Sony said Thursday that it would drop the price of the PlayStation 2 to $129.99 USD in an effort to keep consumer demand high as it races to complete its next generation console. The company plans to release the PlayStation 3 in November of this year.

To date, the electronics maker has sold some 101 million consoles and over a billion game titles. It also enjoys a 56 percent market share in the U.S., double that of its nearest competitor, Nintendo. It also remains the most popular platform in every major market, including North America, Europe and the PAL markets, and Japan and Asia.

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Sprint Nextel said Thursday that it had agreed to purchase Ubiquitel, an affiliate of the wireless carrier that offers cellular services in small and mid-size markets in California, Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, Nevada, Tennessee, Utah, Washington and Wyoming. Sprint agreed to purchase the Conshohocken, Pa., based company for $1 billion, and assumed $300 million in debt. The deal is expected to close in the second quarter of this year.

Ubiquitel, like many of Sprint's affiliates, filed suit against the wireless carrier following its merger with Nextel to force it to purchase the company outright. As a result of the buyout, this litigation would be stayed in Delaware court pending the closing of the merger. As of the end of the first quarter of this year, Ubiquitel served about 452,000 wireless subscribers and 151,000 wholesale customers.

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Apple continues to post solid numbers as it reported another strong quarter on Wednesday. For the quarter ending March 31, the Cupertino company posted revenues of $4.36 billion, which includes $410 million in profit.

These numbers were up from $3.24 billion in revenue and $290 million in profit from the year ago quarter. Additionally, the company reported its share of the U.S. audio player business increased to 78 percent from 71 percent in December, and its share of the legal music downloads increased to 87 percent thanks to the iTunes Music Store.

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Yahoo could soon begin offering wireless access to users of its instant messaging client through an add-on service much like its VoIP offerings. Indications of such a service first appeared after the company polled its users about their interest. Yahoo's moves follow those of Google, which is also turning to wireless access to promote its services.

The service called Yahoo Messenger On-the-Road would be made available for free to those who wish to only use instant messaging. For customers wanting Web access, Yahoo is considering charging $2.95 USD for a two-hour connection, or $7.95 USD per month. A company spokesperson acknowledged that it was polling users, but declined to say whether such a service would eventually be introduced.

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Apple has issued a security update to patch a potential vulnerability within Java affecting Mac OS X 10.4.5. A specially crafted application could bypass built-in security and allow access to system files by an intruder. The problem is located within Java Web Start, which loads Java applications over the Internet.

Also, other bugs within the Java runtime that pose a potential security risk were also fixed as part of the update. Mac OS X is not the only operating system affected by the issues. Windows, Solaris and Linux are also vulnerable. In February, Sun issued an advisory warning of both flaws, and said at the time that no reports of attackers exploiting the issues had been received.

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Yahoo earlier this week acquired most of software maker Meedio, a move that seems to indicate the company is looking to expand its Yahoo Go initiative onto the television set. Meedio produces software that gives PCs DVR and media organization functionality, and links them with TVs.

According to a statement on the company's Website, Yahoo bought the rights to Meedio's technology and intellectual property. The purchase did not include Meedio's products, however several members of the company will be joining Yahoo's Digital Home team as a result.

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Microsoft said Wednesday it had decided to extend the free availability of Visual Studio Express Edition indefinitely, citing the immense response from customers that amounted in the tool being downloaded over 5 million times. VS Express was initially going to be offered free for just one year.

A number of Microsoft partners have made use of Visual Studio Express to build developer communities around their products. The Redmond company cited examples of LEGO, eBay and Phidgets among those who are providing resources and code to software developers.

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AT&T said Tuesday it would partner with Akimbo to offer a service where consumers could download movies and shows via the Internet for its Homezone television service. The telecommunications company plans to launch the offering in 13 states beginning this summer.

The service would feature live television from DISH Network along with enhancements built around it. Customers would be able to download movies through MovieLink, use digital video recorder functionality, access photo-sharing and radio services through Yahoo, and see caller ID data on their television screens.

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Google late Tuesday announced an update to its Search Appliance hardware for businesses, which adds what the company calls "OneBox functionality." The idea of the feature is to enable customers to search for a variety of data using a single box, rather than manually selecting what type of data to scour.

Just as Google can load up movie listings, weather and flight information with a standard search query, employees can now access "real-time contact info, sales forecasts, and customer information the very same way," says Google's VP of Enterprise Dave Girouard. "We launched an initial set of OneBox modules with Oracle, Cognos, SAS and Salesforce.com."

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The ODF Alliance, an organization of companies supporting the adoption of the OASIS OpenDocument format, announced Tuesday that its membership had more than tripled in less than two months. Since March 3, its ranks have grown from 38 to 138.

Some of the biggest names in technology are now members of the ODF Alliance, including Corel, EDS, IBM, Novell, Opera, Oracle, and Sun. Open source companies have also opened up to the alliance, with GNOME, Mandriva, OpenOffice.org, OSDL and Red Hat offering their support.

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Microsoft on Wednesday released the first service pack for SQL Server 2005, just five months after the new database made its debut last November. The Redmond company said quick adoption by customers and feedback from partners in 92 countries helped push the update out the door.

SP1 brings database-mirroring functionality to ensure continuous availability during outages, a new management tool for SQL Server 2005 Express Edition, as well as enhanced reporting with support for SAP NetWeaver Business Intelligence. Microsoft also reaffirmed its commitment to deliver this summer a CTP of SQL Server Everywhere Edition, which targeted at mobile and embedded devices.

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Activists are criticizing Yahoo anew after court documents apparently show information provided to Chinese officials by the portal led to the four-year-sentence of an Internet writer for "subversion." This latest revelation marks the third time Yahoo has been identified as the source for such jailings.

Jiang Lijun was jailed in 2003 after the company confirmed that Jiang was using an Internet e-mail account with activist Li Yibing. Previously, it had been discovered that Yahoo provided documents that led to an eight-year subversion sentence against Li Zhi in that same year, and a ten-year sentence for Shi Tao, who the government accused of leaking state secrets.

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Tuesday marked the first day of availability for HD DVD discs, with two studios releasing three movies in the next-generation optical disc format. The releases are intended to coincide with the launch of the first HD DVD player from Toshiba.

Warner Home Video shipped "The Last Samurai" and "The Phantom of the Opera" while Universal shipped "Serenity." The releases comes a full month ahead of the first Blu-ray titles, expected from Sony's movie studio arm on May 23. However, the first Blu-ray players are not due until late June.

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Google continues to control the search query market by a considerable margin, as Americans increasingly turn to search for their Web needs, data from Comscore indicated Tuesday. Google garnered 42.7 percent of all searches, a figure that is up 6.3 percent in the past year, and a half percent in the last month.

Yahoo came in second with 28 percent, up 0.4 percent from last month although down 2.6 percent from last year. MSN is the third-ranked search engine, down 0.3 percent from last month, and down 3.3 percent year over year. Time Warner's AOL came in fourth with 7.6 percent of the market, down 1.4 percent from the year previous, while Ask.com finished fifth with 5.9 percent, down slightly from last month, but up 0.4 percent from March 2005. Overall, search queries are up 15 percent year over year, and 10 percent from February.

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Seagate on Tuesday announced its first 3.5-inch hard disk drives to use perpendicular storage technology. The new offerings join the company's preexisting line of Cheetah drives that sport some of the fastest data transfer rates of any hard disk available.

The drives will sport data transfer rates of 73 to 125 mbps, 30 percent faster than their predecessor. Capacities of 73GB, 147GB and 300GB would be available on one, two, and four platters, respectively. Seagate is betting on perpendicular technology as a way to fit more disk capacity into a standard-sized drive.

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