Pc News

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Microsoft Unwraps Zune Site, Makes Changes To MSN Music

Microsoft unveiled a new Web site that describes features of the upcoming Zune music store and also revealed that MSN Music won't continue to sell digital songs.

The new site outlines details of the Zune player as well as the Zune marketplace, where customers can buy songs individually or subscribe to a monthly music download service.

The site already features a few bands and offers downloads of images and videos of Zune advertisements.

Zune Add-Ons


It also features accessories that will be available from third-party manufactures. A docking station will let users play music directly over speakers, a wireless remote will enable control from across the room while the Zune sits in a dock and cables will allow users to connect the Zune to their car stereos. Other accessories include leather cases and premium headphones.

Microsoft is pointing to the new Zune.net site from MSN Music, an online store that offers articles about artists as well as music sales. Now, the customer service page of the MSN Music store says that starting Nov. 14, the launch date for Zune, customers will notice that the current "buy" button near songs for sale will change to links that connect to Zune and to RealNetworks' Rhapsody service. As part of a previous legal settlement with rival Real, Microsoft has agreed to promote Real's music service.

ComingZune
The new Zune.net site joins two others that Microsoft has made available since revealing that it was developing the music player and store. Zune.com features a short animation and simply says that zune.com is coming. Comingzune.com used to feature short animations with songs but now redirects to a site that contains Zune artwork and animations.

In late September, Microsoft revealed pricing for the Zune player and said it would launch the player and music store Nov. 14. Since its introduction of Zune, Microsoft hasn't said much about what would happen to its existing MSN Music store or how the Zune store might affect its relationships with customers like MTV Networks, which have worked closely with Microsoft to launch their own music stores.

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Second Minor Firefox 2.0 Bug Found

A second minor bug found in the Firefox 2.0 Web browser will be fixed, but users shouldn't encounter much of a problem in the mean time, a Mozilla official said today.

The browser will crash if it visits a Web page that been intentionally coded with JavaScript in such a way as to target the bug, said Tristan Nitot, director of European operations for Mozilla.

"It's very unlikely that anyone would have put a similar page on any ordinary Web site," so users shouldn't be affected, Nitot said.

The problem can't be used to steal data from a computer, he added.

It's the second bug that's been found in Firefox 2.0 since its release on Oct. 24. The first bug also causes the browser to hang or crash when a very large document is loaded into an iframe--an HTML element--using JavaScript.

The new bug will eventually be fixed. "We will fix it because we need reliability," Nitot said, adding no timetable has been set.

Browsers Under Fire
Firefox 2.0 and Microsoft's rival Web browser Internet Explorer 7, both of which debuted within a week of one another, are under close scrutiny by security analysts.

Both vendors have contested experts' claims of flaws. Mozilla said one reported problem with Firefox 2.0 was fixed in a previous version, while a second report of an exploitable vulnerability couldn't be replicated.

Microsoft charged a behavior cited as a vulnerability in IE7--where a pop-up window can display content from a different, untrusted Web site--isn't a bug, but a feature after the behavior was reported by vendor Secunia.

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Microsoft Office 2007 Available December 1

Microsoft announced today that it has completed the code for its 2007 Office system, a major overhaul for the best-selling productivity suite that includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and a slew of other applications (depending on which version of the suite you buy). U.S. and Canadian customers can download a fully functioning 60-day trial of the suite starting on December 1.

The announcement that the 2007 editions of Office have been released to manufacturing (RTM, in industry jargon) does not mean that you can run out and buy one of the five retail versions of the suite. (An additional three versions are only available to volume-licensing enterprise customers.) While some enterprise customers will get Office 2007 as early as November 30, Microsoft says that packaged and downloadable versions of the suite won't be generally available for sale until early 2007. Pricing information is posted on Microsoft's Office Online site.

You can try it out, though. Starting on December 1, 60-day trials of Microsoft Office Professional 2007, Small Business 2007, Standard 2007, and Home and Student 2007 will be available through the Office Online Web site. The 60-day trial will start out as a fully functioning version of the suite, but at the end of the trial period, it will downgrade in functionality. You will no longer be able to create, modify, or save files. You will still be able to read and print existing files.

We are currently working on our final review of 2007 Office system. In the meanwhile, you can read First Look: Office 2007 Public Beta, which covers the major feature changes in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and the overall suite itself.

The 2007 suite differs significantly from the last release, Office 2003. A new interface is built around a context-sensitive "ribbon" that graphically displays options and features formerly accessed via standard drop-down menus and toolbars. (The Edit menu is missing in Word, for example.)

By default, Office 2007 documents will be based on Microsoft's new Office XML Formats, which have been made publicly available and should eventually allow for greater compatibility with third-party productivity software. However Office 2003, XP, or 2000 users will need to download and install a free Compatibility Pack to be able to open and edit Office XML documents. You can read more in the First Look referenced above.

We'll be looking at a lot of things when putting together our review. How useful and easy-to-learn is the new interface? How easy is it to find features--both old favorites and "sleepers" that were previously hidden deep down in cascading menus? How well integrated are the apps? How do new additions such as the Microsoft Groove 2007 collaboration program impact the suite?

Is there anything you'd like us to look at when evaluating Office 2007? Let us know here.

[Rasputin]

Microsoft Enhances Live Search Maps

Microsoft plans to up the ante in local search by adding 3D models of 15 U.S. cities to the maps of its Live Local service.

The 3D models will enable users to zoom into these metro areas and "fly" over and into them using their Web browser, a Microsoft official said. Microsoft expects to offer 3D models of more than 100 cities by this time next year, said Bobby Figueroa, director of product management for Live Local Search.

Local Search is Hot
Microsoft, Google, Yahoo and other search engine providers have been busy improving their local search services because they have become very popular with users and advertisers alike.

Unlike searches conducted on a general Web search engine, which can stem from a variety of intentions, those performed on local search sites tend to be motivated by a desire to shop, which is very attractive for advertisers.

Meanwhile, users have found that these local search engines act like phone directories on steroids, providing not only basic information like phones and addresses, but also customer reviews, driving directions, and maps.

Microsoft will integrate ads into these 3D models in a way it considers organic, by displaying them on virtual billboards the users will encounter as they zip around the cities, Figueroa said.

Microsoft is announcing the new feature, called Virtual Earth 3D, this afternoon at San Francisco event, when the company is also changing the service's name from Live Local to Live Search Maps. Before that, the service was called MSN Virtual Earth. As Virtual Earth 3D, its Web address is also changing.

'Immersive Experience'
The richer mapping functionality will enhance the local search experience by giving users a more immersive, realistic, and concrete way of exploring a geographic area than has been possible until now in Live Local, Figueroa said. Live Local has had satellite and aerial images, including very detailed "bird's eye" ones, but the new functionality will take the experience to another level, he said.

Like other local search sites, Live Search lets users find business listings, places them on maps, offers driving directions and displays real-time traffic information.

Google's Google Earth offers a similar experience, but it isn't browser-based. Instead, Google Earth is an application that has to be downloaded to a PC and that has its own user interface. Google's local search service also offers maps but it doesn't replicate the immersive and interactive experience offered by Google Earth.

Breaking Ground
"This level of graphical richness in the browser window doesn't exist in other online mapping services," said analyst Greg Sterling, of Sterling Market Intelligence. "This will raise the stakes in online mapping for everybody."

By delivering this via a browser instead of desktop application, Microsoft will make this immersive, 3D mapping experience widely available to many more people, Sterling said.

This eye-popping experience may seem like a novelty right now, because currently most uses of online maps are tied to displaying driving routes along with directions, Sterling said.

However, very soon, people will use online maps as starting points for discovering information, and then graphical richness and interactivity will go from being simply cool to being useful and mainstream, Sterling said.

All sorts of information overlays can be built on top of online maps, providing myriad opportunities for e-commerce, advertising, and research, Sterling said.

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ActiveX Flaw Identified

Microsoft is investigating reports of a vulnerability in a Windows ActiveX control that could allow an attacker to remotely take control of a computer, according to an advisory issued Friday. One security company rated the vulnerability critical, while Microsoft said it allows only limited attacks.

The vulnerability, which was not patched as of this morning, affects certain versions of Windows running Microsoft XML Core Services 4.0, a set of tools that allows programmers to use scripting languages to access XML documents.

The affected versions are Windows 2000 Service Pack 4, Windows XP Service Pack 2, Windows Server 2003, and Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1.

Web Site Triggers Bug
A user would have to visit a specially-crafted Web site that triggers the XMLHTTP 4.0 ActiveX control, Microsoft said. The attacker would then have the same rights on the machines as the current logged-on user, and could gain complete control of the machine. A similar flaw that took advantage of the XMLHTTP ActiveX control surfaced nearly five years ago and was later patched.

Users can protect themselves by disabling the affected ActiveX control, although the workaround could stop some Web sites from functioning correctly. Microsoft describes how to disable the control in an advisory.

Varied Diagnosis
The SANS Institute classified the flaw as a zero-day vulnerability, meaning the problem is public but not patched. The French Security Incident Response Team called it "critical."

Microsoft issues patches for its software on the second Tuesday on the month. The speed at which a patch is issued depends on the risk of the vulnerability, and the company has issued patches out of cycle for widely-exploited vulnerabilities.

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Microsoft Ends Photo-Sharing Project

Microsoft has ended a project to develop a tool, codenamed Max, for sharing photos with friends and reading Really Simple Syndication (RSS) feeds, among other functions.

In an October 31 blog posting, Microsoft said feedback from the project has contributed to development of its .NET 3.0 programming framework, and may also end up in Windows Live, a new series of Web and desktop-based applications.

Max also let users annotate their photos, as if they were using a felt-tip pen, while the original images were preserved. In March, developers incorporated MSNBC Newsbot into Max, which pulls content from online news sources.

Receptive Testers
Users were generally complimentary about Max, if somewhat perplexed by its features. They tended to put Max in the same category as Picasa, a photo sorting and sharing program owned by Google.

"Being able to trade your pictures and slide shows through a beautiful little program seems to be the goal of Microsoft Max," wrote David ***k on his blog. "To their credit, it does those things well."

But ***k wrote that Max had to be downloaded to a machine, and that publishing to a Web site such as Flickr makes the content more accessible.

"Max looks nice, and I can see it might be useful when there are plenty of more features," wrote another user on Max's blog. "However, I don't see the value of this news feature. If I want to read news, I will use my browser and not my photo software."

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Wikipedia Hijacked (Briefly)

Malware writers have used a Wikipedia article and special storage features to attempt to plant malicious code on unsuspecting users' systems, the online encyclopedia's organizers have confirmed.

Pointed to Archive
The incident took advantage of Wikipedia's policy of openness, which allows anyone to create and modify articles. The attackers created a Wikipedia page that promised a Windows security update for a supposedly new version of the Lovesan/W32.Blaster worm, and pointed to an external site with the seemingly authentic domain wikipedia-download.org.

Wikipedia editors quickly identified and deleted the article, according to a report from German news organization Heise. However, the attackers had used a Wikipedia feature that archives all previous versions of articles when changes have been made.

The malicious page thus continued to exist in the archive, and the attackers were able to point to it in mass e-mail messages, according to Heise.

The e-mail messages used Wikipedia's logo, and explained that Microsoft had asked Wikipedia to assist with hosting the patch during a supposed Lovesan/W32.Blaster outbreak.

Wikipedia confirmed it has now deleted the archived versions of the malicious article. Wikipedia-download.org also leads to a dead end.

Quality Sought Amid Quantity
In August, Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales, addressing the Wikimania conference, acknowledged growing problems for the encyclopedia around accuracy and malicious edits, and promised to improve quality.

The English version of Wikipedia passed 1 million entries this year. .

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DriveSentry Unveils Storage 'Firewall'

A Mountain View, California startup company has developed what it calls a storage "firewall" to prevent computer viruses from wrecking the data on desktop computers.

DriveSentry's software sets up a whitelist of trusted programs that are allowed to write to certain folders or file types. Should another program try to write to the drive, DriveSentry generates a pop-up window and asks the user if this should be allowed.

Real-Time Warnings
"What we've developed is a number of low-level drivers that basically can intercept the drive traffic," said John Safa, chief technology officer and founder of the company. "We've built a complex engine that monitors this traffic in real time and can then present an issue to you visibly on screen."

This software could block a virus from writing to a .doc file used by Word or to the Windows registry. But if a user tried to edit that same document using OpenOffice.org, DriveSentry would first ask if this is OK, and then place OpenOffice.org on the whitelist.

DriveSentry can also be used to prevent rootkits and keyloggers from writing to the hard drive, and it works with peripheral storage devices like USB drives.

Available for Download
DriveSentry is available for download today. It costs $29, but the company will also offer a free version that will allow users to monitor five different file types and two folders on their computer.

Safa came up with the idea for DriveSentry several years ago, after he downloaded software that he meant to test for security purposes. In fact, the code turned out to be a malicious Trojan horse program.

The software will work with Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, and Windows Vista.

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More HDTV for Your Money

Now more than ever, both bargain hunters and luxury seekers can find an HDTV to satisfy their high-def needs and their budgets. Whether you want an LCD, plasma, or DLP HDTV set, you can choose from a wide range of prices, and even the high-end models aren't as expensive as you might think. And you'll find more high-def content--from network and cable broadcasts to HD DVD movies--than ever before.

Deals abound in every size and technology category. PC World tested a total of 15 TVs across three popular technologies

(LCD, plasma, and DLP) and three popular screen sizes (37 inches, 42 inches, and 50 to 52 inches). For a little over $1000, you can buy an LCD or plasma TV with impressive picture quality. And today, thanks to DLP technology, a gigantic screen and even 1080p resolution may be within your reach.

To test each of the TVs, we played several high-definition clips, a couple of standard-definition clips, and scenes from two DVDs on each set. Our panel of judges scored each model based on its brightness, sharpness, and color clarity. Our verdict, after a thorough comparison of the sets: Lower-priced HDTVs frequently equal or better the performance of higher-priced sets. In addition to pinpointing which of the tested models are true screen stars, we have tips on how to shop for deals. Armed with this information, you'll be able to tell whether the next bargain that catches your eye is a great deal--or just a snare for the unwary.

[Rasputin]

Windows Vista On Its Way To Manufacturing

After several delays, the long-awaited update to the Windows client OS, Windows Vista, is expected to be on its way to manufacturers Wednesday.

"This is a good day," said Jim Allchin, co-president of Microsoft's Platform & Services Division, on a call to announce Vista's release to manufacturing (RTM). "Vista is rock solid and we're ready to ship."

Allchin also confirmed that Vista will be available to consumers on Jan. 30, which many suspected was the case after online retailer Amazon.com posted that date in August in pre-order listings for the OS.

The IDG News Service reported several weeks ago that the Vista's release to manufacturers (RTM) had been pushed from Oct. 25 to Nov. 8 because a last-minute bug in one of the last builds of Vista had to be repaired.

Installations Can Begin
Once Vista is in the hands of manufacturers, hardware vendors can begin installing it and configuring it on computers that will be sold via retail channels beginning in January 2007, according to Microsoft's current schedule.

Microsoft also plans to have Vista in the hands of business customers by the end of November, and is hosting a launch event in New York on Nov. 30 to mark that occasion. The company also will launch Office 2007 and Exchange Server 2007 at that event.

Most Secure Microsoft OS Yet
Allchin said he expects business customers will jointly deploy all three of those products, which will give them "dramatic benefits" in security and reliability.

In fact, he cited security as a primary reason he expects both consumers and businesses to upgrade to Vista. Allchin said Microsoft paid closer attention to security in Vista than it ever has in any other Windows OS.

"In my opinion, it's the most secure system thata??s available and the most secure system we have shipped," he said. This means the number and severity of security updates Microsoft must release every month on Patch Tuesday, the name security researchers have given for when Microsoft releases its monthly security patches, should be reduced, Allchin said.

"That can be proven," he said of his patch prediction. "We will see about that."

If this bodes true it will be good news for IT administrators, as Microsoft has been releasing a significant number of patches over the last several months to fix security holes in its software. In October Microsoft released 10 patches to fix 26 vulnerabilities, a record number of flaws for the vendor.

Benefits For Waiting
Vista has been a long time in the making, and was originally scheduled to hit retail channels this month in time for the busy holiday shopping season. Microsoft is offering coupons through its hardware channel to encourage customers to buy Vista-ready PCs during that time so they can upgrade to Vista when it's available generally.

[Rasputin]

IBM Clips RFID's Wings To Stop Private Data's Flight

Trying to balance the cost-saving benefits of RFID with consumers' privacy concerns, IBM's Watson Research Center has developed a technology dubbed Clipped Tag.

Set to ship this week, the tags, made by partner Marnlen Management, will allow consumers to shorten the range of RFID from feet to inches -- reducing privacy concerns -- by simply snapping off a portion of the tag's radio antenna.

Anxiously Awaited
Retailers and manufacturers see RFID as a way to lower costs by tracking inventory more accurately at the store level, using the tag as a form of a permanent receipt for returns and recalls, or to catch shoplifters. Also, because RFID tags do not have to be aligned with a reader as do bar codes, they could be a competitive differentiator from other retailers due to quicker check out times.

However, a typical RFID tag has a range of 30 feet, and it is possible that a consumer product using an embedded RFID tag could be read without the knowledge of the consumer.

"If you tear off a part of the antenna it would have to be held up to a reader," said Paul Moskowitz, a member of the Watson Research Center and one of the inventors of the Clipped Tag.

Retail industry representatives have long talked about using the tag on products so that mall shoppers might be called on their cell phones as they pass a store from which the tagged item was purchased offering them a discount.

New Avenues Open
With pharmaceutical products, patient privacy is protected by HIPPA [Health Insurance Portability & Accountability Act], another cause of concern. Prescription medicine may be the first to be tagged at the item level, in which case a tagged prescription could easily be associated with a person and read by someone other than the pharmacist.

Dr. Ann Cavoukian, the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario, Canada, who said the clipped tag concept solves a problem she has wrestled with for years: how to protect a consumer's privacy while still offering them the benefits of RFID technology.

Technology currently exists to kill an RFID tag at the point of sale. However, Cavoukian said it also kills the post sale benefits of an RFID tag.

Data Trail
But tags that are perpetually embedded in an item can easily link purchases with consumer's personal information through credit or loyalty cards.

"You could create a data trail relating to all of your purchases and activities that could then be developed into a personal profile, and from that you could create an infrastructure for surveillance," said Cavoukian.

Clipped tags with shortened antennas gives consumers control to exercise warranties or recalls because it is essentially deactivated when out of range of the point of sale reader and reactivated when returned to the reader.

Capability Still Growing
With the exception of pharmaceuticals, item-level RFID tagging is still years away, said Moskowitz, who estimates there are about 1 billion RFID tags currently being made for pallet and cases, while there are about 100 billion cases created worldwide per year.

"The manufacturing capability of tags is only about 1 percent of all pallets and cases. It will be a long way before we can label 2 trillion retail items," said Moskowitz.

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Skype Upgrade To Get Smart New Features

Skype will begin testing an upgrade of its free communications software that can automatically detect phone numbers in Web pages and initiate calls.

Skype 3.0, which will be launched in a beta version today, also features community conference calls and text chats, as well as IT management features.

Remote Management
Skype, which debuted in August 2003 and was acquired by eBay last year, has popularized Internet telephony, along with providing instant messaging, file transfers and video communications. Skype has about 136 million registered users in 200 countries, and adds around 250,000 registered users every day, according to the company. Its revenue is expected to more than triple this year to $195 million.

The new feature that recognizes telephone numbers in a Web page is called Click-to-call. It allows users to place calls to those numbers using the fee-based SkypeOut service.

Meanwhile, the IT capabilities will let network administrators remotely manage Skype deployments among their end users.

New Interface
Two other new features are Skypecasts and public chats, which are conference calls and text chats in which people with a common interest can gather to communicate with each other.

Finally, the user interface has been modified to make it easier and simpler to find commands and perform actions.

Calls Will Be Free
This software upgrade reflects Skype's strategy of diversifying beyond Internet telephony towards other modes of online communications and of finding new revenue streams beyond phone charges, said Niklas Zennstrom, Skype's chief executive officer and co-founder, at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco Tuesday.

Eventually, the price of telephone calls will continue falling until they are free, so Skype needs to generate revenue from other sources like e-commerce and advertising, he said.

[Rasputin]

Microsoft Releases Sony Rootkit Hunter's Tools

Nearly four months after hiring Sony rootkit whistleblower Mark Russinovich, Microsoft has moved his company's software to its Web site and has released a new Windows system tool that can help fight hackers.

The freeware products, now known as Windows Sysinternals were made available on Microsoft's Web site earlier this week. They are based on the code that Russinovich and Bryce Cogswell had been distributing on Sysinternals.com before Microsoft bought their company, Winternals Software, in July.

Original Tools Updated
"The tools are the same as what was on the original Sysinternal site with the exception of some updates and the release of Process Monitor," said Russinovich in an e-mail interview. Process Monitor is new software, based on code from two Sysinternals tools, which keeps track of activity on the Windows file system and registry and is designed to help Windows administrators with troubleshooting and malware detection.

Russinovich and Cogswell founded Winternals in 1996, and have since produced a number of widely used system-recovery and performance-tuning products.

Russinovich made international headlines last November after he discovered that copy protection software that Sony had been distributing with millions of CDs was cloaking itself using undetectable "rootkit" software. Sony was ultimately forced to recall the affected CDs after hackers began using the rootkit to hide malicious code.

Russinovich's popular blog, along with his original posting on the Sony rootkit have been moved to Microsoft's Technet Web site.

No Source Code
One aspect of the Sysinternals.com Web site that did not survive the transition to Microsoft is the free source code that Cogswell and Russinovich had made available for some of their tools.

These tools were not often downloaded, however, Russinovich said. That fact, "combined with the Microsoft requirement of having all published source scrubbed for security ... and compatibility issues, drove the decision not to move it forward," he said.

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Microsoft Previews Photosynth Picture Viewer Online

Microsoft has put a preview of Photosynth online to let people test drive this snazzy photo-management application, the head of the company's Live Labs research unit said Thursday.

The preview is an early version of the application, so it may have kinks and bugs, said Gary Flake, Microsoft technical fellow, at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco.

In a demo, he and another member of Live Labs showed how PhotoSynth took a set of photos snapped in different places and, using algorithms, blended them into a seamless, fluid, high-resolution 3D image users can immerse themselves in, zooming in and out, changing angles and panning around.

Chime In
The demo showed outside shots, like a composite image of the Piazza San Marco in Italy, as well as an interior image of an art gallery. Photosynth automatically analyzes the photos in a collection and mashes them up, taking into account their different angles, resolutions and similarities to create the blended image.

Microsoft is now trying to figure out the different ways and scenarios in which Photosynth can be used, and it hopes that people who try out the preview will offer suggestions, said Flake, founder and director of Live Labs, a Microsoft research unit focused on Internet technologies.

The site isn't yet ready to accept photos from people. It contains pre-loaded collections of photos taken by Microsoft employees. The Photosynth preview is also only available to Internet Explorer users. Non-IE surfers are told that the development team wants to extend support to other browsers and to check the Photosynth blog for updates.

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Intel Drafts Privacy License for Location-Aware Cell Phones

Intel has attached a privacy license to its new location-aware software product, intended to protect cell phone users' personal information as mobile devices increasingly rely on tracking technology to provide targeted services.

Installed on a smart phone or ultramobile PC, location-aware software can use GPS technology to produce tailored information like driving directions, nearby restaurants and movie schedules. The downside of that feature is that handsets can double as tracking devices if location data is not kept private. The abuse of such access could range from civil liberties violations to physical threats in the cases of vulnerable people like battered spouses, Intel fears.

So, Intel has added a privacy addendum to the Eclipse Public License it uses for the software application called Privacy Observant Location System (POLS), according to a posting on Intel's Web site by John Miller, the privacy and security policy manager of Intel's corporate technology group.

The addendum says that vendors must inform the end-user what information is recorded and how long it is stored, and it requires developers to include opt-out capability so users can change those settings, Miller said.

Compelling Ethics
POLS is a tool for mobile application developers that determines its location by triangulating between nearby radio beacons such as GSM cells or Wi-Fi access points. Most location-aware devices use different approaches, relying on the wireless provider to track every device, or on GPS chips, which can have poor reception in dense cities.

While Intel's ethics concerns are compelling, the market may be slow to react to this initiative because so few customers actually use location-based technology, analysts say.

Only 10 percent of the PDAs sold today are equipped with internal GPS antennas, and most of those are in Europe, where the more complex roads and diversity of languages have made street mapping a larger market, said Todd Kort, principal analyst for Gartner Dataquest.

In contrast, nearly 90 percent of CDMA phones from Sprint Nextel and Verizon offer assisted-GPS technology, which relies on Intel's type of cell tower navigation technique. But most users don't know it exists or have chosen not to use it, he said.

"It's great that it's there, and someday we'll appreciate it, but it is something that's in the back of Americans' minds and will not be a driving force for sales," Kort said.

Software Developers Have Control
In the meantime, Intel faces a continuing challenge as it must convince developers to abide by its privacy initiative. The new addendum is useless if software developers don't obey it, so the company has begun a campaign to build support in the open-source community.

"We believe that a bottoms-up effort to encourage the development of privacy-sensitive social norms is necessary, and in fact critical, for both privacy and public adoption of the technology," Miller said.