Apple on Wednesday received some good news regarding its highly anticipated iPhone: the company received FCC approval to begin selling the device within the United States. Known for testing purposes as the "A1203," the phone significantly exceeded all the necessary requirements, according to news reports. The tests look for spurious radio-frequency emissions that could cause problems with other electronic devices.

With the approval of the iPhone, the FCC will also publish the test results on its Web site. For this reason, Apple made the unusual step of pre-announcing the device in January at the Macworld conference in order to prevent rumors around the company's wireless plans. Apple said the phone remains on track for a late June release.

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LOS ANGELES - A panel of four leading figures in the marketing and engineering of solid-state drives, convening toward the end of WinHEC 2007, appeared to agree that the development of solid-state disk drives and hard drives that use flash memory as intermediate caches, even as flash technologies evolve and NAND prices continue to avoid bottoming out, will never result in the replacement of traditional HDDs for any market category.

A representative of Texas Memory Systems, which produces flash-equipped components for storage, admitted that customers approach his company when they are looking to improve their systems' performance, not storage. That sentiment was validated by three other members of the panel and a moderator representing Microsoft.

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LOS ANGELES - A standing-room only crowd appeared late Thursday morning to see Windows Home Server lead developer Chris Gray answer technical questions on the subject of how the company will make its latest permutation of Windows Server 2003 usable by people who have enough difficulty with their microwaves and universal remotes...and how developers will be expected to help them.

A machine certified to run Windows Home Server is likely to occupy the space of an old Toastmaster appliance, and some early prototype cases actually have the appearance of one. But inside, the machine is expected to support as many as six simultaneous SATA drives, not as a RAID array but as a means for providing home-based video storage of around three terabytes, given the increasing ubiquity of 500 GB hard drives.

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The nation of Estonia says it has reason to suspect that Russia has played a part in cyber attacks that have brought both government and business websites across the country to a near-standstill.

While not concrete yet, Estonia's Defense Minister Jaak Aaviksoo told the Associated Press that there is enough evidence to at least suspect Russia's involvement in the attacks. All six major banks were targeted, as well as government offices and corporations.

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In a surprise move, Microsoft announced Thursday that it had voted in favor of OpenDocument (ODF) being added to the American National Standards (ANSI) list. But some industry watchers say the move is largely a PR ploy that is not backed by real action.

Microsoft has pushed for its own Office Open XML formats to become international standards, receiving certification from European standards body Ecma and submitting them to the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). A vote on ISO standardization is expected in late 2007 or early 2008.

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Still lagging in sales behind competitors Microsoft and Nintendo, Sony is looking to an increasing number of exclusive titles for the PlayStation 3 this year in order to make up lost ground.

The company is admitting that a lack of titles produced solely for the PlayStation 3, as well as its high price, are two issues for the company. Due to the console's troubles early on, the PS3 lost many of its exclusive contracts as game makers opted to produce the games for the Xbox 360, which was released in late 2005.

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LOS ANGELES - In a completely unanticipated announcement made quietly during a virtualization talk here at WinHEC 2008, Microsoft announced a completely new SKU of Windows Vista, to be entitled Vista Enterprise Centralized Desktop (VECD). Its purpose will be to enable Vista to run within an enterprise exclusively as virtual machines, managed centrally using System Center Virtual Machine Manager.

Under the new system, a thin client logging on will request a VM image from SCVMM. Based on the user profile it pulls up from that logon, SCVMM will then locate the best server on which the image of Vista will be run. Applications licensed to that user will then be run from the VM, as well as the seat for Vista that's licensed to that user. But only a thin virtualization connection package will address that image remotely.

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LOS ANGELES - With some of Microsoft's key goals for its Viridian virtualization program having been postponed until a later release -- how much later not having yet been specified -- some of the feature demonstrations of Viridian scheduled for WinHEC were cancelled. Obviously Microsoft isn't pulling back on its commitment to the virtualization concept, but how quickly can the company reassemble its strategy, especially with strong competition from VMware?

At least some answers are coming this morning from Microsoft general manager Mike Neil, who is presenting one of the remaining virtualization sessions to an unusually packed audience for a last-day, early morning session.

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Google has been cleared of any wrongdoing over its practice of using thumbnails to display images in its image search product. The original suit had been brought forth by adult entertainment company Perfect 10.

A District Court ruled in favor of Perfect 10 last year, issuing a preliminary injunction that prevented Google from thumbnailing the company's imagery. However, an appeals court judge said Google could not be held liable for indexing a site that is illegally copying Perfect 10's images.

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Coke and Apple said Wednesday that they would be teaming up in Europe to offer one of the biggest music promotions in the region's history. Two billion music downloads are set to be given away between May and August of this year to drinkers of Coke's products, and the company also plans to give away iPods and tickets to iTunes-Coke sponsored concerts.

In addition to the giveaways, exclusive downloads of performances from those concerts will be made available on iTunes. Dance music group Faithless with also record a special track exclusively for the partnership, and the group worked with designers to create a limited edition Coke bottle to ship during the promotion.

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Microsoft on Thursday said it was working to resolve a minor problem caused by its latest cumulative update for Internet Explorer 7, which can prevent the browser from opening altogether. The issue occurs when customers change the default "Temporary Internet Files" after installing the patch.

According to a new Knowledge Base article on the matter, users may see the File Download – Security Warning dialog box raised when starting IE. Once the box is closed, IE7 cannot be started because permissions on the custom temporary files directory are not the same as the default. Users can change the directory back, or update permissions on the new directory in order to regain access to IE.

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The cat and mouse game continued Thursday between the movie industry and those wanting open access to the content they purchase. Software vendor Slysoft released an update to its popular AnyDVD HD program that copies the latest HD DVD and Blu-ray titles - bypassing the newest AACS copy protection.

Like CSS is for DVD, AACS (view specs) keeps high-definition discs encrypted such that they cannot be copied. Two main keys are utilized by the standard: a device key used by hardware and software players, a volume key stored on each movie title that can be used to decrypt its contents.

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The New York Attorney General's office sued computer maker Dell and subsidiary Dell Financial Services on Wednesday, accusing the company of "bait and switch" practices and poor customer service.

Andrew Cuomo said the state had received an "unprecedented number of complaints," totaling about 700. Most apparently revolved around Dell's financing practices.

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Despite rumored talks between the company and Microsoft, 24/7 Real Media was acquired Thursday by UK ad agency WPP Group for about $649 million. The move further consolidates the growing online ad market. Last month, Google acquired DoubleClick while Yahoo picked up Right Media.

A report last month claimed Microsoft was considering making a $1 billion offer for 24/7 after the company put itself up for sale in April. WPP says it will retain 24/7's management and use the company to expand its geographic presence. "The transaction further validates the importance of emerging, digital media to the global advertising market," remarked 24/7 CEO David Moore.

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LOS ANGELES - Over the past two years, tracking the official status of Windows PowerShell with respect to Windows Server has been, to put it delicately, a juggling exercise. During PDC 2005, for instance, reporters were given official indications from two Microsoft sources that the radically enhanced command line-based management tool would be shipped with the next edition of Windows Server, and would not be shipped with Windows Server, on the same day.

So when recent statements were made by Microsoft officials that PowerShell would be shipped with Windows Server 2008 and included with the new public Beta 3, our initial reaction was preceded by the phrase, "Yeah, right." Although the tool is freely available for download and it has been received by veteran admins with open arms, whether it gets shipped with the operating system itself is actually a more important matter than it may seem on the surface.

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