Nokia Leads Effort to Standardize Flash Memory
Nokia has joined forces with competitors Samsung and Sony Ericsson as well as memory chip makers Micron, Spansion, STMicroelectronics, and Texas Instruments to promote a single flash storage technology for mobile phones. Called Universal Flash Storage, the companies want to eliminate the need for various adaptors to read the multitude of different types of media now available.
While the standard is still in development, a final version is expected in 2009. It is hoped to provide a higher degree of performance and reliability than the formats currently available. "The proliferating use of flash memory as a storage medium underscores the importance of introducing a universal connectivity to memory cards where high performance and reliability are critical," Samsung president Jon Kang said in a statement.
Kyocera Close To Acquiring Sanyo Cell Biz
Kyocera is apparently close to acquiring Sanyo's mobile phone unit, which would render it the world's seventh largest phone manufacturer.
Separately, Kyocera was the 10th largest and Sanyo the 11th largest in the world. The deal will also make Kyocera a bigger brand in the US, due to Sanyo's strong relationship with Sprint Nextel.
Experts Astonished to Learn Windows Update Updates Itself
A Microsoft program manager found himself conducting a tricky bit of PR yesterday, providing for his team's blog a lengthy explanation of a documented feature in Windows that independent researchers discovered only this week: the ability for the Windows Update service to update itself, even when the user's setting for Automatic Updates is "off." Researchers had charged the company with updating software on users' systems without their consent.
"Windows Update is a service that primarily delivers updates to Windows," the Update service's program manager Nate Clinton wrote yesterday. "To ensure on-going service reliability and operation, we must also update and enhance the Windows Update service itself, including its client side software. These upgrades are important if we are to maintain the quality of the service."
Prince Sues YouTube, eBay, and Pirate Bay
Pop star Prince said Thursday that he plans to sue social video site YouTube, online auction site eBay, and file trading site Pirate Bay in an attempt to reign in piracy of his work on the Internet. On a statement on his Web site, Prince said that while YouTube was already filtering out pornography, it was not filtering music and film content because it "is core to their business success." The move is somewhat surprising, considering Prince has had a history of challenging the music industry and its business practices.
Prince is working with British company Web Sheriff to assist in having the offending material removed. So far, it has successfully had about 2,000 unauthorized videos of Prince removed, however it said that new content is constantly appearing on the site. It had also removed about 300 items from eBay. "Prince strongly believes artists as the creators and owners of their music need to reclaim their art," the statement read.
Toshiba: DVD Forum Hasn't Yet Approved Final 51 GB HD DVD After All
In a statement to BetaNews this afternoon, a Toshiba spokesperson said that only a preliminary version of Toshiba's 51 GB three-layer, single-sided HD DVD format had been approved by the DVD Forum, caretaker of HD DVD.
As it turned out, and as Toshiba's spokespersons may have only just now realized, the DVD Forum signed off on a preliminary specification, which may have been confused for the final specification because its version number is 1.9.
Sony to Sell Only BD-R Recorders in Japan, Will Not Drop DVD-R
As Sony made official yesterday, the company plans to release four new Blu-ray Disc recorders in Japan on November 8, all of which will be capable of recording to dual-layer (50 GB) BD-R and BD-RE (erasable, re-recordable) discs. But a statement by the company's vice president for consumer electronics, Katsumi Ihara, was mistaken by US press sources in its translation to English as saying that the company plans to drop support for red-laser DVD-R recording, in all recordable consoles sold in Japan after November.
The Japanese Agencies press service translated Ihara's statement as follows: "We plan to make all our recorders in the domestic market Blu-ray compatible in future, allowing consumers to record high-definition programs over a longer period." Asian news sources interpreted the statement to mean that after November, Sony's recordable consoles will no longer be DVD-R only.
UK iPhone Announcement Expected
Apple has began sending out invitations to members of the UK press on Thursday, as it planned to hold an event at its flagship store in London on Regents Street next week. In typical Apple fashion, few details were given in the invitation other than the tagline "Mum's no longer the word." Speculation is rampant, with most analysts expecting the Cupertino company to announce its UK carrier for the iPhone.
It is expected that O2 will be the carrier of the much-hyped device, although representatives for the company would not comment to the press on any plans. There is the slight possibly that the announcement may have nothing to do with the iPhone at all and is rather about an iTunes announcement such as the adding of the Beatles catalog. However, such announcements will likely happen in a venue other than an Apple store.
Google Shoots for the Moon With New Contest
Google said Thursday that it would award a $20 million prize to the first group able to safely land a robotic rover on the moon and transfer back a gigabyte of video and data successfully to Earth.
The Mountain View, Calif. search company partnered with the people behind the X Prize, which is the group that offered $10 million to build the first private, manned spacecraft to make it successfully into space.
Virgin America Taps AirCell for In-flight 'Net
Virgin America said Thursday that it had reached an agreement with AirCell to bring wireless broadband to its planes beginning some time next year.
The airline announced at launch in August that it will eventually provide wireless broadband Internet to its passengers, but had given no date as to its availability. The Internet will either be accessible via the wireless network or through the in-flight entertainment systems at each seat.
Cell Phone Study Finds No Short-Term Health Risks
A six-year study into the health risks from cellular phones in the UK indicates that while there are no short-term risks to health from phone usage, it is too early to say what long-term effects it may have.
The study, conducted by the Mobile Telecommunications and Health Research (MTHR) Program, was the largest of its kind in the UK. It found that there was no substantial change in brain function or higher incidence of brain cancer correlative to the use of mobile phones.
New Zealand: China's Spying On Us, Too
China is once again being blamed for cyberattacks on a foreign country, with New Zealand secret service officials saying the Chinese were behind an attack on its systems. The country's prime minister Helen Clark said in a press conference Wednesday that no classified information had been compromised, however she did say foreign-government spies were behind the attack. Clark added that the government knew who was the source, but wouldn't elaborate.
However, like the US case, a government official identified the source of the hack through the media. In an interview with The Dominion Post, Security Intelligence Service director Warren Tucker hinted that the Communist country was behind it. If true, and China was behind the attack, New Zealand becomes the fourth known target of Chinese government hackers behind the US, UK, and Germany.
Exploit Discovered Impacting QuickTime, Firefox on Windows XP
A London security analyst working with the open source group GNUCitizen has discovered a potentially serious exploit that could affect users of the Firefox browser and Apple's QuickTime movie and music player - especially iTunes customers - on Windows XP-based machines. BetaNews tested and verified the severity of the exploit.
As early as one year ago, as Petko D. Petkov wrote yesterday, he discovered that JavaScript code appearing in the <EMBED> tag of an HTML file could launch a new Web browser instance, feeding it any kind of default code that isn't checked before being executed.
Phone Manufacturers Get Broadcom Patent Reprieve
While upholding a ban on importing Qualcomm chips themselves into the US, an appeals court judge stayed the ban for individual phone manufacturers to continue shipping their phones here.
T-Mobile USA and AT&T joined five manufacturers in appealing the decision, which was handed down by the US International Trade Commission in June, and upheld by the White House in August. Sprint Nextel was missing from the decision, although the court's ruling also covered them as well.
Microsoft Debuts Mouse With Built-In Flash Memory
Microsoft thinks it has the answer for your USB slot shortage on your notebook - by combining a mouse with a flash memory card.
The Microsoft Mobile Memory Mouse 8000 includes 1 GB of storage in its transceiver. In addition, the same USB port is able to charge the mouse as well using a magnetic charger.
Vista SP1 to Remove 'Search-MS' as Default Protocol
In a Knowledgebase advisory to developers today, Microsoft is urging developers for Windows Vista who intend for their programs to run under Service Pack 1 not to assume the default search protocol being used by the system is Microsoft's. This after over a year in which Microsoft spokespersons have maintained, under a rain of criticism from search competitor Google, that Vista's and Internet Explorer 7's search facilities were already manufacturer-agnostic.
"If you develop an application that is meant to use or meant to build upon a specific desktop search application, you should not depend only on the search protocol," reads KB941946, released today. "Because many applications may own the search protocol, you cannot guarantee that the targeted desktop search application owns the search protocol at any time. Instead, use a private search protocol that is defined by the targeted desktop search application."
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