Amazon was granted a patent on Tuesday by the USPTO that covers a technique for allowing users “to request access to one or more electronic images of pages in a physical text.” If you think this sounds like Amazon Upgrade, you’re right—and it could have ramifications for the Google Book Search project.

Patent 7,174,054 was submitted back in December 2003 and is now assigned to “Amazon Technologies, Inc.” The patent clearly covers the Amazon Upgrade program, in which customers can purchase access to electronic copies of physical books.

Source: arstechnica

Computer security specialists at NASA have warned employees of the space agency not to let down their guard just because they may be using workstations or laptops armed with BitLocker — an encryption feature found on the Ultimate and Enterprise editions of Microsoft’s Windows Vista operating system.

NASA is concerned about a loophole in BitLocker that could allow thieves to access data from a stolen computer or laptop despite encryption.

A document posted on NASA’s Web site notes that BitLocker can be configured to require users to insert a USB authentication key into their PCs or laptops in order to boot up. However, it cautions that this feature doesn’t work if users shut down their computers in ’sleep’ mode.

Source: InformationWeek

After months of planning to kill off the Hotmail name, Microsoft has decided to keep the venerable brand, as it works to overhaul its free Web e-mail service.

Microsoft said on Thursday that the revamped service, still in beta testing phase, is being renamed “Windows Live Hotmail” rather than the originally planned “Windows Live Mail.” In a blog posting, Senior Product Manager Richard Sim said some people had found the name change confusing.

“As we prepare to launch the final version of our new Web mail service, we recognize the importance of ensuring that our 260-plus million existing customers come over to the new service smoothly and without confusion,” Sim said. “By adopting the name ‘Windows Live Hotmail,’ we believe we’re bringing together the best of both worlds–new and old. We’re able to offer the great new technology that Windows Live has to offer, while also bringing the emotional connection many existing and loyal users have with Hotmail.”

Source: News.com

“The big media companies immediately assume you are guilty by your mere presence on a BitTorrent swarm, an investigation by a university security worker reveals. Turns out companies like BayTSP (which the media companies employ) will send shutdown notices to ISPs without any evidence of copyright infringment; all they feel they need is an indication that you are reported by the tracker to be in the swarm.”

From the post:

“For my investigation, I wrote a very simple BitTorrent client. My client sent a request to the tracker, and generally acted like a normal Bittorrent client up to sharing files. The client refused to accept downloads of, or upload copyrighted content. It obeyed the law… With just this, completely legal, BitTorrent client, I was able to get notices from BayTSP. To put this in to perspective, if BayTSP were trying to bust me for doing drugs, it’d be like getting arrested because I was hanging out with some dealers, but they never saw me using, buying, or selling any drugs.”

Source: Slashdot

Is Microsoft preparing a spoiler for Sony’s PAL-region PlayStation 3 launch on 23 March? According to one report, Australian store chain Myer has been told to expect a black Xbox 360 complete with HDMI port an 120GB hard drive round about that time.

So claims a story on GamesReport.com, which also maintains Microsoft has confirmed as much. The beast will retail for AUD749 ($585/£299/€449), apparently.

Source: Reg Hardware

Canonical, the sponsor of Ubuntu, and Linspire, the developer of Linspire and Freespire, on Feb. 8 announced a technology partnership to integrate with each other’s Linux distributions. Linspire/Freespire will be based on Ubuntu, rather than Debian, and Ubuntu will integrate with Linspire’s CNR package installer/updater.

For Linspire, that will mean moving from Debian to Ubuntu as the base for its Linspire and Freespire desktop operating systems.

For Ubuntu, starting with the 7.04 release in April, this means that Ubuntu users will gain access to the newly opened Linspire CNR (Click and Run) software delivery system, which will give them one-click access to commercial programs and proprietary multimedia CODECs and drivers.

Source: eWeek

Microsoft touts Windows Vista as giving significant security improvements over Windows XP, and it offers the Windows Firewall, with its new two-way filtering feature, as one reason for that better security.

But as shipped, the Windows Firewall offers little outbound protection, and it’s not clear how outbound protection can be configured to protect against spyware, Trojans and bots.

Source: PC World

Standards for energy-efficient PCs are about to take a step forward for the first time in more than a decade.

The Energy Star program is set to release the first revision to the specification for PCs since 1992, which was practically the Bronze Age of the PC industry. Energy Star stickers are familiar to those who have shopped for household appliances over the last few years; it designates appliances or electronics that meet certain specifications for energy efficiency.

Due to the lag in formulating a new certification, more than 90 percent of PCs currently on the market are eligible for an Energy Star sticker. But come July, a new voluntary specification will go into effect for energy-efficient PCs and game consoles that includes new recommendations for power supply efficiency and idle power consumption.

And later this year, a similar specification update is planned for flat-screen televisions, targeting the increasing popularity of energy-hogging TVs. The idea is to encourage companies to make more energy-efficient products without imposing requirements, said Jill Abelson, a representative for the Energy Star-labeled-products program.

Source: News.com

With its latest operating system, Microsoft is promising improved search, better security and tighter integration with Windows Live services.

But the operating system isn’t Vista–it’s Windows Mobile 6, the latest iteration of Redmond’s software for powering mobile phones.

Microsoft plans on Monday to officially announce Windows Mobile 6, formerly code-named Crossbow, at the 3GSM trade show in Barcelona. The first devices using the software aren’t expected until spring, however, with the bulk of products using the new operating system likely to come in the second half of the year.

Among the most visible changes is the ability to type in a few letters of a song, contact or e-mail subject and have the phone automatically show only matching results. The software also supports HTML e-mail. But for Exchange messages to be viewable in that form, a company also has to have Exchange 2007, the new version of Microsoft’s e-mail server software.

Windows Mobile 6 also builds in support for Windows Live instant messaging and e-mail, which enables users to see whether a contact is online and to get their Hotmail or Windows Live Mail messages pushed down automatically.

Source: News.com