iTunes Sells Three Billionth Song
Apple said Tuesday that it had surpassed three billion songs downloaded from its iTunes Music Store, further extending its lead as the most popular online digital music store. Currently, iTunes contains about five million songs, plus about 550 television shows and 500 movies. It is also the third biggest music store overall, recently passing both Amazon and Target in music sales.
Apple has sold a billion songs in a little under seven months. It took eleven months to get from one to two billion, and several years to sell the first billion tracks. "We'd like to thank all of our customers who have contributed to this incredible milestone," said Eddy Cue, Apple's vice president of iTunes.
US, EU to Have Common Sat Nav Signal Design
The European Union and the United States have agreed on a common signal design for their respective satellite navigation systems, representatives said Monday. The US' GPS system has been operational for several years now, while the EU's Galileo system is still in development.
By agreeing on a common signal design, it will pave the way for receivers to easily incorporate both navigation systems into a single design, resulting in better location-finding. "We are pleased by the adoption of this key improvement to the common civil signal design," U.S. State Department Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary Reno Harnish said. "The U.S.-EU collaboration that produced this innovation and led to its joint adoption reflects the strong working relationships that we have developed on GPS and Galileo."
Real ID Debate Faces Possible Legislative Limbo
A 2005 US legislative mandate for states to begin the process of converting drivers' licenses and personally identifying documents lives on, despite measures taken by the Senate last week that were hailed by Real ID's opponents as steps toward its eventual repeal.
Last Thursday, the Senate voted to table an amendment (to set aside from discussion...in this case, indefinitely) offered by Sen. Lamar Alexander (R - Tenn.) to appropriate $300 million in federal funds to assist states in making the long, difficult transition. But a recent revision to a revision of a Dept. of Homeland Security cost estimate for Real ID implementation sets the bar at about $23 million for all 50 states, and presumably US territories including Puerto Rico and Guam, to comply with the federal mandate.
Sony Gets Exclusive Rights to Unnamed Rockstar Game
We don't know what it is yet, but Sony's talking up its exclusive deal for the PlayStation 3 on a new game franchise from Rockstar Games.
Exact details of the contract were not provided; SCEA third party relations chief Michael Shorrock said it wasn't the LA Noire franchise, but "something completely new." Rockstar and Sony have had a close relationship in the past, especially surrounding the Grand Theft Auto franchise.
Adobe Catches Flak For FedEx Kinko Deal
Adobe is facing criticism over its decision to include a prominent button in the software that allows its users to print their .PDF files at a local FedEx Kinko's.
FedEx saw the deal as the way to continue building momentum for its Kinko's unit which it acquired in 2004. Since .PDF has become the business standard for documents, aligning with Adobe seemed like a logical decision. However, some Adobe customers weren't too happy about it.
Three E-Voting Systems Susceptible to Attack, California Team Finds
A report released this morning by the University of California, Davis, which was contracted by the State to investigate the security integrity of three brands of electronic voting machines which the State uses, concludes that all three are susceptible to compromise and tampering, using any number of tools including Trojan Horse programs and simple screwdrivers.
The final report, written by principal investigator Matt Bishop, took great pains to refrain from casting any kind of condemnatory or similar attitude against the three manufacturers whose devices were tested. In fact, it went out of its way to be fair, at one point stating that in many cases, the integrity of the voting machines' software may only be as strong as that of the underlying operating system - which, in all three cases was Windows.
IE7/Firefox URI Handling Bug Caused by Windows After All
An exploitable bug discovered earlier this month that was first believed to have been caused by Internet Explorer 7.0, before Mozilla was forced to admit that it afflicted Firefox as well, has apparently been traced back to a Windows API function.
The discovery may have been first revealed through the US-CERT Web site of the Dept. of Homeland Security, which now classifies it as a "Microsoft Windows URI protocol handling vulnerability." The function in question is an old favorite of malware writers: ShellExecute(), which was the subject of a notorious Windows 2000 exploit four years ago.
Verizon Buys UNICEL for $2.67 Billion
Verizon Wireless has agreed to acquire Rural Cellular (UNICEL) for about $2.67 billion in cash, the two companies said on Monday. Rural serves about 716,000 customers across 15 states in New England, the Plains states, the Southeast, and the Pacific Northwest. Verizon service will cover an additional 4.7 million potential customers as a result of the transaction, and expand its coverage in rural locations, it said.
The deal is expected to close early next year. Rural uses both GSM and CDMA technologies. Those customers using GSM would be converted to CDMA, however Verizon plans to keep Rural's GSM network active in order to resell it for other GSM carriers to roam on. "Today, as the wireless industry continues to evolve, our Board of Directors has concluded that it is in the company's best interest to enter into a sale transaction with Verizon Wireless," Rural CEO president and CEO Richard Ekstrand said of the sale.
iPhone Battery Target of Class-Action Suit
The iPhone has only been out for a month, yet there's already a class-action lawsuit against it over its battery life.
Jose Trujillo filed the suit in the Circuit Court of Cook County, Illinois. Among other things, he claims that the battery can only be charged for 300 cycles before needing to be replaced, and that he wasn't made aware that the battery was soldered inside of the unit.
Beta Patches Hint at Vista SP1 Features
Microsoft has released to Windows Server 2008 beta testers two new hot-fix packs for Windows Vista, which improve performance and reliability, along with the operating system's compatibility with drivers and hardware. The 12MB worth of fixes are expected to make their way into Vista Service Pack 1 later this year.
Some of the changes noted by testers are better file copy performance, faster boot times, improved compatibility with newer graphics cards, and better performance in games with advanced visuals. According to some enthusiasts, these patches contain the fixes they have been waiting for. Microsoft has not commented on the now-leaked hot-fix packs, which are available for both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Vista.
New EU Mobile Roaming Rates Active
The European Union on Monday put into effect new roaming rates for mobile phone users, which could save customers up to 70 percent. However, the new rates won't be automatically applied to customers until September; before then, they are opt-in.
After months of disagreements over what the roaming rates should be capped out, the EU finally passed legislation at the end of May and the measure was approved by the 27-nation bloc in early June. Customers will now be charged no more than 49 cents for making a call while roaming in the EU, and no more than 24 cents to receive a call while roaming.
Judge: eBay Can Still Use 'Buy it Now'
A Virginia District Court Judge sided with eBay on Friday, allowing it to continue to use the "Buy it Now" feature, which is at the center of a patent dispute with MercExchange.
eBay lost a Supreme Court ruling last year that found it guilty of patent infringement. However, the high court declined to rule on whether or not an injunction to prevent the future use of the technology should be enforced, leaving that up to the lower court.
YouTube to 'Fingerprint' Videos by Fall
Lawyers for Google's YouTube subsidiary told a New York District Court judge that it would have a method to "fingerprint" videos in the fall.
The new functionality will help the site find copyrighted videos easier by looking for similarities. It is being developed in conjunction with content providers, and YouTube said it will begin using the new technology by autumn, possibly as early as September.
DRAM Suppliers Take Major Hit in Second Quarter
The second quarter of 2007 was a terrible time to be in the DRAM business. Tremendous oversupply led to plummeting revenues for all of the world's top 8 and #10 suppliers, even though shipments continued to rise, according to a report released today by technology analyst firm iSuppli.
Hit hardest by the typhoon was #2 Hynix Semiconductor, which saw revenues whacked down 29.7% over the previous quarter to about $1.52 billion, despite unit shipment growth over the previous quarter of 22%.
Italian Pens Novel Using Mobile Phone
In yet another sign of our increasingly mobile lifestyle, an Italian author has completed a 384-page science fiction novel without the use of a computer or pen and paper. Robert Bernocco wrote the entire book using his Nokia 6630 mobile phone by dividing the manuscript into short paragraphs.
Bernocco, who wrote in his native Italian, utilized the phone's T9 predictive text input designed by Tegic and formerly owned by AOL. He did not use shorthand and transferred the text to his computer only for proofreading. It took Bernocco 17 weeks to complete the novel, working mostly while commuting to and from work on the train. The book -- "Fellow Travelers" in English -- is available for purchase via Lulu.com, which serves as a marketplace for authors looking to self-publish their work.
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