Corel promised months ago that it would support the OpenOffice.org Open Document Format. Now, it says it will support both ODF and Microsoft’s Open XML next year.

Beginning in mid-2007, Corel will provide open, view, and edit functionality for Open XML and ODF as a first step toward comprehensive support for both formats. The company would not say how this support would be delivered, but the timing of its arrival makes it appear likely that it will be delivered in the next version of WordPerfect Office.

“Unfortunately, it is too early to disclose the details of the next version of Corel WordPerfect Office, but we will keep you closely availed of our plans as we are able to describe them further,” Richard Carriere, Corel’s general manager of office productivity, told Linux-Watch.

Source: eWeek

AMD will today announce its Quad FX platform, formerly codenamed ‘4×4′, it has been claimed. The technology is built out of Nvidia’s nForce 680a SLI chipset and AMD’s new Athlon 64 FX-70 series of dual-core processors.

According to a report on Japanese-language site PCWatch, there are the FX-70s: the FX-70, FX-72 and FX-74, clocked at 2.6GHz, 2.8GHz and 3.0GHz, respectively. All three are fabbed at 90nm and contain 2MB of L2 cache. Their on-board memory controllers support up to 800MHz DDR 2 unbuffered SDRAM, AMD presentation slides reveal.

Source: Reg Hardware

Microsoft will soon start pushing out a new version of its controversial Windows Genuine Advantage Notifications antipiracy tool to Windows XP users.

The updated WGA Notifications package includes additional changes in response to continued criticism Microsoft has faced over the software, the company said Tuesday. Microsoft in June also updated the tool after critics likened it to spyware because it checked in with Microsoft after each Windows restart.

In the latest update, Microsoft has changed the installation procedure of the tool so it’s clearer to people what it does, said David Lazar, director of the Windows Genuine program at Microsoft. In the original version, WGA Notifications displayed only a wordy user license, which people don’t typically read.

Source: ZDNet

Apple Computer has shipped a monster security update to correct a total of 22 vulnerabilities in its Mac OS X operating system.

The Cupertino, Calif, company’s patch batch includes a fix for a critical Wi-Fi flaw affecting eMac, iBook, iMac, PowerBook G3, PowerBook G4 and Power Mac G4 systems.

The Wi-Fi flaw, first exposed at the beginning of the Month of Kernel Bugs project, was discovered and reported by Metasploit’s HD Moore.

Apple confirmed that the issue is a heap buffer overflow that exists in the AirPort wireless driver’s handling of probe response frames.

Source: eWeek

BitTorrent Inc., developer of a popular online file-sharing tool, said Tuesday it has reached licensing deals that will boost the number of movies and TV shows it can offer as part of a video download service launching next year.

The privately held company said it signed agreements with Viacom Inc.’s Paramount Pictures, News Corp.’s 20th Century Fox, Lionsgate, Palm Pictures and Kadokawa Pictures USA.

The San Francisco-based BitTorrent also inked content deals with cable television networks G4 and Starz Media along with several Viacom-owned networks, including MTV Networks, VH1, SpikeTV, Nickelodeon, Comedy Central and Logo.

Financial terms of the licensing agreements were not disclosed.

Added to BitTorrent’s lineup were films such as “X-Men The Last Stand,” “Saw III” and “Mission: Impossible III,” and TV shows “Star Trek,” “Laguna Beach” and “South Park.”

Source: AP

It’s one of the deadliest imaginable poisons, a radioactive substance about 100 billion times as deadly as cyanide — and a Web site run by a physicist and flying saucer enthusiast offers to sell you a trace amount of it for $69 and send it via the U.S. Postal Service or UPS.

Contrary to early news reports, polonium-210 — the poison suspected in the death of an ex-Russian spy in England — is not some exotic material available solely from nuclear laboratories. The isotope is available from firms that sell it for lawful and legitimate uses in industry, such as removing static electricity from machinery and photographic film.

If ingested in large enough amounts, polonium-210 causes a hideous death.

Source: sfgate.com

The relationship between the Apple music company and the Apple computer company may not have soured despite about two decades of legal battles between the two companies. In fact, the relationship may become closer if The Beatles agree to let iTunes offer their music for downloading.

Apple Computer and Apple Corps, which have fought over the use of their Apple mark for music-related products and services, may forge an agreement to offer Beatles music over iTunes, according to a report in Fortune.

Source: Yahoo

Comcast Corp. has become the first U.S. cable operator to take on telecommunications providers in the cell phone market, having begun marketing the service to consumers in Boston.

The largest U.S. cable television operator launched the service in Boston and Portland, Oregon, earlier this month after a year-long trial, but is only promoting its “mobile access” service with television commercials and direct-mail drops in the Boston metropolitan area.

Source: Yahoo

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is edging into selling video downloads by offering buyers of the “Superman Returns” DVD a chance to buy downloads of the same movie, beginning Wednesday.

The world’s largest retailer said Tuesday that shoppers have the choice of paying $1.97 to download the movie to a portable device, such as Apple’s iPod or Microsoft’s Zune, or paying $2.97 to download it to a laptop or desktop computer. For $3.97, customers can download the movie for both formats.

Source: AP

Universal Music Group Chief Executive Doug Morris said on Tuesday he may try to fashion an iPod royalty fee with Apple Computer Inc. in the next round of negotiations in early 2007.

Universal, the world’s largest music company, owned by French media giant Vivendi, was the first major record label to strike an agreement with Microsoft Corp. to receive a fee for every Zune digital media player sold.

“It would be a nice idea. We have a negotiation coming up not too far. I don’t see why we wouldn’t do that… but maybe not in the same way,” he told the Reuters Media Summit, when asked if Universal would negotiate a royalty fee for the iPod that would be similar to Microsoft’s Zune.

Source: Reuters

Microsoft’s Internet Explorer and Mozilla’s Firefox might vie for dominion in desktop browsing, but Opera, makers of an eponymous browser that comes in desktop, smartphone, and cell phone versions, wants to control the mobile space.

On Tuesday, the Norwegian firm released version 3.0 of Opera Mini, a Web browser for mobile phones. Among its claims to fame is a feature that lets bloggers and users of social-networking sites such as Facebook, Flickr, and MySpace quickly upload photos from their phone’s on-board camera.

Opera Mini will launch the camera, let users snap a photo, then send it to the site in question. The net result is fewer buttons to push, always a plus on phones whose small size can make them hard to use, even for teens and tweens who text as much as they talk.

Source: Yahoo

Time Warner Inc., the world’s largest media company, plans to offer services that let consumers download movies from the Internet that can be burned onto DVDs in 2007, its top executive said on Tuesday.

The company would likely make these movies available for such services, including one service with Wal-Mart Stores Inc., on the same day its DVDs go on sale.

Source: Reuters