Latest Technology News

In a somewhat successful marketing ploy that shows Google has indeed learned something from Steve Jobs after all, the company lifted the veil on what was anticipated to be a cell phone with Google's logo on it. Instead, it's a software platform, which should not have been a surprise from a company that's in the business of making software platforms. What's more, it's an open source Linux kernel for cross-branded third-party apps...that omits the Google brand.

"Android is the first truly open and comprehensive platform for mobile devices," stated Google's director of mobile platforms, Andy Rubin, in a blog post this morning. "It includes an operating system, user-interface and applications - all of the software to run a mobile phone, but without the proprietary obstacles that have hindered mobile innovation."

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MySpace and Facebook have both been devising new advertising platforms, and MySpace's platform, SelfServe, will be officially announced just one day ahead of the rumored announcement of Facebook's SocialAds.

Similar to Google AdWords but geared toward display ads, SelfServe allows advertisers to analyze ad performance throughout the MySpace network and then create ads accordingly. Advertisers may buy space for as little as $10 USD, and payment is made when someone clicks on the advertiser's profile. There will be a fixed cost per click based on the category, but will eventually, like Google Adwords, become auction based.

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At the TechEd conference in Barcelona earlier this morning European time, Microsoft developer division corporate vice president S. Somasegar told attendees to expect the final Visual Studio 2008 to be shipped sometime in late November 2007. Since it is now early November 2007, that gives the company a pretty narrow RTM window.

But the "marketing launch" for the product is described as being set for February 2008, which means all the big parties will be delayed until after the holidays. Microsoft may have chosen to follow a Vista-like rollout model, making the next edition of its development suite available to volume license customers and MSDN subscribers first. The company had already slated a rollout party for SQL Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 for February, and VS 2008's contribution to the champagne will apparently wait until then.

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Microsoft said Monday that the first product under the Windows Home Server line, HP's MediaSmart Server, is now available for pre-order and will be released later this month.

Pre-orders will be taken on the Web sites: Amazon, Best Buy, Buy.com. Circuit City and CompUSA. Shipping and availability through other retailers occurs later this month.

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Nintendo has reportedly decided to stop all repairs of the original Nintendo after 24 years of support, Agence France Presse reported on Friday. A spokesperson said that the company has decided to end support due to increasingly short supplies of replacement parts. The iconic game system was sold as the Nintendo Entertainment System in the US and Europe, and as the Famicom in Japan.

Nintendo's Ken Toyoda said that while the company is sad to turn its back on the NES, the company wanted its legions of loyal fans to focus on the Wii, currently the best selling next-generation console worldwide. Nexgenwars.com, a tracker of game console sales, says the Wii has shipped 12.26 million consoles, compared to 12.2 million for the Xbox 360 and nearly 5.08 million for the PS3.

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Mozilla and Microsoft are in the midst of a squabble over the future of JavaScript, with each side accusing the other of actions which could end up "breaking the Web."

The two companies each have their own respective versions of the common programming language that is used across the web: Mozilla backs ECMAScript, while Microsoft pushes its own JScript.

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In a sign that peer-to-peer file sharing is still thriving in a post-Kazaa world, popular BitTorrent site Mininova has reached a milestone 3 billion downloads. With a reported 3 million daily visitors and almost 10 million torrents downloaded a day, the site has shown tremendous growth over the almost three years it has existed.

The site's blog says there were hopes of reaching 4 billion downloads this year, but that goal will take another few months to reach. Due to the loopholes that .torrent files fit through, sites like Mininova can thrive and actually become desirable locations for advertisers. Ask.com, eHarmony, and Howard Johnson hotels all currently have ads running on Mininova despite the obvious illegal filesharing that takes place around the site.

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In a gamble that is certain to receive stiff opposition from both sides of the aisle, Reps. Gene Green (D - Texas) and Mike Conaway (R - Texas) offered to the floor of the House of Representatives yesterday a draft resolution opposing the imposition of royalties on terrestrial radio broadcasters for the use of sound recordings.

"For more than 80 years, Congress has rejected repeated calls by the recording industry to impose a performance fee on local radio stations for simply playing music on the radio and upsetting the mutually beneficial relationship between local radio and the recording industry," reads one clause of the draft for House Concurrent Resolution 244, which thus far has garnered 50 co-sponsors.

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Seagate will settle a lawsuit over its definition of a gigabyte by giving customers the choice of either a cash refund or free backup and recovery software.

The hard drive maker was sued in 2005 by Michael Lazar and Sarah Cho, who accused the company of misleading consumers as to how much storage space Seagate hard drives contained.

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In yet another price drop for HD DVD, Best Buy and Circuit City are now offering Toshiba's latest third-generation A3 player for $199, $100 off the original price. Although the older A2 player can be picked up for $98 while supplies last at a number of retail outlets, the A3 has only been out for one month, making the sale quite a surprise.

Further enhancing the $199 deal, the A3 includes 7 free HD DVDs - two of which can be selected instantly and another 5 sent via mail-in offer. Sears previously announced plans to sell the A3 for $169 on just the day after Thanksgiving, but Best Buy and Circuit City's sale doesn't appear to be limited, and units are in stock online and at stores. Blu-ray plans to offer discounts for the holidays as well, but Sony Electronics President Stan Glasgow said prices of Blu-ray players will not likely fall below $400.

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Without an official CEO to succeed Gary Forsee, Sprint is weighing options regarding the rollout of its planned national WiMAX network.

The company has reportedly been in talks since July with a wireless start-up called Clearwire about working together to build a nationwide WiMAX network. No official agreements have yet been made, and given Sprint's current state of administrative flux, they will likely continue unresolved; at least until a new CEO is in place.

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Comcast may soon find itself in hot water with the FCC after several public interest groups and legal professors from Yale, Harvard, and Stanford filed a network neutrality complaint against the company.

Listed as complainants are: Free Press, Public Knowledge, Media Access Project, Consumer Federation of America, Consumers Union, the Information Society Project at Yale Law School, Charles Nesson of Harvard Law School and the Berkman Center for Internet & Society, and Barbara van Schewick of Stanford Law School and the Stanford Center for Internet & Society.

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UPDATE - Friday, 4pm EST - ESRB President Patricia Vance has issued a statement saying Take-Two is not responsible for the latest hack.

"Once numerous changes to the game's code have been made and other unauthorized software programs have been downloaded to the hardware device which circumvent security controls that prevent unauthorized games from being played on that hardware, a player can view unobscured versions of certain violent acts in the game," Vance said. "Contrary to some reports, however, we do not believe these modifications fully restore the product to the version that originally received an AO rating, nor is this a matter of unlocking content."

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"Months after I testified before two House subcommittees on Yahoo's approach to business in China," reads a statement released this morning by Yahoo Senior Vice President and General Counsel Michael Callahan, "I realized Yahoo had additional information about a 2004 order issued by the Chinese government seeking information about a Yahoo China user."

That user was Shi Tao, a Chinese journalist about whom his government sought private information from Yahoo, his Internet service provider. The Chinese government used that information as evidence against Tao, eventually sentencing him to 10 years' imprisonment for divulging state secrets.

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BetaNews has learned that amidst MySpace's move to join Google's OpenSocial community, Microsoft is now in talks with Facebook to integrate Windows Live ID into the quickly growing social network.

Reliable sources tell BetaNews that the two companies have begun talks on integrating login systems following an advertising agreement that gives Microsoft a 1.6 percent stake in Facebook in exchange for $240 million.

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