Toshiba Ships First Perpendicular Drive
While Seagate and Hitachi may have garnered all the attention surrounding new perpendicular recording technology, which enables hard drives to store more data by standing bits upright, Toshiba has reached the market first.
The company on Tuesday announced it is shipping a 1.8-inch drive that packs 40GB onto a single disk platter. Such a feat is a breakthrough for small drives, and could mean larger capacity music players. In fact, Toshiba's new drive is available now in the company's Gigabeat F41 MP3 player.
McAfee Introduces 2006 Product Line
McAfee on Tuesday unveiled its 2006 security software product line, which is now available for download as a subscription service. The final release comes just over two months after the company began beta testing. The suite of six products were designed to combat current and emerging threats, from viruses to phishing scams and spyware.
Among the 2006 products are: McAfee ViruScan, Personal Firewall Plus, AntiSpyware, SpamKiller, Privacy Service and McAfee QuickClean. The company is also planning to introduce a new security tool aimed at wireless networks called McAfee Wireless Home Network Security. The $49.99 software locks down home wireless networks from intruders and freeloaders.
Universal Music to Support Blu-ray
Firing the latest salvo in the battle over next-generation DVDs, Sony's Blu-ray format has received backing from Universal Music, one of the world's largest record companies. The news puts further pressure on rival format HD-DVD, which was developed by Toshiba.
Universal, which was previously a Blu-ray Disc Association member, will likely use the new format for DVD audio discs among its artists, including Elton John, Mariah Carey and U2. Although Blu-ray was primarily designed for video purposes, the format promises to bring more stringent copyright controls, which could propel its adoption in the music industry as well.
Nintendo Drops Pricing of DS by $20
Nintendo announced Tuesday it was dropping the price of its portable DS gaming device to $129.99 USD. The $20 discount will go into effect on August 21, one day before Nintendo unveils its much-hyped Nintendogs, which has sold over 700,000 copies in Japan. But it's not clear whether caring for a virtual dog will be a hit among U.S. gamers.
"The new price and the arrival of a mega hit like Nintendogs give Nintendo DS a one-two punch that will thrill consumers," says Reggie Fils-Aime, Nintendo of America's executive vice president of sales & marketing. Nintendo is also preparing a number of other games for the second half of 2005, including Metroid Prime Pinball and Mario & Luigi 2.
Apple Patches 20 Tiger Security Flaws
Apple released its monthly security update late Monday, comprised of a whopping 34 patches for a variety of security vulnerabilities across its server and client operating systems. Many of the flaws stem from third party utilities that are bundled with Mac OS X, including Apache and MySQL.
The 2005-007 Security Update includes 20 fixes specifically for Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger. Among them, Apple has corrected a problem in which Mail loaded remote images despite a user's preference, and two vulnerabilities in the Safari Web browser. The update weighs in at around 17MB and is available via Apple Downloads and through Software Update.
'Zotob' Worm Makes Windows Rounds
A new worm has been detected spreading on unpatched Windows systems faster than previous worms, but reported infections have remained low for the moment. Dubbed "Zotob" by antivirus vendor Trend Micro, the worm takes advantage of a critical security hole in Windows that was patched last week.
On Friday, Microsoft acknowledged that exploit code had surfaced for at least two of the three vulnerabilities recently announced. The company said it was "disappointed that certain security researchers have breached the commonly accepted industry practice of withholding vulnerability data so close to update release and have published exploit code."
TiVo Officially Introduces TV Downloads
Following the unexpected leak of screenshots that had company executives fuming, TiVo on Monday officially introduced a trial of its new video download service, touting IFC as the first broadcast partner. TiVo users will be able to download IFC content using a broadband connection, rather than record it off the air.
The company says the trial is the first of several broadband features it intends to roll out to TiVo Series2 DVRs this fall. It's not clear whether all users will have the opportunity to join the download trial, which was initially limited to a group of select testers.
Microsoft Rebrands Internet Explorer 7
Microsoft developers on Friday unveiled a new logo for Internet Explorer 7, along with quietly changing the way the browser is branded. IE7 will now be known as Windows Internet Explorer 7, emphasizing its integration with Windows Vista. IE7 will, however, be released as a standalone upgrade for Windows XP SP2 users.
Although Microsoft has long said that Internet Explorer's days as a standalone product were numbered, vulnerabilities in IE6 and pressure from newfound competitors such as Firefox pushed the company to rethink its strategy. Still, IE7 will not be released for Windows 2000 or older releases of the operating system.
MSN to Stream Video of Showtime Pilot
Joining a recent push for online video that included the Live 8 concerts around the world and NASA's Space Shuttle Discovery launch, MSN announced Friday it would stream the television pilot for Showtime's new series, "Barbershop." The episode will be broadcast online simultaneously with its cable debut on Sunday.
MSN Video will also offer behind-the-scenes content from the show and clips from episodes following the pilot. IFC, meanwhile, is taking a similar approach in promoting its new original series "Greg the Bunny" and "Hopeless Pictures." The premiere episodes from both shows are available for download in QuickTime format.
Windows AntiSpyware to Remain Free
Windows enthusiast sites flew into a tizzy this week following a Windows OneCare beta chat session in which a Microsoft employee inferred that Windows AntiSpyware would be dropped at the conclusion of its beta program. There was only one problem with the news: it wasn't true.
While an enterprise version of Windows AntiSpyware will be offered to businesses for a cost and OneCare is also slated include the technology, Microsoft plans to continue making the software available at no charge for end-users.
Verizon Glitch Exposes Customer Data
Verizon Wireless acknowledged this week that customers who signed up to the company's online billing service were able to access the records of other customers simply by inputting a different telephone number. The glitch was attributed to a programming error, which has now been corrected.
Unlike other recent data leaks that have prompted identity theft concerns, Verizon said customers could only view limited details of other accounts. The exposed data included minutes used and free minutes remaining, as well as the phone make and model used by that customer.
Mac OS X for Intel Leaked, Cracked
A new variant of Mac OS X for Intel began surfacing on Internet sites early Thursday, boasting the ability to run on any x86 based computer. The leak has apparently been cracked to bypass the protections that prevent Apple's development kits from running on any unofficial system.
Although many believed it was only a matter of time before such a leak occurred, Apple had taken stringent measures to ensure the Intel version of its operating system stayed locked down, including purportedly using hardware-based security with a TPM chip, otherwise known as Palladium. Videos of Mac OS X on an Intel laptop were posted by a French Mac enthusiast site Wednesday.
Google Outsmarts MS at LinuxWorld
Engineers from Google and Microsoft faced off at LinuxWorld in New York last week to see which company could answer the most tech-related trivia. The search engine rivals took part in the Golden Penguin Bowl, which was heralded as a battle of good against evil - or Google's "Geeks" against Microsoft's "Nerds."
Attired in Star Wars regalia, Microsoft took an early lead with a question about the Apple Lisa, but missed one on the year Windows 1.0 was released to the public: 1985. Google answered its fare share of open source questions and eventually won the competition 19,000 to 18,750.
Yahoo Buys 40 Percent Stake in Alibaba
As expected, Yahoo announced on Thursday it had paid $1 billion in cash to purchase a 40 percent stake in Chinese e-commerce site Alibaba.com, which runs auctions where foreign companies and individuals sell their products at wholesale. Yahoo's Chinese search, mail and messaging services will now fold into Alibaba.
Alibaba CEO Jack Ma will head the merged entity, which is valued at around $4 billion. Yahoo will retain 35 percent voting rights in the new company, and founder Jerry Yang will serve on Alibaba's board. Analysts see the deal as a win for both companies; Alibaba gets the support and credibility of the Yahoo brand, while Yahoo obtains a strong presence in the exploding Chinese market.
Opera Goes 'Mini' for Mobile Phones
Opera Software on Wednesday introduced a version of its popular Web browser for Java-enabled mobile phones. Opera Mini serves as an alternative to Opera's current mobile browser, and is designed to allow users to access the Web on phones normally incapable of running a browser.
To keep memory usage down, Opera Mini will utilize a remote proxy that pre-processes a Web page before sending it to the phone. The browser can be installed using an SMS message or by clicking a link via a WAP browser. "With Opera Mini, the phone only has to run a small Java-client and the rest is taken care of by the remotely located Opera Mini server," said Opera CEO Jon S. von Tetzchner.
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