Latest Technology News

Parallels updated its software that allows Mac users to run Windows within Mac OS X on Thursday, adding support for Vista Boot Camp partitions, among other enhancements.

The new version will not come free to current customers as past updates have, customers have to pay $49.99 to upgrade. Those installing Parallels for the first time will be charged the full list price of $79.99.

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The US International Trade Commission sided with Broadcom on Thursday, ruling that all imports of cell phones using Qualcomm chips could not be imported into the country.

While current models are allowed to continue to be imported, future models are barred from importation. However, with the fast pace of updates to cellular phones, it essentially means a full ban within a matter of months.

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Rumors of Sony Computer Entertainment's plans to cut U.S. jobs were substantiated on Thursday with the announcement of its plans to restructure in the face of last year's operating losses.

The size of the cutback is not yet known, however the recent streamlining of its European gaming unit saw the loss of 8 percent of the workforce there. If a comparable cut is made stateside, it could mean roughly 120 employees would be let go.

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NBC Universal and News Corp. have announced the inclusion of several cable networks in their online video venture expected this summer. Gemstar-TV Guide, Fuel TV, Oxygen, Speed, and the Sundance Channel have all agreed to provide content for a new portal designed to rival Google's YouTube.

The content, which will range from short-form clips to full-length original programming will also be available through News Corp.'s MySpace and Time Warner's AOL, as well as MSN, Yahoo and Comcast.

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UPDATE: Yahoo has posted a fix for the security flaws with the release of Yahoo Messenger 8.1.0.401 Code for two exploits in Yahoo Messenger first disclosed earlier this week by security firm eEye appeared on the Full Disclosure mailing list on Thursday. At the current time, the only fix is to set the 'kill bits' in the ActiveX controls responsible for the vulnerabilities, although it requires a system registry edit.

The first set of code takes advantage of buffer overflow issues within the Webcam ActiveX component, while the other causes a buffer overflow in the ywcvwr.dll viewer. The issues affect both Yahoo Messenger 8.0 and 8.1 running on Windows.

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ORLANDO - Yesterday's TechEd demo of building an XNA Game Studio Express version of Asteroids using C# appeared to indicate the resurgence of low-level (in the processing sense) programming languages in experimental development.

But this morning, Microsoft's lead program manager for the Common Language Runtime team, Mahesh Prakriya, may have one-upped C#, showing another XNA revamp written by IronPython developer Jim Hugunin, of the exact same demo package, but using Microsoft's dynamic language IronPython instead.

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Analysts are suggesting that AMD may be forced to delay its Barcelona multi-core chip, a move that could set the company back both financially and strategically.

Originally, the new multi-core processor was scheduled for a July debut, however now AMD is pushing its release to October. While Citigroup analyst Glen Yeung initially reported the news, others are agreeing with his assessment.

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ORLANDO - At a morning session introducing many to the window-less Server Core installation option in the forthcoming Windows Server 2008, Microsoft product manager Andrew Mason made it official: Windows Virtualization Services (code-named "Viridian") will become the ninth role available for the trim server option, joining Internet Information Services 7 announced last Monday and other common, unattended role such as DNS server, DHCP server, and Active Directory Application Mode (now called AD LDS).

This addition may be both welcome and extremely important for enterprises working to create homogeneity of services where heterogenous (OS-specific) applications are deployed. Now SUSE Linux and other systems can be hosted by servers that don't need to waste space managing Windows printer and display drivers, such as DirectX and Direct3D, when they're not ever going to be used there anyway.

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ORLANDO - During a TechEd demonstration of arcade game development using XNA Game Studio Express for novices to the genre, Microsoft Game Technology Group community program manager David Weller (whose online handle is "LetsKillDave") stated his company is exploring the possibility of assembling an online community of XNA game developers, not only for sharing with but also for marketing and selling their works to one another.

If Microsoft goes ahead with this project, Weller said, it may have to be separate from Xbox Live Arcade, which showcases downloadable works from Microsoft and its selected partners.

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Amnesty International issued a warning Wednesday saying Internet freedoms were slowly being curtailed, likening the problem to a 'virus' spreading throughout the world.

Whereas only a handful of countries were initially censoring speech on the Internet, recently those numbers have begun to grow. Additionally, Internet companies like Microsoft, Yahoo, and Google are being blamed for not taking an active role in preventing censorship.

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Roaming rates in the EU are set to drop as the bloc agreed to move toward placing caps on what carriers can charge to traveling consumers, despite the protests of the wireless industry.

The roaming caps take effect at the end of this month, with consumers likely seeing the first benefits beginning in August.

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ORLANDO - Perhaps the closest thing to a rock star you find at a technology conference is a guy whose talks are so good, that the same attendees will attend their encore performances. If anyone makes a list of three "rock stars" at TechEd, one of them would have to be Mark Russinovich, the former SysInternals security engineer, now a Technical Fellow with Microsoft.

Russinovich's "Kernel Changes" talks are among the "must see" items on attendees' schedules, and is often the only place where you can find them walking up to the podium to shake the presenter's hand and introduce themselves...before the session begins. Each time, Russinovich mixes the talk up a bit. This time around, he used virtual XP and Vista sessions to demonstrate an interesting new set of priorities on the part of the operating system, as provided by Multimedia Class Scheduler Service.

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Microsoft has released version 6.1 of the Windows Mobile Device Center, which most notably adds support for the Redmond company's newest Windows Mobile 6 platform. The update also enables a PC to access the Internet over a connected phone.

Windows Mobile Device Center 6.1 only works with 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows Vista, and Microsoft Office is required to synchronize contacts and calendar items. The software does not currently support syncing Windows Calendar and Contacts items. Download WMDC 6.1 from FileForum.

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Best Buy finds itself in the embarrassing position of having to explain its lawyer's conduct after he admitted to falsifying documents in a class-action lawsuit against the company.

The suit alleges that the electronics retailer was signing up customers for MSN Internet service without their consent between 1999 and 2003, which resulted in credit card charges the consumer did not authorize. Best Buy received a cut for each customer it registered.

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Dell is rumored to be exiting the HDTV business by the end of this month, a little under four years after it first entered the market to diversify its product portfolio, according to Taiwanese business newspaper Economic Daily. While the company only sells HDTVs in the US and Japan, it was not immediately clear whether the decision was part of the continuing reorganization of the company, or due to poor sales.

The Texas-based electronics maker has pulled out of other sectors in the past, including the music player business. The paper seems to indicate that founder and CEO Michael Dell played a large part in the decision. He returned to the company he founded amid declining revenues and falling market share earlier this year. Since then, the company has begun to focus on its core product: personal computers. Dell had no comment.

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