Latest Technology News

Another episode in the continuing saga of Skype getting better in "the rest of the world" first, UK-based mobile carrier 3 has introduced the Skypephone, the market's first cellular device designed around the free peer-to-peer telephone service.

Skype is ideally suited for those who frequently make international calls, and fans of the service consider it a smart and urbane alternative to shelling out huge sums to a phone company. The wired handsets and WiFi phones of recent past, however, have not exactly meshed with the image of the classy, jet-setting Skype user.

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Oracle said Sunday that it was dropping its effort to acquire BEA Systems over disagreements surrounding the valuation of the company.

BEA had insisted on a valuation of about $8.2 billion, or about $21 per share. This was significantly higher than Oracle's offer of $17 per share, which comes out to about $6.7 billion.

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In a move aimed squarely at reining in the growing "unlocking" market, Apple last week placed new restrictions on the sales of its popular iPhone.

The company estimates about 250,000 of the 1.4 million Phones it has sold since its launch in June have been sold to people who intend to unlock the device. Apparently, the company has some concerns that these sales could hurt availability for legitimate buyers.

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As part of a settlement in a class-action settlement announced over the weekend, customers of Sprint Nextel's CDMA service in California and parts of Florida will be given the code and instructions needed for them to unlock their phones from the Sprint network.

The extent to which Sprint plans to share unlocking code with its customers is in question, however, as different press sources have given conflicting information. BetaNews awaits clarification directly from Sprint representatives on this issue, and we'll give it to you the moment we have it.

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NBC Universal and News Corp.'s long-awaited video service finally went into private beta on Monday, as the company announced two new partners.

Hulu signed on both Sony Pictures Television and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios to offer their programming beside homegrown NBC and Fox content. The service was made to a small group of testers on Monday as well.

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Acer's acquisition of Gateway has had a definite impact on its overall market share, its chairman said Friday, and forecasted the manufacturer would be able to ship 25 percent more computers in 2008. The boost should allow the company to claim an 11 to 12 percent share during the next year. Analysts have said that Acer likely took over the third spot behind HP and Dell from Lenovo following the deal.

Third quarter profits at the company surged 58 percent behind strong demand for its laptops and growth in emerging markets. Acer expects its fourth quarter numbers to be equally as good, as it hasn't seen any slowdown in demand for its products. Fourth quarter shipments of Acer products are expected to be 10 percent above third quarter numbers, the company said in a conference call.

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It was indeed an astounding quarter for Microsoft, with operating income having grown last quarter at an annual rate of 32%. A big part of that growth is attributable to Windows Vista. But does the fact that customers are adopting it truly signal that customers are embracing it? Yesterday, the company's chief financial executives offered some very revealing data.

What recession? Since Chris Liddell's arrival as Microsoft's Chief Financial Officer, the company's timing and execution have been impeccable. He has five business divisions whose books he manages, but the weight of capital expenditures in the revenue of at least two divisions have been more than offset by gains in the other three that help Microsoft to cruise right along.

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Although Windows Vista has been on sale for nearly nine months, Microsoft has yet to seriously market the operating system, letting a certain rival control public mind share on a number of fronts. That's all about to change, as the Redmond company attempts to make Vista more compelling to consumers.

At an event in New York City this week timed to coincide with Apple's launch of Leopard, Microsoft executives invited members of the consumer press from all over the world to see why they should pay attention to -- and write about -- Vista this holiday season.

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The Pirate Bay said Friday that it was working on bringing back OiNK, a BitTorrent tracker that featured music files from "hundreds of thousands" of music albums.

OiNK was taken down on October 23 by police in the Netherlands and Britain in conjunction with the IFPI and BPI, and a message on the site's front page indicates that an investigation was ongoing into the "identities and activities" of its users.

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After an amendment offered by Sen. John Sununu (R - N.H.) made it feasible to extend a four-year extension on the existing ban on Internet-related taxes to seven years, the US Senate yesterday passed the Internet Tax Freedom Act Amendments Act of 2007, reportedly by another overwhelmingly positive vote.

The existing federal moratorium on any state or federal tax on Internet use was set to expire next Thursday, after which time legislators were worried that states could be gearing up to create new broadband usage taxes that could be applied to users' ISP bills.

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Despite its struggles with the PlayStation 3, Sony's PlayStation 2 business continues to press forward, with the company celebrating its seven anniversary Friday by announcing that more than 120 million consoles have been sold worldwide.

This is combined with sales of over two billion software titles, which makes the PS2 the most popular gaming platform ever released. Despite claims that it is cannibalizing PS3 sales, Sony plans to continue development for the PS2 into the next decade.

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Flash memory leader SanDisk has filed patent infringement suits against no fewer than 25 companies in the US International Trade Commission, as well as in Federal Court.

Though public statements have yet to reveal which of SanDisk's over 780 U.S-issued patents (and over 400 foreign-issued patents) the companies are infringing upon, SanDisk says it is enforcing its patents to be fair to third parties who legitimately license from them.

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To coincide with its "Rock Opera" launch party held last night, Opera Software has released the first beta of version 9.5 of its eponymous Web browser. Company developers say hundreds of bugs have been fixed since the first alpha, with speed and compatibility the primary focuses.

New features in version 9.5 include the ability to search the browser's full history, restore closed windows, better UI integration on Mac and Linux, support for Mac OS X's VoiceOver technology, new skins and a revamped Opera Mail client. Download Opera 9.5 Beta from FileForum and tell us what you think.

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Mozilla is working on a new application called "Prism," which will help to blur the line further between applications for the web and the desktop.

Prism lets popular Web services such as GMail and others be used just like a normal desktop application, without a need to open the Web browser. Prism itself will be built on Firefox, meaning any Web technology Firefox supports could also be used within Prism.

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It's another humbling admission that would have been distinctly uncharacteristic of Microsoft just years ago. But this morning, the company's security response communications manager, Bill Sisk, told customers on the MSRC blog that recent "third-party" efforts to plug a potentially serious vulnerability between Internet Explorer 7 and Windows XP can't go far enough to solve the underlying problem.

"Third party applications are currently being used as the vector for attack and customers who have applied the security updates available from these vendors are currently protected," Sisk wrote, alluding to a recent patch from Adobe without referring to the company by name. "However, because the vulnerability mentioned in this advisory is in the Microsoft Windows ShellExecute function, these third party updates do not resolve the vulnerability - they just close an attack vector."

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