Microsoft has offered a glimpse of its upcoming competitor to Google Analytics, which currently goes by the code-name "Gatineau." The service promises to offer features beyond Google's and Beta 1 is expected to go live later this summer.

According to Ian Thomas, who works in Microsoft's Digital Advertising Solutions group, "Beta 1 will include the ability to segment data by both age and gender buckets, so you can get more of an idea of what kind of visitors you have." Thomas says the information is obtained anonymously through cookies, although privacy advocates will surely ask questions when Gatineau launches.

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Palm is seeking Treo smartphone users to help test out a new product that is designed for busy professionals that are constantly on the go and are looking for the best in communications tools. The company won't provide many details, but testers will need to be available for the next 3 to 4 weeks.

The only requirements of the beta are that participants currently use a Treo smartphone and have access to a computer they use for syncing. Palm typically beta tests many of its products before taking them to market, including new Treo phones as well as new software, including updates to Palm OS. Those interested can sign up to join the beta through Centercode.

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Netflix took a double hit on Tuesday, as its Web site outage moved into a second day, and it reported the first quarterly customer losses in its history.

The online rental firm's site had been down since Monday evening due to "unanticipated problems," although the company declined to elaborate on the issue. A message on the site said the company expected the site to return by 4pm Eastern Time Tuesday.

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AOL said Tuesday it had entered into an agreement to acquire Tacoda, a company that specializes in offering behavioral targeted advertising.

Tacoda, which was founded in 2001, will operate as a wholly-owned subsidiary of AOL. It follows the Dulles, Va. based company's acquisition of ad serving company AdTech earlier this year.

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MusicNet, the company that powers the song libraries of Yahoo! Music Unlimited and URGE, said Tuesday that it will make available over 1 million tracks in MP3 format without digital rights management. The move follows Apple offering DRM-free songs in its own AAC format through iTunes.

Like Apple, MusicNet will offer the song catalog of EMI -- the only top record label currently willing to drop DRM requirements -- as well as several leading independent labels including Righteous Babe, Nettwerk, Madacy, Nitro, and others. By using the MP3 format as opposed to Windows Media, MusicNet will enable customers of Yahoo and URGE to transfer their songs to practically any portable media player they choose. Pricing and a specific launch date for the MP3 option has not been set, but MusicNet said it will happen this quarter.

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Although Apple won't announce its quarterly earnings that will include the first two days of iPhone sales until Wednesday, AT&T said Tuesday that it had activated 146,000 iPhones on the 29th and 30th of June, far below analyst expectations.

Initial figures estimated weekend iPhone sales to range from 300,000 to upwards of 700,000 - with the majority falling around 500,000. Unless most activations came Sunday July 1 or Monday July 2, which is unlikely, those lofty expectations were not met. Apple's stock fell 5% in early trading Tuesday due to the news.

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In an interview with Financial Times Deutschland, the president of global #3 PC manufacturer Acer once again conveyed his overall disappointment with the lack of contribution he believes Microsoft's Windows Vista provides to PC sales. Though Gianfranco Lanci's comments were only briefly excerpted, for the first time, Lanci purported to speak not just for Acer but for his competitors as well, telling the paper, "Die gesamte Industrie ist enttäuscht über Windows Vista." ("The entire industry is disappointed with Windows Vista.")

Most likely, Lanci's comments were in Italian and translated into German. But a summary of his explanation by FTD points to two factors, the second being what he characterized as Vista's relative instability and lack of maturity. Lanci and other manufacturers had apparently hoped for a surge in sales comparable to what Windows XP and its predecessors provided.

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Nokia, which has tried to build its own mobile-oriented Web sites like Lifeblog, has acquired media sharing site Twango with the intention of making it easy for Nokia phone users to upload and access photos, videos and other documents.

Twango is similar to Flickr, but supports a variety of multimedia content types and uses "channel" terminology instead of the photo "sets." Nokia hopes users of its fancy N-Series multimedia phones will use the site as their primary social network. It is unclear if Nokia plans to change Twango's branding, although the company says, "As we grow Twango into a global service we may decide on a name that is more suitable."

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The One Laptop Per Child Foundation indicated Monday that it might begin selling a version of the "$100 laptop" it is now producing for educational use. The system would become available by the holiday season for a price of about $350 USD, according to representatives from the company. A commercial version of the laptop has long been talked about, but until now the group had dismissed the idea.

At that price tag, the laptop would cost approximately twice the amount it costs to produce. Although it is not explicitly said, the profits would likely go towards the production of the devices for the educational sector. Initially, the commercial launch of the laptop would be for around 3 million units, with production to begin in October. "Our whole goal is to maximize the number of units shipped," OLPC technology officer Mary Lou Jepsen told Reuters.

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Raids in the southern region of China have exposed a 2 billion dollar global software piracy syndicate, believed to be one of the largest in the world.

The FBI and China's Public Security Bureau led the investigation. Microsoft, as well as its customers and partners, also assisted in providing information, which led to the arrests and confiscation of the software of those involved.

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TiVo on Tuesday confirmed the speculation: it is launching a $299 version of its high-definition digital video recorder that includes much of the same feature set found in its $799 predecessor. The new set-top box, dubbed "TiVo HD," goes on sale in August.

Instead of a 250GB drive, TiVo HD will include 160GB of space, which amounts to 20 hours of HD recording instead of 30 hours, and 180 hours of standard-definition recording as opposed to 280 hours. It also loses the original Series3's OLED display, THX certification, and glossy, backlit remote.

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Three researchers using a handful of tools mostly developed by others over the few weeks since the product's introduction, claim they have successfully cracked the Apple iPhone. In a white paper released today, the group claims it can obtain clandestine, wireless access to any and all files, including personally identifiable information, stored on an iPhone, and it plans to demonstrate how this is done at the BlackHat security conference in Las Vegas next week.

In their white paper, Charlie Miller and two colleagues with the group Independent Security Evaluators give credit to Apple for paying some attention to security architecture, and for reducing the phone's attack surface by refusing to open its operating system to third-party applications.

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Although the official announcement will be made Thursday by John Lam at the O'Reilly Open Source Convention in Portland, Oregon, a Microsoft spokesperson did confirm to BetaNews this afternoon that IronRuby - its .NET-centric version of the open source scripting language Ruby - is now publicly available.

As Microsoft development general manager Scott Guthrie and lead IronRuby developer John Lam both stated on their respective blogs today, IronRuby and its associated libraries will be offered to the collective development organization RubyForge.com, for posting and public contributions next month.

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Some weeks after the European Commission announced it would begin investigating the data retention policies of search engine providers other than Google, following its decision last month to anonymize its data retention logs after 18 months, Microsoft announced that it will adopt a similar policy.

In a statement issued this morning, however, Microsoft said it would give users of Windows Live the option of enabling the company to retain personal data for a longer period.

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RIAA said Monday that it had sent out 408 letters offering to settle with students from 23 universities across the country. The letter offers those who receive it a discounted settlement for staying out of court.

Among the universities receiveing the most letters were the State University of New York at Morrisville with 34; Georgia Tech and Penn State with 31; the University of Central Arkansas with 27, and the University of Delaware with 23.

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