Adobe is planning to announce a major upgrade to its popular Photoshop image editing suite next Monday. Details slipped out in an accidental early posting of a press release, which has since been removed.

Dubbed Adobe Photoshop CS2, the new release promises better tools to fix common image problems such as red eye and blemishes, as well as updated support for raw, or uncompressed, images. The software is expected to start shipping in May.

Source: Beta News

It is a well known fact that terror organizations maintaining and operating web sites. But they also use the internet’s search king, Google to advertise their presence.

Ynet, a leading Israeli news web site discovered on Sunday that the Terror organization, Hamas, is using Google AdWord program to place paid advertising for the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades web site. Izz al-Din al-Qassam is the military wing of the Hamas.

The Hamas Add appear after searching for words like “Hamas�?, “Jerusalem�?, “Gaza,�? “Palestine,�? “Jihad.�?.

A day after Ynet called Google and pointed out the fact that its services are used to promote terror organizations, Google removed the advertisement from AdWord.

High-profile telecom and networking companies are banding together to crack down on hackers.

The new Fingerprint Sharing Alliance hopes to help its members, which include British Telecommunications, Cisco Systems, EarthLink, MCI and NTT Communications, more effectively share information on individuals responsible for launching online attacks. Other organizations involved in the collaboration, which was announced Monday, include Asia Netcom, Broadwing Communications, Verizon Dominicana, XO Communications and the University of Pennsylvania.

Members of the Fingerprint Sharing Alliance will automatically send one another data on computer hackers as they observe or experience new attacks. By immediately alerting other communications companies when they’re being threatened, members of the group hope they can more effectively guard against online attacks and infrastructure hacks that cross network boundaries.

Source: News.com

Sony Corp. said on Monday it was ordered by a U.S. court to halt sales of its blockbuster PlayStation consoles in the United States and pay $90 million in damages to a California tech company, Immersion Corp. whose shares jumped more then 5 percent.

Sony Computer Entertainment (SCE), Sony’s gaming unit, said it would appeal the decision by a California federal court in the patent infringement case.

For the time being, Sony will keep selling PlayStations as the order — which covers the PlayStation and PlayStation 2, two game controllers and 47 software titles — will not go into effect before the appeal, an SCE spokeswoman said. Sony will be paying compulsory license fees to Immersion, she added.

Immersion, a small, California-based developer of digital touch technologies, claimed Sony Computer Entertainment infringed on its technology that makes a game controller vibrate in sync with actions in games, the Japanese game maker said.

Source: Reuters

BRUSSELS, Belgium - Microsoft Corp. on Monday announced an agreement with European Union antitrust regulators on the name “Windows XP (news - web sites) Home Edition N,” with “N” standing for “not with media player,” for a reduced version of its Windows media software sold in Europe.

Microsoft’s “XP Professional Edition” will also include the “N” for versions sold without the media player.

The agreement is part of talks between the EU and Microsoft to implement an EU fine against Microsoft last year, totaling a record 497 million euros ($665 million) after the EU ruled the company abusively wielded its Windows software monopoly to lock competitors out of the market.

The EU ordered that Microsoft offer consumers an version without media player, and compatible with competitor software, like Real Player.

Source: AP

WASHINGTON– A group of ISPs this week will ask the U.S. Supreme Court to require broadband cable providers to share their networks with competitors, just as incumbent U.S. telecommunications carriers were required to share their DSL networks during the past five years.

U.S. broadband customers would have more choices of providers, and the new competition could drive down prices if the Supreme Court rejects a U.S. Federal Communications Commission attempt to classify cable modem service as an unregulated information service, say the ISPs pushing for cable-sharing rules.

Supporters of the FCC action say broadband adoption in the U.S., hailed by President George Bush and other politicians as an engine of economic growth, would slow if cable providers were forced to share their networks with competing ISPs. Cable providers would have less incentive to improve connection speeds and otherwise upgrade their networks if they have to sell their networks at wholesale prices to competitors, says Dan Brenner, senior vice president for law and regulatory policy at the National Cable and Telecommunications Association (NCTA).

A government effort to determine wholesale prices would put the cable industry in regulatory limbo, Brenner adds. “Practically, how do you get from what we have today to [wholesale pricing] without a heavy-handed government intervention?” he says.

Source: PCWorld

When file-sharing service Grokster and entertainment giant MGM Studios face off Tuesday in front of the Supreme Court, the lawyers will argue copyright law. But the court’s decision will affect how people use entertainment and share information.

The highly anticipated case, MGM Studios v. Grokster, pits all the major movie studios and record labels against Grokster and StreamCast Networks, two operators of file-sharing services.

The entertainment companies petitioned the Supreme Court to take the case after the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in August that file-sharing companies are not liable for their users’ copyright infringement. The decision upheld a lower-court ruling from April 2003.

The appeals court based its ruling on the 1984 Supreme Court Sony Betamax case. In that case, the court ruled Sony’s videotape recorder was a legal device because it was “capable of substantial non-infringing uses,” even though it could be used to violate copyrights. The case is credited with leading to a lucrative home-video and DVD market for the entertainment companies. The decision also provided innovators with a benchmark to support the development of new products.

A number of emerging-technology companies are among the Grokster supporters who have filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the case, concerned that a ruling for the entertainment companies could stifle innovation and harm their businesses.

The Supreme Court is expected to rule on the case in June. Whatever the outcome, observers think the issue may end up in Congress.

Source: Wired