The .eu domain has become one of the most popular in the world only a year after its launch, ranking third most common in the European Union.

About 2.6 million domain names have already been registered, the European Commission reported on Wednesday. One survey indicates that as many as one out of every five Europeans owns a .eu name.

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MGM has become the latest major studio to offer its films through iTunes, adding some of its most memorable titles to the more than 500 movies now available through the service. Films such as "Dances with Wolves," "Mad Max," and "Rocky" have already been added, with plans to add additional titles in the coming weeks. Movies would be delivered in 640x480 resolution, Apple said.

More than two million movies have now been downloaded, and Apple claims that it is the most popular movie download service on the Internet. Currently iTunes has about five million songs, 350 television shows, and over 500 movies. Over 2.5 billion music tracks, 50 million television shows, and two million movies have been purchased, according to the latest figures.

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Last Friday, the Advanced Access Content System Licensing Administrator (AACS LA), which is responsible for providing the encrypted copy protection scheme for both HD DVD and Blu-ray high-definition disc players, exercised the option their system was designed to enable:

Through the distribution of new movie discs with embedded revoked keys, AACS LA will trigger a self-destruct system for PC-based high-def player software whose integrity from unauthorized copying is found to be compromised. And based on its last statement, the revocation could extend beyond Corel InterVideo, which warned its users last Friday.

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Whenever a company makes a financial announcement to the press over a week ahead of its scheduled quarterly report, the news probably isn't that good. So just the fact that AMD had a statement this morning was a bad portent; the follow-up wasn't much better. Its revenue for the fiscal first quarter of this year looks worse than earlier guidance suggested: down to $1.225 billion.

Exactly how bad is this? AMD's fiscal first quarter revenue last year was $1.33 billion. But before you get out your calculator and do simple subtraction, realize that the AMD of 2006 is not the AMD of 2007. There was supposed to be an extra company welded into the mix, called ATI. In the previous quarter, the absorption of ATI added $400 million of revenue to the company. If the new AMD was growing as it should, revenue for the combined corporation should have come closer to $2 billion.

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Toshiba filed a complaint with the International Trade Commission and sued 17 companies in U.S. District Court, alleging that the companies are infringing on patents related to DVD technologies.

The actions were filed mainly against Chinese and Korean based manufacturers. Toshiba asks that the court halt the imports of DVD players, recorders, and other DVD related products into the United States.

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The popular alternative IE-based browser Maxthon may now be partially owned by Google, if press reports are correct. Silicon Valley insider Michael Arrington said Tuesday that sources are indicating the search giant has invested around $1 million in the company.

While Maxthon has gained traction in the United States by offering tabbed browsing and other features that only arrived in IE7, most of its users are located in China. Searches sent by the browser could amount to 25% of leading Chinese search Baidu's traffic, Arrington said. The investment would include replacing Baidu and Yahoo with Google as the default search provider. Mozilla signed a similar deal with Google for Firefox.

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As part of April's Patch Tuesday, Microsoft corrected an issue within Windows Vista that could allow for a variety of attack vectors, along with issuing patches for three other Windows flaws and one in Content Management Server.

The Vista related flaw resides in Windows Client/Server Run-time Subsystem (CSRSS) process, Microsoft said in an advisory. Three separate flaws are fixed by the patch, including a critical code-execution problem and two less serious denial-of-service and privledge escalation risks.

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Aiming to put its search product in front of more Web users, Yahoo on Tuesday said it had signed a multi-year partnership with Viacom that would place its search on 33 sites initially, possibly expanding to 140 additional sites worldwide at a later date.

In addition, the deal includes an agreement to use "Panama," a contextual ad service now under development at Yahoo. The moves show a willingness by the Sunnyvale, Calif. based company to compete with Microsoft and especially Google on all fronts.

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Cablevision is set to appeal a March ruling which found that its plans to offer a remote DVR service infringed on the copyrights of the broadcast networks, it said Tuesday.

The cable operator initially announced its plans in March of last year, which called for the storage of programming on the company's own servers rather than on the set-top box itself. Several networks objected to the plans.

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Apple released an update for its Airport Extreme base station product that addresses two separate security issues. The first tightens security issues with the 802.11n protocol available within the product. The second addresses an issue where the filenames of a password-protected AirPort Disk could be viewable to users on the local network, the company said in an advisory.

The update can be installed using the AirPort utility, and only affects those models with 802.11n capabilities. Of the first issue, Apple said it had to do with inbound traffic problems with IPv6, the replacement for the IP address system currently used, and the router would no longer accept inbound requests by default. The second fix would ensure a password was entered in order to view files on a local network.

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DVR manufacturer TiVo has begun rolling out to Series2 customers version 8.3 of its software, which it has dubbed the Spring 2007 Service Update. New features include a much-requested "More Options" menu when watching a program, enabling users to schedule a Season Pass or view upcoming showings.

TiVoCast has also been tweaked to display logos for partners in order to make it easier to identify where broadband video content is coming from. TiVo has staggered rollouts for its software, which means Series2 users will likely see the update arrive over the next month. Software version 8.3.1 will ship later for Series3 customers, most notably adding a "high-definition filter" to TiVo wishlists and the program guide.

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While Microsoft is confident that sales in China will increase as a result of a crackdown on piracy in 2007, the United States government is not. It filed complaints with the World Trade Organization on Tuesday.

Microsoft says sales during the year will increase some 20 percent in China, due to an overall decrease in piracy of its software. For example, 90 percent of Lenovo computers had pirated copies of Windows installed in 2006. This year, that percentage has decreased to 30 percent.

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The highly-anticipated Halo 3 multiplayer beta will be made available across Xbox Live starting May 16, the company said on Tuesday.

Beginning 5:00am PT on May 16 and running through June 6 at 11:59pm PT, the download will be offered through the Xbox Live Marketplace. Access to the beta will only be provided to those who registered either through the "Rule of Three" promotion or by purchasing specially marked copies of the game Crackdown.

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Nokia said Monday that it had begun selling the highly anticipated N95 candy-bar slider phone in the United States, with the handset initially available through Nokia's flagship stores and select wireless retailers. The phone has integrated GPS functionality, 5-megapixel camera, and support for high-speed HSDPA networks, and will retail for $749 USD before any carrier subsidies.

Nokia said it began selling the phone on Saturday and many of those who arrived for the phone had been on the waiting list for several months. "We are now able to respond to consumer demand by selling the desirable Nokia N95 with a full US warranty and localized customer support, and with customers driving in all the way from Delaware and Massachusetts; we know this is the right way to go," Nokia Americas retail chief Winston Wright said.

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Intel on Monday debuted its fastest Core 2 Extreme Quad-Core processor yet, further distancing itself from rival AMD. The 2.93GHz QX6800 will be produced using the company's 65-nm process and carry a pricetag of $1,199 USD.

The Santa Clara, Calif. chipmaker says the processor would be ideal for the next-generation of PC games, which are now beginning to take full advantage of what multicore and multithread processors offer. Intel has partnered with several game developers to assist them in rewriting code.

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