Microsoft has introduced a domain hosting service for its fledging Live.com product line.

The company launched on Friday the beta version of Windows Live Custom Domains service. It will provide e-mail, instant messaging and links to other MSN services to people who have existing Web site domain names.

Source: News.com

IBM has launched a new research initiative to use grid technology for AIDS research.

The World Community Grid, counted among the top 10 supercomputers in the world, will work with the La Jolla, Calif.-based Scripps Research Institute in designing new therapeutic tools to counter HIV, the fast-mutating virus that causes AIDS, IBM said Monday.

The initiative, dubbed FightAIDS@Home, will draw idle computing power from more than 170,000 computers.

Source: News.com

Apple today said it has shipped more than 30m iPods since it launched the first member of its MP3 player family back in November 2001.

That leaves it with just over a month to sell around 7m more - if it’s to meet the 37m target set by Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster earlier this month.

“We expect the iPod to continue to be a foundation for growth in other parts of Apple’s business, and we expect that by the end of calendar 2005 more than 37m iPods will have shipped, providing Apple with a greater scope of awareness for various products,” Munster told investors at the beginning of November.

Source: The Register

A court has sentenced two men to a total of 37 years in prison for their part in defrauding a Brazilian bank of $242 million, the biggest scam in Nigerian history, newspapers reported on Saturday.

The sentencing of Emmanuel Nwude to 25 years and Nzeribe Okoli to 12 years follows negotiations in which they agreed to plead guilty to 16 of the 91 original charges, and to forfeit assets worth at least $121.5 million to the victims of the scam.

A third fraudster, Amaka Anajemba, was sentenced to two and a half years in prison in July after agreeing to return $48.5 million to the Sao Paolo-based Banco Noroeste, which collapsed after the theft.

“The activities of the accused persons not only led to the collapse of a bank in a foreign country, but also brought miseries to many innocent people,” Justice Joseph Oyewole was reported as saying.

The fraudsters obtained the money by promising a member of the bank staff a commission for funding a non-existent contract to build an airport in Nigeria’s capital Abuja.

Source: News.com

The state sued Sony BMG Music Entertainment on Monday under its new anti-spyware law, saying anti-piracy technology the company slipped into music CDs leaves huge security holes on consumers’ computers.

Attorney General Greg Abbott accused Sony BMG of surreptitiously installing “spyware” in the form of files that mask other files Sony installed as part of XCP.

This “cloaking” component can leave computers vulnerable to viruses and other security problems, said Abbot, echoing the findings of computer security researchers.

The term “spyware” has been used broadly to cover programs that are installed without users’ full knowledge and consent, whether or not they actually spy on a user’s activities.

Source: AP

Intel’s upcoming 65nm, dual-core notebook chip, ‘Yonah’, will ship as the Pentium M T2600, computer manufacturer moles have claimed.

The sources, cited by Japanese-language website PCWatch, claim the T2600 will be clocked at a mere 2.16GHz. It will be accompanied by the T2500, T2400 and T2300 - all dual-core parts, hence the ‘2′ -clocked at 2GHz, 1.83GHz and 1.66GHz, respectively.

Intel has already said it will offer a single-core Yonah - it will ship as the 1.66GHz Pentium M 1300.

Source: The Register

A critical vulnerability has been identified in Microsoft Internet Explorer, which could be exploited by remote attackers to execute arbitrary commands. This flaw is due to a memory corruption error when processing malformed HTML pages containing specially crafted calls to JavaScript “window()” objects and “body onload” tags, which could be exploited remote attackers to take complete control of an affected system by convincing a user to visit a malicious Web page.

This vulnerability has been confirmed on Windows XP SP2 with Internet Explorer 6 (fully patched).

French Security Incident Response Team (FrSIRT) rated this vulnerability as critical (4/4) and published a proof of concept code.

Until Microsoft fixs this problem you can disable Active Scripting in Internet Explorer as a workaround:

1. Start Internet Explorer.
2. On the Tools menu, click Internet Options.
3. On the Security tab, click Custom Level.
4. In the Settings box, click Disable under Active scripting.
5. Click OK, and then click OK.

Napster and XM Satellite Radio on Monday unveiled a beta version of a joint music offering.

The new service is designed to let satellite radio subscribers access, purchase and download music broadcast on about 70 music channels available over XM, the companies said. In addition, users can access Napster’s music catalog and buy tracks from it as well. The XM + Napster service is available at a new Web site, to be marketed by both companies.

Source: News.com

Dell has contracted three Taiwanese manufacturers to supply it with PCs based on AMD processors, the Asian press has claimed.

According to Chinese Language newspaper Economic Daily News this past weekend, Asus, Quanta and Hon Hai Precision (aka Foxconn) are all developing AMD-based systems for Dell. Their specialisms suggest the PC giant is buying desktops, notebooks and servers, respectively.

Every so often, Dell drops hints it might launch AMD-based systems, much to the joy of AMD fanboys, but somehow never quite manages to do so. This month it began selling boxed AMD processors, seen by some as a change of heart - or a bulwark against any fall-out from AMD’s legal challenge to Intel. AMD accuses its arch-rival of deliberately attempting to harm its business, a charge Intel refutes.

Source: The Register

Re-recordable HD DVD discs will be branded ‘HD DVD-RW’, the DVD Forum confirmed at its most recent steering committe last week.

But in a move which would seem to be calculated to win support from as many firms as possible, the Forum also said re-writeable discs will be branded ‘HD DVD-RAM’. They were originally supposed to be called ‘HD DVD-RW’.

DVD-RAM has been very popular in Japan, but largely failed to make much of an impression elsewhere. Indeed, the format’s availability around the world is largely because of its support in DVD+RW and DVD-RW drives. But DVD-RAM is backed by some big Japanese consumer electronics companies, many of them DVD Forum members, and the trade body clearly wants them on-side when the world goes HD.

Source: The Register

For Tuesday’s launch of the Xbox 360, Microsoft is holding Zero Hour, an invite-only event in the middle of the Mojave Desert. GameStop will be open at midnight, but is only selling the 360s to customers who preordered the console, as supplies are thin.

Best Buy has announced that it will open its doors early as well…although not that early. All stores in the US will be open at 9 a.m., typically one hour early for the average store. Gamers who line up early will be given priority to buy one of the consoles.

For those who would rather get down than line up, EB Games is holding its own event at its flagship store on the Universal CityWalk in Los Angeles.

Source: gamespot.com

TiVo Inc. is expanding its video recording service so users will be able to transfer recorded television shows onto Apple Computer Inc.’s iPods or Sony Corp.’s PlayStation Portable - the latest move aimed at putting TV in people’s hands for viewing anywhere.

The enhanced TiVoToGo feature being announced Monday will also add more copy-protection measures to discourage possible copyright abuse that would anger Hollywood.

TiVo officials said shows recorded via TiVoToGo will have digital watermarks. The extra encoding will follow the copied program wherever it goes, giving TiVo the ability to trace the origin of a transferred program that might get posted freely onto the Internet.

With its introduction in January of TiVoToGo, the digital video recording pioneer gave its broadband Series2 subscribers the ability to transfer recorded shows to Windows-based PCs and laptops as well as portable media players. But the service was available only to devices compatible with Microsoft Corp.’s Portable Media Center platform, such as Creative Technology Ltd.’s Zen.

Now, by adding support for the MPEG-4 video format, TiVo hopes to capitalize on the popularity of iPods and PSPs, which are among today’s hottest handheld gadgets with video capabilities.

Source: AP