DirecTV said Wednesday that it had signed an agreement with Current Group, which would allow it to offer Internet broadband services via power lines.

The company had indicated in May of this year that it was shopping around for a partner to test out so-called "broadband over power line" (BPL). Current appears to be it; the service will premiere in Dallas later this year or early next year.

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Yesterday, the US-CERT bureau of the Dept. of Homeland Security renewed its warning about the outbreak of "Storm Worm" variants, this time acknowledging what it calls public reports of its renewed spread. Anti-virus companies familiar with these "outbreaks" know there have been a multitude of e-mail worms, each of which is delivered using a different hype-inducing or fun-filled headline.

But these worms typically deposit the same clandestine P2P service in the background of Windows, called wincom32.sys. It's surprisingly easy to detect, and can be found manually through a check of services entries in the Windows System Registry, such as HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\ControlSet001\Services\wincom32.

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A small Mountain View, Calif. based company isn't waiting for EarthLink and Google to iron out contractual details to provide free Wi-Fi in the city of San Francisco.

Meraki would use volunteers who would manage routers themselves to maintain its network, somewhat similar to efforts by Spain's Fon. It would give its routers away for free to those who would agree to maintain them.

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Security firm Symantec has joined up with chip giant Intel to research and develop security solutions built directly into the hardware used by computers. Symantec software would interact directly with the Intel chips at the hardware level, rather than relying on an operating system like Windows.

Integrating security into hardware technology is nothing new, but virtualization is opening the door to more capabilities. The effort, known as "Project Hood" according to Reuters, involves running the software "underneath and alongside" the operating system. The companies are calling the result an "appliance" that can be added to Intel's processor chipsets.

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Along with the release of several other new products, Sirius on Wednesday debuted the Stiletto 2, the second live-reception capable version of its popular portable radio.

Along with the capability to receive Sirius programming in a portable fashion, the Stiletto 2 would also have Wi-Fi capabilities, including the ability to connect to commercial hotspots. The device is scheduled to become available in fall 2007.

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A week after the United States and Canada saw the Xbox 360's price tag slashed to better compete with the PS3 and Nintendo Wii, Australian gamers can buy Microsoft's console for the same price as a Wii. Starting today, the Xbox 360 Core will run A$399.95, down from A$429.95. The Pro model has been lowered from A$649.95 to A$579.95.

By comparison, in Australia the PS3 runs A$1000. Xbox 360 Pro units sold down under will also soon sport the HDMI connection that United States buyers are starting to see. Microsoft plans to bring the new Elite and Halo 3 Special Edition models to Australia as well, but the company did not specify a timeframe for availability.

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It's not because "United States" begins with a later letter of the alphabet, that it lags behind most other countries on the list of those testing and approving global communications standards. By the end of this year, the UK will have two major carriers -- Vodafone Wireless and T-Mobile -- serving broadband customers with new HSUPA capacities, with at least two other carriers set to follow after the start of 2008, according to reports there.

That's not a typo: The "U" in HSUPA refers to uplink capacity. Germany may be leading the world in adoption of so-called "super-3G" technology, with theoretical data uplink rates of 5.76 Mbps, compared to EDGE's phone modem-like speed of 118.4 Kbps. Nokia tried early on to get HSUPA going in the US over two years ago, ironically by leveraging interest in the technology in South America to get a rollout started in North America.

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The company that helped inaugurate the multicore era of CPUs has begun studying the question, will more cores always yield better processing? Or is there a point where the law of diminishing returns takes over? A new tool for developers to take advantage of available resources could help find the answers, and perhaps make 16 cores truly feel more powerful than eight cores.

Two years ago, at the onset of the multicore era, testers examining how simple tasks took advantage of the first CPUs with two on-board logic cores discovered less of a performance boost than they might have expected. For the earliest tests, some were shocked to discover a few tasks actually slowed down under a dual-core scheme.

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Although the library of Beatles music isn't expected to be available digitally until next year, Apple announced Tuesday that it has made available the solo catalog of John Lennon. 16 works from EMI have been posted on iTunes, although all but two were available for purchase on other services previously.

The “Lennon Legend” and “Acoustic” collections are making their digital debut on iTunes, and for the next 30 days, exclusive video content will be included with the albums "John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band," "Sometime in New York City,; "Walls and Bridges," "Milk and Honey" and the collections "Anthology" and "Working Class Hero." All tracks are available in DRM-free form for $1.29 USD per song.

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Microsoft fixed a total of 14 flaws across 9 patches on Tuesday, with six of those patches reaching critical status. While the number of patches is far from the Redmond company's record, this month could prove difficult for administrators.

"This month's Patch Tuesday has headache written all over it," PatchLink's Paul Zimski commented. "Although this is not Microsoft's biggest Patch Tuesday in terms of number of patches, the details of the patches indicate a broad-spectrum of exposure."

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Almost two years ago, Google and Sun Microsystems held a special event to announce a multi-year partnership in which each company would distribute the other's software. Industry analysts issued a collective yawn, and not much has been heard about the agreement since - until now.

Over the weekend, Google quietly added Sun's StarOffice productivity suite -- the software that became OpenOffice.org and is now based upon it -- to Google Pack. The free collection of applications for Windows now numbers 13, and features other programs such as Skype, RealPlayer, Adobe Reader and Spyware Doctor.

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In a revealing test of where the true insecurities may lie in the realm of social online networking, security software company Sophos today revealed it set up a kind of sting operation on Facebook. It created a fake identity around a green plastic frog it named "Freddi Staur," and had Freddi invite 200 real Facebook users to be its friend.

"It's extremely alarming how easy it was to get users to accept Freddi," stated Sophos security analyst Ron O'Brien this morning. Of those Freddi invited, O'Brien reported, 87 responded positively, and 82 gave personal identification data to Freddi's account when asked.

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With QuickBooks having long been available as an online service, it was only a matter of time before Intuit launched a Web based version of its Quicken financial software for consumers. The online version is currently in closed beta testing, but will be expanded on September 10, the company said Tuesday.

Quicken Online largely offers the same user interface as the software, which already relies heavily on HTML. Intuit has seen big success with QuickBooks online, but it's not clear what advantages an online version of Quicken will bring to consumers, since they don't need multiple accounts or remote access like businesses might. Pricing for Quicken Online also has not been set, but more details are expected later this year.

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It's a phrase that's starting to become a part of the typical Microsoft user vernacular: "Just wait until Service Pack 1." When Exchange Server 2007 was released last year, there were a number of key feature implementations that had to wait until a future release. That wait may be nearing its end, as Microsoft is giving Exchange admins a taste of at least some of what they've been asking for since last year, with the pending release of a technology preview of Exchange Server SP1.

While installing a preview release of a full-scale enterprise communications environment sounds like playing with fire, many admins already have virtual network environments already configured from having already tested ES 2007's initial release. There, admins may have set up virtual users in a non-existent domain (for instance, with the non-Internet-translatable ".local" top-level domain), and DNS within a virtual server to resolve those addresses.

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Security software vendor Trend Micro is hosting a two-day beta testing event to help the company prepare its Trend Micro Internet Security 2008 suite for release. Participants will be asked to bring their laptops and use the product over a three hour period, providing feedback and working directly with developers.

The event will be held on August 17 and 18 at The Grand Hotel in Sunnyvale, California. At the end of the day, participants will receive a $200 American Express gift card and Trend Micro gift pack. In addition, the company will send everyone a 1-year free license for TIS 2008. The event is open to Windows XP and Vista users, but space is limited. To sign up, select a time: August 17, 7pm to 10pm; August 18, 9am to 12pm; August 18, 2pm to 5pm.

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