Latest Technology News

Acer is showing strength in the global PC industry, becoming the world's third largest PC maker in the first quarter of 2007, according to data from research firm iSuppli.

The Taiwanese company posted a 42.7 percent increase in shipments over the same quarter last year. That was enough for Acer to take the third spot from rival Lenovo. The Chinese PC manufacturer still leads in desktop PC shipments, but Acer's widening lead in notebooks gave it the number 3 spot overall.

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ORLANDO - Product managers at TechEd 2007 here gave BetaNews an early glimpse of Microsoft's next videoconferencing application, which will tie into both Office Communications Server (which we saw in detail at WinHEC three weeks ago) and Microsoft's own subscription-based conferencing services.

Office Live Meeting 2007 will give attendees of virtual meetings and conferences a single, simple frame from which to view conferences - an important advance, especially in view of the abundance of browser-based conference schemes where the video appears in a postage stamp.

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While Apple bills the iPhone as one of the only ways to get iTunes on your mobile phone, mobile multimedia company Melodeo is working on a way to change that. The company said Tuesday it will offer a service that allows users to use information stored in their iTunes playlists and then play songs on their phones. Since it is a streaming service, it will likely cost much less then downloading actual copies.

Melodeo has not decided on final prices for the offering, which is currently in beta. It is carefully considering the current copyright laws surrounding digital music to ensure any service would not run into legal troubles later. A final version of the service is expected within the next three months, possibly with the backing of a major wireless carrier, it told Reuters.

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ORLANDO - If you follow the crowd at TechEd, eventually they'll lead you to what's truly important. So in the wake of some schedule changes here this morning, we let the crowd lead us to what turned out to be one of the more significant demos here: Microsoft product manager Dan Harman showed off the new Server Manager that downloaders of Windows Server 2008 Beta 3 are seeing for the first time.

Server Manager completely replaces the "Manage Your Server" Wizard, which we were surprised to hear (if not entirely surprised to learn) was among the least well-received enhancements to Windows Server 2003. As Harman freely admitted, this Wizard "didn't provide the functionality" that admins were looking for, was too lightweight, and tried to hold admins by the hand as though they were users.

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Ask.com on Tuesday launched its redesigned website, complete with new search technology, a three-panel design, and other new features aimed at differentiating itself from its competition.

Technology called 'Morph' provides the basis for most searches. Through algorithmic content-matching and ranking technology, Morph takes the results from several different sources and transforms the page layout to accommodate it.

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Apple updated its MacBook Pro line of laptops Tuesday, giving the computers slightly faster processors, more memory, and better graphics capabilities across the board.

The actual feature set of the MacBook Pro has not changed, and it still includes the 15 and 17-inch models with built in iSight, MagSafe Power Adapter, and 802.11 capabilities.

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ORLANDO - Enterprise-wide operating system customers purchase their licenses in bulk, and for them, the value of their subscriptions needs to be periodically refreshed. So Microsoft has been looking for ways to infuse Vista - which won't be upgraded substantially within the next 12 months, even though customers purchase annual licenses - with periodic value increases.

This is why one of this week's TechEd announcements is especially important: Software Assurance licensees will soon be receiving a Windows utility called System Center Desktop Error Monitoring as part of the Desktop Optimization Pack (MDOP) they receive with their licenses.

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Four new unpatched vulnerabilities have been published for Internet Explorer and Firefox, with two coming for each browser. The flaws were discovered by security researcher Michal Zalewski who published them to the Full Disclosure mailing list on Monday.

The most severe of the bugs is an issue in IE that could lead to cookie stealing and/or setting, page hijacking, and memory corruption. Zalewski referred to it as the "bait and switch vulnerability."

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ORLANDO - At TechEd 2007 this morning, Microsoft's senior vice president Bob Muglia generated the biggest applause of the day (not related to the Christopher Lloyd cameo) by announcing the new Server Core installation option in the forthcoming Windows Server 2008 will have as one of its ready-made "roles" the ability to rapidly appropriate Internet Information Services in a command-line-only environment.

This role should make it tremendously easier for admins to provision and deploy low-overhead Web services very rapidly, and could finally close the similarities gap between itself and the world's most deployed Web server software, Apache.

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ORLANDO - Let the record show that, although Christopher Lloyd was supposed to save TechEd from too much "MS-BS," it was Microsoft's Jeff Woolsey who finally saved humankind from the Wrath of "Product Focus." In a demonstration of System Center Virtual Machine Manager, Woolsey showed how in Windows Server 2008, a VMware virtual machine could be converted to a "Viridian" VM using a single PowerShell "command-let" (cmdlet) that can be scripted.

VMs can be moved from server to server using System Center VMM, using a right-click process that is not much more difficult than using Windows Explorer.

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The Electronic Frontier Foundation is criticizing Apple over its practice of encrypting user data into purchased tracks from its iTunes music store, saying it poses a security risk to its users.

Information such as customer name and e-mail can be found within the files of an iPod, and the data can apparently be culled from a stolen iPod rather easily, the technology lobbying group said.

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Ostensibly acknowledging that focusing on its own audio and video formats has become a losing proposition with the near-ubiquity of Flash video, RealNetworks is preparing a new version of its oft-maligned RealPlayer software that supports Windows Media, Apple's QuickTime and even Adobe's Flash.

Rather than continuing to focus on building software for media already on the desktop, Real is taking a unique approach by letting users download videos off the Web. Although independent developers have created tools for downloading Flash videos from sites like YouTube, such capability is not currently supported by the major industry players. Users will be able to burn the clips to CD or DVD, and share the links with friends directly through RealPlayer. A free version of the new software is expected next month.

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Correcting a translation error that sparked a number of reports stating Microsoft planned to release its Zune portable music player in Europe, but not until 2008, the company now says it has no set timeframe. The confusion came in a response Steve Ballmer made to a German magazine.

In the proper translation, Ballmer said that "we decided not to enter new markets so far" and will not do so until "after we have reached some of the goals outlined. When this will be the case, I cannot tell you today." Zune product manager Cesar Menendez further clarified the situation, stating, "We will not expand the device family or our geographical footprint until we are positive that we can provide the best experience from the start."

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Microsoft has teamed with Verizon's business arm to provide consumers with one-click phone calls to businesses found on its Live Search listings, the telecommunications company said on Monday.

"Windows Live Call for Free" will be powered by the Verizon Business IP network, and gives consumers a way to immediately contact businesses they discover through using Windows Live Search and other products.

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Microsoft on Friday re-opened MSN Soapbox, the company's competitor to Google's YouTube, after two months of being closed to the public due to copyright concerns. The updated Soapbox now lets anyone view videos without being signed, and includes filtering of content.

The filtering technology, provided by Audible Magic, is intended to allow Microsoft to identify when potentially copyrighted material is uploaded to the service. In turn, the company can more easily block access and avoid the lawsuits that are piling up against YouTube from Viacom and others.

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