A lady in Washington state who apparently purchased a computer in late 2006 bearing the "Vista Capable" sticker, and who only later discovered it was only capable of running Vista Home Basic, has filed a class action lawsuit against Microsoft in her home state, seeking in excess of $5 million.

The lawsuit alleges Microsoft misrepresented the capacity of computers to run all of Vista's purported features, directly citing Acer senior vice president Jim Wong's comments last October that "Premium is the real Vista" as indication that at least one PC maker believed Basic was not the real Vista.

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Having Daylight Saving Time start a month earlier than normal was supposed to help conserve energy, but early indications are that the change did not make much of a difference. However, the writing may have already been on the wall as a study by the Energy Department last year indicated that the energy savings would be minimal. A survey of major utilities recently seemed to confirm that original belief.

The reason why could be the colder spring in much of the country; as we awaken earlier, we use more energy due to the need to light and warm the house. On average, heating and cooling of one's house uses far more energy than lighting. Congress plans to evaluate the effect of the earlier switch as more data becomes available. For now, the biggest effect appears to be on the electronics that needed to be updated to reflect the change.

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Perhaps sensing a relative dearth of patent litigation either brought by it or against it, due to its long-standing squabble with Broadcom finally reaching its denouement, Qualcomm today extended the number of patent infringement counts against Nokia by five.

Yesterday, Qualcomm filed suit in (as if you couldn't guess) federal district court in Marshall, Texas, alleging that Nokia is utilizing intellectual property related to the ability for mobile phones to download applications from servers remotely - IP to which Qualcomm says Nokia is not entitled.

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Microsoft said Tuesday it has decided to make available Expression Web and Blend to all MSDN Premium subscribers, responding to complaints from customers. The Redmond company originally decided against the move due to the distinction between developers and designers, but has since changed its mind.

"Although Expression Studio is targeted largely at creative professionals, because Expression Blend and Expression Web are both instrumental in helping creative professionals and developers work together, Microsoft wants to make these products readily accessible to the developer community," a Microsoft spokesperson told BetaNews.

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As expected, Microsoft has released security update MS07-017, which patches a critical vulnerability in Windows Animated Cursor Handling. The company says it was working on the fix since December, and has posted it early due to reports of attacks.

The problem is similar to one discovered in early 2005, which did not apparently affect Windows XP Service Pack 2. The new vulnerability came to light in December, but an exploit taking advantage of the flaw surfaced only last week.

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Microsoft released an update to its Live Search Maps product on Tuesday, adding 3D support for Firefox users as well as several new features in its effort to continue building search share in an increasingly crowded and competitive market.

In addition to 3D support in Firefox, 16 new cities will now be available in 3D including San Diego, California and Portland, Oregon. Microsoft has also added the functionality to the aerial maps of five UK cities, which include Plymouth, Cardiff, Bristol, Gloucester, and Wolverhampton.

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Google has taken its first steps into the television advertising business, signing an agreement on Monday with EchoStar Communications to sell commercial ad spots on DISH Network.

Similar to the Mountain View, Calif. company's radio ad offering, advertisers would use AdWords to bid on television spots. They would then be able to upload the television commercial via the Web, as well as select time, channel, area of focus, and even target a specific demographic.

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Microsoft has filed nine lawsuits and issued more than 50 cease and desist letters in an effort to curb software sold to consumers that is actually intended for students and schools.

Lawsuits were filed in federal courts in California, New York, New Jersey, Florida, Nevada and Montana. They target companies internationally in countries such as Jordan, who then do business here in the United States.

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The British hacker accused of hacking into US military computers has lost his fight against extradition, and stands to face fines up to $1.75 million and a 70-year jail term when he is tried.

Gary McKinnon, known by the hacker handle "Solo," does have one last appeal left with the highest court in the UK, the House of Lords. However, after Tuesday's ruling, it appears his time is running out.

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1:05 pm CT April 3, 2007 - In a statement to BetaNews this afternoon, European Commission chief spokesperson Jonathan Todd said that both Apple and the record companies with which it has entered into agreements to sell music tracks in Europe, may be subject to fines as a result of alleged inequitable deals between them. Those deals, the European Commission claimed in a Statement of Objections issued to both Apple and major record companies today, allegedly charge varying prices per download for customers in different European member states.

"In any anti-trust case, the relevant ceiling on fines is 10% of the whole group's worldwide turnover," Todd told BetaNews. In this case, "the whole group" refers to everyone who is a party to the deal. Presumably, the ceiling applies to revenues arising specifically from the deal, though this has yet to be made clear.

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NEWS IN BRIEF Sony said Tuesday that it had cut the price of its PlayStation Portable gaming device to $169 USD, aiming to attract more consumers to its platform, after having sold some 25 million units by the end of 2006. The price cut would bring it closer in price to Nintendo's wildly popular DS, although it still would be $40 more expensive.

This is the first formal price cut for the PSP, although in March 2006 it began offering a Core system for $199 USD. Previously, the system retailed for $249 USD, but came with other accessories such as a 32MB memory stick duo and soft case.

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There was a time when the word "standard" referred to a common custom or practice among members of an industry or society, or a set of minimum guidelines of quality upon which a device was built. After the browser wars of the 1990s, the term lost much of its distinct meaning. Manufacturers came together to intentionally develop standards, and then one powerful manufacturer countered by successfully deploying a Web browser whose underlying technologies set their own standards.

Having emerged from that era, it's difficult for us to reconcile the original concept of the standard with what it has come to mean in practice. Is a standard something that a majority of manufacturers settle upon well in advance of a device's or a software product's creation? Or is it something that the largest quantity of users adopt, whether by their own design or by someone else's?

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After a barrage of negative publicity surrounding its decision to replace aerial images of areas devastated by Hurricane Katrina with pre-storm photos, Google has switched the images back.

Missing however is any explanation why the images were modified in the first place, other than to say that the pre-storm images provided much higher-resolution than those post-Katrina.

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The process towards certifying the Microsoft-backed Office Open XML as a standard moved closer to reality Monday, as the Ecma standards body said that the format will be put to a five-month vote to standardize it.

A vote would mean that Open XML could become a standard as early as August, and will make both ODF and itself as competing ISO standards. OpenDocument received ISO standardization last May.

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Xerox continued its expansion Monday, announcing it had agreed to a $1.46 billion deal to acquire Global Imaging Systems, a company that sells office-imaging products and services.

The acquisition is its biggest in the past year. In July of last year, Xerox acquired Amici, a company that provides services for electronic discovery in court cases, and then picked up XMPie, a multimedia marketing campaign software maker in November.

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