknowledged plans to lay off about 1,000 workers. Now, those layoffs are under way, regardless of Microsoft's acquisition hopes, with pink slips being handed to the leaders of Brickhouse and Yahoo Personals, among others.
The head of Yahoo's Advanced Technology Division, Bradley Horowitz, has accepted a job with Google, signaling the possible start of a rush of Yahoo employees to the company's main rival.
Mobile phone chipset gets DivX certification
Continuing its meandering process of certifying as many devices in the "three screens" market (PC, TV, mobile) that it can, DivX has announced a partnership with Korea's Mtekvision semiconductor company, certifying one of that company's processors for mobile devices.
The MtekVision MV8722, part of the company's "Maple" family of processors will allow playback of DivX video at resolutions up to 720x400 pixels.
Sprint, Motorola team on Nextel first responder interoperability
The two companies announced a solution Wednesday that lets safety personnel talk to each other through its public safety radios and Nextel phones.
Both are framing it in the context of September 11th, which showed how vulnerable the nation's emergency communications infrastructure was. By allowing those with Nextel walkie-talkie cellular phones to talk directly to those with public safety radios, an important hurdle is cleared.
XDepth aims to bring High Dynamic Range to JPG imagery
Although it is apparently not officially sanctioned by the JPEG Group, XDepth is touting its own platform as an extension to the commonly-used picture format.
The technology, developed by Costa Rica-based Trellis, is said to add high-depth and high dynamic range to JPEG. The technology can be used through a plug-in being made available for Adobe Photoshop at no charge.
NVidia closes the deal with Ageia
GPU manufacturer NVidia has successfully acquired physics processor maker Ageia Technologies, in a deal announced last week. The new parent told BetaNews today it could add PhysX technology into future GeForce GPU products as soon as possible.
"We're really excited about the future of physics and Ageia," NVidia Public Relations spokesperson Derek Perez told BetaNews. "We hope adding more physics technology into GeForce will impact the way virtual worlds look and behave, thus helping to drive the end user experience."
New Phoenix BIOS will run Linux apps when Windows fails
California-based Phoenix Technologies has announced its plan to develop an embedded Linux-based bypass system that will allow users to run some productivity applications even if the main OS has failed.
Linux is already gaining some ground as an embedded operating system. So now Phoenix, which made its name as the core provider of BIOS for PCs, is working with several partners to leverage embedded Linux as a bypass operating system.
Analysts: Yahoo must now accept buyout bid if Microsoft raises price
A chorus of Wall Street analysts are urging Yahoo to take the deal, now that it's clear no other buyers are really emerging. But they're also saying it's time for Microsoft to raise its original offer for Yahoo in order to make it happen.
With Yahoo's other options on the wane, top Wall Street analysts including Yahoo's second-biggest investor are now warning Yahoo to accept Microsoft's buyout offer, if Microsoft is willing to raise it by just enough.
DirecTV profits and growth feel pinch of slowing economy
The nation's largest satellite television provider saw its net profit shrink by two percent and customer growth remained flat.
Regardless of those results, the company is managing to hold strongly on to customers, posting a 1.42 percent average monthly churn, its lowest turnover rate in eight years.
Senate passes surveillance reform, re-inserts telco immunity
In his State of the Union address last month, President Bush said he would sign no extension to existing surveillance laws that did not grant telcos immunity for having cooperated in the past. Today, the President got his wish.
In a move almost certain to set up a showdown between US House and Senate lawmakers in conference committee, by a vote of 68 - 29, the Senate yesterday afternoon passed the House's version of a bill granting limited warrantless surveillance powers to US intelligence and justice officials, but only after re-inserting a clause whose deletion was critical to its passage in the House: The clause grants immunity to telecommunications companies who cooperated with the government in the past in foreign intelligence operations.
Play.com to open MP3 store in the UK
Mozilla releases Firefox 3.0 Beta 3, adds several features
The Mozilla organization on Tuesday posted Beta 3 of Firefox 3.0, for Windows, Macintosh, and Linux platforms. The beta's release notes are indicating substantial progress on new and so far unseen features.
BetaNews has yet to make extensive tests of Beta 3, though a check of the release notes indicates that this may be the build where a number of critical and long-awaited new features actually get tested for the first time.
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