The future of .xxx became uncertain Thursday after ICANN chairman Vint Cerf announced that plans to approve a proposal for the domain were removed from the agenda for a board meeting in British Columbia.

Approval had already been delayed once before in September. That delay came at the request of the Bush Administration, who said it had received 6,000 complaints over the proposed addition. According to ICANN, more time is needed to review a 350-page report concerning the creation of the domain.

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Microsoft says that social networking information already present on our computers could help us better organize cluttered e-mail inboxes. Thus, the company's research division has developed a new application called SNARF, short for Social Network and Relationship Finder.

The SNARF interface will allow a user to order their unread mail in the way that makes the most sense to them. "People use a variety of strategies to handle triage; there is no single 'best' ordering of email messages to produce an optimal outcome," Microsoft says.

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In the ongoing battle between still-unreleased next-generation DVD formats, Fox Filmed Entertainment has already chosen sides. The studio says it sees Sony's Blu-ray as the clear winner due to PlayStation 3 support, and, unlike other studios, will not produce movies in HD DVD.

The public backing by Fox comes amid wavering support from the computer industry due to Blu-ray's restrictive copy-protection scheme. HP has retreated from Blu-ray's camp after Intel and Microsoft strongly pledged their support for HD DVD instead.

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Chamath Palihapitiya, who took charge of AOL's instant messaging division last year and spearheaded the development of AIM Triton, is leaving the company and plans to join venture capital firm Mayfield Fund next year. AOL has not yet named a successor to fill the position.

Palihapitiya was given control over the largest IM network amid heavy pressure from rivals Microsoft and Yahoo, and inherited a stagnating AIM client. He shifted the focus to promoting AOL content through AIM and turned market share losses into gains. AIM Triton 1.0 launched last week to serve as AOL's new all-in-one communications suite.

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Google on Wednesday silently added a new feature to its Gmail service: virus scanning. The company will now check all incoming and outgoing e-mail attachments to keep users' inboxes safe. By scanning outbound attachments, Google can also keep viruses from proliferating by way of Gmail.

"If a virus is found in an attachment you've received, our system will attempt to remove it, or clean the file, so you can still access the information it contains. If the virus can't be removed from the file, you won't be able to download it," reads a notice in the Gmail Help Center.

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Sunbelt Software, maker of a number of security and anti-spyware applications, has saved the day by acquiring Kerio Personal Firewall, which was due to be discontinued at the end of the year. Sunbelt says it will continue to offer a free version of the firewall for home users.

Initially, the product will be re-branded as "Sunbelt Kerio Personal Firewall," and support will continue for all existing customers. The full version of KPF will be offered at reduced pricing and both Sunbelt and Kerio customers will receive special offers, the company said.

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Samsung accepted terms of a plea agreement Thursday that finds the electronics company guilty of conspiring with other manufacturers to artificially inflate the cost of computer memory, thus unnecessarily increasing the prices consumers paid.

As part of the agreement, Samsung would pay a $300 million fine in exchange for prosecutorial immunity for both the company and most of its employees. Seven people, including president of the semiconductor division Y.H. Park, were excluded from the settlement and could still face prosecution.

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Adware software provider 180Solutions has filed suit against security company Zone Labs for what it claims are "false and misleading statements about 180's products" within the popular ZoneAlarm tool. ZoneAlarm alerts users to the existence of 180's Zango software, and says it may log keystrokes and track Web sites visited.

The lawsuit, filed in the Superior Court of King County, Washington, alleges that Zone Labs has caused "thousands of 180's customers to remove or otherwise uninstall Zango and/or 180SA. 180 has been damaged by the wrongful removal of its applications caused by ZoneLab's tortious conduct."

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A study released earlier this week by the OSDL Desktop Linux Working Group indicates that a general lack of application support is holding back Linux from making inroads into the desktop market.

E-mail was rated as the most critical application to computer users regardless of platform, followed by office productivity tools and the Web browser. The organization said that without a quality e-mail application, it could be surmised that, "Linux on the desktop is not feasible."

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Gamers eager to get their hands on the Xbox 360 should rest assured that new shipments of the console will be arriving at retailers by the end of the week. Microsoft has said it remains on track to ship up to 3 million 360s in the first 90 days of launch.

The company also spoke to the rumors that it was holding back inventory in order to keep demand high and create media attention for the console. "Believe me when I say we aren't holding units, and we're not creating hype for hype's sake. There's no good economic justification for that," Microsoft marketing manager John Porcaro wrote in his Web log early this week.

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Last month, Microsoft Korea posted a rap and accompanying music video to celebrate the launch of Visual Studio 2005. Now, Indian rock group Parikrama has created a song to honor the arrival of Bill Gates in India on December 9, where he will herald the arrival of Microsoft's next-generation developer tools.

"Called 'Superhero' the song is about the life of a programmer," reads the Microsoft India Web site. "Afternoon comes when everyone eats," the song goes, "Staring down at lines on his L.C.D screen, Cracking up the code, faster than the speed of light."

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Dell has forged a deal with Costco that will put its personal computers on store shelves for the first time in 15 years. The leading PC manufacturer left the retail market in 1990, but has decided to sell a handful of older Dimension 4700 desktops and Inspiron 2200 laptops through Costco.

Costco had previously offered Dell systems on its Web site, but never in actual brick and mortar stores. Although the deal is a departure from the company's usual sales methodology, don't expect to see Dell systems in other stores anytime soon. Dell officials say the Costco deal is designed to offload older inventory, and it has no plans to return to retail.

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AOL on Thursday introduced a new set of search services for mobile devices that it says will make searching the Web on smaller screens as useful as searching from the desktop. Three services will make up the new service: AOL Search, Pinpoint Shopping and AOL Yellow Pages.

Through technology provided by InfoGin, the service formats both the search results and the Web sites visited from those listings to fit the smaller screens of mobile phones, smartphones and PDAs.

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TiVo has begun a rollout of several online services that will allow customers to access information and even purchase movie tickets directly through their DVR boxes. The new features will be included as part of the standard TiVo service for those with broadband-connected Series2 devices.

To support the new initative, TiVo announced partnerships with online movie site Fandango, Internet radio service Live365, and Yahoo. Yahoo and TiVo had previously joined up in early November, when the two companies said that a new TiVo scheduling feature would be added to the Yahoo TV service.

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Skype on Thursday launched a beta of the second major revision to its popular PC calling software, adding video support and announcing partnerships with Logitech, Creative and Web log software maker Six Apart.

The company plans to use these partnerships to both promote the software as well as enhance the user experience. Logitech will jointly market Skype with its QuickCam Fusion and QuickCam for Notebooks Pro webcams.

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