Cingular on Thursday announced that it would be introducing a handset with Motorola's SCREEN3 technology, which allows access to information from the home screen of a phone. The service is part of a larger effort by Cingular to allow more personalization of its MEdia Net data service.

The feature will first become available on the Motorola V557 handset, and Cingular said the service would also be included on other handsets to debut in 2006. Information such as news, weather, sports, and entertainment will scroll across the home screen without any user interaction.

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Microsoft said on Thursday that it had signed three new providers to supply information on confirmed phishing Web sites for the company's Phishing Filter and SmartScreen technology products. A final version of Microsoft's anti-phishing IE plug-in was also released.

The Phishing Filter is offered as an add-in for the MSN Toolbar, which will be built into the next version of Internet Explorer. Microsoft's SmartScreen technology is used to detect phishing e-mails for the company's Hotmail and Windows Live Mail services.

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Apple may be preparing to launch the first Intel based Macs as early as January, starting with its entry-level iBook laptops, according to a report by Think Secret. The site cited sources who say Apple will introduce a third iBook model and lower prices by up to $200 to attract Windows users.

The January launch would coincide with Macworld Expo, scheduled to begin January 10 in San Francisco. Think Secret notes that other Intel-based Macs could possibly be showcased at the event, but it did not receive confirmation.

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Boasting a $112 billion market capitalization that now almost doubles Yahoo, Google stock on Thursday surged past the $400 a share for the first time. In the past four weeks, Google shares have shot up over $100, with talk that $500 could be within reach before long.

Google rolled out Google Base Wednesday, which allows users to upload any type of content to the search engine's Web site to be categorized and searched. On Thursday, the company said it was opening offices in Sao Paulo, Brazil and Mexico City in an effort to extend its Latin American reach. Google previously had a research center in Brazil through its acquisition of Akwan in July.

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Firefox users may still be out of the luck when it comes to Windows Update, but they can now download files from Microsoft that require Windows Genuine Advantage validation thanks to a new plug-in. WGA checks to make sure the Windows license is legit and is now a requirement on the Microsoft Download Center.

The Firefox plug-in works just like the Active X control for Internet Explorer. IE team head Dean Hachamovitz said the move was made after a great deal of customer feedback. "Basically, customers said 'We want to make sure our PCs are running genuine Windows and have access to all the content on the Microsoft Download Center; the experience when we’re running a Mozilla browser is not great. Do something about it.'"

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The Blu-ray Disc Association on Wednesday rebuffed requests by member Hewlett-Packard to include iHD in the next-generation DVD format, which would provide new interactive features. iHD is already slated to be part of both rival standard HD DVD and Windows Vista.

The development has spurred HP to suggest that if Blu-ray would not change its stance, the company may take a more neutral position and support rival HD DVD as well.

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Sony released the consumer version of its Instant Video Everywhere (IVE) product on Wednesday, hoping to gain a foothold in the fast-growing VoIP market by allowing its users to place unlimited free video and voice calls to other subscribers of the service.

IVE users can also place video and voice calls to traditional video or audio conferencing systems, as well as cell and landline phones for an extra charge.

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In the face of competition from Yahoo's Flickr, AOL on Thursday rebranded its You've Got Pictures service into AOL Pictures, adding an interactive AJAX-enabled interface and opening the doors to both AOL members and non-members alike.

The service will offer users unlimited digital photo storage that will host photos in their original resolution. Also included will be a photo album tool, as well as tools to create calendars and other personalized gifts from a user's photo collection.

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Scoring a major win against competitor Hewlett Packard, IBM on Thursday announced that it had struck a deal with the China State Tax Administration to replace its HP Itanium servers with IBM Power5-based UNIX systems. But HP is disputing the significance of the announcement.

According to IBM, the Chinese government was one of HP's largest customers for Intel's Itanium processor line.

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10,000 Microsoft beta testers received a long-awaited e-mail Wednesday evening: Welcome to Office 12. Beta 1 of the next-generation Office suite has been released and is now available for download -- assuming Beta Place doesn't buckle under the mad rush for bits.

In a statement heralding the beta's arrival, Microsoft vice president Chris Capossela called Office 12 "the most significant release in more than 10 years" that comes only after "many years of research and development." But the devil is in the details.

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Opera Software has released a beta software development kit designed to aid in the creation of rich Web-based applications for mobile devices using AJAX. The Opera Platform SDK supports advanced HTML, CSS and JavaScript along with XMLHttpRequest -- technologies employed by services like Google Maps and Amazon's A9 Search.

Some examples of applications that can be created with the SDK include an e-mail client, a game, or a stock ticker, Opera says. "We are now building the foundation for the next generation of mobile services by enabling the easy, fast and cost- effective creation of compelling Web based mobile applications," said Opera VP Timo Bruns.

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Effectively heading off any looming showdown with the international community, the United States government signed an agreement with other nations over future management of the Internet hours before a meeting in Tunisia.

While U.S. detractors did not gain United Nations control of the Internet, the agreement will create an body called the Internet Governance Forum that would convene in 2006 to discuss "public policy issues related to key elements of Internet governance."

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Apple on Wednesday said both its iPod music player and iTunes Music Store have toppled Japan native Sony to become number one in the Japanese music market. Sony had led as recently as July, but Apple's fortunes turned a corner with the introduction of iTunes in the country.

Within four days of launch, iTunes Japan sold more than one million tracks, the fastest start of any of the company's twenty regionalized stores. Apple credited the iPod's success to that response, which analysts initially doubted would succeed due to the intricacies of the Japanese marketplace.

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Microsoft announced Wednesday that it had reached an agreement that would make high-definition Media Center PCs a reality by around the time Windows Vista is slated to ship in the holiday 2006 timeframe.

Users of Windows Media Center Edition with a CableCARD module would be able to view digital cable and HD content without the need to connect an external set-top box as is necessary now. That content could then be streamed to devices throughout the home, including the Xbox 360, Microsoft said.

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Linux bashing is nothing new for Microsoft, which has set up a dedicated Web site to detail why customers should choose Windows Server over the open source operating system. This week at the IT Forum, Microsoft announced the results of a new study that shows Windows as more reliable and easier to manage than Linux.

The report by Security Innovation was funded by Microsoft and examined the long-term usage of both Windows and Linux environments. Windows Server 2003 and 2003 were pitted against Novell SUSE Enterprise versions 8 and 9 in an e-commerce environment for the duration of one year.

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