Apple said Wednesday that its update to Apple TV to allow viewing of YouTube videos was available, along with announcing similar functionality for iPhone. But the lack of 3G connectivity will limit the feature's usefulness.

iPhone users will likely not be able to stream their videos across the mobile network as EDGE is often too slow to support higher-quality full motion video. Thus, the functionality would only be usable via Wi-Fi.

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News Corp. may be ready to sell off MySpace in an effort to gain a stake in search engine company Yahoo, British daily The Times reported Wednesday.

According to the paper, talks have already occurred with Yahoo, and Rupert Murdoch's conglomerate is looking for a 30 percent stake in the company. News Corp. also owns The Times, which initially reported the story.

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MySpace said Tuesday that it has officially launched the beta of its instant messaging client to the public, about a year after it had first released it in a limited beta test. Since then, 17 million users worldwide have installed the client. While it enters into a very crowded market, MySpace hopes that its IM service will be able to take advantage of the tight integration with the popular social network site to grow quickly.

Functionality included within the client includes video chat and image sharing. It would also alert users when they receive new mail, comments, or friend requests through their MySpace profiles. The software only works on Windows, and no decision has been made to port the IM service to Mac or Linux, MySpace says.

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In agreeing to make what could be described technically as a minor change to the way it handles its options for consumer desktop search, Microsoft last night may have made its most symbolically significant statement to date with regard to its current stance in the technology market: It backed down, in response to a complaint from Google that its placement of desktop search capabilities within Windows Vista constituted a breach of its antitrust settlement agreement with the US and states' governments regarding middleware.

The question centered around Windows Desktop Search, a feature built into Vista but which essentially competes with Google Desktop Search, which a user must download separately and install intentionally. Google filed a formal complaint, which it never formally acknowledged or even publicly mentioned, but whose existence was finally entered into the public record yesterday by the US Justice Dept.

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A US federal appeals court yesterday upheld a district court ruling in favor of an individual whose e-mail records were copied by government investigators from servers at Yahoo and another ISP. In finding that the government violated Steven Warshak's Fourth Amendments rights against unreasonable search and seizure, it may have prevented the government from loosely applying a key tool in its ability to obtain e-mail records without a warrant: the Stored Communications Act (SCA).

Warshak was the subject of a 2005 criminal investigation of himself and his company, which apparently sold vitamin supplements. In March of that year, investigators obtained an order from a federal magistrate to acquire e-mail records from Warshak's NuVox account, ordering NuVox not to disclose even the existence of that order for at least 90 days. Later in September, the government issued a similar request to Yahoo. Both complied.

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Trillian developer Cerulean released an update Monday to address issues within the instant messaging product, including a buffer overflow vulnerability that could give an attacker control of a user's computer. iDefense said in an advisory that the issue lies in how the client handles UTF-8 messages, and the flaw could be exploited when an unusually long UTF-8 string is sent.

iDefense detected the issue through use of the MSN protocol, although it warned that other protocols may be at risk. Trillian also supports, AIM, Yahoo, ICQ, and IRC. The flaw was detected in version 3.1.5.1 of the product, and previous versions may also be at risk. All users are urged to upgrade to the latest version.

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AT&T said Tuesday that it had launched a service in three markets that allows its subscribers to share video during a voice call, and plans to expand it across its 3G footprint in July.

Video Share allows the user to send video during a voice call between two compatible handsets. While users are able to access the service on a pay-as-you-go basis for 35 cents per minutes, plans with 25 minutes of usage for $4.99 and 60 minutes of usage for $9.99 are also in place.

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Microsoft has teamed up with Intermap to give its 3-D maps in Great Britain a more realistic look through the use of the company's elevation data. Maps are also in the works for Western Europe and the continental US.

Data for the remainder of Western Europe is scheduled for completion by the end of this year, with data for the US coming by the end of 2008. It will help Microsoft to better align and place objects "without distortion or undulation," it says.

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Did Immersion - the patent holder for tactile feedback devices used in game controllers - settle its lawsuit against Sony for building "rumble" into its PlayStation 2 joysticks without a license? BetaNews reported in March the sides did settle, but now Immersion may be trying to characterize the pact with Sony as a licensing agreement instead.

The difference is very, very material, because it makes all the difference as to whether Immersion owes Microsoft as much as $20.8 million. This morning, Microsoft sued Immersion in US District Court in Washington State, claiming that as part of the terms of settlement of Immersion's lawsuit against Microsoft -- which came at the same time as the one against Sony -- Microsoft only agreed to pay Immersion $26 million if it would agree in turn to repay Microsoft a portion of any settlement payments it received from Sony.

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While Google is busy building a Web-based productivity suite and Microsoft dips its toes into the online waters, ThinkFree is moving in the opposite direction, releasing a beta version of its online office suite that works offline as well.

ThinkFree was one of the first developers of Web-based office tools, but its offerings have largely failed to catch on among businesses. In turn, the new "Premium" version of the software will enable editing Microsoft Office documents from Word, Excel or PowerPoint both online and offline. The suite utilizes AJAX and Java to accomplish this task, and will be sold as a monthly subscription for $7 USD, or $75 annually.

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The end of an era has arrived at Sony as the father of the PlayStation, Ken Kutaragi, stepped down on Tuesday.

His resignation was announced in April, although last year he was stripped of control of the daily operations of the gaming unit he helped create. He was also said to be at odds with CEO Howard Stringer over the direction of the unit.

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Next month, Microsoft will introduce a wireless version of its popular Ergonomic 4000 keyboard as part of a new Ergonomic Desktop set that includes an upgraded version of its ergonomic wireless mouse as well. The pair will run on a 2.4GHz frequency, which means less interference and better range.

Microsoft touts the ergonomic design of both the keyboard and mouse as being "healthier" due to the shape that puts less stress on the wrist and arms. The Natural Mouse shape was inspired by a baseball, the company says, and keeps the hand in a relaxed state. The Ergonomic Desktop 7000 will go on sale in July for $149.95 USD.

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In an effort to cut costs, game developer EA said late Monday that it is reorganizing the company into four divisions.

Each unit will focus on a specific group of games. One is tasked with running its extremely successful Sims franchise, its equally successful sports games titles, casual games, and other titles that do not fit into the first three categories.

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One of Russia's fastest growing markets, and quite possibly a contributor to stabilizing that country's fickle economy, is cut-rate, self-deploying Trojan horse packages.

As malware writers there have discovered, rather than baiting and waiting for victims to fall into their traps at random, so that they carry out DoS and identity theft attacks without knowing they're doing so, would-be victims worldwide will gladly pay for the privilege of knowingly carrying out those same attacks.

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YouTube launched nine localized versions of its popular social video site on Tuesday, which will at first only place navigation and functionality in the country's native language.

Eventually, the site plans to offer localized content as well, with the featured pages targeted towards the individual tastes of consumers in each market. This would include ratings specific to that country in addition to localized comments.

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