Two quakes measuring 6.7 and 7.1 on the Richter scale on Tuesday that struck off the coast of Taiwan damaged undersea cables carrying Internet traffic, causing slowdowns in Internet access throughout the Asian continent and wreaking havoc on the financial markets. Damage was bringing down data transfer by as much as half in some cases, and it could take weeks before service is fully restored.

Undersea cables that carry both voice and data run throughout the Pacific, many of which are routed through Taiwan. As of early morning Wednesday, only about 10 percent of international calls were completed. The worst of the disruptions seemed to be in Taiwan itself, where only half of the normal telecommunications capacity was available after two out of the four lines were cut.

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Last week's discovery of a non-critical bug affecting the old 32-bit Windows API, which BetaNews reported on at the time, was picked up by The New York Times this morning, although its severity was substantially elevated in the process. Under the headline "Flaws Are Detected in Microsoft's Vista," the message box problem was touted as triggering "an early crisis of confidence in the quality of its Windows Vista operating system."

Yet tests of the flaw conducted by BetaNews suggest that, while the bug can crash Windows XP, its roots in the Win32 API dating back to Windows 3.1, coupled with the fact that the source code for the proof-of-concept appears to be straight ANSI C, directly contradict the Times' implication that the bug somehow afflicts Internet Explorer 7.0.

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As we prepare to bid adieu to 2006, we at BetaNews would like to extend our heartfelt gratitude for all of the support we have received from our software authors, downloaders and devoted readers over the past twelve months.

This has been a momentous -- and contentious -- year for the world, which has also brought great change to BetaNews. Most importantly, we have expanded our team with some fresh faces, recently welcoming Executive Producer Scott M. Fulton, III and Associate Editor Timothy Conneally. More additions are coming, as we strive to deliver a new level of content and services on BetaNews.

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A proof-of-concept code fragment that turned up on a Russian security software engineers' forum wasacknowledged today by Microsoft’s response team. It showed that the MessageBox API function that enables Windows applications to give simple alerts to users, if subjected to repeated calls, can leave an open handle to free memory.

So far, the problem isn’t being rated as critical. Though the usual suspects are flagging this vulnerability as another “zero-day,” no exploits regarding this proof-of-concept have yet been acknowledged by Microsoft or other sources, BetaNews found evidence of the source of the problem lurking as far back as early 1999.

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Virtualization software provider VMware released a public beta of its software for Intel-based Macs on Thursday, code-named "Fusion."

Like Parallels, the software enables users to run a host of operating systems, including Windows, Linux, NetWare and Solaris, without the need to reboot.

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According to patent applications recently made public, it now appears that shortly before Microsoft publicly announced integrated RSS support within Internet Explorer and Windows Vista, it filed for two patents with the US Patent and Trademark Office surrounding Web-based feed readers.

The first patent application covers technologies that will find and consume feeds into a web browser. It will also provide ways to allow a user to organize and view web feeds through an API, as well as methods to discover new feeds.

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A stock swap exchange between Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. and John Malone's Liberty Media, predicted two weeks ago by The New York Times, is on its way to fruition today, as both companies announced their intent to make a stock swap. The deal will give Malone the most sizable stake - 38.4% - in DirecTV, the US' largest satellite service provider, which has lately been giving broadband Internet service a second try.

News Corp. will receive 16.3% of its own stock back, solidifying the Murdoch family's hold on the company and removing what Murdoch has considered an obstacle to progress. To even things out, Malone will receive about $550 million USD in cash, meaning Murdoch is essentially paying Malone over half a billion to take away a property he paid $6.6 billion USD just three years ago. That is, if Malone will also promise to go away and leave him alone.

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It may have missed its earnings per share target by a single penny, but it seems as if Research In Motion investors don't care. The company beat both revenue and subscriber targets by a large margin. Key to RIM's success has been high demand for the BlackBerry Pearl.

The Pearl addressed a segment of the market that the company had largely ignored in its path to success: the consumer. Based on Thursday's results, that might no longer be the case.

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Call it a Christmas present to the nearly ten million Xbox 360 owners worldwide. Microsoft said Friday it would extend the warranty period from 90 days to one year for all consoles sold in the future, as well as those still in their first year of ownership.

The Redmond company said the move was meant to benefit customers, and those who may have had to pay for out-of-warranty repairs can expect to receive reimbursement checks from Microsoft within the next 10 weeks.

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In a move curious only due to its relatively late timing, the major record production labels in the US have filed suit in federal court against Russian online music distributor AllofMP3.com, seeking $150,000 USD for each single violation of copyright infringement for tracks the site posted without authorization.

The lawsuit, brought by Sony BMG, EMI, Warner Music Group, and Universal Music Group - the "big four" - along with Arista Records and Capitol Records, estimates at least 11 million individual intellectual property violations. Thus the publishers are collectively seeking damages equaling the gross national product of many countries.

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The full extent of Sony BMG's rootkit liabilities came to light Thursday, as a group of 39 states announced they had reached a $4.25 million settlement with the record label over the issue. Like earlier announced agreements with both Texas and California, consumers will be eligible for compensation of up to $175 for those who can provide documented evidence that a Sony rootkit caused damage to their computers.

A website has been set up to provide more information on the settlement. As part of the agreement, Sony BMG has agreed to no longer distribute discs with the copy-protection software in question on them, either MediaMax or XCP. Settlement of the case closes all pending litigation by the states in the matter. Sony BMG said it was pleased with the terms of the settlement.

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Reuters and the Associated Press are both reporting that a fifth senior executive of world #1 DRAM manufacturer Samsung has agreed to plead guilty in connection with the US Justice Dept.'s investigation into memory industry collusion and price fixing.

Former Samsung vice president of sales Young Hwan Park will plead guilty and cooperate with the federal investigation, after which he will reportedly pay a $250,000 fine and spend ten months in prison. Samsung Electronics last month pled guilty for its own part, and was fined $300 million. Park is one of 18 executives from four organizations - Samsung, Hynix Semiconductor, Elpida, and Infineon (which has since spun off its memory unit as Qimonda) - to have been directly charged in the price-fixing probe since it began in 2002.

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The candidate declared the loser in last month's race for Florida's 13th US congressional district is now seeking the help of the incoming Congress she might have joined, in investigating whether an apparent 18,382 undercount by voting machines in Sarasota County might have prevented her from losing by just 369 votes.

If Christine Jennings gains the support of incoming Democratic committee heads - which, with the help of Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean, she's likely to do - the result could be a series of congressional hearings into the integrity of electronic voting machines nationwide.

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After winning the contract to build a wireless network in New Orleans, EarthLink said Thursday it had officially launched services in the Crescent City. A slower free tier would be made available while the city rebuilds, plus a faster, fee-based service.

The Wi-Fi service was first announced and launched in November of last year in the French Quarter and Central Business District. Mayor Ray Nagin said its purpose was to provide Internet access to citizens while the heavily damaged telecommunications network was repaired.

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In an effort to become more relevant in the search market, Ask has begun to quietly test a new three-paned interface for its search results, bringing together the strengths of its parent company InterActiveCorp's varied holdings.

Ask holds about a 5.9 percent search share according to research firm comScore Networks, and has shown some upward momentum in recent months. However, this remains far behind market-leading Google, who had a 45.4 percent share as of October of this year.

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