Apple on Friday provided the most in-depth look at the iPhone, one week before the device debuts at AT&T and Apple stores across the United States. A 20-minute guided tour posted to the company's Web site showcases the various features of the iPhone and explains how to use the touch screen.

While the tour doesn't disclose anything major that hasn't been announced, it does provide the first look at the iPhone's usability and innovative features like visual voicemail and SMS text messaging that works like an iChat session. The built-in iPod functionality is also demonstrated, and the included headphones include a microphone as well. According to the video, the iPhone's built in mail client will support Microsoft Office Word and Excel documents.

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When Microsoft's director of its Security Technology Unit Jeffrey Jones previewed a report that was soon to be published about the number of reported and addressed vulnerabilities in Windows Vista over the first six months of its consumer market shelf life, at TechEd in Orlando two weeks ago, the generally confused and negative reaction among attendees who ended up arguing with Jones for most of the session, prompted BetaNews (who was there) to decide that, amid the other news emerging that week, it wasn't worth covering.

The essence of the report is that Windows Vista had a far fewer number of reported security vulnerabilities during its first six months not only than Windows XP after its introduction, as recorded in the US National Vulnerability Database, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 WS, Ubuntu 6.06 Long Term Support Desktop, Novell SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10, and Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger).

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Cablevision stepped up the battle to attract high-definition customers on Friday, saying it would have the capability to carry more than 500 channels of HD programming by the end of this year.

In a surprising move, Voom's 15 HD channels would become Part of Cablevision's offering next Wednesday, making 40 networks available to the company's customers. Voom is owned by DISH Network.

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eBay said Friday that it planned to re-enter the Chinese market this summer, just seven months after it announced its plans to close its own site and hand the reigns over to Beijing-based Tom Online. The site, which is co-operated by the two companies, will be called "TOM eBay." This time, tighter restrictions will be placed on sellers, something that caused serious trouble with the first site.

In addition, payments will be held in escrow until buyers indicate they are satisfied with their purchases in an attempt to curry favor with consumers. eBay has not had much success in Asia: it also closed its Japanese site after it failed to gain any traction against Yahoo, which already had a successful auction offering in the country.

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Responding to customer requests for less preinstalled software on its machines, Dell will now offer its customers an option to select "no software preinstalled" when purchasing Inspiron notebooks or Dimension desktops. While the option would eliminate much of the software commonly stuffed onto new computers, some would still remain.

Adobe's Reader and a set of Google tools will still be included, as well as antivirus software. In addition, for those who may have not had the option or did not select it at the time of build, Dill will offer those customers an untinstall program to clear off unwanted software.

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Mandriva has become the latest Linux vendor to publicly refute speculation that it will join Novell, Xandros and Linspire in signing a patent covenant with Microsoft, in which the Redmond company agrees not to sue for potential intellectual property infringement.

The statement from Mandriva CEO Francois Bancilhon follows a similar refusal from Canonical chief executive Mark Shuttleworth; Canonical makes the popular Ubuntu Linux distribution. Red Hat also said it would not sign any patent pledge with Microsoft.

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The future of Take-Two's Manhunt 2 came into some doubt Thursday after the game developer decided to hold off on releasing the game.

Originally scheduled for July 10, it is now unclear when the game will be released. Both the US and British game ratings boards have given it an 'Adults Only' rating, which severely limits its potential distribution.

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Nuance Communications has agreed to purchase Tegic Communications from AOL for $265 million, the companies reported Friday. Tegic, a little-known subsidiary of AOL, makes the T9 text input software common on mobile phones, as well as a touch input solution.

With the acquisition, Nuance will expand its portfolio of mobile offerings, which currently includes voice-enabled applications for mobile search, e-mail and text messaging. Tegic will also help Nuance improve its reach, as the company has struggled to gain traction in the marketplace. AOL acquired Tegic in 1999 as part of its "AOL Anywhere" strategy.

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Fon said Friday it had begun offering 'La Fontenna,' a directional antenna that could be attached to the routers the company offers along with its service. A coverage gain of about 3 to 5 times the typical range of the router is realized, the company said. As an example of the new functionality, the company has outfitted the Chueca neighborhood of Madrid with the routers and antennas.

Made up of about 400,000 registered users, Fon is a network of individuals who have agreed to share their Internet connections freely. In exchange, those who share are allowed to roam on the network free of charge. Non-members can access Fon Wi-Fi access points for a small fee.

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When Jerry Yang stepped into the Yahoo CEO seat vacated earlier this week by Terry Semel, analysts said his goal may very well be to move Yahoo away from its all-things-media evolutionary path, and return it to its roots in search. If that's the case, then Yahoo has its work cut out for it, if today's numbers from Nielsen/NetRatings are to be taken seriously.

While the Panama search technology has indeed helped Yahoo step on the accelerator pedal, the Nielsen numbers suggest Google has already found overdrive. While Yahoo continues to command the largest number of URL destinations by many estimates, including Nielsen's, Google handled a 56.3% share of all US-based Web searches conducted during May, gaining over 22 points in market share in just one year's time, and handling 44.9% more searches now than it did in May 2006.

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Hoping to one-up Apple with its recent move away from digital rights management, high-quality music site MusicGiants began offering DRM-free music recently with the release of Paul McCartney's newest album, Memory Almost Full. In a recent interview with audio magazine Stereophile, MusicGiants CEO Scott Bahneman said the service plans to release more DRM-free albums later this year. Partners in the offering have not been announced.

MusicGiants specializes in offering high quality “lossless” tracks in Windows Media format, and launched last year. It bills itself as the only service to offer such high-quality tracks, which are the same quality as one would receive from a physical CD. McCartney’s album sells for $15.29 USD on the site, although consumers can purchase a version with a 26-minute interview with the singer on recording the album for $21.93 USD.

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A cyber attack on the Pentagon Wednesday forced the Defense Department to shut down about 1,500 computers after its systems detected a possible compromise, it said Thursday. The Pentagon deals with hundreds of attacks a day, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said. This attack had no adverse effect, and he expected to have the systems back online as soon as possible.

Employees who may have a compromised system were instructed to conduct business using their Blackberries. Gates talked down the event, saying there would only be "some administrative disruptions and personal inconveniences." As for Gates' personal computer, he said he doesn't use e-mail and is a "very low-tech person."

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Last week, customers of Verizon's ISPs in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and Wisconsin learned of an interesting alteration to their Internet service: The company is experimenting with what it's calling an "Advanced Web Search" page, which its DNS servers will distribute in response to non-resolvable or perhaps malformed URLs.

Instead of the typical error message a DNS server provides, Verizon's new page would offer users assistance for perhaps getting the URL they're actually looking for. It's a service not unlike one offered by regional phone companies to land-line users, which can interrupt "out-of-service" messages and ask users if they'd like to speak to an operator.

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While it had previously called on developers to produce a game for Xbox Live Arcade, Microsoft is now turning to consumers for the next big game idea. Through a partnership with Doritos, five finalists will be selected among Doritos-theme game concept submissions, and given an opportunity to work side by side with developers to bring their concept to reality.

The winner will be announced in November after a month-long voting period. The game would then be available as a free download in Summer 2008. In addition to the grand prize of their winning game on Xbox Live, each of the five finalists will receive a prize pack worth $6,000. Entries will be accepted between now and July 29 at the promotion's Web site.

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While the launch of Windows Mobile 6 has thus far largely failed to reach anyone but T-Mobile customers, developers are slowly porting their handset applications to Microsoft's new operating system. Sling Media on Thursday made available an updated version of its SlingPlayer software.

Used in conjunction with the company's popular Slingbox device, SlingPlayer enables users to view and control their television remotely over a cell phone or laptop. The application is not free, however, and pricing is set at $29.99 USD. While SlingPlayer works over EDGE, performance is much better over 3G networks from AT&T, Sprint and Verizon, which have yet to release Windows Mobile 6 devices or upgrades.

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