EchoStar plans to show HD-enabled Sling at CES
With the ink still barely dry on its agreement to buy SlingMedia, EchoStar is already mapping plans for a big Sling announcement at CES 2008 in January.
This week in New York City, EchoStar Satellite LLC , the provider of the satellite-based Dish Network, showed Sling's gear at its booths at both a pre-CES product expo and a press event in Pepcom's "Digital Experience" series. There, we learned the company's announcement is slated to involve SlingMedia's products for accessing video from PDAs, laptops, or just about anywhere else.
Apple's block-all firewall not as advertised
The Cupertino company has admitted that a setting in its firewall application in Mac OS X Leopard to "block all incoming connections" isn't exactly true. Shortly after Leopard hit the streets, independent researchers took issue with its claims about its new firewall. Researchers at Heise Security said that the application was still allowing certain types of connections to come through.
In its first update to Mac OS X 10.5, Apple admitted that Heise was right, saying the setting "allows any process running as user 'root' (UID 0) to receive incoming connections, and also allows mDNSResponder to receive connections. This could result in the unexpected exposure of network services." The fix does not close down these holes, but rewords the option within the firewall to "allow only essential services." Additionally, it will limit the incoming connections when users select this setting to only a small subset of system services.
ATI's latest GPU targets the mainstream first
The latest holiday graphics card line from the company in red has a distinctively green feeling to it, maybe for the first time.
When AMD acquired graphics card producer ATI in July 2006, the executives who brought the two titans together told a two-part message: First the fusion would benefit both brands; second, the ATI identity won't be going away.
Amazon fires up e-book market with reader device
One of the nation's biggest online retailers is reportedly close to shipping its own electronic book reader, sources report.
Details of the actual unit are not available, although the 'Kindle' as it is called, apparently has an EVDO data connection. Reports seem to suggested that at least a dozen media partners will be available at launch.
Windows hardware conference delayed until fall
With Windows Vista SP1 not set to land until sometime in the first quarter, Microsoft has announced it will delay its annual springtime WinHEC conference until fall, presumably to give SP1 more time to reach users. The company says it rescheduled the event in response to industry feedback.
WinHEC, or Windows Hardware Engineering Conference, is devoted to engineers and driver developers. Although it sounds mundane, the event plays a critical role in connecting Microsoft to the hardware vendors that actually distribute its software. It's not clear how the delay will affect Microsoft's Professional Developers Conference, which it canceled this year because the company's new wave of developer tools won't launch until next February.
Lightroom update brings Leopard support, Flickr upload
Photography enthusiasts have quite a few options when it comes to working with RAW files, but Adobe is betting a new SDK will make Photoshop Lightroom a favorite once third party developers start building plug-ins.
The Lightroom Export SDK is available as a technology preview and is included with Lightroom version 1.3, which was released Friday. The SDK utilizes the open source Lua language and ships with example plug-ins for Flickr and FTP uploads. The idea of the development kit is to extend the Export dialog box with additional functionality.
High-def over IPTV: How fast, and how soon?
Amid a frenzy of pre-CES activities in New York City this week, chipmaker DS2 drew more than a bit of attention to itself by demoing new technology for delivering 400 Mbps video to home networks.
But with competing technologies also clamoring to bring video to your living room, kitchen, and elsewhere in your home at much higher speeds - for actual HDTV display - why would you want to buy a box from NetGear or D-Link based on DS2's silicon?
Dell gives more hints about new form factors
As Dell re-asserts its relevance as a PC manufacturer, the company takes another gamble on completely new form factors, including a hybrid portable.
At Oracle OpenWorld in San Francisco, CEO Michael Dell made a keynote speech showing off two forthcoming Dell products that shed the company's traditional desktop-or-notebook form factor: the XPS One (no relation to the similar Gateway model of the same name) and the multi-touch capable Latitude XP convertible tablet.
Apple shareholder stock options suit dismissed
One of Apple's legal headaches disappeared on Thursday as a judge threw out one of the lawsuits against the company over its options backdating scandal. The suit, brought against it by the New York City Employees Retirement System, was filed in August of last year. It charged that Apple had diluted the stock price by issuing some 200 million improperly accounted stock options. US District Judge Jeremy Fogel disagreed, saying the group itself had admitted the stock price did not fall as a result of the backdating, an important threshold the plaintiffs had to meet in order to sue the company for its actions.
Apple is not completely free of any possible legal action by the retirement fund: Fogel gave the opportunity to the group to refile if they can prove the backdating hurt the company overall. However, several other groups are already attempting to sue the company on that same premise. According to a probe by Apple, between 1997 and 2002 some 6,428 improperly dated stock options were issue.
CBS links up billboards for NYC Wi-Fi network
Using its billboards across downtown New York City, CBS is creating a Wi-Fi hotspot that will give nearly 20 city blocks free wireless Internet access.
The service, called the "CBS Mobile Zone," will extend 20 city blocks from Times Square to Central Park South, and 6th to 8th avenues when it is fully complete. Portions of the network are already up and running.
Some Zunes being anti-social due to glitches
While it is to be expected, users of Microsoft's newest Zunes are seeing some sporadic problems with both the players and the service.
New product launches are never immune to growing pains and glitches, and the latest Zunes are certainly no exception. Within 48 hours of their launch, reports of problems have surfaced across the Web.
Is cable TV 'a la carte' actually being considered?
The FCC is considering invoking a legal clause that lets it squeeze more diverse programming into cable TV systems, but CATV's leading advocates are resisting.
Last week, US Federal Communications Chairman Kevin Martin indicated he may at last succumb to requests submitted throughout his tenure, to use a legal tool to help wedge more diverse programming into cable TV lineups. The tool is the so called "70/70 clause" of the Cable Communications Act of 1984 - a part of federal code that predicted a future time when cable programming would be more commonplace.
Microsoft wants to play doctor with your home network
With the release of version 2.0, Windows Live OneCare is no longer just for one PC; Microsoft now wants to inoculate entire home networks with its computer care service.
When it launched OneCare in May 2006, Microsoft risked alienating its close security partners such as Symantec and McAfee by entering a market it previously avoided. Now, the Redmond company is upping the ante by going after families with multiple PCs in their homes.
Sony inoculates the PlayStation 3
With networking a major feature of modern game consoles, the first tools for game system security are inevitably beginning to appear.
Trend Micro is the first to throw its hat into the ring, with a security suite released a week ago as part of a PS3 system upgrade. Trend Micro Web Security for PS3 checks the reputation and security of unknown sites, and has user-defined filters to block certain other types of sites. It is touted as a family product, with password-enabled free browsing.
Microsoft takes on Intuit once more in accounting
While Microsoft dominates the enterprise, it's still struggling to gain a foothold among small businesses. But will it be able to steal market share from Intuit with Office Accounting 2008?
The new release is a minor update to the Office Accounting 2007 that adds features and the Spanish language. The previous version was downloaded almost 2 million times, according to Microsoft's tally, and it says the feedback has dictated what's new in 2008.
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