Amazon.com Inc. is expected to unveil its long-awaited e-book reader at a media event Monday in New York, according to CNet Networks Inc.’s technology news site.

Word of the Kindle, as the device is called, made its way onto blogs more than a year ago, but the Web retailer has remained mum on details. CNet reported that the reader will cost $399 and be able to connect to Amazon’s e-book store via a Wi-Fi connection or with a Sprint Nextel Corp. cellular connection.

MSN’s Live Search team announced back on August 22nd that they would be launching a set of tools for webmasters. At that time, this was strictly a private, by invitation beta. Even then, webmasters and SEO practitioners alike were excited and hopeful as one of the much awaited features was the ability to pull up backlink information. MSN had previously turned off the special “link” and “linkdomain” query operators that provided a count of links pointing to a page or entire site, respectively.

The Live Search team is really trying to give everyone something to be thankful for. Karen Blakeman reported in October that Microsoft had restored the link and linkdomain queries, though with the slight modification of leading them off with a ” ” sign, like:
linkdomain:www.cnet.com

With apparently no official announcement from Microsoft, news of this seems to have just now picked up notice after Barry Schwartz reported it on Search Engine Land.

Microsoft won a patent dispute over technology that helps computers boot up faster Thursday.

The suit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, charged Microsoft with infringing on U.S. patent 5933639, which was issued in 1999 to Acceleration Software International Corp. The suit asked the court to award the patent holder US$2.50 per copy of Windows XP sold in the U.S. By Microsoft’s account, that could have amounted to $600 million to $900 million.

Microsoft argued that there are many ways to improve the boot speed of PCs and that XP uses different technology than that in the patent.

The jury found that Microsoft did not infringe on the patent and that the patent is invalid because it was obvious and because the technology already existed. In addition, the judge is still considering Microsoft’s assertion that the patent holder wrongfully withheld information about the existing technology when filing for the patent.

Microsoft released the latest version of its all-in-one security product, Windows Live OneCare. In beta since July, version 2.0 offers many enhancements of existing tools and offers several new tools, particularly in the area of networking and backup storage.

Installation from the Windows Live OneCare site requires signing with a Windows Live account. Microsoft says you can use your current Live ID or create a new one for OneCare and, if you wish, use one Live ID for Windows Live OneCare and another Live ID for Windows Live Messenger on the same machine. The Live ID you use with Windows Live OneCare will be good on two additional machines. When installing on the addition PCs in your home network, just use the Live ID; there is no need to re-enter the registration key.

We’re still not crazy about the Windows Live OneCare interface. It’s cold and not very intuitive; then again Microsoft doesn’t win many design awards.

Apple patched 41 vulnerabilities in Mac OS X and related software.

The company released an update for Tiger, fixed 10 bugs in the Windows version of Safari, and upgraded several other third-party applications. In the eyes of Graham Cluley, a senior technology consultant at security research firm Sophos, Wednesday’s release was a Godzilla-sized security update that exceeded about 130 MB in size.

The update includes 15 critical fixes to patch vulnerabilities that Apple said could open the door for “arbitrary code execution” that leaves a Mac compromised. More than two dozen other patches fixed vulnerabilities that could crash the OS or applications, allow malicious Web sites to do drive-by downloads, poison the machine’s DNS cache, or allow hackers to steal information or search for files on the victim’s hard drive.

Microsoft Corp. aims to be one of the top two players in the online advertising market in three to five years, a company executive in charge of the business said on Thursday.

Speaking at a UBS investor conference, Kevin Johnson, president of Microsoft’s platforms and services division, laid out the company’s strategy to become a leader in the growing online advertising industry with a “10, 20, 30, 40″ plan.

The plan, which represents Microsoft’s aspirations over the next three to five years, calls on Microsoft to increase the company’s share in Web search, page views, percentage of time on the Internet and percentage of advertising dollars.

The world’s largest software maker currently trails Google Inc. and Yahoo Inc. in the $40 billion global online advertising market dominated by selling advertising alongside Web search links.

Half of more than 3,000 retail stores that a wireless security company secretly monitored at major shopping areas in the U.S. and Europe use wireless data systems vulnerable to hacking, the company said Thursday.

The data that stores routinely transmit on wireless networks include credit card and Social Security numbers and other sensitive customer information.

AirDefense Inc., an Atlanta-based maker of security products for wireless data systems, found that about 25 percent of the stores’ 4,748 wireless access points were exchanging data with no encryption at all to foil electronic eavesdroppers.

Another 25 percent were using an outdated encryption method called Wireless Equivalent Privacy that is easily cracked by thieves using widely available tools.

The remaining half of the access points - the connections between wireless devices and computer networks - were using newer encryption methods that are considered far harder to crack.