Plextor unveiled a new mini digital HDTV receiver on Wednesday that the company says will transform a user’s laptop into a wireless personal video recorder.

According to the digital media manufacturer, the PX-HDTV500U can be ordered now and will take the form of a stick-sized USB device that customers can use to watch, pause, and record high-definition TV on most Windows-based laptops—all without a subscription fees or recurring charges.
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The high-speed USB 2.0 receiver comes bundled with software that automatically scans for free air-to-air digital and HD signals in a given area and will subsequently pull them in with a flat digital antenna. Users can then watch and record live TV with standard definition TV and HDTV video resolution in the basic configuration, Plextor said.

The receiver also converts recorded TV into MPEG-2 files in real-time and stores them on the user’s hard drive. Once there, they can be easily burned directly onto a DVD, according to Michael Arbisi, vice president of channel sales for Plextor.

Plextor says the receiver supports automatic channel scanning, picture-in-picture, aspect ratios of 4:3 and 16:9, full-screen or scalable screen views, and still-picture capturing.

The PX-HDTV500U is set to ship to distributors in North America in April and have a MSRP of $99, according to Plextor. The device supports the DTV Standard ATSC protocol for free air-to-air digital terrestrial TV and audio program playing as well.

TJX: It’s the target of the largest known customer record theft of all time, and it’s a case in point that encryption is not a silver bullet.

This is the heart of the encryption problem, quoted from the 10-K filing The TJX Companies made to the Securities and Exchange Commission:

“Despite our masking and encryption practices on our Framingham system in 2006, the technology utilized in the Computer Intrusion during 2006 could have enabled the Intruder to steal payment card data from our Framingham system during the payment card issuer’s approval process, in which data (including the track 2 data) is transmitted to payment card issuer’s without encryption. Further, we believe that the Intruder had access to the decryption tool for the encryption software utilized by TJX.”

Encryption has no value when data isn’t encrypted, obviously, but credit cards can’t be processed when their numbers are encrypted. Hence, a smart crook will seek a way to get the data during that window of time when it’s in that state of being “in the clear”—that is, unencrypted.

TJX’s intruder also had a backup plan if data in the clear wasn’t attainable: namely, the decryption key.

Thinking of sending your band’s demo CD to a music label in the hope of landing a deal? Don’t try SonyBMG, who want to sample your music online instead.

SonyBMG, the world’s second-biggest music company, said that from Monday it would no longer accept hard copy formats.

Instead, budding musicians will be asked to sign up to a record label Web site such as www.columbiademos.co.uk or www.rcademos.co.uk to blog their music, photos and videos.

“Blogging is clearly one of the major trends in music, media and entertainment,” said SonyBMG’s UK and Ireland Music Entertainment Chairman and Chief Executive Ged Doherty.

“100,000 new blogs go online each day at the moment, and the blogosphere is doubling every 230 days so it makes complete sense for the major labels to use the process in a creative way to encourage, discover and communicate with new artists,” he said.

With online criminals exploiting an unpatched flaw in Windows, security vendor eEye Digital Security has come forward with an unofficial fix for the problem.

The unofficial temporary patch, published early Friday, fixes a bug in the way Windows processes Animated Cursor files, which are used to create cartoon-like cursors in Windows. Security researchers at McAfee first reported the bug on Wednesday evening, saying that it has been used in Web-based attacks.

Microsoft has said that it will eventually fix the problem and it generally recommends that users avoid this type of third-party fix for its products. But in the past, similar patches from eEye and others have been downloaded by tens of thousands of Windows users, unwilling to wait for Microsoft’s updates.

Microsoft’s next set of security patches are due April 10, but the software giant has not said whether or not that release will include a fix for the Animated Cursor problem.

The agency that sets the Internet addressing guidelines influencing how people navigate the Web defeated a proposal Friday to give adult Web sites their own “.xxx” domain.

Many in the adult-entertainment industry and religious groups alike had criticized the plan, which the Canadian government also warned this week could leave the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers in the tricky business of content regulation.

The 9-5 decision by ICANN’s board came nearly seven years after the proposal was first floated by ICM Registry LLC. It was the third time ICANN has rejected such a bid. Paul Twomey, ICANN’s chief executive, who had described the proposal this week as “clearly controversial, clearly polarizing” abstained from the vote but did not say why.

“We are extremely disappointed by the board’s action today,” said Stuart Lawley, ICM’s president and chief executive. “It is not supportable for any of the reasons articulated by the board, ignores the rules ICANN itself adopted for the RFP (request for proposal), and makes a mockery of ICANN bylaws’ prohibition of unjustifiable discriminatory treatment.”