Microsoft is open to purging its search caches after six months
Of the three major search engine companies, Microsoft is the first to voice its willingness to meet a request by EC regulators to keep users' search data for just six months. But Microsoft will only do so if Google and Yahoo also comply.
Microsoft told European authorities on Monday that it's willing to retain search data for six months rather than the current 18, but only if Google and Yahoo also agree to keep search data for six months.
Here comes the Mi-Fi: Novatel debuts its portable 3G hotspot
Novatel Wireless' Mi-Fi portable broadband hotspot is about the size of a triple-thick credit card, and does the job of a 3G modem and wireless router all in one unit.
Novatel Wireless' Mi-Fi portable broadband hotspotis about the size of a triple-thick credit card, and does the job of a 3G modem and wireless router all in one unit.
Titanium launched as 'open source alternative' to Adobe's AIR
Download Appcelerator Titanium Preview Release 0.1 for Windows from FileForum now.
Titanium -- a desktop, mobile, and Web development environment which enters public preview today -- is designed as a open source alternative for Windows, Mac and Linux developers to Adobe's AIR.
Now, it's Sony's turn to take the hit: What it means, and why
Sony was already suffering from internal issues, but now the global economy is forcing the CE giant to consider not only scaling down, but scaling back its innovations for next year.
That the global economic predicament should impact Sony, headquartered in one of the hardest hit countries, should surprise no one. This morning, the company admitted that it, too, is taking its medicine. It will cut 8,000 jobs in its electronics divisions worldwide, which is bad but not catastrophic news, and it will reduce temporary or seasonal employees as well.
Zoetrope promises a view of the Web over time
While it's just as easy to locate a 15-year-old page in HTML 1.0 as a blog post published this afternoon, the front page of last Friday's BetaNews is as gone as 49-cent gas. Enter Zoetrope, aiming to track Web information over time.
Time keeps on slippin' online -- but wouldn't it be cool to actually happen in something faster than real-time?
Mr. Obama? Don't forget the cyberwar threat
A 96-page report released Monday by the Center for Strategic and International Studies paints a gloomy picture of where America stands in the matter of infowar. (Hint: "Stands" may be too optimistic a verb.)
The report is blunt: We're in trouble, our laws are out of date, we need leadership from the White House, and money (public and private) must be applied to the problem. Only a plan that respects privacy and civil liberties will do, and only a comprehensive policy covering both domestic and international situations will work.
The other US mobile DTV alliance opens the door for a truce
The Mobile DTV Alliance is hoping to speed up the adoption of phone-based consumption of TV by lightening up on its support of struggling format DVB-H.
Mobile TV is still waiting to be embraced in the US. We've come around to having YouTube available on our phones, and there are plenty of options for streaming radio, but Mobile broadcast TV is just not sticking.
Discounted iPhone looks likely for Wal-Mart, but for $197, not $99
An impending Wal-Mart ad leaked this week indicates that the iPhone will indeed go on sale at Wal-Mart -- except that it'll probably be the 8 GB version, and for $197.
While none of three companies involved is publicly commenting yet, an increasing body of circumstantial evidence suggests that Wal-Mart really will start selling the iPhone 3G on December 28 -- but that Wal-Mart's iPhone will be the 8 GB version, priced at $197, only $2 less than AT&T's price tag of $199 with a two-year service contract.
Leaks indicate Microsoft is un-rethinking the Win7 taskbar
During last week's touring WinHEC conference in Beijing, attendees were treated to the latest Windows 7 build running in a virtual machine. Trouble is, someone apparently pilfered a copy of the VHD, and now it's loose.
The security around uninstalled copies of Windows 7 is fairly tight. But the security around a copy that has been installed to a PC's virtual machine, might not be tight at all. So an attendee at last week's Beijing WinHEC conference was apparently able to copy the VHD file for the virtual machine to a thumb drive, before uploading it to a Web file host, and providing the link to a very popular Chinese beta news site (not affiliated with BetaNews).
BitTorrent begins its seismic shift away from TCP
In an effort to ease the burden its traffic puts on the Internet at large, BitTorrent has announced that it'll use uTP, not TCP, as the transport protocol in its next uTorrent client.
Discussion of the switch from TCP to uTP began late last month, and is set to officially begin in earnest with the 1.9 alpha 13582 build. The exodus from what's essentially the Internet's primary transport protocol could change attitudes toward the popular but bandwidth-intensive BitTorrent, and could have an impact on the great debate over net neutrality.
Symbian backer AT&T isn't ruling out Android support
An AT&T spokesperson today denied widely published reports that AT&T plans to offer a single OS for smartphones. A founding member of the Symbian Foundation, AT&T will also keep supporting Mac, Windows, BlackBerry, and perhaps Android.
In a rash of press and blog reports last week, remarks made by an AT&T executive about AT&T support for mobile OS were "taken out of context," an AT&T spokesperson told BetaNews today.
The noise settles over Bose's noise-canceling headphones
In what appears to have been an amicable agreement for most involved, Bose Corp. announced today that its legal battle over QuietComfort noise-canceling headphone patents has officially come to an end.
Last year, sound technologies maker Bose filed notice with the US International Trade Commission (PDF available here) that Phitek, GN Netcom (later Jabra), Audio-Technica, Creative Labs, Logitech, and Panasonic were infringing upon Bose's patents for noise-canceling headphones.
CES to feature DLNA media streaming on CE devices
At CES next month, attendees will get a close look at interoperable media streaming across multiple DLNA-compliant devices from myriad vendors, across home networks enabled by WiFi, coax, and Ethernet.
After four years of existence, the DLNA (Digital Living Network Alliance) specification for digital media sharing on home networks seems ready to start kicking into higher gear, especially with an announcement by chip maker Broadcom today of plans to showcase a multi-vendor demo at CES.
Mozilla makes Firefox 3.1 Beta 2 available
Download Mozilla Firefox 3.1 Beta 2 for Windows (all versions) from FileForum now.
The public beta of Mozilla's first Web browser to incorporate a private browsing mode, is being made available to the general public today, although as before, the organization has yet to make it official.
The silver lining shows up anyway, with good Cyber Monday news
Online metrics company comScore has released its updated set of holiday e-commercial sales figures, showing an increase in Cyber Monday spending over last year, with a notable lift in Consumer Electronics sales.
The recession has had a marked effect on consumer spending, with the average price of individual gifts dropping by some 5%. This caused an overall slowdown which some predicted would mean this year's total holiday sales would actually be less than last year's. However, comScore data showed that the "Cyber Monday" spike in online sales was 9% higher this year, bringing total 2008 holiday sales to just about the same level as 2007.
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