CBS and NBC have announced deals to offer replays of prime-time programs for 99 cents per episode, shifting television toward a sales model that gained popularity with downloaded music.

CBS is teaming up with Comcast Corp. and NBC with satellite operator DirecTV to offer the on-demand replays.

NBC Universal will offer commercial-free episodes of “Law & Order: SVU” and other shows to subscribers of DirecTV Group Inc. who use the satellite company’s new digital video recorder.

Comcast’s on-demand customers in some markets will be able to view “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation,” “NCIS,” “Survivor” and “The Amazing Race” at their convenience.

Terms of the deals, which were announced Monday, were not disclosed.

Source: AP

Motorola officially announced four upcoming Razr handsets on Tuesday, including one that comes preloaded with Apple’s iTunes music software.

The Razr V3i is expected to hit shelves sometime before the end of the year. It includes a 1.23-megapixel digital camera with 8x digital zoom, video capture and a full-screen viewfinder.

The handset will also ship with a hot swappable memory card, 65K color support on the display and integrated Bluetooth wireless capability.

Pricing is expected to depend on the carrier, which Schaumburg, Ill.-based Motorola has not yet revealed. The Razr V3i will be the second mobile handset to feature Apple’s iTunes software. Motorola’s Rokr phone also includes access to iTunes.

Source: News.com

Microsoft released a patch that fixed a critical vulnerabilities in graphics rendering engine that could allow code execution.

A remote code execution vulnerability exists in the rendering of Windows Metafile (WMF) and Enhanced Metafile (EMF) image formats that could allow remote code execution on an affected system. Any program that renders WMF or EMF images on the affected systems could be vulnerable to this attack. An attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could take complete control of an affected system.

According to Microsoft security bulletin MS05-053 the affected products are Microsoft Windows 2000 Service Pack 4, Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 1 and Service Pack 2, Microsoft Windows XP Professional x64 Edition, Microsoft Windows Server 2003 and Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1, Microsoft Windows Server 2003 for Itanium-based Systems and Microsoft Windows Server 2003 with SP1 for Itanium-based Systems and Microsoft Windows Server 2003 x64 Edition.

You can download the updates from Windows Update of from here

SONY Computer Entertainment is likely to abandon its practice of region coding games for its PlayStation 3 console, the head of its South Pacific operation said.

Sony’s current crop of PlayStation and PlayStation 2 consoles contains technology that blocks the use of illegal copied games. It also prevents the use of game and DVD discs that have been region coded for other markets.

However, Sony Computer Entertainment Australia managing director, Michael Ephraim, said the company was unlikely to continue the policy as international television standards emerge.

“If you look at the fact that it will support high-definition TV, which will be a global standard, there’s a good likelihood that it will be global region, as for example we’ve done with the PSP (PlayStation Portable),” Mr Ephraim said

Source: AustralianIT

The crew of a luxury cruise ship used a sonic weapon that blasts earsplitting noise in a directed beam while being attacked by a gang of pirates off Africa this weekend, the cruise line said Monday.

The Seabourn Spirit had a Long Range Acoustic Device, or LRAD, installed as a part of its defense systems, said Bruce Good, a spokesman for Miami-based Seabourn Cruise Line. The Spirit was about 100 miles off Somalia when pirates fired rocket-propelled grenades and machine guns as they tried to get onboard.

The subsidiary of Carnival Corp. was investigating whether the weapon was successful in warding off the pirates, he said. The ship’s captain also changed its course, shifted into high speed and headed out into the open sea to elude the pirates, who were in two small boats, he said. He had no further details.

The LRAD is a so-called “non-lethal weapon” developed for the U.S. military after the 2000 attack on the USS Cole off Yemen as a way to keep operators of small boats from approaching U.S. warships.

Source: AP

Verso Technologies Inc., of Atlanta, Georgia, hopes to soon win a contract to block Chinese Internet users from using eBay Inc.’s Skype VoIP (voice over Internet Protocol) software, the company said Monday.

A Chinese telecommunications operator has begun a paid trial of Verso’s NetSpective M-Class filter, a product that is designed to block VoIP calls made using Skype, as well as other peer-to-peer applications, Verso said in a statement. If the paid trial now underway in one Chinese city goes well, the operator will purchase the NetSpective M-Class application filter before the end of the year, it said. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

“The trial is representative of the significant opportunities for Verso’s products in the Chinese market, where VoIP is highly regulated and the use of Skype software has been deemed illegal,” said Yves Desmet, Verso’s senior vice president of worldwide sales, in a statement.

Verso did not provide additional details of the trial to block Skype or name the Chinese operator behind the project.

Source: Macworld

Advanced Micro Devices sold more chips than industry giant Intel in U.S. retail stores in October, according to a report released Tuesday by market researcher Current Analysis.

Desktop computers and notebooks with AMD chips accounted for 49.8 percent of PCs sold in domestic stores for the month, compared with Intel’s 48.5 percent of the market, according to the Current Analysis report.

Last month, AMD’s slice of the U.S. retail store pie reached 67.7 percent for desktops, up from 52 percent in September. And its share of the notebook market in that category rose to 31.5 percent in October from 26.2 percent in September.

Source: News.com

On Friday, November 04, consumers from the United Kingdom and Mexico filed a class-action lawsuit against Apple Computer, Inc. (Nasdaq: AAPL) in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, claiming the new iPod Nano is defectively designed allowing the screen to quickly become scratched with normal use.

According to the complaint the world’s largest manufacturer of portable music players knew of the iPod Nano’s design flaw but chose to ignore them in an effort to speed the product to market.

According to the suit, the defect is a result of a much thinner layer of resin used in designing the Nano that does not provide adequate protection from scratching.

This suit follows a similar class-action case filed on October 19, 2005 against Apple Computers on behalf of iPod Nano users in the United States.

Steve Berman, lead attorney on both cases, attributes the second suit to the large number of international requests to be included in the class-action. “Apple’s iPod Nano has sold in record numbers around the world, just as it did in the US,” said Berman, “It seems that wherever the Nano is sold, problems with the defective design soon follow.”

According to Berman, residents outside the US are able to ask the court for help since Apple is headquartered in the United States. The suit seeks to represent and recover money lost for all those who live outside of the United States who purchased an iPod Nano.

Taiwan-based Accton Technology unveiled in Tokyo on November 7 its Skype-enabled Wi-Fi phone, the SkyFone WM1185-T, that can be used to make free peer-to-peer (P2P) via VoIP without the aide of a personal computer.

Accton plans to ship 5,000 of the new wireless phones to Skype’s business partners and wireless broadband service providers worldwide for testing in December, with volume shipments slated for the first quarter of next year, according to company sources.

The WM1185 Skype phone, which enables a talk time of up to four hours and a SBT (stand-by-time) of up to 20 hours, is likely to be initially priced at over US$150 in the retail market, according to market sources.

In addition to supporting Skype-embedded technology, Accton will also introduce dual mode mobile phones that support both GSM and Wi-Fi technology in early 2006, the sources noted.

Source: DigiTimes

Papa John’s has beefed up security for its Web-based e-mail system after the pizza chain learned that internal e-mail and customer data had been exposed.

The leak at the Louisville, Ky.-based pizza chain made internal corporate e-mail and thousands of customer comments available to anyone with a Web browser. The customer comments were submitted between Sept. 29 and Nov. 7 and included names, addresses, phone numbers and e-mail addresses of customers.

“It looks like there is no password protection on Papa John’s internal Web e-mail system,” said Richard Smith, an Internet privacy expert who reviewed the issue at the request of CNET News.com. “This sort of Web site privacy leak happens more than it should.”

Papa John’s on Monday added password protection to its Web-based e-mail system and the online customer suggestion database, after it was notified of the leak by CNET News.com.

Source: News.com