Up to now, when photonics have been used in silicon-based alternatives to electrical semiconductors, loose electrons altering the refractive index of the silicon have prevented high speeds. Now Intel engineers claim they've found a way around the problem, perhaps eliminating a principal obstacle to the development of optical interconnects at hundreds of gigabits per second and beyond.

The typical reason engineers like to design devices with as many components as possible on a single board seems obvious: Separate the components into separate parts, and you'd need to engineer some way for the parts to communicate with one another. Technically speaking, intra-system networking has been a feasibility for several years, but the latencies it would introduce are certainly measurable.

Continue reading →

Apple posted another strong quarter of revenues, with record profits that nearly doubled over the year ago quarter, as well as setting a new record for quarterly Mac shipments.

1,764,000 Macs were shipped during the company's fiscal third quarter, up a third over the year ago quarter and 150,000 more than its previous record. iPods were also up 21 percent to 9,815,000 units sold during the quarter.

Continue reading →

Microsoft's in-game advertising subsidiary Massive said Wednesday that it had penned a deal with Electronic Arts to place its ads in several popular games. Titles included in the deal are Madden NFL 08 and Tiger Woods PGA Tour 08 for Xbox 360 and PC, as well as NASCAR 08, NHL 08, and SKATE for the Xbox 360.

Massive will bring dynamic ads into each of the EA titles and allow for advertisers to keep their ad presence in games fresh and relevant. "The addition of EA's leading titles to our network represents a tremendous opportunity for brands targeting the youth demographic and sends a clear message that in-game advertising has arrived as a compelling medium for marketers," Massive CEO Cory Van Arsdale remarked.

Continue reading →

Following a deal last August in which Microsoft agreed to handle all ad sales for popular social networking site Facebook, the Redmond company has signed a similar agreement with social news site Digg. Microsoft is working hard to establish itself in the ad industry, but faces stiff competition from Google.

Few details are known at this point, although Digg creator Kevin Rose says it's "similar to the one Facebook signed with Microsoft last year." This means that Digg will turn over control the site's advertising exclusively to Microsoft and its adCenter platform.

Continue reading →

Blizzard's massively multiplayer online role-playing game World of Warcraft now counts a subscriber base of over 9 million, more than the population of New York City, the company announced Tuesday. The virtual world has become so popular that it has remained a top-seller since its debut in November 2004.

The "Burning Crusade" expansion for World of Warcraft sold 3.5 million copies in its first month, and is preparing to bring the add-on to mainland China where it expects to add even more subscribers. World of Warcraft is offered in seven languages and is played around the world in North America, Europe, Australia and Asia.

Continue reading →

The British government Tuesday refused to endorse an effort to change the copyrights on sound recordings to last at least 70 years, a move that has critics claiming the UK isn't supporting their artists. Currently, individuals can receive royalties for 50 years after the date a song was released.

United States artists receive copyright protection for 95 years, while Australian law dictates 70 years. The British government would have had to convince the European Union Commission to increase copyright expiration, but it said such a change would not benefit most artists and would incur additional costs. Representatives from British music industry groups said they would continue to push the EU directly on the issue.

Continue reading →

The Electronic Frontier Foundation is defending a Pennsylvania mother whose YouTube video of her daughter dancing in her kitchen to a Prince song during the last Super Bowl halftime show, was yanked in response to a fair use complaint. Ms. Stephanie Lenz is suing Universal Music Group, with EFF's assistance, demanding reparations.

The basis of Lenz' suit, filed yesterday in US District Court for Northern California, is that her 29-second portrayal of her daughter dancing to Prince's "Let's Go Crazy" constituted "a self-evident non-infringing fair use under 17 U.S.C. [section] 107."

Continue reading →

The problem of sex offenders on MySpace now appears to be much larger than the company initially suggested.

The social networking site said earlier this week that it had deleted 29,000 sex offender profiles, far more than the 7,000 it had initially said it found in May of this year. The site holds about 180 million profiles.

Continue reading →

Nintendo continued to impress investors, posting another solid quarter thanks to strong Wii sales. Its strength was apparent in recent surveys that show during the month of June, the Wii outsold the PS3 by 4 to 1 and the Xbox by 2 to 1 in the US market. In Japan, where Sony is traditionally strong, the numbers were even better. The Wii managed to outsell the PS3 there by a 6 to 1 margin.

Nintendo's profits skyrocketed to 80.3 billion yen ($669 million USD) from 15.6 ($129 million USD) in the year-ago quarter. Such strong results have led Nintendo to raise its full year profit forecast to 245 billion yen from 174.3 billion yen. Altogether, Nintendo has sold 9.3 million Wii consoles worldwide, and may soon overtake Xbox 360 for the lead in sales. Microsoft has sold about 11 million units worldwide, according to reports.

Continue reading →

Earlier this week, the InterNational Committee for Information Technology Standards (INCITS - despite its name, a US technical advisory group for ANSI) confirmed what BetaNews reported a week ago: A two-thirds majority has yet to be reached among the committee's V1 technical review board, with regard to whether Microsoft's Office Open XML suite of formats should be recommended for approval to its Executive Board.

That approval would be a next critical step towards OOXML being officially recommended by the US delegation to the International Standards Organization, which is currently considering OOXML for worldwide adoption. For the Executive Board to recommend it, the V1 committee must approve it first. Though unofficial reports say more voting members currently approve than disapprove, INCITS requires a two-thirds majority vote of V1 members.

Continue reading →

The fate of XM CEO and co-founder Hugh Panero was finally revealed late Tuesday as the satellite radio company said he would be leaving the company in August. No reasons were given for his departure. Nate Davis, currently XM president and Chief Operating Officer, will serve as interim CEO. Panero had no position in the proposed merger of XM and Sirius, leading some to question his future with XM and the combined company.

Sirius CEO Mel Karmazin will serve as the new CEO, and XM's Chairman Gary Parsons will become the chairman of XM/Sirius. The deal is still awaiting regulatory approval, however both sides have repeatedly said that they expect the merger to close by the end of the year.

Continue reading →

On July 10, engineers at Secunia issued a security advisory, rated "Highly Critical," warning Firefox users that their browser could be tricked into executing arbitrary JavaScript code. Soon afterward, Mozilla developers issued a statement saying the problem was caused by Internet Explorer, which could trick Firefox into executing that code. This morning, Mozilla security chief Window Snyder had to issue a retraction, stating Firefox could just as easily trick Firefox into doing the same thing.

The problem was first discovered by security engineer Thor Larholm, who gained recognition last month for having discovered a security hole in Apple's Safari for Windows pre-release two hours after having first obtained it. This time, Larholm reported his discovery as an "Internet Explorer 0day Exploit," by virtue of the fact that IE was the attack vector he originally discovered.

Continue reading →

Russian authorities are seeking jail time for Denis Kvasov, the owner of AllofMP3.com, along with paying restitution to EMI, Warner, and Universal. Kvasov could face up to three years in prison, plus fines of 15 million rubles ($590,000 USD) if the courts rule in the prosecutors' favor. AllofMP3 closed last month after Russian authorities clamped down on the site.

It's not clear, however, if AllofMP3 is completely out of business. Mediaservices launched a new site, MP3Sparks.com, which is essentially identical to that of AllofMP3. Russia has a vested interest in seeing AllofMP3 shut down: its entry into the World Trade Organization was predicated on cracking down on piracy. The site was even mentioned specifically in the list of milestones that the country would have to meet in order to be allowed into the trade body.

Continue reading →

After a plethora of user-submitted videos that served as fuel for the banter among the eight Democratic presidential candidates at yesterday's CNN/YouTube political debate at the Citadel in South Carolina, the unasked question today remains this: Is it really a debate?

Granted, the task of situating eight candidates together for a two-hour political spectacle is in itself a logistical nightmare. In the interest of fairness, time has to be precisely allocated. Thus, producers measure the intervals they allot for candidates' responses in seconds rather than minutes. That fact alone prompts candidates to practice appropriate, attention-grabbing responses to questions well ahead of time. Spontaneity typically languishes after having been encapsulated within sound bites.

Continue reading →

Microsoft will announce Thursday morning the release of Visual Studio 2008 Beta 2. According to Scott Guthrie, the general manager of Microsoft's Developer Division, the release will be nearly feature complete and will likely be the last major release before the product is released to manufacturing in preparation for its launch on February 27, 2008.

Beta 1 of Visual Studio 2008 -- code-named "Orcas" -- was released in April, and brings with it features aimed at development for Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008. Version 3.5 of the .NET Framework will accompany the release. "VS 2008 and .NET 3.5 Beta 2 (which will be out later this week) are pretty much feature complete," said Guthrie. "We'll do some small features additions/chanegs based on new feedback on Beta 2, but 99% of the features are all there."

Continue reading →