n Amazon.com Inc. subsidiary has started selling DVDs of CBS News programs, one of the latest examples of how television content is increasingly being made available in more convenient, on-demand formats.

CustomFlix Labs Inc. lets customers choose content from “60 Minutes”, the evening news and certain documentaries, which will then be sent to them on a DVD.

Amazon.com, the Seattle-based online retailer, began offering the service late Wednesday on its Web site.

The service costs $24.95 for up to 10 segments or 90 minutes of content, according to the Web site.

Source: AP

Yahoo! Inc. and Microsoft Corp. today will begin limited public beta testing of interoperability between their instant messaging (IM) services that enable users of Windows Live Messenger, the next generation of MSN Messenger, and Yahoo! Messenger with Voice to connect with each other. This interoperability — the first of its kind between two distinct, global consumer IM providers — will form the world’s largest consumer IM community, approaching 350 million accounts.1

Consumers worldwide from Microsoft and Yahoo! will be able to take advantage of IM interoperability and join the limited public beta program. They will be among the first to exchange instant messages across the free services as well as see their friends’ online presence, view personal status messages, share select emoticons, view offline messages and add new contacts from either service at no cost.2 Yahoo! and Microsoft plan to make the interoperability between their respective IM services broadly available to consumers in the coming months.

Windows Live Messenger and Yahoo! Messenger with Voice users in the U.S. and more than 15 international markets can register to participate in the IM interoperability beta by visiting Yahoo! or Microsoft . The new beta program will be available in Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada (English and French), China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Italy, Korea, Mexico, Netherlands, Singapore, Spain, Taiwan, Turkey, the United Kingdom and the United States (English and Spanish).

Microsoft said on Wednesday that it’s ready with software that allows older PCs to be turned into more modern and secure systems, but in the process also makes them less than full-fledged PCs.

The software, known as Windows Fundamentals for Legacy PCs, is designed as a stopgap measure for companies with a significant number of older Windows PCs that they aren’t ready to replace and that can’t be easily upgraded to Windows XP. Formerly known by its Eiger code name, Windows Fundamentals allows those PCs some of the security benefits of XP, but essentially turns the machines into thin clients, able to run only a few programs locally, with most software needing to run remotely from a server.

Source: News.com

The new beta will be less of a resource hog than the existing software, which is now nine weeks old, Microsoft says.

At Microsoft’s Velocity 2006 worldwide partner conference in Boston Tuesday, a Microsoft executive said the updated beta will be available to Technet subscribers “in a few days.”

Source: InformationWeek

Adobe Systems joined Microsoft on “Patch Tuesday” and delivered fixes for two security flaws in the ubiquitous Adobe PDF reader software.

The vulnerabilities affect Adobe’s Acrobat and Reader software for both the Windows operating system and Apple Computer’s Mac OS, Adobe said in two separate security advisories. If left unpatched, the flaws could put Windows and Mac users at risk of a cyberattack.

Source: News.com

Panda Software has released the beta version of its new consumer solution Panda Antivirus 2007. This new product is a latest-generation antivirus solution designed for home users whose online activity does not require all the services and features of a complete security suite. For this reason, it is especially designed to ‘install and forget’ and barely uses any system resources. This makes it the lightest antivirus solution in Panda Software’s range of consumer solutions, without renouncing the most complete protection for home users against viruses, worms, Trojans, spyware, etc.

All users who test the product can win an MP4 player and purchase the final release version before its official launch for only $19.95, which includes one year’s services (updates, 24h/365d tech support, etc.).

The Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC), provider of pro-bono legal services to protect and advance Free and Open Source Software (FOSS), today released an opinion assuring developers that they can legally implement OpenDocument Format (ODF) in free and open source software. OpenDocument Format is a free file format for saving and exchanging editable documents, spreadsheets, databases and presentations.

In the current climate of uncertainty surrounding patents, FOSS developers have been reluctant to implement programs if compatibility with GPL is in question. These concerns about ODF recently prompted a number of the Law Center’s clients to seek a legal opinion before implementing the format in free and open source programs. The Center researched the issue and has now published an opinion assuring developers that there are no legal barriers to using ODF.

Microsoft will file an appeal at a European court against a fine imposed on it by the European Commission on Wednesday, the company said.

The software giant, facing an EU penalty of 280.5 million euros ($357.3 million) for defying a 2004 antitrust ruling, said the penalty was unjustified and insisted that the firm was in compliance with a 2004 decision by the EU’s executive arm.

Source: eWeek

Paced by anticipated sales of blue laser players, game consoles, PC drives, and related media, the blue laser disc technology market is expected to exceed $28 billion in sales in 2010, according to Santa Clara Consulting Group (SCCG). Growth will be driven by six sub-segments, according to a report released today: Blu-ray and HD DVD Disc Technologies: Pursuit of a New Standard.

SCCG estimates that the game console segment, supported by sales of the PlayStation 3, will have the most important influence on the blue laser disc technology market, with more than half of the $2 billion in revenue for 2006. Content, including movies and games, will represent half of this market’s revenues in 2010.

“Currently the market seems to be preoccupied with the format battle between Blu-ray and HD DVD technologies; what is overlooked is the fact that a market is developing and the opportunity is huge,” observes David Bunzel, Managing Director of SCCG.

Other important markets expected to offer significant growth potential are blue laser technology players, with nearly $4 billion of sales in 2010; blue laser technology movies, with $3 billion of sales; blue laser technology game consoles, with $6 billion of sales; blue laser technology games, with $10 billion of sales; blue laser technology PC drives, with $4 billion; and blue laser technology blank media with $400 million of sales.

According to the Amsterdam analytics firm onestat The Firefox browser has jumped from a global market share of 8.7% to a whopping 13% since April 2005. The national usage of Firefox make some interesting reading, too, with Firefox making up 16% in the USA, 24% in Australia and a huge 39% in Germany.

Source: Slashdot

The State Department is investigating “anomalies” in its unclassified computer system, the agency said on Tuesday, declining to comment on a report that the department’s computers had been hacked.The Associated Press said the State Department detected large-scale break-ins of its computers last month in its headquarters and offices that deal with China and North Korea.

State Department spokeswoman Nancy Beck confirmed only the problem was not a computer virus and that an investigation was under way.

Source: Reuters

European Union regulators fined Microsoft 280.5 million euros ($357.3 million) on Wednesday for defying a 2004 antitrust ruling, and warned the company to comply or face bigger fines from next month.The tough new penalty is the first of its kind and comes on top of a record 497 million euro fine the Commission imposed in its landmark antitrust decision against Microsoft in March 2004.

“The EU Commission cannot allow such illegal conduct to continue indefinitely. No company is above the law. Each and every company, large or small, operating in the EU must abide by EU law,” Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes told reporters.

The Commission required Microsoft to provide technical information to rival server software makers after it found the company abused the dominance of it Windows operating system and squeezed out competitors.

“Microsoft did not even come close to providing adequate information,” Kroes said.

The fine covers the period from December 16 to June 20 at 1.5 million euros daily. It fell short of a possible daily maximum of 2 million euros. Microsoft faces a further fine of up to 3 million euros a day if it still does not comply by July 31.

Source: Reuters