Archive for December, 2007
The list is in, and it includes Microsoft Relevant Products/Services cofounder Paul Allen, Google, AT&T, and Verizon, among many others. It’s a list of the bidders for the 700-MHz spectrum license that these companies could use to build a wireless Relevant Products/Services broadband network that runs across the United States.
The winner of the auction will gain the right to a portion of the U.S. airwaves around the 700-MHz band that will become available when television moves from analog to digital signals. The FCC expects to raise as much as $15 billion in the auction.
“I’m not sure if it’s an auction or a circus at this point. But this is extremely valuable technology, and because it’s so valuable, we are seeing all sorts of folks participating,” said Michael Gartenberg, an analyst at Jupiter Research. “The players go well above the usual suspects of who we would think would be participating.”
Click here to read the rest of this story on NewsFactor.
December 21st, 2007
With the holiday shopping season in full swing, the battle between Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft 
over which company will win the end-of-year sales crown is heating up.Sony’s PlayStation 3 sales nearly quadrupled in November at the expense of Nintendo’s Wii and Microsoft’s Xbox 360. The launch of a new 40-GB model along with price reductions buoyed the PS3, shuttling it beyond the Wii to earn top consoles sales in Japan for the first time.
“The Wii will be the big winner in 2007, but does anybody think Sony is going to be an also-ran player in this market?” asked Mike Goodman, a video game analyst at Yankee Group. “When all is said and done, it’s going to be a very close race and different products that are going to dominate in different marketplaces.”
Click here to read the rest of this story on NewsFactor.
December 20th, 2007
Microsoft ’s Windows XP Service Pack 3 release candidate is now available to anybody and everybody who wants to confirm reports that XP with SP3 is significantly faster than Windows Vista.Recent tests by Devil Mountain Software show that Windows XP, coupled with Service Pack 3, runs certain desktop computing tasks roughly twice as quickly as Vista. Devil Mountain also discovered that SP3 offered a 10 percent performance boost over XP with SP2, while the firm said that performance gains with SP1 for Vista were negligible.
“Some people are commenting that SP3 makes XP faster than Vista, but I don’t think it’s appropriate to comment on a service pack candidate because service packs are about making the operating system more reliable,” said Directions on Microsoft analyst Michael Cherry. “I’m not sure how you even benchmark something that isn’t final code.”
Click here to read the rest of this story on NewsFactor.
December 20th, 2007
Microsoft unveiled a public beta for its hypervisor-based server virtualization technology. Known as Hyper-V, the technology is featured with some versions of Windows Server 2008.The beta for Windows Server 2008 with Hyper-V offers features not previously available in the September 2007 Community Technology Preview, such as quick migration, server core roles, and server manager integration.
Microsoft said Hyper-V is designed to help reduce operating costs, increase hardware use, optimize infrastructure , and improve server availability.
Click here to read the rest of this story on CIOToday.
December 15th, 2007
Sprint has won first dibs on MySpace’s mobile social-networking efforts. The wireless operator announced a deal with the company to link to MySpace Mobile once it officially launches in early 2008.”Our partnership empowers Sprint data subscribers with easy access to their MySpace community at no additional charge,” Amit Kapur, vice president of business development for MySpace, said in a statement. “We’re also in the process of redesigning the mobile site to provide an updated look and feel and enhanced functionality.”
Click here to read the rest of this story on NewsFactor.
December 15th, 2007
Microsoft on Tuesday issued its December security update. After a light Patch Tuesday in November, security administrators have their hands full this month. The 2007 finale addressed 11 vulnerabilities altogether in seven patches.Specifically, the release contains three “critical” and four “important” updates, including two that patched “zero day” vulnerabilities, one involving Internet Explorer and the other involving Macrovision. Critical patches also fixed vulnerabilities in DirectX and Windows Media.
Click here to read the rest of this story on CIOToday.
December 13th, 2007
Ask.com might not be the leading search engine, but it’s trying to prove it’s the most consumer-friendly with its latest privacy move. The question is whether consumers really care as much as privacy advocates claim they do.On Tuesday, Ask.com launched a new product designed to give consumers more control over the privacy of their online searches. The technology, called AskEraser, allows searchers to erase queries completely from Ask.com servers, including IP address, user ID, session ID, and the complete text of their queries.
There is little argument about the significance of the move. Ask.com is a major player in search engines, and giving users control over the data generated by their activities online could lead the way for industry change, privacy advocates say.
Still, others are waiting and watching to see whether Ask.com’s users truly care enough about privacy to use the eraser.
Click here to read the rest of this story on CIOToday.
December 13th, 2007
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