Microsoft, Autodesk lose piracy patent appeal
The two companies will need to pay Michigan-based z4 nearly $160 million in total penalties for infringing on the company's rights to patents surrounding anti-piracy technologies.
z4's technology provided a method for software to be activated once it is installed. The same technology could also be used to deactivate the software in an effort to deter piracy.
Google's storage service appears close to launch
After a nearly five year wait, Google's long rumored "Gdrive" storage service appears set to take on similar offerings from Microsoft and AOL, according to media sources.
Rumors of such an offering began in earnest last year when the leaked notes to a presentation from CEO Eric Schmidt made a reference to a Google storage platform in March. However, the company would not comment and speculation continued.
Top holiday sellers could be top polluters
Environmental watchdog group Greenpeace believes this holiday's top-selling consumer electronics devices are produced by the least environmentally conscious companies.
Today, Greenpeace released its updated "Guide to Greener Electronics" which ranks the top 18 manufacturers of PCs, game consoles, phones, and TVs according to their policies regarding toxic chemicals and clean recycling. This holiday's top-selling consumer electronics devices are produced by the list's least environmentally conscious companies.
Arbitron temporarily shelves new radio ratings system
Bush admin. official: IT back-offices 'centers of enormous waste'
Speaking at an official United Nations function in New York this morning on technology and climate change, a DOE official denounced the world's data centers for their role in contributing to global climate change.
UNITED NATIONS (BetaNews) - US Assistant Secretary of Energy for Energy Efficiency Alexander Karsner, speaking this morning before a United Nations conference on the technology industry's responsibility for the global environment, said that as the world's data centers become more clustered and crowded, they expend too much space and electricity and generate too much heat and emissions. As such, Sec. Karsner said, the typical enterprise data center has become "a center of enormous waste."
Xbox Live update asks you to bring your friends
On December 4, Microsoft will roll out an update to the Xbox Live Dashboard that adds a social networking type of feature to the service.
Citing the popularity of Facebook and MySpace, Microsoft believes that social networking tools have come to be expected in online communities. And with over 8 million subscribers interacting with one another on a daily basis, the ability to view who is friends with whom and make new friends accordingly seems like a logical feature to add.
PriceGrabber traffic up 54% on Cyber Monday, shoppers want Wii, Zune
Though the final data for Cyber Monday retail sales have yet to be projected, more early indications point to a sharp rise in online spending.
The online retail price tracking service PriceGrabber.com reported 54% higher traffic yesterday over Cyber Monday 2006. Customers who purchase products from online retailers and who go through PriceGrabber to do so, get their purchases recorded; so for the first time, we know what it is that consumers appear to want most.
HD DVD player sales top 750,000, Blu-ray claims lead in Europe
HD DVD player sales are nearing the important 1 million milestone thanks to recent price cuts, but Blu-ray is claiming an early victory in Europe.
With current-generation players from Toshiba now under $200, the HD DVD Promotions Group saw a sharp uptake in sales in November and says over 750,000 players are now in the hands of consumers. This number includes both standalone devices and the HD DVD add-on available for Microsoft's Xbox 360.
Verizon Wireless to open access to consumer's choice of handsets
Calling the move a "new paradigm for the entire wireless industry," Verizon Wireless CEO Lowell McAdam told reporters this morning the entire CDMA and PCS spectrum of his cellular network will open access to the customer's choice of handset equipment.
As McAdam explained, the company will be providing the full technical specifications for access to its network, as an open document, early in 2008. Manufacturers will be given the opportunity to bring their devices up to speed, and VW will institute a testing process for hardware, apparently whose manufacturers are interested in meeting those specifications. There will be no preference applied to which hardware gets tested.
Nintendo concedes it can't smash homebrew R4 mod
It's not a reference to the eagerly awaited Wii title Super Smash Brothers Brawl. "We cannot smash them all." is a quote from a Nintendo spokesperson regarding unauthorized third-party modification devices for the DS.
The R4 is a microSD reader that fits into the Nintendo DS' Slot-1 port and bypasses all of the handheld's security functions, allowing a host of uses: playing music and movies, reading text files, creating homebrew software, and playing "backed up" - or copied - games.
Black Friday: Are PCs and software as hot as gadgets?
How did PCs and software fare in comparison to other consumer electronics products on the day after Thanksgiving? The answer may depend on where those products are sold - online or up front - according to NPD's chief analyst.
HDTVs, MP3s, GPS, and other emerging gadgets seem to be outshining established electronics products categories such as PCs and software in Black Friday sales and promotions -- in brick-and-mortar stores, at least.
Some Cyber Monday traffic triples, Yahoo reports commerce outages
Early indications from the National Retail Federation and elsewhere are revealing positive sales traffic this Cyber Monday, as the headquarters site that coined the phrase triples its hit count by 1:00 pm EST.
CyberMonday.com serves as a portal site, comparing online shopping deals for the season's big-ticket items from its 550 member stores. Its hosting service reported the rollover earlier this afternoon.
One California county asks to use questionable voting machines anyway
Election officials in Marin County, California have asked the state's Secretary of State for permission to go ahead and use voting machines that are the subject of a lawsuit filed against their manufacturer last week.
Last Monday, California Secretary of State Debra Bowen filed a $15 million lawsuit against Election Systems & Software, Inc., for selling some 972 voting machines to five counties as upgrades to equipment that had already come under suspicion, without giving the State an opportunity to test and certify the new systems first.
New QuickTime exploit triggers the same old stack overflow
It would appear a January fix that supposedly protects against malformed URLs to the RTSC protocol of Apple's QuickTime wasn't a complete fix after all.
The US-CERT office of the Dept. of Homeland Security confirmed this morning that an intentionally malformed header sent to the Real Time Streaming Protocol handler of Apple's QuickTime for Windows, and presumably for Mac OS as well, will cause a familiar stack buffer overflow problem that could be exploitable from the outside.
T-Mobile Germany to defend iPhone contract in court
T-Mobile is set to defend its exclusive rights to iPhone sales within Germany on Thursday, as a German court will hear arguments for and against the deal.
While the company is making an unlocked version of the phone available, it is appealing the injunction filed against it by Vodafone. If successful, the company will end sales of that model, and possibly file suit against its rival to recover damages.
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