Early this morning, The New York Times reported that the US Federal Trade Commission would be expanding its otherwise normal investigation into the prospective merger deal between contextual advertising giant Google and display advertising giant DoubleClick, by issuing Google a "second request" for more information late last week.

The FTC has issued no statement on the affair, and has declined to answer questions, though the Times report and other subsequent news items are raising the question of whether the FTC is acting on its own accord, or at the behest of others - as one theory has it, Microsoft.

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Microsoft has updated its Live Search Maps service to include photo-realistic 3D imagery of New York City and six other U.S. cities along with Ottawa, Canada and Northampton, England.

Some had criticized Microsoft for leaving out one of the nation's most populous cities when the first 3D cities were announced. However, Microsoft answered the call Tuesday by adding the Big Apple.

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A report from Reuters early this morning states that a Toshiba spokesperson stated it will end its exclusivity with Intel, with a deal that would deploy AMD processors in 20% of the company's laptop computers. The report cites Nikkei Business Daily as the source, but provides few details.

One detail which Reuters apparently corrected from an earlier report is that Toshiba plans to include AMD CPUs in mid-range laptops for both consumer and corporate markets in the US and Europe, not entry-level, value systems as has already been widely disseminated. We can assume this means Toshiba will be using AMD Turions, not mobile Semprons, or at least not yet.

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HD Radio received a boost Tuesday as Sony announced that it will be shipping both a table radio and mobile tuning device for the service.

The devices are part of a multi-year agreement to support the technology, and these first two products will ship in July of this year. Additional products will be announced at a later date, Sony said.

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Microsoft has decided to cancel its scheduled 2007 Professional Developer's Conference, previously slated to take place in Los Angeles the first week of October. The company says its new developer tools are already available to customers.

Traditionally, PDC is held every two years to preview major Microsoft platform advances, and preview technologies before their release. PDC 03 highlighted Windows Vista -- Longhorn at the time -- while PDC 05 reiterated that focus with Vista and Office 2007, as well as the recently launched Expression Suite.

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Apple released its fifth security update of 2007 on Friday, correcting 13 bugs in both client and server versions of its Mac OS X operating system. The most serious security hole could lead to arbitrary code execution or a denial of service attack, although most require local access to the Mac.

Many of the flaws patched by Apple are located in UNIX applications that ship with its operating systems. BIND, crontab, fetchmail, file, PPP, ruby, screen and texinfo have all been updated. Apple's own iChat application has also been patched to correct a buffer overflow that could be exploited by an attacker on a local network. More information is available on Apple's Web site.

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Ten employees have been caught faking orders in order to receive kickbacks, Japanese electronics maker NEC disclosed on Tuesday. In total, the ten made over $4.1 million on $18 million in forged orders, however NEC said that it would not affect earnings. Criminal proceedings will likely be pursued against those involved. "It is extremely regrettable that these illegal trades have occurred and we deeply apologize to all the people that have been affected," NEC said in a statement.

This news comes as the latest in a string of bad news for investors. In 2006, NEC restated its earnings three times, due to inflated sales figures. It has also missed deadlines with the Securities and Exchange Commission to file required reports, and is facing the threat of a delisting from the NASDAQ.

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In an op-ed piece published by BusinessWeek today, Linux Foundation Executive Director Jim Zemlin stated his organization will be ready to fund the legal efforts of anyone who produces Linux software who's threatened with - or sued on account of - patent infringement. If necessary, Zemlin writes, the foundation will use its own patent portfolio to mount countersuits.

"Touch one member of the Linux community, and you will have to deal with all of us," reads Zemlin's article. "Microsoft is not the only - perhaps not even the largest - owner of patents in this area. Individual members of the Linux ecosystem have significant patent portfolios. Industry groups, such as the Open Innovation Network and our own legal programs at the Linux Foundation, aggregate our membership's patents into an arsenal with which to deter predatory patent attacks. With our members' backing, the Linux Foundation also has created a legal fund to defend developers and users of open-source software against malicious attack. We don't expect to but, if needed, we will use this fund to defend Linux."

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Sony debuted an innovative new bendable 2.5-inch display, one that is less than 0.01 inch thick -- not much thicker than a piece of paper -- and can display full-color video.

The Japanese electronics maker released video of its latest innovation on Friday, showing the flexibility and capabilities of the display. Sony isn't quite sure how it will be used, but it could have a variety of applications.

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With the near-ubiquity of network architecture as a fundamental part of nearly all computing and digital communications, it was only a matter of time before Microsoft would develop a SKU of Windows Server directed toward the consumer. Windows Home Server may have a substantive impact in the home computing environment, opening up new avenues for connectivity and functionality that home distros of Linux, and even the more media-savvy Mac OS, thus far haven’t considered.

Jupiter Research analyst Michael Gartenberg has often said that Microsoft is in a unique position among the world’s corporations: It must find a way to market essentially the same product to a business systems architect as well as a cola-drinking, detergent-using consumer.

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Apple said Friday that it had banned access to MySpace from its demonstration computers, claiming casual browsing of the popular social networking site was taking up bandwidth. The site also has the dubious distinction of being the only site blocked by the company so far, say Apple representatives.

The decision is twofold: MySpace users were also taking up time on the machines, and the company wants to provide "everyone a chance to test-drive a Mac" according to a statement released Friday. According to news reports, people were even using the Photobooth application to update their MySpace pictures, and would then proceed to use the machines for 'hours,' according to an unnamed employee. MySpace had no immediate comment on the development.

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Motorola is taking a pass on producing 802.11n products until the standard is fully ratified, the company told ZDNet UK on Friday. Officials say they would rather wait for the final standard to be worked out before releasing any products. While many other companies including Intel and Cisco have started producing 802.11n draft compliant devices, the standard could still easily change.

Disagreements still exist over the final makeup of the standard, which could render some 802.11n draft equipment useless once the standard is agreed upon. Motorola seemed to chastise the Wi-Fi Alliance's recent decision to begin certifying draft products, calling it confusing for consumers.

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While Web platforms and tools providers over the past decade have been opining at length over the potential ubiquity of Web services that perform simple and specialized data-fetching tasks for individual customers, Facebook today tried a completely new spin on the old message: actually doing it.

In a surprisingly well-controlled and planned rollout, the social networking site that advertisers were beginning to see as yesterday's news, or so-o 2006, unveiled the next wave of its strategy to take on MySpace and its other competitors in the social space: It has engineered a Web services interface, based on an extension of HTML and well-used scripting languages such as PHP, to enable both individual customers and corporations to provide information services through the Facebook system using little pieces of software.

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Google is being investigated by the European Union over possible violation of the bloc's privacy rules. At issue is the search engine's practice of retaining user information for up to two years.

A letter has been sent to the Mountain View, Calif. company by an independent panel which assists the EU in privacy issues. The inquiry has the full support of the European Commission, officials said.

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Officials in the city of Philadelphia said Thursday that tests for its citywide Wi-Fi project were successful, which means the city will move forward with deploying the network through the rest of the city.

The testbed comprised a 15-square mile area including the central part of the city and some of its less affluent sections to the northeast. When completed, the Earthlink-managed Wi-Fi network will cover 135 square miles.

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