Microsoft is aiming to offer a higher-quality alternative to JPEG, saying Thursday that it planned to standardize its HD Photo graphics format. The new format is said to offer better quality, less data loss, and advanced functionality.

Compression with HD Photo is twice that of JPEG with fewer artifacts, the company claims. Due to this, images are clearer and half the size of those saved in the popular format.

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In carefully calculated statements made yesterday at a financial analysts' retreat yesterday in Palm Beach, Florida, new Fox Interactive Media president Peter Levinsohn was quoted by Variety as saying the on-again/off-again talks between his parent company, News Corp., and representatives of other major media companies to collectively build an online video sharing destination, are on again. He later hinted that MySpace -- the jewel in the FIM crown -- would be the platform on which that destination would be built.

"We're in very active negotiations with all of the media companies to create the most robust video offering from professional content on the Web," Variety quotes Levinsohn as saying, in a response that may have arisen to a simple inquiry about FIM's efforts to protect its content online.

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The Windows Live brain drain continues as news sources are reporting that Windows Live Search vice president Christopher Payne will be stepping down shortly.

The Wall Street Journal says sources are indicating that Payne will be leaving the company to start his own business, and that Microsoft has not yet decided on a successor. Microsoft is so far declining to comment on the reports.

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The Special Master presiding over the discovery of evidence in AMD's antitrust trial against Intel, Vincent Poppiti, today gave Intel five weeks -- until April 10 -- to present a full written account of the custodial process, and the likely failing of that process, under which the company admits potential evidence in that trial was lost.

At that time, Intel must come up with what's being called a "plan of remediation," under which some of that lost data may be recovered, or at least data will be protected against future loss.

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Google on Wednesday rolled out a beta version 5 of its Desktop product, which includes a desktop search, sidebar and Google Gadgets. It could be said that Google Desktop 5 has been "Vista-fied," with a new design that better blends into the background.

Other features in version 5 include a "Preview" feature in desktop search that enables users to quickly glance at documents without opening them fully. Security has also been bolstered such that Google will now warn users when they click on links from documents, e-mails or IM logs that may lead to a malicious Web site.

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Samsung has begun shipments of the first hybrid flash memory hard drive to its OEM partners. Retail shipments are expected to begin soon, however the company has not specified a date.

The Korean electronics maker first announced its plans for such drives shortly before WinHEC in May of last year. It said that combining flash memory with a traditional HDD had numerous benefits, including faster boot and resume times, as well as increased reliability.

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With a mandate to consider the proper direction for the evolution of the lingua franca of the World-Wide Web, the W3 Consortium this morning officially re-launched the HTML Working Group. Its mission will be to deliver an updated HTML, for use by both stand-alone and XML parsers, by the last day of 2010.

When the new Working Group was announced last October, Web creator Tim Berners-Lee wrote for his personal blog, "It is necessary to evolve HTML incrementally. The attempt to get the world to switch to XML, including quotes around attribute values and slashes in empty tags and namespaces all at once didn't work. The large HTML-generating public did not move, largely because the browsers didn't complain."

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Sony is betting its latest creation, PlayStation Home, will help to quell criticism that the console falls far behind its rivals in online support.

Executives for the company announced the service at the Game Developers Conference Wednesday during a keynote address. Sony is banking on the new offering, to be available globally in the fall, as a way to differentiate itself from its competitors.

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Noted analyst Michael Gartenberg has decided that evangelizing Microsoft products just isn't for him, and is quitting less than a month after joining the Redmond company in a high-profile move that brought both criticism and praise.

Gartenberg will return to his post at JupiterResearch, where he worked for five years and was a vice president before his departure in February. Prior to Jupiter, Gartenberg worked for seven years as an analyst for Gartner.

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Exactly one month after announcing a partnership to deliver Amazon's Unbox movie download service to TiVo users, the two companies have put the service live for TiVo customers with a broadband connection.

Amazon and TiVo are billing the service as the first to offer both recorded television content and broadband content in a single interface. Service activation is done through Amazon.com, where the subscriber must enter information about their TiVo Series2 or Series3 set-top boxes.

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In the wake of fallout over a Microsoft attorney's public comments yesterday before the Association of American Publishers, chastising arch-rival Google for an effort he said would undermine the rights of copyright holders worldwide, the Bavarian State Library has signed a pact with Google Book Search that will enable the search provider to index and publish online a major portion of its holdings.

But in an indication of how libraries may continue to treat Google with caution, the Library stated it would only allow Google Book Search to index works whose terms of copyright had expired. Still, the pact is likely to enrich Google's online repertoire with a huge collection of not only German-language works, but also Spanish, Italian, French, Latin, and English texts, including rarely seen works that explore the history of Eastern Europe.

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EarthLink said Wednesday that it had reached a deal with the city of Corpus Christi, Texas that would open up its preexisting Wi-Fi network for public use. Currently city workers and public safety officials use the network, but after EarthLink takes ownership, it will be optimized for public use and offered at around $20 USD per month.

Like other Wi-Fi deployments by the company, the network would be opened up to third parties allowing them to provide their own wireless services. "The [EarthLink] relationship will enable us to provide the Corpus Christi community with competitive commercial Internet services, give ISPs an equal opportunity to participate, and ensure a return on the City's current and ongoing network investment," city manager George "Skip" Noe said.

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Access to YouTube from within Turkey was blocked Wednesday after prosecutors pointed out videos insulting the founder of the modern version of the country were appearing on the site.

Laws within the country forbid such comments that place Mustafa Kemal Ataturk or Turkey in general in a bad light, and are punishable by a prison term.

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Eleven companies have sued Yahoo's China division for about 5.5 million yuan ($710,690 USD) over accusations of copyright infringement, the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry said Wednesday. The group noted that while it believed China was an important market, it was taking steps to eradicate piracy in the country. Studies show that as much as 85 percent of all music in the country is pirated.

Yahoo! China said in response that it respects copyright and supports the fight against piracy, although it said that precedence had been set that shows Web site owners are not liable for the actions of their users. A previous case against Baidu.com was dismissed for similar reasons.

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Microsoft intends to offer a beta version of Office Communicator 2007 to millions of testers later this month. The move will begin an effort to give VoIP click-to-call functionality to some 100 million users of Office in the next three years.

In a keynote to attendees of a VoIP conference in Orlando, Fla. Wednesday, Microsoft Business Division president Jeff Raikes said the cost of VoIP deployment for businesses would be cut in half by the end of the decade, spurring growth in the sector.

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