Rumors have floated in the past month that Microsoft will launch a new high-end version of the Xbox 360. It’s true that Microsoft is preparing to announce the Xbox 360 Elite, a version of the game console with black plastic and advanced features. Several sources confirmed Microsoft plans to add this box to its product line.

The new box will go on sale in limited quantities soon for $479. The details may not be precise here, but I believe it will have an HDMI connector so that you can connect at the highest speed to a high-definition TV. It will come with a 120-gigabyte hard disk drive and will have IPTV capability.

Bill Gates announced in January that the Xbox 360 was capable of serving as a set-top box for IPTV, or Internet Protocol TV, which phone companies such as AT&T are using to offer high-definition movies and scores of channels in competition with TV.

The Xbox 360 Elite will apparently not come with a built-in HD-DVD drive, which will remain an option for playing high-definition movie disks. In the spring, the new machine will be available in limited quantities and it will reflect a redesigned motherboard. Tina Conley, an outside spokeswoman for Microsoft, declined to comment on Saturday.

It’s not like he needs it to beef up his résumé, but the world’s richest college dropout finally is getting his degree.
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Bill Gates, chairman of Microsoft, will speak at Harvard University’s commencement ceremony in June and, like all commencement speakers, will receive an honorary degree from the institution.

It’s hard to guess if Gates, the wealthiest person in the world and co-founder of a company that brought in $44 billion in revenue last year, cares. But the programming whiz who once dropped out of Harvard will likely feel some sense of satisfaction.

Apple’s Apple TV set-top box will indeed connect to a standard-definition CRT TV of the entirely old-style non-widescreen, 4:3 ratio variety, it has emerged.

Apple’s online forums are full of questions from would-be buyers about this, but the first categorical statement that the Apple TV does work with old TVs comes from software developer Rogue Amoeba, whose rather good Mac OS X sound-grabbing app, Audio Hijack, we’ve been using for years.

According to RA, the white iPod-for-your-TV box supports not only the 1080i, 720p, 576p and 480p resolutions defined by the HD world, but also 480i and 576i beloved, respectively, of NTSC and PAL tellies. Including 4:3 jobs.

PayPal, the Internet’s No.1 online payment service, has plans to launch a new system designed for mobile devices, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal.

The mobile payment service will launch sometime within the year, the WSJ reported on Friday.

The eBay-owned PayPal would allow shoppers to buy from Web storefronts that cater to users of cell phones and Web-enabled handhelds, the paper reported.

A possible security vulnerability in Windows Mail could let attackers run applications on PCs running Vista.

An attacker could send an e-mail with a malicious link that, when clicked on, would execute a program on the PC without warning, according to a description of the problem published Friday on a widely read security mailing list called Full Disclosure. Windows Mail is the successor to Outlook Express, Microsoft’s free e-mail client, and ships with Vista.

Microsoft is investigating the issue, a company representative said in an e-mailed statement. “As a best practice, users should always exercise extreme caution when clicking on links in unsolicited e-mail from both known and unknown sources,” the representative said.

A federal judge issued a permanent injunction on Friday barring Vonage Holdings Corp. from using Internet phone call technology owned by Verizon Communications Inc.

U.S. District Judge Claude Hilton granted Verizon’s request for an injunction prohibiting Vonage from using some Voice-over-Internet Protocol (VoIP) technologies that allow consumers to make calls over the Internet.

Vonage shares fell 6.2 percent, or 25 cents, to $3.80 shortly after the judge’s decision. Trading in the stock was then halted.

A jury on March 8 found Vonage had infringed three patents owned by Verizon. The jury said Vonage must pay $58 million plus 5.5 percent royalties on future sales.