Sony Corp. will unveil on Wednesday “Home,” an online network for its new PlayStation 3, which supports streaming video and advertising and will host virtual characters in common areas and private rooms.

Sony also will preview “LittleBigPlanet” — a game where users play, create and share what they build with other worldwide PS3 users — at the Game Developers Conference this week in San Francisco.

Sony’s PS3 is locked in a battle with Microsoft Corp.’s Xbox 360 and Nintendo Co. Ltd.’s Wii.

“Home,” a free download, will be available globally beginning in fall 2007.

Amazon.com Inc. launched on Wednesday a service that lets users watch video purchased on the Internet and sent to a home television hooked up to a TiVo set-top box.

Originally announced last month, “Amazon Unbox on TiVo” extends the online retailer’s Unbox download service to more than 1.5 million TiVo Inc. subscribers whose boxes can access the Internet via a high-speed connection.

TiVo shares rose as much as 5 percent Wednesday after the Amazon launch was announced. Last month, analysts said the service shows content companies may be embracing TiVo as both a potential partner and a distribution platform.

Under an introductory offer, TiVo is offering $15 in free movie and TV show downloads to those who sign up. Television show episodes go for $1.99, and most movies cost between $9.99 and $14.99. Amazon and TiVo are jointly shouldering the marketing cost for the new service’s introduction.

Google has released a new version of its desktop search tool, adding a preview feature to help find information more quickly and making some improvements to the interface design.

The update, Google Desktop Version 5, also has some new security features to fight phishing and other online attacks. Its release comes after security researchers reported some security holes in the search tool last month.

Google Desktop is a free tool that indexes the content on a PC, including e-mail, text documents and Web pages visited, and makes it available for searching. It also includes “gadgets,” or small applications that sit on the desktop and display news headlines, a calendar, a to-do list and other information.

Dell Inc. is considering offering the Linux operating system as an alternative to Microsoft Corp.’s Windows on its personal computers, a Dell spokesman said on Tuesday.

The PC maker said it received more than 100,000 customer requests for Linux in a “suggestion box” posted on Dell’s Web site less than three weeks ago.

“We are listening to what customers are saying about Linux and taking it into consideration,” said Dell spokesman David Lord. “We are going forward. Let’s say, ‘Certainly stay tuned.’”

Lost in Seattle with nothing but a camera phone? Just snap a picture of a nearby building, send off the photo to a database and soon you’ll get back a map and information about where you are.

The new Web service is one of over 40 new technologies and ideas displayed by Microsoft Corp. at its research department’s annual TechFest fair on Tuesday.

Microsoft Research TechFest is the world’s largest software maker’s chance to show off the talent of its 750 global researchers, who are working on problems ranging from how to use sensors in medical science to how to view high-definition pictures through a Web browser.

The technologies and products on display are at various stages of development. Some are ready to be incorporated into existing products, while others are years away from finding the right application to utilize the technology.

A Turkish court ordered access to YouTube’s Web site blocked on Wednesday, after a prosecutor recommended the ban because of videos allegedly insulting the founder of modern Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.

Paul Doany, head of Turk Telekom, Turkey’s largest telecommunications provider, said his company had begun immediately enforcing the ban.

“We are not in the position of saying that what YouTube did was an insult, that it was right or wrong,” Doany said in remarks to the state-run Anatolia news agency. “A court decision was proposed to us, and we are doing what that court decision says.”

Doany said Turk Telekom would allow access to the popular video sharing site again if the court decision were rescinded. Access from Turkey might be possible through other service providers, he said.

Heise online reports on a very interesting action Microsoft is taking during the installation of WGA.

When you start WGA setup and get to the license agreement page but decided NOT to install the highly controversial WGA component and cancel the installation, the setup program will send your info and the fact that you choose not to install WGA back to their servers.

In addition to that it seems that the setup program send some information stored in your registry to http://genuine.microsoft.com/. While it does not specifically identify the user, it looks like it does send some identification of your computer and Windows version (see picture) to Microsoft servers.

Update: In response to this publication Microsoft published the details of the information being sent

Best Buy is under investigation by Connecticut’s attorney general after consumers complained they were denied deals found at the electronic retailer’s Web site by store employees who pulled up a lookalike site that listed higher prices on some merchandise.

“The key question is whether consumers were advertised one price, and then denied that price when they got to the store,” Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal said Tuesday.

Blumenthal said his office received at least 20 complaints after a columnist for The Hartford Courant reported the experience of one Connecticut man who found a laptop computer advertised for $729.99 on BestBuy.com, then went to a Best Buy store where an employee who seemed to check the same Web site told him the price was actually $879.99.

Dawn Bryant, spokeswoman for the Richfield-headquartered retailer, confirmed that store employees have access to an internal Web site that looks nearly identical to the public BestBuy.com site. But she said company policy is to always offer customers the lowest quoted price, unless it’s specifically identified as a deal available only to online shoppers.