The Technophilez

 Wal-Mart Stores Inc quietly canceled its online video download service less than a year after the site went live, a company spokeswoman said on Thursday.

Wal-Mart shut down the download site after Hewlett Packard Co discontinued the technology that powered it, Walmart.com spokeswoman Amy Colella said in an e-mail. She added that it will not look for another technology partner.

HP spokesman Hector Marinez said the company decided to discontinue its video download-only merchant store services because the market for paid video downloads did not perform "as expected." He noted that the Internet video business remains uncertain and is changing rapidly.

Wal-Mart will continue offering physical DVDs for sale at its stores and online, but would not continue the online downloads business, said Colella, who declined to disclose the number of downloads sold on the site.

A message at www.walmart.com/videodownloads said the service was stopped on December 21 and Wal-Mart offered no refunds for the downloaded videos.

Videos purchased on Walmart.com can be played using the Microsoft Windows Media Player or the Wal-Mart Video Download Manager, but cannot be transferred to a computer other than the one used to download them, according to the site.

The giant retailer's foray into online video downloading began in February and was hailed by media industry experts as a "game changer" that could introduce millions of DVD buyers to the practice of downloading.

Wal-Mart was the first major retailer to partner with all of the major Hollywood movie studios and TV networks to offer downloads the same day titles were released on DVD.

Wal-Mart's attempt at downloading came two years after it pulled out of online DVD rental and directed its subscribers to Netflix Inc, and months after it protested Walt Disney Co's move to sell movies on Apple Inc's iTunes online music store at below-retail prices.

Download sales equaled about 1 percent of the $24.5 billion in DVD and home video sales and rentals in 2006, but industry experts expect downloads to grow to 10 percent within a decade.

The news of the Wal-Mart download service's demise comes on the same day that reports surfaced of an agreement between News Corp's Twentieth Century Fox and Apple to offer the first movies for rent at the iTunes store.

Warner Music Group, a major holdout on selling music online without copy protection, caved in to the growing trend Thursday and agreed to sell its tunes on Amazon.com Inc.'s digital music store.

Until now, Warner Music had resisted offering songs by its artists in the MP3 format, which can be copied to multiple computers and burned onto CDs without restriction and played on most PCs and digital media players, including Apple Inc.'s iPod and Microsoft Corp.'s Zune.

The deal raises the total number of MP3s for sale through Amazon's music download store to more than 2.9 million. Warner Music's entire catalog, including work by artists Led Zeppelin, Aretha Franklin and Sean Paul, will be added to the site throughout the week. The Amazon store launched with nearly 2.3 million songs in September.

Major music labels Universal Music Group and EMI Music Group PLC had already signed to sell large portions of their catalogs on Amazon, as had thousands of independent labels. Most songs cost 89 cents to 99 cents each and most albums sell for $5.99 to $9.99.

Warner Music Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Edgar Bronfman Jr. had been reluctant to follow in the steps of the rival recording companies.

In February, when Apple Inc. CEO Steve Jobs penned an essay calling on record labels to drop Digital Rights Management from tracks sold on the company's iTunes Store, Bronfman shot back during a conference call with Wall Street analysts: "We will not abandon DRM nor services that are successfully implementing DRM for both content and consumers."

The recording industry had argued that DRM itself is not what makes some songs incompatible with some digital players, but the fact that there are different versions of DRM in use. The companies suggested Apple, whose iPod outsells all other media players, should license its DRM technology to other music services.

Apple didn't budge, and the industry's position began to unravel when EMI struck a deal with Apple to sell DRM-free versions of its music on iTunes. A few months later, Universal announced it would do the same with a host of online retailers — with the exception of iTunes.

In an e-mail obtained by The Associated Press and distributed to Warner employees Thursday, Bronfman noted that selling downloads without DRM would help spur new types of online music applications and foster competition among online retailers.

"By removing a barrier to the sale and enjoyment of audio downloads, we bring an energy-sapping debate to a close and allow ourselves to refocus on opportunities and products that will benefit not only WMG, but our artists and our consumers as well," Bronfman wrote.

Philip Leigh, a senior analyst with the research group Inside Digital Media, said Warner Music's changing strategy is a signal that all the record labels will move in the same direction, including the last major player to drag its heels, Sony BMG Music Entertainment.

"It's not surprising they've chosen to do this first with Amazon," Leigh said. "They don't want to admit to Apple right away that they were wrong. They would rather do it indirectly."

Warner Music did not comment beyond statements in a news release Thursday, but Leigh said it is likely the company is discussing a similar deal with Apple.

Pete Baltaxe, director of digital music at Amazon, emphasized in an interview that the retailer's music store stands out from most competitors like iTunes in that it only sells MP3s, rather than a mix of protected and unprotected music.

Last Friday--just in time for the final pre-holiday shopping crush--the official Blu-ray Disc site was hacked to send visitors to the official Web site of arch-rival format HD DVD.

According to a Blu-ray Disc Association representative, the group's own investigation into the hack reveals that it appears to be the work of a talented enthusiast who's an HD DVD proponent. The BDA says it discovered the hack within an hour after it happened on Friday; within another hour, the site was back up as normal.

This is the latest manifestation of the fervor and vitriol I've seen over the past months among the fanboys and home theater enthusiast-types who post on the many audio-visual boards. While sharing information online is a great resource for active and passive participants alike, I can't help but wonder how this will play out as the format war progresses and, presumably, one side becomes the dominant force. Things have gotten unnecessarily nasty before; is more of that in store before this war is done?

Vonage and AT&T finalized the settlement of a lawsuit AT&T filed in October, which alleged the VoIP provider infringed AT&T patents. AT&T claimed Vonage used proprietary technology that allowed Vonage to make VoIP calls possible using traditional telephones hooked up to a Vonage-branded router. The terms of the settlement were not disclosed.

On November 7, Vonage agreed to settle with AT&T, announcing it might pay the company up to $39 million. The deal was agreed upon with relative expediency, as a finalized deal emerged less than three months after AT&T filed the suit on October 17.

Vonage has been no stranger to settlements in the past, agreeing in October 2007 to pay Sprint Nextel $80 million for infringement on voice over packet technology after a lawsuit filed in October 2005. The terms of that settlement also included Vonage's agreement to license Sprint's technology.

That same October, Vonage also agreed to settle with Verizon Communications after the company was sued for patent infringement, with the settlement costs falling between $80 million and $120 million, depending on appeal results regarding two patents.

Earlier this month, Vonage was hit with another patent infringement lawsuit, this time from Nortel Networks, a telecommunications equipment manufacturer. The company charges the beleaguered VoIP company violated nine patents related to Nortel's Internet phone service.

AT&T declined to disclose the terms of the settlement and would not comment further. Vonage confirmed the settlement and declined to comment further on details.

In an effort to jump-start the market for online movies, News Corp.'s Twentieth Century Fox and Apple Inc. are preparing to announce a deal in which Fox movies would be available for rent digitally through Apple's iTunes Store, according to people familiar with the matter.

Apple has for months been trying to persuade the Hollywood studios to agree to a digital rental model, in which consumers would be able to download movies through iTunes that could be played for a limited time. Until now, no studio has agreed to such a deal with Apple, and some companies have continued to resist Apple's pitch.

In a related move, Fox also plans to release DVDs that use Apple's digital rights management system, a move that would allow consumers to make legal copies of the disc that could be played on an iPod or other device, such as a computer. The moves were reported by the Web site of the Financial Times.

Apple already sells movies from some studios via iTunes, which consumers can keep permanently. Walt Disney Co. -- where Apple chief executive Steve Jobs is a large shareholder and board member -- sells both new releases and catalog titles. Some others, such as Viacom Inc.'s Paramount Pictures, sell only older movie titles through iTunes.

Now, rentals could help Apple energize its online video efforts by giving consumers more options for accessing movies. Sales of video through Apple's iTunes Store have failed to grow at the same pace as the site's music downloads, analysts say, while the company's video device for living rooms, Apple TV, has been a poor seller.

It is unclear whether rentals will help the company sign up many more movie studios to sell through iTunes. Apple's video offerings lack a comprehensive movie selection, and some studios have resisted making deals to sell through iTunes because they balked at Apple's pricing, which is lower than the typical consumer price for a DVD.

 Mozilla rolled out its second beta release of Firefox 3 in less than a month with the goal of receiving feedback from developers on the browser's core functionality. The Beta 2 release now available for download features builds for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux in over 25 different languages.

"The next Milestone is Beta 3 scheduled for February," explained Mozilla vice president of engineering Mike Schroepfer. "We'll either do more betas or move to final release based on feedback from users and Web developers."

Mozilla is making several changes to Firefox that it hopes will compel more Internet users to try the free browser. For example, Firefox 3 sports improvements to the browser's look and feel, including a full page zoom capability, one-click bookmarking, and a location bar that matches against the user's history and bookmarks for URLs and page titles. In addition, Firefox 3's menus display using Vista's native theme.

 In an interview last month with Business Week, Sony's CEO Sir Howard Stringer acknowledged that the high-definition format war between Blu-ray and HD DVD has indeed been caught in a stalemate. While Stringer was merely confirming what had been obvious to most industry watchers for some time, his remarks caused quite a stir, given Sony's enormous investment to-date in the Blu-ray format.

For consumers who dislike choosing between two formats for their favorite movie content, the multibillion-dollar question is how much longer the stalemate between Blu-ray and HD DVD will last. While many potential buyers sit on the sidelines hoping for a clear victor, makers of the high-def players are doing their best to win them over with price cuts and exclusive content.

War Could Drag On

In anticipation of the holiday shopping season, Toshiba (one of the main backers of the HD DVD format) launched a sub-$100 sale of its second-generation player, the HD-A2. According to some estimates, the resulting run on units at Wal-Mart and Best Buy brought nearly 100,000 consumers into the HD DVD camp.

But Russ Crupnick, vice president and senior industry analyst for entertainment at The NPD Group, questioned whether a short-term sale would be enough to resolve the format war.

"I'm not sure we're at the point where either camp is near declaring victory," Crupnick told us, at the time of the price cuts. "The lower price and potential for some hot deals on HD players does invigorate the HD side, but Blu-ray has some compelling content coming out, like 'Spiderman.' We may be another year from seeing a victor, or the war could drag on."

Adding to consumer enthusiasm for the Toshiba sale was the fact that each unit came with a coupon for five free HD DVD movies, a value nearly equal to the sale price of the player itself.

Forced To Choose Sides

The offer of five free movies underscores the fact that, in any format war, content is still king. Indeed, the ongoing struggle over the industry standard for high definition has forced most movie producers to choose sides.

While Warner Brothers has demonstrated success in supplying content to both sides, the format war seems to be a lose-lose situation for many of the studios. Ultimately, studios run the risk of alienating a significant portion of their high-definition-watching customers, and movie fans either need two players (which is an unlikely scenario) or must forego content in the noncompatible format.

In the beginning, Sony and its Blu-ray format had the advantage with more movie studios on their side. But recently, Sony CEO Stringer said, the HD DVD coalition persuaded Paramount to issue content exclusively on the HD DVD format. Now, the major movie studios are roughly divided between the two formats, with only Warner Brothers successfully working both sides.

'High Definition Life'

Crupnick pointed out that another factor influencing both camps is the speed with which consumers are purchasing new high-definition televisions.

As high-def TVs become more mainstream, HD DVD and Blu-ray each have a better chance, he explained, "because without the TV, the player is of little use." The next step, he said, is that the people who buy HD TVs need to be connected to HD service so that they can "begin to experience the high definition life."

The real question, Crupnick suggested, is whether both HD DVD and Blu-ray will be overtaken by broadband delivery of content. That question, he said, will likely be answered over the next few years.

In the latest challenge to Microsoft's dominance of the productivity software market, a group of Linux developers has begun testing an online version of a free office applications suite.

Developers at online software provider Ulteo said in a message posted on their Web site site that a hosted version of OpenOffice.org 2.3 that they plan to offer is now available for public beta testing.

The trial version of the software can be launched from within Ulteo's Online Desktop package, which is itself currently in beta testing. The Ulteo Online Desktop aims to offer users a range of open source, Web-based applications and services. The project is led by Mandriva Linux creator Gael Duval.

Would-be beta testers apparently can't wait to get their hands on an online version of OpenOffice. As of Monday, Ulteo was warning users that its Web servers are overwhelmed and that they might have to return later to access the program.

OpenOffice software is based on the Open Document Format, which has been certified as a standard by the International Organization for Standardization. The package, available as a free download, offers word processing, spreadsheet, calendaring and other types of applications also found in Microsoft's pricey Office suite.

By offering an online version of OpenOffice, Ulteo hopes to enhance its collaborative capabilities. For instance, online users of the suite will be able to work together on a document simultaneously and perform other coordinated tasks, Ulteo says.

OpenOffice isn't the only challenge to Microsoft's reign over the office productivity software market. Google recently entered the fray with an array of hosted applications sold as a service under the Google Apps brand.

 Toshiba on Monday said it would release in Japan this week the first notebook with a rewritable HD DVD optical drive, making it possible to transfer recorded TV shows or video taken with a high-definition camera onto a DVD for archiving.

The Qosmio Series 2 is available with either a 17- or 15.4-inch screen, with resolutions of 1920 by 1200 pixels or 1280 by 800 pixels, respectively. Both are available with up to 400-Gbyte hard drives and come standard with 2 Gbytes of memory and TV tuners. The larger machine is powered by a 2.2-GHz Core 2 Duo T7500 processor, while the other uses a 2-GHz Core 2 Duo T7250 chip.

The laptops are not light. The 17-inch model weighs 10.6 pounds, and the smaller version 7.7 pounds. The weight suggests that the laptops are made less to lug around than to act as an all-in-one TV/computer in a small Japanese apartment. Battery life is up to 3.2 hours, and both machines ship with Microsoft's Windows Vista Home Premium.

Toshiba, which plans to release the notebooks Friday, said the new products are capable of receiving two TV channels simultaneously, enabling people to watch one show while recording the other.

The laptops support the HD Rec extension, which enables the recording of HD DVD content to a standard DVD. While the disks are less expensive than blank high-definition disks, the amount of recording time is much less.

The 17-inch model, called the Qosmio G40/97E, is expected to sell for about $3,500, while the 15.4-inch version, called the F40/88EBL, will be priced at about $2,600.

HD DVD, supported by Microsoft and Toshiba, competes with Blu-ray, a format whose major supporters include Sony. The latter company ships a Blu-ray disc player in the PlayStation 3 video game console.

XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc said on Monday it has settled a patent infringement lawsuit filed by Universal Music Group and hopes to reach deals with the other music companies.

The dispute centers around XM's portable "Inno" device, which can store and record music from satellite radio.

Major music labels including Vivendi's Universal, Warner Music Group Corp, EMI Group Plc and Sony BMG sued XM in May 2006, saying the Inno infringes copyrights and transforms a passive radio experience into the equivalent of a digital download service such as Apple Inc's iTunes.

XM said on Monday it reached a multiyear deal with Universal, which will withdraw from the complaint. It said the pact covers all XM radios with advanced recording functions, including future products. XM did not give the financial terms.

"We look forward to continuing our discussions with the other music companies in hopes of arriving at a resolution that benefits everyone, especially consumers," XM said in a statement.

Warner Music, EMI and Sony BMG, a joint venture between Sony Corp and Bertelsmann AG, all declined comment.

Warner Music is in talks with XM to try to settle the dispute and expects a resolution soon, said a source familiar with the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Janco Partners analyst April Horace said the Universal agreement would likely be followed by others.

"Once you've created a precedent in how to resolve that issue, I think it's easier to resolve the others," said Horace.

She said the two companies had likely agreed to a set fee for every related device XM sells, but noted that, since these devices were not XM's highest volume products, the payments were unlikely to have a material impact on XM finances.

The original lawsuit, filed in New York federal court, had accused XM Satellite of "massive wholesale infringement" and sought $150,000 in damages for every song copied by XM customers using the Inno, which went on sale last year.

XM argued the Inno, which is manufactured by Pioneer Corp, is a legal device that lets consumers listen to and record radio as the law has allowed for decades.

"We are pleased to have resolved this situation in an amicable manner," Universal Music Chairman and Chief Executive Doug Morris said in a statement." XM is "recognizing the intrinsic value of music to their business and the need to respect the rights of content owners."

XM, with more than 8.5 million subscribers, is waiting for regulatory approval to merge with No. 2 satellite radio company Sirius Satellite Radio Inc. Sirius already has a deal with the recording industry.

XM shares closed down 4.72 percent at $12.91 on the Nasdaq, a move Horace noted was more closely related to general stock market weakness and investor impatience for approval of the merger rather than a reaction to the settlement.

A small South Carolina company says it has a cure for the modern plague of budget-busting cell-phone charges racked up by teenagers: a gadget for text-messaging that isn't a cell phone.

Zipit Wireless Inc. plans to announce Tuesday that it will make available a text-messaging plan for its Zipit Wireless Messenger 2, a device the size of fat wallet that uses Wi-Fi hotspots to do free instant messaging with AOL Instant Messenger, Yahoo Messenger and Windows Live Messenger.

Zipit users who sign up for a text-messaging plan will now be able to contact cell-phone users, as well as communicate by instant message.

The plan will cost $4.99 for up to 3,000 messages per month when it formally launches in February. Between Dec. 20 and the launch, text messaging is free on the device.

Cell-phone carriers typically charge 10 or 15 cents per text message, or $15 a month to add 1,500 or "unlimited" text messages to a calling plan. The service costs almost nothing to provide, making it "one of the most profitable applications known to man," according to Morgan Stanley's telecommunications analyst, Simon Flannery.

The Zipit 2 itself costs $149.99. It has a color screen and launched in November as a follow-up to the monochrome original Zipit, which came out in 2004.

The Zipit 2 will be able to receive as well as send text messages. But unlike a cell phone, the Zipit won't accept text messages from numbers that haven't been added to an approved list by the user, which should make it immune to spam sent as text messages. Also unlike a cell phone, it won't be able to send text messages to more than one recipient at a time.

The Zipit belongs to a small category of devices that have attempted to capitalize on the craze for instant messaging by making it available off the computer. Sony Corp.'s Mylo device, which was aimed at the college-aged, is another example.

Neither the Zipit nor the Mylo has found audiences as big as instant messaging has generally. Frank Greer, chief executive of Greenville, S.C.-based Zipit Wireless, said "tens of thousands" of the original Zipit have sold, though he would not give sales figures.

The relatively slow pace of sales probably is due to the difficulty of marketing a wireless messaging device to people who already have one — the cell phone. Both the Zipit and the Mylo also need to be in a Wi-Fi hotspot to function.

But Zipit 2's text-messaging feature — which can be added through a downloaded software update — will help close the gap with cell phones.

The original Zipit is not upgradeable.

The PC version of AOL Instant Messenger already allows text messaging to cell-phone users, who can also reply to the AIM user.

From Ars Technica

When Apple finally gives in to user's demands, it sure can be quiet about it. Yesterday's QuickTime and GarageBand updates brought more than just a plug for that RTSP security flaw that Symantec found. GarageBand 4.1.1 can now create custom ringtones for the iPhone too. Officially-sanctioned ringtones.

It's not like Apple released a PR for this or anything though; Apple slipped in a support doc on the topic after the update went out. Evidenced by a new "Send Ringtone to iTunes" option from GarageBand's Share menu, about the only thing missing here is support for turning iTunes Store-purchased tracks into ringtones (though iTunes Plus tracks should work just fine). Unfortunately, GarageBand will still deny importing said tracks, presenting a warning about stealing food from the dinner plates of wealthy executives' children. While the iTunes Store ringtone process is definitely slick and convenient, it looks like you'll have to keep paying double the price just to use a song you already own as a ringtone instead of an iPod track.

Naturally, the process of creating a ringtone from non-iTunes Store songs is exceedingly simple, but that aforementioned support doc elaborates, just in case. You can simply select a cycle region of a GarageBand project (which means you don't actually need to chop the project down) that's 40 seconds or less in length, then hit the magic button. Prepare for an onslaught of Snow and Heat Miser ringtones boys and girls.

For those who aren't carrying Apple's smudge-loving phone, the company even linked another support doc on using GarageBand to create custom ringtones for your third-party mobile phone.

Browser maker Opera Software is hoping for a tougher penalty to rein in what it sees as Microsoft's illegal bundling of its Internet Explorer (IE) browser with Windows. This week the company filed suite in the European Commission seeking remedy. One legal expert said that this time around, Microsoft might not be so lucky.

"The landscape has changed quite a bit between Microsoft and the European Commission since the last ruling. If there's a replay of what led up to the 2004 ruling, and Microsoft takes similar positions regarding bundling, then I wouldn't be surprised if the Commission comes down harder now," said Chris Norall, a partner in the Brussels office of the law firm Morrison & Foerster.

Opera argues that because each version of Windows comes with only IE preinstalled, Microsoft has an unfair advantage against rivals like Opera and Firefox. That has helped it maintain a consistent market share on Windows PCs of around 80 percent, Opera contends.

The Norwegian company now wants the Commission to come up with a tougher remedy to overcome Microsoft's advantage. If the Commission agrees that the bundling of IE is just as illegal as the bundling of Windows Media Player was in 2004, its remedy this time "will be tougher, it will have teeth," said Norall, whose law firm is not involved in the Microsoft case.

One possible outcome would be to make Microsoft offer a second version of Windows without Windows Media Player, and to sell it at a lower price than the "complete" version of Windows. That may give PC makers more incentive to offer it. Opera's preferred solution, however, is simply to force Microsoft to pre-load other browsers with Windows when it ships.

"In our minds, the best solution would be one version of Windows with a must-carry type of provision," said Jason Hoida, Opera's deputy general counsel.

Microsoft is likely to fight that remedy fiercely. It says it will cooperate with the Commission's investigation, but argues, as it has before, that consumers benefit from bundling its browser with Windows. What's more, it notes, PC makers and consumers are free to install any other browser if they wish.

Microsoft's position my be strengthened by the popularity of rival browsers in Europe, notably Firefox, which has reached a market share of close to 40 percent in some key markets, such as Germany, studies have shown. If Microsoft can argue that rivals to IE are gaining market share, it could help it persuade the Commission that antitrust intervention is not necessary.

Opera responds that the growth of other browsers has been levelling out. "Firefox has attracted a lot of users, especially in the open-source world, but it has not been climbing consistently," said Hakon Wium Lie, Opera's chief technology officer.

In addition, he said, Opera's complaint is focussed on Windows PCs, where IE's share is higher, and not that of Linux or Macintosh computers. However, it is uncertain that the Commission will exclude Linux and Macintosh computers when it considers the relevant market in this case.

On Friday, the NPD Group, a research firm, released its November sales report for game consoles. At the top of the pack was Nintendo with 981,000 Wii consoles sold. Behind Nintendo, was the Microsoft  XBox 360, with 770,000 consoles sold, and the Sony Playstation 3, with 460,000 units sold, less-than half of Nintendo's figure.

Nintendo itself, many seem to be caught off guard with the Wii's popularity. Nintendo's stock has soared from 126% for the year-to-date. Meanwhile, video game maker Activision, the brand behind such popular titles as Call of Duty and Guitar Hero, has promised investors to release new titles for the Wii system in the near term. Nintendo has also been crushed by demand. Many people are still paying a premium on eBay for the gaming system, while Wal-Mart lists the product as "out of stock" online.

Wii mania has forced its rivals to go on the defense. Sony slashed the price on the Playstation 3 to $499 from $599 for the 80 gigabyte model in October. The company also introduced a $399 model in November. The price cut has kept Sony competitive, the company managed to sell 496,000 PS2 units, and 466,000 PS3 units.

In terms of video games, the top seller for November was the Xbox 360's Call of Duty 4, and the Wii's Super Mario Galaxy.

Activision said last week that the company will ship free replacement discs in early 2008 for any and all wanting full stereo output.

"We recently became aware that some consumers have not been able to enjoy the full audio output in the Nintendo Wii version of Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock," said Activision spokeswoman Rhy-Ming Poon.

As previously reported in both our review and subsequent follow ups, Guitar Hero III for Wii only outputs monaural sound despite advertising Dolby Pro Logic II on the game box. Fortunately for interested fans, a free "re-mastered" replacement disc will sent begging next year, though no specifics were disclosed.

"We are currently working with Nintendo and are planning to issue an improved audio experience in future versions of the game," Poon added. "We expect to have re-mastered discs available by early 2008 and we will be offering consumers replacement discs at no cost once they become available.

"We thank all of our customers for their support and patience."

The professional networking site LinkedIn on Monday announced a sweeping redesign of its Web site and a new developer platform that allows partners to build companion applications on their sites.

In reaching out to external sites, LinkedIn is hoping to expand the reach of its members' professional networks, and, in the process, further entrench its position as the top online community destination for working professionals. LinkedIn is one of the fastest-growing social networks today, boasting a 189 percent jump in membership this October compared last October, and attracting about 1.1 million new members a month.

LinkedIn will launch the new platform with BusinessWeek as its inaugural partner. Future partnerships are not being announced but, Allen Blue, LinkedIn's co-founder and vice president of product strategy, said his company will be very selective.

"LinkedIn is focused on enhancing the productivity of the professional world," Blue told InternetNews.com. "With that in mind, we will only work with select business partners who have already built high value, high productivity applications."

The developer program, called the Intelligent Applications Platform, will have two components.

The first is a set of APIs and widgets that LinkedIn will make available to its partners to integrate into their own sites. The second enables those partners to establish a branded presence in the LinkedIn community through Google's OpenSocial development model.

Starting today, LinkedIn members reading an article on BusinessWeek's site will be able to mouse over an interactive link to a business mentioned in the story where a balloon will appear telling them how many people in their immediate and extended networks, and their area, are connected with the company. Clicking on one of the links will direct the reader to a page on LinkedIn where those people's profiles appear, making it possible for the networking to begin.

The OpenSocial utility, which is still in development, will allow partner sites to build into the LinkedIn network by posting interactive bulletins on the site. For example, a calendar of events sponsored by a partner that would tell LinkedIn members who from their network will be attending. The idea of giving a preview of the attendance list is intended to help LinkedIn members make an informed decision of the business and networking value of the event.

In the launch of its "network-wise" homepage, appearing in beta Monday, LinkedIn is adding several features in an effort to improve the business value of the information presented to its members.

The redesign will give users access to several new modules, allowing them to create customized searches for jobs and people, as well as an Answers feature that enables them to track and participate in the conversations that their colleagues are having about the topics of the greatest relevance to their professional life.

LinkedIn is also revamping its network updates feature, which will provide a target, better-organized, now archived news feed on the actions that the people in their circle taking.

The final addition is LinkedIn's souped-up news section, which enables members to build a feed around what matters most to them, like their own company or its direct competitors. The articles are served up by Moreover Technologies, a VeriSign company that specializes in delivering customized real-time news.

The twist is that LinkedIn will pack the articles with metadata to help its members gauge the value of an article at a glance. The articles most widely read by a member's network will appear at the top of the feed. By pairing news articles with an aggregate (and anonymous) number of in-network clicks, LinkedIn is aiming to virally spread relevant news articles without its members having to pass along a link to everyone in their network.

LinkedIn reports that it has more than 16 million members, including executives from each of the Fortune 500 companies. Members have an average age of 41 years, and an average household income of $106,000.

Attackers are trying to exploit an unpatched vulnerability in Apple's QuickTime software that could let them run code on a victim's computer, Symantec warned in a DeepSight Threat Management System alert issued Sunday.

First observed on Saturday, the attacks appear to be aimed at Windows users, but Mac OS users could also be at risk since the QuickTime vulnerability in question affects both operating systems, the alert said. That vulnerability, called the Apple QuickTime RTSP Response Header Stack-Based Buffer Overflow Vulnerability, was first disclosed on Nov. 23 and remains unpatched by Apple.

Researchers have shown that the QuickTime vulnerability affects a range of operating systems, including Windows XP, Windows Vista, MacOS X 10.4, and the recently released MacOS X 10.5, also called Leopard. The vulnerability can be exploited through Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera, and Safari.

There are two types of attacks underway, Symantec said. In the first, victims' computers are being redirected from an adult Web site, Ourvoyeur.net, to another Web site that infects the computer with an application called loader.exe, which can be saved to the computer as metasploit.exe, asasa.exe, or syst.exe. Once installed on a computer this application downloads another binary file, which Symantec identified as Hacktool.Rootkit, a set of tools that can be used to break into a system.

Symantec said it was possible attackers had managed to compromise Ourvoyeur.net as part of the attack.

The second attack also involves redirection, and Symantec is currently investigating the attack to determine what if any malicious code is involved.

To protect systems from attack, Symantec recommended blocking access to affected sites. "Filter outgoing access to 85.255.117.212, 85.255.117.213, 216.255.183.59, 69.50.190.135, 58.65.238.116, and 208.113.154.34. Additionally 2005-search.com, 1800-search.com, search-biz.org, and ourvoyeur.net should be filtered," it said, adding IT managers can also block outgoing TCP access to port 554.

Alternatively, IT managers could take more drastic steps.

"As a last measure, QuickTime should be uninstalled until patches are available," the alert said

Two music label titans, Sony and Warner Music Group, are increasingly being pressured to follow in the footsteps of their peers are remove the DRM restrictions on digital download versions of tracks in their vast catalogs. The pressure stems partially from the planned announcement of a free download promotion sponsored by Pepsi that will take place through Amazon's online music store. The download promotion will be included in 5 billion of Pepsi's soda bottle-caps, with customers needing to collect 5 caps in order to receive one free download. Pepsi ran a similar, but much smaller-scale promotion in conjunction with Apple's iTunes Music Store in 2004, offering 100 million free tracks, of which about 5 million were redeemed. Amazon's store is DRM-free.

According to PC Magazine Amazon will pay labels around 40 cents per track. "This compares with the 65-70 cents labels currently receive from Amazon for digital track sales and the 70 cents they get from Apple. [...]A mazon has captured about a 3 percent market share of the digital download channel, Billboard estimates. The store has a 6 percent market share of all CD sales."

In addition to the promotional opportunity that might be missed by not having a DRM-free catalog in time for the Amazon promotion, Warner and Sony will soon have to contend with Wal-Mart's pending decision to pull both companies' Windows Media Audio format-only catalogs sometime around the beginning of 2008. Wal-Mart carries only 2 percent market share in the digital download arena but sells about 22 percent of all physical CDs.

CD sales are down about 18.6 percent this year, while digital track sales have surged from 142.6 million tracks in 2004 to 735.4 million

The insistence by major music labels on digital rights management (DRM) for online stores is having a damaging ripple effect on retail music shops as well, says the head of Britain's Entertainment Retailers Association, Kim Bayley. The executive notes that while physical stores still see high profile releases and seasonal increases, the hesitation by buyers leery of either restricted direct downloads or higher-priced CDs is neutering the effect.

A year after the official launch of its gaming platform, Sony did the right thing. The Japanese company has unveiled a new 40GB version, price-tagged at only $400 and it has slashed the price of the 80GB version to $499.
All these moves have improved the sales of PlayStation 3 and for the first time in months Sony’s gaming device has managed to outsell Nintendo Wii in its homeland.

According to the latest data released by the research company Enterbrain in the last four weeks Sony has sold 183,217 PS3s in Japan.

Nintendo Wii, which until the PS3’s price cuts, was the best selling gaming console in Japan sold only 159,193 units.

Earlier this week Sony Computer Entertainment America has also reported a sharply increase of PlayStation 3’s sales in America.

Since November 2, the launch date of both the 40GB and the cheaper 80GB PS3 models, PS3 hardware sales have increased by 298%, SCEA said.

But is this a sign that the hard times are over and Sony may return to it former dominance over the last 11 years? Hard to say! Sony is still lagging far behind its competitors in terms of worldwide and US sales. During the same period when Sony reported a 298 percent increase in US sales, Nintendo sold in US 350,000 Wii in just one week, after no less than 300,000 units had found their owners in the first week of November. The sales of Wiis represent the highest one-week U.S. sales total outside of its launch week one year ago.

The last NPD research credited Sony with 121,000 units sold in October. This means that Sony could sell somewhere around 300,000 to 400,000 units in November, while Nintendo Wii seems to be ready to hit the one million units mark.

On the other hand, Sony’s competitors are better prepared to take advantage of the holiday season. Despite its shortages, Nintendo Wii is still rated as the best-buy gaming device by various gaming sites and analysts. Microsoft has an impressive games line-up and its Xbox 360 Arcade, which has a $279 price tag, is better positioned to lure away the Nintendo’s customers.

It’s very likely that Sony will see an increase in its PS3 sales during this holiday season, but rather to its Blu-Ray player and not for its gaming capabilities.

Though, the next year will bring better news for Sony. With a lot of new games coming up, Sony will solve the last of its deficiencies: the lack of the good gaming software.

It will be interesting to see how Nintendo and Microsoft will fight against a PS3 with a better price tag and some good games, such as Gran Turismo Prologue, in his portfolio.

After all maybe all those analysts who predicted that PS3 will win the gaming consoles battle in 2009 were right.

Until then, grab your popcorn and let’s watch Microsoft compete against Nintendo during this holiday season.