On Tuesday, Brokeback Mountain will break ground once again -- this time as the first movie to be launched on a download service the same day as its DVD release. Along with Brokeback, beginning Monday movies would be available on service Movielink as "download-to-own" titles.

New releases would be available for between $20 and $30 USD per download. Older movies would start at $9 USD, the company said.

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IBM is expected to announce on Monday at Linux World in Boston a new partnership with Novell to give small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) an easier way to implement Linux. The offering pairs software from Novell and Centeris with IBM's eServer xSeries or BladeCenter systems.

"We're seeing increasing interest in Linux and Open Source from small and medium businesses," IBM's open source strategy manager Adam Jollans told BetaNews in an interview. He said that many of these companies lack the IT department necessary to run a large Linux installation.

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AOL on Monday announced several improvements to its mobile offerings, including an enhancement to its mobile search service that would format any page for the mobile screen, an expanded relationship with Sprint, and new mobile applications.

Through a new "Surf the Web" feature included within AOL Mobile Search, users would be able to view any standard Web page through a special transcoding feature. AOL Wireless Director of Emerging Technologies Raine Bergstrom told BetaNews that pages have a similar structure that allows this to be done.

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Adults are becoming increasingly cell addicted, with four out of 10 considering dropping their landline service. The findings were part of a larger mobile lifestyle survey released on Monday by America Online, the Associated Press, and Pew Research Center.

In previous studies AOL had focused on children and teenagers, which AOL Wireless director of emerging technologies Raine Bergstrom called "the trendsetters." Mobile use among this demographic is highest, and thus gauging their cellular activity has proven to be the most logical way of measuring the success of mobile features.

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Television program guide service MeeVee is expected to announce Monday a new version of its site that adds functionality such as Internet television channels, better search functionality, user recommendations and reviews, and contextual e-commerce features provided through Amazon.com.

The site has been in beta since June of last year, however Monday marks the official launch of the product along with the new features. MeeVee president Michael Raneri says what sets the service apart is its improved search functions.

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Google is remaining tight lipped about a job posting seeking out a product manager for its IPTV ventures. The company has declined to give further details beyond what the job description says about the new position, although it seems to be clear that Google is interested in taking its search technology beyond the computer.

"You will provide leadership on product vision and execution of projects that enable using Google's search and advertising technologies to enhance users' television-viewing experience," the posting says of the job's responsibilities. Additionally, the product manager would look into ways that Google's search and advertising technologies could "enhance [the TV] user experience." If the listing is any clue, the Mountain View, Calif., search company is interested in the areas of video-on-demand, DVRs and IPTV set-top boxes.

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Microsoft ended its two-day hearing with the European Commission on Friday with an upbeat tone, saying it had made progress in coming to an understanding with the EU's antitrust watchdog. The hearing was scheduled to determine whether Microsoft had adequately complied with a March 2004 ruling against it.

Professor Neil Barrett, an independent monitor hired to evaluate Microsoft's compliance, outlined on Friday what the Redmond company must do to avoid 2 million euro fines dating back to December 15. That date is when the Commission filed its statement of objections accusing Microsoft of not following through on opening up Windows Server protocols to third parties.

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The Electronic Frontier Foundation is heading back into the courtroom on April 20 to appeal a ruling last year that could have far reaching consequences for bloggers and journalists. In that decision, Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge James Kleinberg's said that journalists and their ISPs can be obligated to identify confidential sources.

The case stemmed from a "John Doe" lawsuit filed by Apple against Web sites, including Jason O'Grady's PowerPage, which provoked Apple after it disclosed the company's designs for a FireWire-based interface for GarageBand code-named "Asteroid." Apple was given permission to subpoena both O'Grady and other rumor site AppleInsider.

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Google took the lid off an anticipated new feature for users of its mapping service Friday that would let advertisers promote their businesses directly on Google Maps. The ads would appear as small icons, and would be clickable to reveal logos and pictures of the business in question.

Certain searches would make these advertisements appear. For example, while the service was in testing, Barnes and Noble and Ralph Lauren bought keywords such as "Philadelphia Books" or "Ralph Lauren New York." When people searched using these keywords, the ads appeared.

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Researchers at the Swedish National Institute for Working Life issued a report this week disputing two earlier studies that claimed cell phone use has no correlation to increased brain tumor risk. The Swedish study found that long-term mobile phone exposure could raise the chance of developing cancer.

In January, a four-year study performed by the London-based Institute of Cancer Research and three British universities found that talking on a cell phone had no effect on tumor rates. That research included 966 people with glioma brain tumors and 1,716 healthy respondents. Individuals were questioned on first use, lifetime years of use, cumulative hours of use, and number of calls they made.

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Security firms are warning Internet users of a new method of attack that attempts to fool people into clicking on links to supposed BBC News stories. However, the page visited is a forged copy, and a keystroke logger is installed on the victim's computer through a vulnerability in Internet Explorer.

Attackers are taking advantage of an earlier discovered flaw in Microsoft's ubiquitous browser. The problem causes IE to interpret the "createTextRange()" method used for radio button controls in HTML forms incorrectly, allowing for malicious code execution.

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Toshiba kicked off the next-generation of DVD technology on Friday with the launch of its first HD DVD player in Japan. The HD-XA1 is priced at 110,000 yen, or $940 USD -- slightly higher than it will cost in the United States. No movies in the format will be available until April, however the Toshiba player can play current DVD discs as well.

Toshiba delayed the introduction of the $799 HD-XA1 in the United States last week due to movie studios needing more time to prepare films. The electronics maker also plans to introduce a cheaper $499 player to help push adoption among consumers who may balk at the cost of upgrading to high definition. Sony is expected to launch its first Blu-ray player in July for $1,000.

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Intel CEO Paul Otellini introduced a new initiative Friday that will aim to supply governments and telecommunications companies with a full-featured PC at an affordable price. The company's first partner is Telmex, a Mexican telecommunications company.

The "Discover the PC" initiative comes after the MIT One Laptop Per Child program rebuffed Intel when the decision was made to use AMD processors. The company's chairman has also publicly criticized the MIT program, saying consumers were looking for a full-featured device.

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eBay has long been a purveyor of the unusual and the unique, but it's not often an authentic piece of tech history captures as much attention as the Enigma 3 portable cipher machine that has racked up bids of almost 16,000 euros. The Enigma device was used extensively by Nazi Germany during World War II.

Specifically, the Enigma machine was capable of encrypting and decrypting secret messages using mechanical rotors. Its use entered the history books when Allied forces successfully broke the Enigma cipher with the help of early computer technology, and used the intercepted communications to help defeat the Germans.

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Apple announced Thursday that it had begun shipping Final Cut Studio 5.1, the first version of its video production suite to ship as a Universal Binary. The announcement follows February's release of Logic Pro 7.2 as a Universal application, and will be followed in April by Aperture 1.1, the company's photo editing tool. According to benchmarks by Apple, the new version runs up to two and a half times faster on MacBook Pro laptops.

"With the incredible performance of Final Cut Studio on a MacBook Pro, customers can work more efficiently wherever they are," Apple applications marketing vice president Rob Schoeben said in a statement. Current users of the PowerPC version of Final Cut Studio would be able to "crossgrade" for $49, while users of the standalone versions of applications could upgrade starting at $99. The full version of Final Cut Studio will retail for $1,299.

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