Western Digital will provide free backup software to around 1 million customers as part of a class action settlement relating to how the company marketed the size of its hard drives. Western Digital was sued last year for advertising a drive as 80GB when it only physically stored 74.4GB.

The capacity difference is caused by computers using a binary system that defines 1GB as 1,073,741,824 bytes. Western Digital labeled its hard drives using a decimal definition in which 1GB was 1,000,000,000 bytes. The lawsuit alleged that the disk maker misled customers and violated the California Consumers Legal Remedies Act.

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Palm said Wednesday that it had settled a nine year-old lawsuit with Xerox over handwriting recognition technology by making a $22.5 million payment to the company. In return, Palm would be licensed to use the patent as well as two others. Additionally, Xerox has agreed not to sue Palm for patent infringement for seven years.

Xerox originally sued 3Com in April 1997, claiming that the Graffiti technologies used in Palm handhelds infringed upon a patent that the company had received in January of that year. Xerox cited a desire to end the legal process and avoiding further costs as a reason for settling with Palm. Neither company publicly commented on the settlement other than announcing of the deal.

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Social video site YouTube said it had signed a deal with NBC Tuesday that will bring promos of the networks prime time lineup to the site this fall. Also expected to debut on YouTube are Internet exclusives, as well as behind-the-scenes content.

An official NBC channel would be created on YouTube that will house all NBC-related programming. Exclusive content from "The Office" will be the first to appear, followed by content from "Saturday Night Live," "The Office," and "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno."

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British photo organization software maker iView Multimedia said late Monday it had been acquired by Microsoft. Details were not disclosed, however the company said the acquisition would help to enhance the product, as well as its customer service. iView was originally created for the Macintosh platform and then was ported to Windows.

"In my view, this Microsoft acquisition affords us an unprecedented opportunity to be even more responsive to a thriving market and ensure that iView MediaPro continues to perform to its full potential," company founder Yan Calotychos said in an open letter to customers. Calotychos emphasized that even as Microsoft takes over the product, support for Mac OS X would remain. He also said that the company would provide more details in future announcements.

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Apple has released the seventh major update to Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger, adding a slew of improvements to Mail, iChat, Safari and a number of other applications. Also on the long list of changes are networking enhancements, along with bug fixes for Finder, Aperture and iTunes.

Mac OS X 10.4.7 additionally brings support for addition image formats in Automator, compatibility with more RAW image formats, and native support for Sierra Wireless and Novatel cards used for EVDO and other high-speed wireless services. The update can be downloaded through the operating system's built in Software Update feature or from Apple Downloads.

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At Windows Vista lab in Redmond before the release of Beta 2, Microsoft developers showed off the new OS to a room full of MVPs and enthusiasts. But even the company's most loyal fan base turned ugly when User Account Control took the stage. Now, Microsoft is begging users not to disable the controversial feature.

User Account Control, or UAC, is a fundamental security change coming in Windows Vista and one of the most important additions to protect users from threats, Microsoft says. But the company is struggling to find a balance between security and usability.

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Google on Tuesday released the final version of Google Desktop 4, the search engine's desktop search utility and sidebar application. The new release brings tighter integration with Google services, and new "Google Gadgets," which expand the capabilities of previous sidebar plug-ins.

Like the gadgets supported by the Windows Sidebar in Vista and those offered in Apple's Mac OS X dashboard, Google Gadgets are mini-applications that range from games to system utilities. Google has provided a new SDK and Gadget Designer application to aide development.

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Microsoft disclosed over the weekend that exploit code for a recently patched flaw in Routing and Remote Access had been published to the Internet. The vulnerability had been patched in June's Patch Tuesday release, and the company was not aware of any attacks using the exploit.

Those who have applied the MS06-025 patch are immune to the exploit, according to a Microsoft investigation. Additionally, the flaw is easiest to exploit in Windows 2000; on Windows XP Service Pack 2, Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1 the attacker would need logon credentials.

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Microsoft officially launched CodePlex on Tuesday, a software development portal designed to host projects by third parties and share source code. In beta testing since May, CodePlex offers code under a variety of licenses, including Microsoft Shared Source and the GPL, among others.

The site is currently home to more than 30 collaborate development projects, Microsoft says, including the company's own "Atlas" Control Toolkit, IronPython 1.01 Beta 1 and Power Toys for Visual Studio. "CodePlex provides a forum to bring together developers from around the world and gives them tools, source code and an advanced platform for designing and building software," said Jon Rosenberg, director of Community Source Programs at Microsoft.

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The W3C said Tuesday that it had released a set of best practices for mobile Web pages, based on a broad consensus from all parties involved. Representatives from 30 companies joined to create the standards, including AOL, Google, Nokia, Opera, Vodafone and others.

The group says the document took into account the experience in the field of those firms. It includes what to avoid, such as page scrolling and pop ups, and provides guidance on how to build effective mobile Web sites.

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Microsoft on Tuesday said it had completed the pilot phase for WGA Notifications, officially rolling out the anti-piracy reminders to Windows XP users worldwide. The company has made minor changes to the program in response to customer concern regarding its "phone home" functionality.

WGA Notifications is a component of Windows Genuine Advantage, an anti-piracy program implemented to detect counterfeit copies of Windows XP. The first piece of this initiative, WGA Validation, was launched in July 2005.

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With 2.5 million downloads of Office 2007 Beta 2 already counted, Microsoft has put up a Web-based preview of its new office suite to reach even more potential customers. The online "test drive" features 18 product-specific tutorials and covers most Office system client applications and servers.

The preview allows users to try out Office 2007 components directly, or be guided through walk-through tours of the various new features of each product. Additionally, pre-populated data enables users to test new server functionality from SharePoint and Project Server.

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Warner Bros. said Tuesday that it had struck a deal with Guba, a YouTube competior, to distribute feature films and TV shows over the Internet. Films could be rented for $1.79 per day, or purchased for $9.99 for older titles, and $19.99 for newer releases.

Guba is betting that its new deal with a major studio would help raise its profile in an increasingly crowded social video space. It also shows a willingness on the part of movie studios to work with technologies they once eschewed.

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The European Union is close to imposing a 2 million euro per day fine on Microsoft for non-compliance with its March 2004 antitrust ruling. According to a Tuesday report in the Financial Times, a draft of a decision is to be presented Monday to the proper authorities.

From there, Neellie Kroes, the EU's competition commissioner, would deliver the ruling on July 12. Kroes will likely not see any resistance in implementing the decision from other members of the regulating body, as rulings are rarely overturned at this stage.

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Intel has found a buyer for its struggling communications chip business, selling the unit for $600 million plus liabilities to Marvell Technology Group. Marvell said the acquisition would give it a stronger presence in the mobile chip industry, while allowing Intel to focus on its core businesses, such as laptop and desktop processors. The transaction is expected to close by the end of the year.

Rumors of a sale of Intel's communications business first surfaced in the Wall Street Journal earlier this month. While the company's XScale chips have done well in high-end phones, it has had little success in marketing its lower-end chips to device makers. The result has been huge losses for the communications arm, likely between $500 million and $1 billion a year.

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