Latest Technology News

Europe is looking to gain access to passenger data on American travelers much like the US already does with foreign nationals coming in to the country.

The European Commission is set to announce the proposal this week and is said to be part of the EU's efforts against terrorism. As well as American passengers, it also covera data on any airline passenger flying into the region.

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You know the odds are stacked against you defending your case that you didn't provide false testimony to Congress when the hearing you're invited to attend is entitled, "Yahoo Inc.'s Provision of False Information to Congress." Though official transcripts or video have yet to be made public, based on written testimony entered into the record, it's clear that House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Tom Lantos (D - Calif.) turned the heat up to high in grilling Yahoo's chief attorney Michael Callahan and his boss, CEO Jerry Yang, for what Lantos described as conduct before Congress that warranted an apology to the nation.

"If you think our witnesses today are uncomfortable sitting in this climate-controlled room and accounting for their company's spineless and irresponsible actions," reads Rep. Lantos' prepared opening remarks for this morning, "imagine how life is for Shi Tao, spending ten long years in a Chinese dungeon for exchanging information publicly - exactly what Yahoo claims to support in places like China."

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Sony is about to release a new version of its aging PlayStation 2 console in Japan ahead of the upcoming holiday season.

The new version is lighter than the previous model, and includes a built-in AC adaptor. An older version with an external AC adaptor weighed some 30 ounces: the new model only weighs 25.

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Joost, a free, long-form video service designed to take TV to the desktop, is launching a new version of its platform which appears to be missing a notable feature. Apparently scrapped is Joost's own inline chat client, with the company opting instead to align with Meebo, a cross-platform chat service that supports MSN, Yahoo Messenger, AIM, Google Talk, as well as ICQ and Jabber.

Meebo is natively browser-based, but since Joost typically consumes the whole screen, it will be integrated as a layer atop the application, eliminating the need to switch to the browser. While Meebo seems an odd choice, since Skype was actually co-founded by Joost's founder Niklas Zennström, Joost is separate now, still growing, and has plenty of venture capital to play with.

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Last July, an agreement was reached between Kaleidescape - a manufacturer of a hard-drive-based DVD content copying device for consumers - and a group representing the rights holders for key DVD copy protection provisions. That agreement presumably enabled licensed copies to be burned through services such as Kaleidescape, which themselves would require licenses.

Despite that agreement, and despite a California court decision last April in Kaleidescape's favor, the DVD Copy Control Association will meet tomorrow with representatives of three movie studios to debate whether to amend their existing licenses in such a way that Kaleidescape's service would be disallowed by other means.

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Sony believes that it may be about to have its best holiday season ever in the United States as it is seeing strong demand for TVs, cameras, and computers.

Fears of an uncertain market seem to be unfounded at least for now as American consumers continue to scoop up consumer electronics at a steady clip. In the wake of the sub-prime lending fallout, many manufacturers of consumer goods have feared that consumers would begin to stop spending.

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At a press event in Mumbai, India today, Microsoft announced a partnership with India's Reliance Communications Ltd. to bring IPTV service to the country by March 2008.

Microsoft's work with Reliance, one of Asia's biggest telecommunications companies, has gone on for several years. In fact, the two companies have intended to create an enriched TV network for over five years, but little has come of the partnership thus far.

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Nearly a year after Sun Microsystems first announced it would be releasing a build of Java to the open source community, Red Hat has apparently signed on. In an announcement this morning, the company said it has licensed Sun's Java SE Technology Compatibility Kit (TCK), with the objective to produce an optimized Java for its Enterprise Linux that will drive JBoss applications.

"Red Hat customers will benefit from a highly optimized, accelerated runtime for JBoss Enterprise Middleware in a Linux environment," reads a Red Hat statement this morning.

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Hollywood writers went on strike at midnight Monday, at odds with the producers over several issues which included several disagreements on compensation for so-called "new media" royalties.

The disagreement and strike essentially brings to a halt production on nearly every current television show on the air. Depending on the length of the walkout, it could put network's fall schedules in jeopardy, especially for those which the full season has not yet been written.

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A few hours after Google's dramatic announcement which some sources had still been anticipating as a mobile phone bearing the Google brand, we actually know less about Android than we did -- or thought we did -- at 11:00 this morning when it was announced. During a midday press conference featuring key Google executives including CEO Eric Schmidt, reporters called into question most of the principal facts surrounding the new Open Handset Alliance - most importantly, the ingredients of the Android platform.

"One of the key differences in what we're developing is the reality of it," responded Google's Director of Mobile Platforms, Andy Rubin, to a question Om Malik asked about how handset manufacturers who joined the Alliance will be expected to distinguish their Android-based products from one another. "Within one week's time, this software will be in the hands of developers, and developers will be able to create applications, and those applications will be able to be included in handsets that are available in the second half of 2008."

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Yahoo! has launched Kickstart, a social networking site dedicated to the collegiate and professional world, and also announced FireEagle, a tentatively-named geospatial platform.

Kickstart's social network leans more heavily on the "network" than the "social." Upon initial perusal, one notices Kickstart's almost-identical-to-Facebook signup criteria. But the key difference is how user profiles are presented.

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Although it is out of the jurisdiction of the United States Government, a Canadian ISP's admission that it is using similar tactics as Comcast is likely to keep the debate on net neutrality going.

The admission by Bell Sympatico came through its online forums after a user complained that he was noticing problems with his connection when using peer-to-peer downloading programs.

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Microsoft seems set to debut its newest addition to the Windows Live family, a calendaring application, and is also preparing to bring several Live services out of beta, sources report.

LiveSide.net is reporting that Windows Live Calendar briefly made an appearance on Microsoft's servers, apparently for testing. It's appearance led the site to believe that a release is imminent.

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ESPN said Monday that it had signed a deal with Microsoft to bring some of its programming to Xbox Live, including games and television shows. Some of the content has already appeared on the offering, including several past NCAA college sporting events, the Summer X Games, and hit shows such as the World Series of Poker and Madden Nation.

The move expands ESPN's video distribution beyond iTunes, the only other non-ESPN owned property to sell the network's videos for almost the past two years. Pricing of the TV shows will be roughly the same as iTunes at $2, while HD versions will cost 40 cents more. Sporting events will carry a $1 premium, while HD downloads will cost $4.50, ESPN said.

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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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