TiVo and EarthLink said Tuesday that they would begin offering a package deal where a consumer could purchase a stand-alone DVR unit and combine it with Internet or phone services through the ISP. Earthlink would be responsible for the marketing of the deal, which would begin later this year.

"This combined offering not only provides customers the simplicity and value of a bundle, but also provides seamless access to the growing portfolio of content and services that are being delivered via the Internet, directly to the living room," said EarthLink consumer products chief Gary Sonnier. Pricing for the offering, as well as financial terms of the deal, were not disclosed.

Continue reading →

Macrovision said Tuesday that it had signed agreements with several online providers to employ the company's Analog Copy Protection (ACP) system in Internet movie and video distribution.

Deals have been struck with Netflix, BitTorrent, Movielink, and Instant Media. Macrovision claims the DRM technology will actually give consumers more choices in how, when, and where they can view content.

Continue reading →

If the press preview day for Microsoft's annual TechFest research fair is any indication of Redmond's future plans, search will become an increasingly larger part of the company's overall business.

Demonstrations of various search technologies dominated opening remarks by Microsoft Research presenters Tuesday. For many Microsoft employees, the event is the first time they would see technologies being developed by the MSR division.

Continue reading →

If a new online radio webcasting royalty rate, proposed last week by the Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) of the US Library of Congress, is ratified and put into effect, BetaNews estimates that online webcasting leader AOL Radio may receive a bill for copyright holders' royalties retroactive to 2006 amounting to $23.7 million, payable to a collective representing the US recording industry. And assuming the service doesn't become more popular, it could find itself paying as much as $56.3 million in copyright royalties in 2010.

This while the world's three major copyright holders' groups - ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC - collectively charge terrestrial broadcast radio stations $972 per year per station, for the rights to broadcast exactly the same music to an equivalent or larger audience.

Continue reading →

While the release of iTunes 7.1 does include a number of compatibility fixes that enable the software to work with most Windows Vista editions, Apple warns that users may still encounter problems. The company is working with Microsoft to resolve outstanding bugs.

Apple notes that ejecting an iPod using Windows Vista's "Safely Remove Hardware" feature could corrupt the device and require a full restore using iTunes. In addition, iTunes text and graphics may display incorrectly, and contacts may not sync properly from Windows to an iPod. For now, iTunes and iPods remain incompatible with 64-bit versions of both Windows XP and Windows Vista.

Continue reading →

Following the complete revamping of its Netscape portal to a Digg-like social-driven news site where users submit links to content elsewhere on the Web, AOL has relaunched My.Netscape in beta as a customizable homepage after taking it down months ago.

The result is much like other personal homepages from the likes of Netvibes and Google: users can select different types of content "modules" that are driven by RSS feeds. "My.Netscape will retain its identity as a personalized homepage, with a minimum of ad clutter," says developer Tom Drapeau. However, past My.Netscape users may not be too happy, as all of their stock and bookmark settings have not yet been migrated.

Continue reading →

Mozilla disclosed Monday that it had opened up a vulnerability with a previous security fix for its Firefox, Seamonkey, and Thunderbird clients. According to an advisory issued Monday, a new JavaScript issue was introduced that would allow coding from Web content to be exploited to execute arbitrary code.

Only Firefox and Seamonkey are affected by the new flaw. A patch would need to be applied as disabling JavaScript does not protect against the problem, Mozilla said. Upgrading to either Firefox 1.5.0.10 or 2.0.0.2, or Seamonkey 1.0.8 and 1.1.1 would also address the issue. Those releases were made available in late February.

Continue reading →

Microsoft has fired back against hackers who had broke into the Xbox 360 console to run their own code by masking a patch to disable such activity within a system update billed as a fix to the console's online systems. As with most fixes, a user is signed out of Xbox Live and prevented from signing back in until the update is applied, making its installation almost mandatory.

The patch comes after it was discovered in late February the console had a vulnerability that allowed privilege escalation into hypervisor mode. Such an issue would allow attackers -- or creative users -- to run arbitrary code or alternative operating systems. Although no one has yet been successful in running anything of consequence, a "hello world" script program was posted on the Xbox Scene Web site late last week.

Continue reading →

Fujitsu on Tuesday announced its latest lineup of Serial ATA hard drives for notebook computers, which feature perpendicular recording technology. Although the additions come in capacities far below Fujitsu's 300GB monster -- 80GB, 120GB and 160GB -- spindle speed has been bumped to 7200 RPM.

The MHW2160BJ series mobile hard drives also are the first to feature a 3.0Gb/sec SATA interface. "Fujitsu has positioned itself well to capitalize on the growing demand for higher performance 7200RPM laptop hard disk drives that replace the functionality found traditionally on desktop PCs," said Fujitsu vice president Joel Hagberg. The new drives will begin shipping in the second quarter.

Continue reading →

Windows Live OneCare has once again come up with a failing grade, as it was disclosed Monday the program had not passed a virus test by the AV Comparatives organization.

The failure means that Microsoft will not receive any type of certification from the group. It was the only antivirus program to fail - two others received a "standard" rating, and 14 received either an "advanced" or "advanced+" rating.

Continue reading →

Dell's global market share in PCs was expected to have slipped last year, but the question on the mind of new CEO Michael Dell was, how badly? Today, the first preliminary numbers from electronics research firm iSuppli are in, and though it's bad news, it might not be devastating: Dell lost 1.6% in global PC market share between 2005 and 2006, and its PC shipments declined 8.6% for the year. Hewlett-Packard, meanwhile, gained 2.7% of market share for the year, and shipped more than 20% more PCs than Dell during the fourth quarter.

While Dell will be happy to claim the #1 position worldwide for last year, by virtue of its relatively stronger performance during the first half, few are under the illusion that this title reflects the current state of affairs.

Continue reading →

Amie Street has signed a deal with Nettwerk Music Group that will bring several major bands to a music service without DRM, and where popularity determines the price. But the first order of business appears to be obtaining more bandwidth.

Attempts by BetaNews to connect to Amie Street resulted in waiting times for page loads of one minute or more - and in some cases not at all. Much of the issues could be likely attributed to its Nettwerk announcement.

Continue reading →

Continuing an extraordinary public relations campaign whose aim appears to be to position it as the champion of individuals' and publishers' rights in the information age, Microsoft today plans to blast Google in a public forum for having built its business model around what it calls a "systematic infringement of copyrights."

This morning, Microsoft released the prepared text of comments its associate general counsel, Thomas Rubin, plans to make later today in New York before a meeting of the Association of American Publishers. Along with it, the company released one of those prepared Q&As with Rubin, which the company puts forth in the opening stages of a major software strategy shift or policy initiative.

Continue reading →

Apple on Monday put out new releases of iTunes and QuickTime for both Mac OS X and Windows, adding support for the company's Apple TV product in the former and patching 8 serious security holes in the latter.

Each of the flaws could enable an attacker to create a malicious QuickTime file that, when run, executes arbitrary code and could lead to a full system compromise. Affected file types that have been corrected include QuickTime, MIDI, 3GP, PICT and QTIF files. iTunes 7.1 and QuickTime 7.1.5 are available for download on FileForum.

Continue reading →

In a troubling development late Monday, AMD filed a brief with US District Court Judge Joseph J. Farnan, Jr. accusing Intel of having destroyed e-mails and other documentation that may have been important to its antitrust case. The brief comes in response to a letter submitted by Intel's attorneys to Judge Farnan acknowledging the loss of documents that AMD has sought, and blaming Intel's document preservation process for their loss rather than intentional destruction.

“Through what appears to be a combination of gross communication failures, an ill-conceived plan of document retention and lackluster oversight by outside counsel,” reads AMD’s brief, “Intel has apparently allowed evidence to be destroyed. Though all the facts are not in, potentially massive amounts of e-mail correspondence generated and received by Intel executives and employees since the filing of the lawsuit may be irretrievably lost, as may other relevant electronic documents.”

Continue reading →