Latest Technology News

Just two days after the House version of a sweeping patent reform bill passed the US House of Representatives by a voice vote - meaning the supporters were obviously louder than the opponents - the bill as reported to the Senate swept through the Judiciary Committee, most likely with very few amendments.

One of the bill's chief provisions changes US Code to increase the burden on those raising challenges to previously issued patents who wish to argue willful infringement.

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Ask.com will soon give its users the option to decide whether or not their search history is retained by the site.

Called AskEraser, the feature can be turned off and on, and its status is indicated on all search results pages. The move comes in response to increasing consumer concern over how search engines retain user data.

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Google has said that it will commit to spending at least $4.6 billion in the upcoming 700MHz wireless auction if the FCC commits to greater competition and consumer choice as a requirement for using the spectrum.

Television broadcasters will vacate the frequencies in early 2009 when the switch from analog to digital television takes place. It is considered highly valuable spectrum as the characteristics of the frequencies allow signals to travel at long distances.

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Microsoft said Thursday that it had surpassed $50 billion in annual revenue, while saying quarterly profits were up seven percent on brisk Vista sales.

For the quarter ending June 30, 2007, the company posted a net income of $3.06 billion, up from $2.83 billion a year ago. Profits would have been much higher, but its $1.06 billion charge-off for Xbox warranties cut into the company's profits.

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Firefox continues to grow in Europe, with the browser share now approaching 30 percent. Meanwhile, Internet Explorer has gone below 70 percent.

According to data released Wednesday by XiTi Monitor, 27.8 percent of Web users now surf with Firefox, up nearly 4 percent from March. Slovenia holds the browser's highest market share at 47.9 percent, followed closely by Finland at 45.4 percent.

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As one VoIP provider is laid to rest, another is born. Ooma today launched its long-awaited Internet-based telephone offering for consumers. While the company is entering into a crowded market, Ooma is hoping to entice customers with a promising offer: free domestic calls for life.

Compared to Vonage and other providers, Ooma's offer may seem too good to be true - and there is a small catch. In order to join the service, you must cough up $399 USD for the Ooma hardware, which requires a broadband connection. The device plugs into a standard phone and includes answering machine functionality.

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Both IDC and Gartner reported worldwide shipments of PCs were up strongly in the second quarter, thanks to surge in demand in the Far East and surprisingly brisk sales in the US.

IDC said that shipments were up 12.5 percent to 58.8 million units, while Gartner said 61.1 million PCs were shipped, resulting in 11.7 percent increase. The methodology used differs from company to company, resulting in the different figures.

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Harry Potter publisher Scholastic has gone to court in an attempt to plug the increasing amount of online leaks ahead of Friday's release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. On the online side, the publisher has filed suit against several peer-to-peer sharing sites and DeepDiscount.com, which had apparently already mailed out its copies of the book, the Los Angeles Times reports.

Approximately 1,200 books are said to have made it to customers' hands early, Scholastic said. In addition to the books being mailed out early, pirated versions of the book were said to be available for download through BitTorrent sites. J.K. Rowling, author of the book, begged those that have received the book early to keep it secret. "In a very short time, you will know EVERYTHING!" a note on her Web site read.

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Following reports that Microsoft would deliver a beta of Windows Vista Service Pack 1 this week, well before the originally-stated November date, the company has taken the unusual step of issuing a statement to quell any expectation, saying no changes have been made to the release timeframe.

The first news of a Vista SP1 beta arriving this week came from Microsoft watcher Mary Jo Foley, who cited sources that said a release would be made to a group of select testers. Although Foley never specified how widespread the beta would be, and never characterized it as a public release, the news quickly circled the Web.

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Google is finding itself increasingly having to explain its planned acquisition of DoubleClick, and is now being asked to testify in September as part of a broader Congressional inquiry into advertising industry consolidation.

The Senate Judiciary Committee plans to hold hearings in September, and the House Commerce Subcommittee on consumer protection will question the two companies in the fall, focusing more on privacy concerns.

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After expanding the service to a handful of AdWords advertisers in May, Google on Wednesday officially made its Print Ads offering available to hundreds of thousands of companies, adding more newspapers to the list of where ads can appear.

Google began testing print advertisements last November with 50 newspapers. That number has grown to 225 and a combined circulation of 30 million. Any advertiser that has a Google AdWords account can now select which publications they'd like to appear in, with costs starting at $100 per week. While many have been skeptical as to how well online text links would translate into print, Google says the response has been positive for both advertiser and publisher.

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Sprint will work with fellow WiMax provider Clearwire on building its national "4G" network, the two companies said on Thursday.

The deal includes a roaming agreement between the two companies, and will lessen the strain on Sprint to quickly cover a large portion of the country. Sprint will focus on major markets, while Clearwire will build out in the smaller ones.

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Following news that Internet telephone provider SunRocket was shutting down its business effective immediately, the company's former competitors have swooped in to pick up customers left out in the cold. Vonage is offering two months of free service, while 8x8 and Unified Communications were picked as "preferred" providers for SunRocket users.

Those who switch to 8x8's Packet8 service won't have to pay the typical $100 activation fee, while Unified is offering a $12.95 special rate for its Teleband service. As part of being a "preferred" service provider, both companies will pay a fee to SunRocket creditors for every customer that switches. Smaller VoIP companies such as VoicePulse are also trying to gain a few customers from SunRocket's 200,000-strong user base.

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Toshiba is recalling 5,100 laptop batteries sold around the world after three instances of the batteries catching fire, two in Japan and one in Australia. Affected batteries were manufactured by Sony in December 2005 for Toshiba's Dynabook, Dynabook Satellite, Satellite and Tecra lines.

The computer maker said the batteries in question were not part of last year's massive recall of Sony batteries, which affected over 10 million units shipped by Dell, Lenovo, Apple and Sony itself. The problems are caused by metal particles falling into a battery during production, causing it to short circuit. Toshiba previously recalled 340,000 batteries, and the latest recall follows one from Gateway last month.

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Wal-Mart began selling $298 PCs from Everex on Wednesday that use Windows Vista, are free of so-called "bloatware" and feature open source software.

The system features a 1.5GHz Via C7-D processor, which contains energy-saving features. Instead of using Microsoft's Office suite, the system ships with OpenOffice.org version 2.2.

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