Pc News

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Apple Sued in U.S. Over iTunes-iPod Link

Apple Computer faces a U.S. lawsuit, which follows charges in Europe, over tying its iTunes music store to the iPod digital music player.

Apple revealed the suit, submitted in July to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission last week.

Lawsuit Particulars
The suit was filed by a user, Melanie Tucker, and seeks class-action status. It alleges that Apple violates antitrust laws by refusing to allow music bought in its iTunes store to be played on any digital music player besides the iPod. It also charges Apple with not making it clear to customers that music from the iTunes store and the iPod are incompatible with music and devices offered by other companies.

The suit asks that Apple be forbidden to continue to support the exclusive tie-in between iTunes and the iPod and that Apple pay damages to anyone who has bought an iPod or music from the iTunes store after April 28, 2003.

In November, Apple filed a motion with the court to dismiss the suit but on Dec. 20 the court denied that request.

Similar Lawsuits in Europe
A consumer group in France filed a similar suit in early 2005 that is still ongoing. In addition, consumer groups in several Nordic countries are preparing a case against Apple, also charging it with illegally tying the music store and music player together.

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IT Spending to Slow in 2007

IT spending projections decreased in the last quarter of 2006, with CIOs predicting IT spending increases of 5.8 percent over the next 12 months. That's down from expectations in the previous quarter that spending would rise by 6.5 percent during the next year, according to the quarterly CIO Magazine Tech Poll released Friday.

According the survey, almost two-thirds of CIOs surveyed, 63.6 percent, have no plans to invest in Microsoft Office 2007 or its new Vista operating system in the next year. However, they do plan to invest in computer hardware, storage, and security.

Scaling Back Capital Spending
"This forecast decline in tech spending is in sync with other recent reports suggesting businesses will scale back capital spending in 2007," Gary Beach, publisher at CIO Magazine, said in a statement. "However, with nearly two-thirds of CIO respondents indicating plans to focus on either growth or innovation in 2007, the question for CIOs remains how to implement these agendas with budgets that are largely flat."

CIOs said that their IT budgets had increased by an average of 5.8 percent over the last 12 months. In the last CIO Tech Poll released three months ago, CIOs said their budgets were up an average of 5 percent over the previous year.

When asked about spending across eight specific IT categories, the average number of CIOs who said they plan to boost spending over the next 12 months was 40.7 percent, up slightly from 39.7 percent who said that in September. The percentage of those who plan to decrease spending remained essentially flat at 13.7 percent.

Hardware Top Priority
Computer hardware is the top spending priority among CIOs surveyed for the poll, with 55.8 percent of CIOs planning to increase spending in that area, compared to 46.9 percent who said that in September. Only 11.7 percent plan to decrease spending in the year ahead, compared to 16.3 percent who said that in September. Storage systems and security software were other areas where CIOs expect to spend more money in the coming year.

"The supply of labor tightened, with 5.8 percent of respondents reporting IT labor is 'plentiful' (vs. 6.2 percent in September); 56.7 percent cite IT labor is 'available' (vs. 59 percent in September) and 35 percent report that IT professionals are 'hard to find' (vs. 31.1 percent in September)," according to the survey.

Of those eyeing potential upgrades to Microsoft Vista or Office 2007 in 2007, 20.7 percent said they need to evaluate pricing and user training costs before considering any such move, according to the survey. Of the 15.8 percent who said they will upgrade, 8.3 percent plan to upgrade to both, while 5.8 percent said they will only upgrade to Office 2007 and 1.7 percent said they will only upgrade to Vista.

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Critical QuickTime Flaw Discovered

Apple's QuickTime software has a highly serious bug that could leave Windows and Mac users open to attacks by malicious Web sites, according to a project aimed at disclosing Apple bugs throughout January.

The QuickTime flaw launches the Month of Apple Bugs (MOAB), which follows on from efforts such as the Month of Kernel Bugs and the Month of Browser Bugs. The bug was discovered by LMH, a MOAB organizer who hasn't disclosed his name.

Easy Exploit
The flaw affects any Windows or Mac OS X bug with QuickTime Player version 7.1.3 installed; previous versions are also probably vulnerable. The problem lies in the way QuickTime handles addresses beginning with "rtsp://", and can be exploited to create a stack-based buffer overflow using HTML, Javascript, or a QTL file, LMH wrote.

The attack can execute malicious code and take over a system. "Exploitation of this issue is trivial," LMH wrote. He supplied a working exploit, which makes the problem all the more dangerous.

Immediate Threat
The problem hasn't been patched yet. Possible workarounds include uninstalling QuickTime and disabling the rtsp:// handler.

Secunia and FrSIRT both agreed the bug poses an immediate threat.

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Here Comes the Giant Consumer Electronics Show

The annual International Consumer Electronics Show (CES)--which commences on Sunday, January 7, in Las Vegas, with an address by Bill Gates--is expected to focus more on technologies that support current trends than on those that promise to break new ground for consumers.

User adoption of the so-called "connected" digital home and high-definition video didn't take off dramatically as some had predicted at last year's CES, so it will continue to be the focus at this year's show, which will be open to the public from Monday to Thursday of next week. About 150,000 attendees are expected.

CES will feature exhibits by industry heavyweights such as Microsoft, Intel, and Hewlett-Packard, as well as by some 2700 other companies large and small eager to showcase what they hope will be the killer app or top crowd-pleasing device of the coming year. IBM will have a large presence at the show for the first time in ten years.

For the first time ever, companies from Australia will attend CES, which draws participants from more than 135 countries, including the United States, Canada, Mexico, and the United Kingdom. It is also the 40th anniversary of the show, and CES will mark the occasion with a special celebratory event on the first day of the show.

Keynoters
Microsoft chairman and cofounder Bill Gates, making his ninth annual appearance at CES, will kick off the show with a keynote speech on Sunday night. Among other things, Gates is expected to take the opportunity to promote Windows Vista, the latest version of Microsoft's operating system, which is due for release to consumers on January 30.

Other technology executives slated to give keynote speeches are Motorola chairman and CEO Ed Zander, Nokia president and CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, Dell founder and chairman Michael Dell; and Cisco Systems president and CEO John Chambers.

But large technology vendors aren't the only companies whose heads are scheduled to present keynote addresses this year. As the latest digital technology begins to merge with entertainment, media conglomerates are becoming key figures in consumer electronics. Because of this, Monday's appearances by Roger Iger, president and CEO of Walt Disney Corporation, and Tuesday's visit from Les Moonves, president and CEO of CBS, should seem entirely appropriate to the CES audience.

Trends of Note
Among technology trends, storage once again promises to be a big topic at CES. A year ago, the companies behind HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc announced their plans for big launches: Players and movies would be released and would redefine the way people watch movies, they said. A year later, the two formats are indeed on the market but perhaps because of the format battle, relatively few consumers seem willing to invest in them. Look for cheaper players and recorders to be announced during the show, along with pronouncements that 2007 will be the breakthrough year for these systems.

On the desktop, the impending launch of Windows Vista means that several new technologies aimed at speeding up data reading and writing are on the horizon. Within the first quarter of 2007, drive makers should be releasing products that support the ReadyDrive system, and Microsoft will likely promote this technology as a major reason to upgrade to Vista. Also look for higher-capacity drives and for the continuing march of digital storage into consumer electronics products.

The connected home seems likely to get tongues wagging at the show, too. Though the idea of connecting televisions, computers, stereos, and mobile phones has been talked up as the next big thing for the past several years, the only consumers who have been able to achieve this unified communications system at home thus far are true technology enthusiasts.

Among industry heavyweights, Microsoft and Intel will likely continue to promote previously available technologies to support this trend. Microsoft has introduced features that previously were included in its Windows Media Center OS directly into Vista, making Vista a platform for marrying the television and the PC in the home, the company says. Intel, too, will promote its heretofore nonstarting Viiv package--technology designed to make a PC the hub of a digital entertainment system--as a way to make connecting various digital devices intended for home use less painful.

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New Technologies
A number of new technologies and initiatives promise to help consumers create a connected home, and many of them will have a presence at CES.

For example, UWB (Ultra-Wideband) is a short-range broadband wireless standard that can link devices--including televisions, computers, modems, stereos, set-top boxes, and even cell phones. But even though the last few CES conferences have included announcements about upcoming products based on the standard, no UWB offerings are yet available commercially. This year, following the maturing of the standard, leaders in the UWB market such as Alereon, Belkin, and Tzero Technologies may announce products that are likely to hit shelves soon.

UWB isn't the only networking technology fighting to take root in the home. It will compete in some cases against Wi-Fi and fiber optics as well as other emerging technologies such as powerline networking. Expect companies from each camp to tout the benefits of their technologies in the connected home.

This year, Cisco Systems, best know for its enterprise networking gear, may make a significant mark on CES. During his keynote on Tuesday, Chambers is likely to describe the company's latest forays into the consumer market. Cisco's recent acquisition of Scientific-Atlanta, combined with its Linksys division, allows the vendor to offer products to service providers that deliver content to homes as well as to consumers who want to receive and shift that content around the home.

Some of the alliances aiming to unify all developments in the connected home also plan to have a presence at CES. The Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA), whose members include Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Intel, Nokia, Samsung Electronics, Sony, and others, offers a set of guidelines for hardware and software developers to ensure that their offerings interoperate in the connected home. The DLNA will showcase its work at CES.

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Acrobat Reader Plugin Vulnerable to Attacks

Security researchers are poring over what one vendor has called a "breathtaking" weakness in the Web browser plugin for Adobe Systems' Acrobat Reader program, used to open the popular ".pdf" file format.

The problem was first highlighted by Stefano Di Paola and Giorgio Fedon, researchers who presented a paper in Berlin last week on security issues related to Web 2.0 technologies such as (Asynchronous JavaScript and extensible markup language).

The Acrobat weakness involves a feature called "open parameters" in the Web browser plugin for Adobe's Reader program.

The plugin allows arbitrary JavaScript code to run on the client side. The code could include a malicious attack on a computer, wrote Hon Lau on Symantec's Security Response Weblog today.

"The ease in which this weakness can be exploited is breathtaking," Lau wrote. "What this means in a nutshell is that anybody hosting a .pdf, including well-trusted brands and names on the Web, could have their trust abused and become unwilling partners in crime."

Any Web site hosting a .pdf file could be manipulated to run an exploit, Lau wrote. Because an exploit is relatively easy to craft, Lau predicted attacks will start until it is fixed.

How It Works
In their research paper, Di Paola and Fedon wrote that the type of attack used to exploit the problem is called universal cross-site scripting, which uses a flaw in the browser rather than a vulnerability within a Web site. A cross-site scripting attack involves the unintended execution of code as part of a query string contained within a URL (uniform resource locator).

Another Symantec blogger, Zulfikar Ramzan, wrote that attackers can exploit a cross-scripting vulnerability by creating a special URL that points to the Web page. In that URL, the attacker would code it to include some of his own content--such as a form soliciting passwords or credit-card information--that would be displayed on the targeted Web page.

When victims click on the URL--which, for example, could be included in a link enclosed in e-mail--they would be directed to the Web page. If they fill out information on a form on the page, it could be passed to the attacker without the victim knowing the site had been tampered with, Ramzan wrote.

"The result is that the user is lulled into a false sense of security since he trusts the site and therefore trusts any transaction he has with it, even though in reality he is transacting with an attacker," Ramzan wrote.

An Adobe spokesman could not immediately comment.

In highlighting the problem with the Reader plugin, the researchers Di Paola and Fedon warned that Web 2.0 applications--such as Google's Gmail and Google Maps, both of which employ AJAX--will need to be more tightly tied to the security of Web browsers.

Otherwise, the plethora of features in those applications "can be turned into weapons if controlled by a malicious hacker," they wrote.

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Hitachi Introduces 1-Terabyte Hard Drive

Hitachi Global Storage Technologies is first to the mat with an announcement of a 1-terabyte hard disk drive. Industry analysts widely expected a 1TB drive to ship sometime in 2007; Hitachi grabbed a head start on the competition by announcing its drive today, just before the largest U.S. consumer electronics show starts next week.

According to Hitachi, the drive ships in the first quarter of 2007, and will cost $399--less than the price of two individual 500GB hard drives today. The drive, called the Deskstar 7K1000, will be shown this weekend in Las Vegas at the 2007 International CES, also known as the Consumer Electronics Show, as well as at the Storage Visions storage conference.

Hitachi will have three flavors of the 1TB drive; however, only the Deskstar version will be available at launch. The company also plans to offer a CinemaStar version of the drive, for use in DVR and set-top boxes, as well as an enterprise version with a certified mean time between failure rating. Both of those versions are expected in the second quarter of this year.

Industry Milestone
"No question, it's a milestone for the industry," says John Rydning, research manager for hard disk drives and components at IDC. "It's interesting that the industry is delivering a 1TB drive in the 51st year of the industry." The first hard drive, manufactured by IBM, shipped in 1956.

Hitachi notes it took the industry 35 years to reach 1GB (in 1991), 14 years more to reach 500GB (in 2005), and just two more years to reach 1TB.

The company hopes to be the first to market with a 1TB drive. The company is locked in competition with Seagate for those honors; Seagate reconfirmed its intentions to ship a 1TB drive in the first half of 2007, but it has not offered any further details.

Drive Details
Although the jump to 1TB was not unexpected, Hitachi is taking a cautious tactic to achieving 1TB. According to Doug Pickford, director of market and product strategy, "The approach we've taken with the design of this product, and with previous generation products, is that we've purposely relaxed the areal density. The previous generation [500GB] drive was 100GB per platter; and, it was possible to have up to 160GB per platter. About 250GB per platter is the next bump on the areal density curve, but we've backed off from doing that in order to achieve higher reliability at this time."

The Deskstar 7K1000 will be a five-platter drive, each platter capable of storing 200GB apiece. Like Seagate's Barracuda 7200.10 750GB drive, Hitachi's 1TB model uses perpendicular magnetic recording (PMR) to achieve its high capacity point. The 7K1000 is Hitachi's first 3.5-inch hard drive to use PMR technology; last year, the company released 2.5-inch PMR-based hard drives.

Pickford says the drive will be intended for gaming and high-performance PCs, external storage devices, and PC upgrades. "The drive will be shipping in the first quarter to retail stores," says Pickford. "And we're expecting to ship some to external storage device makers as well."

The 7200 rpm Serial-ATA drive will have 32MB data buffer, larger than the typical 8MB or 16MB buffer seen on drives. It will be available in SATA 3.0Gb/s and Parallel-ATA 133 interfaces.

750GB Model Also Coming
In addition to the 1TB model, Hitachi is introducing and shipping a 750GB version of the drive as well. But the company focused its energies on achieving 1TB before its competitors. "We did that by design," says Pickford. "The feedback we got from the market was that if we could get to 1TB sooner, there would be a lot of value for our customers. We already knew that the mechanical platform was mature enough and able to handle the areal density that 1TB needed. So we decided to accelerate our efforts and get to a TB."

Getting to 1TB, adds Pickford, was more about finessing existing processes than inventing new ones. "It was very much in the execution, so you can have the right yields, the right stability, and right quality levels, and make sure it's achievable in the lab as well as in mass production."

Attractive Pricing
With a price of $399, the Deskstar 7K1000 comes in at an attractive price for consumers. That works out to $0.40 per GB--a competitive per-gigabyte cost for a hard drive today, and not much of a premium over previous models. By comparison, a 500GB hard drive today costs about $0.45 per gigabyte, as does Seagate's 750GB Barracuda drive (down from the $0.79 per gigabyte it cost when it launched last spring).

Don't expect to see hard drive prices enter a freefall, though. Says Pickford, "I don't think it will affect the market in a disruptive way. When we set this, we did try to take into account the price of other, lower-capacity drive products. Based on where the market was, we felt $399 was an appropriate price point to set for this technology, so it could achieve good market acceptance."

Although 1TB of storage on a single drive will be alluring to some users, IDC's Rydning sees only very specific demand for that much storage. "For consumers, we still think the big hard drives are mainly for niche applications," says Rydning. "There's going to be a certain minority of PC users and video recorder enthusiasts who will want to have the highest capacity available. And in those markets, a high-capacity drive is valued. However, the vast majority of PC users are still serviced by a one-platter, 160GB hard drive."

Consumers' increasing accumulation of digital personal data is, not surprisingly, driving the need for high-capacity storage. "As people amass their own personal memories, either in photographs or video, hard disk drive storage is one of the best, lowest cost ways to store and retrieve that type of data," says Rydning.

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Online Spending Tops $100 Billion in 2006

Driven by a strong rise in holiday spending, U.S. retail Web sites collected $102.1 billion in 2006, marking a 24 percent increase over last year, according to a report released today.

Jump in Holiday Shopping
Holiday shoppers spent $24.6 billion between Novembers 1 and December 31, 2006, a rise of 26 percent over 2005, according to the report from comScore Networks. The numbers include consumer spending in all sectors except travel.

Spending jumped in the last two months of the year, pushing the total over $100 billion for the first time, said Gian Fulgoni, comScore chairman.

Black Monday Just Another Day
Without the need to visit brick-and-mortar shops in person, online shoppers spread their spending over a longer period. The Monday after Thanksgiving is traditionally one of the heaviest shopping days of the year for U.S. retailers, but in 2006 it was just another day. The $607.6 million spent on "Cyber Monday," November 27, was surpassed on 11 other days before the end of the year.

By delaying their shopping until the last days before winter holidays, shoppers showed their growing trust in online retailers' ability to ship goods through the mail quickly, the report said. The top three days of online spending for the year were December 13 ($666.9 million), December 11 ($660.8 million), and December 4 ($647.5 million).

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SanDisk Releases 32GB Flash Drive

SanDisk has launched a 32GB solid-state drive using flash memory chips, intended as a replacement for conventional hard disk drives.

Notebooks equipped with the new drive, which is expected to add around $600 to the cost of a machine, could be available in the first half of 2007, SanDisk said Thursday.

Samsung, a maker of computers and flash memory, announced last May that it would sell laptops with flash-memory drives of a similar capacity. Samsung's drive then added around $1175 to the cost of its laptop.

The launch of SanDisk's drive means that other notebook computer manufacturers will be able to offer the fast, durable, low-power consumption storage devices made possible by using flash memory, according to the manufacturer.

Until now, large capacity flash-based drives found buyers primarily in the military, aerospace, and telecommunications industries, which require systems that can operate under challenging environmental conditions. The declining cost of NAND flash memory, however, has made solid-state drives economically viable in other areas, including notebook computing, SanDisk said.

Solid-State Design Speeds File Access
Unlike conventional hard drives, which need to spin into action to seek files, flash memory-based drives contain no moving parts. The 32GB drive, for instance, can boot up Microsoft's new Windows Vista operating system in 35 seconds, compared to 55 seconds for a notebook with a hard disk drive, according to SanDisk. The SanDisk drive also offers average file access rates of 0.12 milliseconds, compared to 19 milliseconds in machines with a hard disk drive.

Another advantage of the flash memory drive, SanDisk said, is its comparatively low power consumption. The chip requires 0.4 watts during active operation compared to 1.0 watts in most hard drives.

SanDisk will offer the drive to equipment manufacturers in a 1.8-inch package.

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High-Definition Toys and Wireless Wonders Expected at CES 2007

If past experience holds true, news from the 40th International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) will range from the truly mundane to totally interesting to downright strange. Announcements will flow with the power of the mighty Mississippi River about PCs, networking products, cell phones, video players, high-def TV, home entertainment systems, and much, much else. For the enthusiasts and industry types alike, there is no more exciting (or grueling) show than this.

Starting unofficially on Saturday night and continuing through next week, the convention halls, hotel suites, and restaurants of Las Vegas will be filled with the latest tech products in the 40th iteration of this venerable gathering.

This year's event, officially open from January 8 to January 11, will feature about 2700 exhibitors and 150,000 attendees from 130 countries. Computing and electronics giants such as Sony, Microsoft, HP, and Intel will exhibit. So will start-up companies. Rock bands will sing, and notables like Bill Gates will speak. And PC World editors will roam the 1.6 million net square feet of floor space to bring you news about this year's (and next year's) hottest products.

PC World's coverage will be highlighted in a special Info Center on PC World.com.

Here's a quick preview of what we're expecting to see.

Hi-Def Domination
The fight for dominance between Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD is poised to get vicious. We hear rumors of a possible price cuts on Toshiba's HD DVD players, and we expect the Blu-ray camp to be busy showcasing newly shipping products--hopefully revealing when its long-awaited BD Live Internet connectivity will become a reality.

And this just in: LG Electronics says it will show the first high-definition disc player capable of handling both Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD formats, and Hitachi Global Storage Technologies will show the first 1-terabyte hard drive.

News on the storage front will also include everything from HD DVD burners to multidisk hard drive arrays designed to safeguard your data. TDK will be showcasing its 200GB Blu-ray Disc--but don't get too excited: This ultracapacious disc is not yet part of the Blu-ray Disc specification.

On the HDTV front, expect tons of 1080p LCD and DLP sets, along with a smaller number of plasma sets (and these will be only in larger sizes, as 1080p remains a technological challenge for plasma). Vendors will also be showing the first sets and the first high-def video players to incorporate HDMI 1.3, the latest version of the industry-standard interface, with support for a wider color gamut and better audio, among other things. However HDMI 1.3's benefits won't be fully apparent until upgraded content appears, which may not be for quite a few years.

We'll be asking television manufacturers about new sets with CableCard slots. By March, all new TVs must have digital tuners instead of analog ones. By July, cable operators must use CableCards to decrypt the signals going to their set-top boxes (meaning, they can't build the decryption into the box). We hope to begin seeing TVs with two-way CableCards, which not only receive but send data needed for interactive features such as on-screen program guides and pay-per-view movies. I'm not holding my breath.

Wireless Gadgets
Most of the buzz about cell phones is back in San Francisco, where Apple may or may not be announcing its mythic cell phone at Macworld Expo. However, that doesn't mean that we won't see a slew of cell phone news at CES. We expect to see consumer-focused announcements such as mobile phones that can support video, TV, music, and other entertainment applications. We're also looking for phones with high-resolution cameras--think 3 megapixels and higher. And the trend towards superslim, stylish phones is certain to continue.

Another category that should be big at CES: Skype accessories and handsets similar to the Logitech Cordless Internet Handset, which we recently reviewed, as well as applications and accessories for taking your VoIP account on the road. Whether we'll see a practical handset that switches between cellular and Wi-Fi networks (for making cheap VoIP calls) is uncertain. In GPS-related products, we're looking for real-time traffic updates, text-to-speech driving directions, and the delivery of maps and navigation on cell phones.

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Google Partners With Chinese P-to-P Site

Google has struck a partnership with a Chinese peer-to-peer file downloading service, Xunlei Networking Technologies.

The partnership will give users of the Xunlei service easier access to Google search services and multimedia content via a search link on Xunlei's home page, the companies said Friday. The deal also involves marketing development and product cooperation.

The companies did not provide financial details of their partnership.

Google Rival Still Leads
In January 2006, Google launched a Chinese version of its search engine, filtering search results to comply with Chinese government restrictions. It made the move because the level of service it could offer users in China from its main search site at www.google.com was not great, the company said at the time.

Despite Google's efforts to appeal to Chinese users, local rival Baidu.com continues to lead the Chinese market, however.

Google announced another partnership in China on Thursday, this time with the country's largest mobile phone operator, China Mobile Communications. That deal will make Google the default search engine on China Mobile's mobile portal.

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Adobe To Issue Patches for Reader Vulnerability

Adobe will issue patches next week for older versions of its Reader and Acrobat Reader software, which contain a dangerous vulnerability that could be used for phishing attacks or to remotely access files on a computer.

The problem affects versions 7.0.8 and earlier of the Acrobat and Reader programs. Adobe is telling users of those versions to disable the Acrobat and Reader plug-in in their Web browser until the patches are issued.

Since the problem became public, Adobe has also been encouraging customers to upgrade to Reader 8, the latest version of its program, which is not affected by the vulnerability.

Some users can't upgrade to the new version, however, so Adobe will issue the patches for those users next week, Meredith Mills, an Adobe spokeswoman, said via email.

PDFs Contain Phishing Attacks
Security experts warned that the cross-site scripting vulnerability could let an attacker run arbitrary JavaScript code on a targeted machine by linking to a PDF file on the machine.

In a phishing attack, for example, a hacker could add JavaScript to a URL (uniform resource locator) that links to a PDF document on a site. If the link is opened, the JavaScript would run, inserting a form soliciting the user's password at a banking site, with the information transferred back to the hacker.

Adobe is also warning users to exercise caution when clicking on untrusted links, since those links could be manipulated to run an exploit.

Security vendor Websense wrote on Thursday that an attacker could also gain access to files on a machine.

Exploits will apparently only work with certain combinations of Web browsers and Adobe software, but Adobe did not specify which combinations.

Symantec wrote in its blog that the vulnerability affects the Firefox Web browser. Further tests showed that users running a combination of Internet Explorer (IE) 6 and Adobe Reader 7 on Windows XP Service Pack 1, and Internet Explorer 6 and Adobe Reader 4 on Windows XP Service Pack 2, are also vulnerable, Symantec wrote.

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Taiwan Company Sues Apple Over Lost Sales

A Taiwanese manufacturer is suing Apple for $100 million after a court ruled it could continue producing a portable music player resembling Apple's iPod Shuffle.

Apple sought in July 2005 to stop Luxpro from making its line of Tangent music players, alleging that they too closely resembled the Shuffle. A Taiwan court agreed, but the decision was reversed on appeal.

After the latest ruling, from the Shihlin District Court in Taipei, Luxpro is claiming victory. The company wants compensation for losses it says it incurred when its products were under injunction.

"The motion issued earlier caused Luxpro to lose valuable market opportunities and a considerable amount of orders," Luxpro said on its Web site.

Apple couldn't immediately be reached for comment.

Nearly Identical
The close resemblance of the Tangent to Apple's Shuffle turned more than a few heads at the 2005 Cebit electronics show in Germany where they were introduced.

Luxpro says its products are different because they have a tri-color OLED (organic light emitting diode) monitor and carry its brand name.

The front of the player looks very similar to the Shuffle, however, and they are nearly identical in size.

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LG to Launch Dual-format Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD Player

It was bound to happen: In the mess known as the high-def format wars, eventually, it was clear a manufacturer would cross party lines and release a single player capable of handling both Blu-ray Discs and HD DVD discs. The question wasn't if; it was a question of when.

LG Electronics is the first to cross that line: The company has just announced it will be launching the first dual-format high-definition disc player at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas next week. The LG press release issued in Korea early Thursday morning is short on details--the player will launch in "early 2007", but beyond that, we have no information on pricing--but that's of little consequence for now. I imagine the details will become clear by Sunday, when LG holds its press conference at CES.

LG stated it was considering a dual-format player at the CeBIT show last March, but the company has been quiet about its progress until now. The company is the first to formally announce a dual-format player; prior to this, Ricoh and NEC had both announced they had developed components that could read both Blu-ray and HD DVD media, but neither had announced actual products. Samsung had also made rumblings about coming out with a dual-format player, but the company backtracked on those reports early last year.

The LG announcement dramatically alters the competitive landscape for Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD. The mere announcement of a dual-format player could stall the market for high-definition players and discs, as consumers anticipate the dual-format player's arrival. A dual-format player would offer consumers a hedge against obsolence, in the event one of the disc formats dies out over time.

And once the dual-format player does come out, it could ignite the market for high-definition players and discs, a market that's still in its infancy.

Price will likely play a big role, though, in the dual-format player's success. If the player is expensive--and, certainly, I expect it to carry a premium over a standalone player, at least at launch--its high price may deter consumers from buying right now. However, if the dual-format player's premium is an acceptable one to consumers, then the player could take off--in turn driving consumers to buy movies in high-definition, without having to worry about which studios are backing which disc format.

However, while a dual-format player will help consumers worried about buying into the wrong format, it won't help content producers. Dual-format players will remain a rarity, for at least the next year. If dual-format players do become the norm, studios will be faced with a quandary: Continue to support both formats, a costly endeavor, or release new and catalog content in just one of the disc formats--thereby foregoing support of those early adopters who bought into whichever disc format falls by the wayside.

Are you itching to buy a high-def disc player? Does news of a dual-format player make you more likely to buy a high-def disc player in the next year?

[Rasputin]

Yahoo To Preview Messenger For Windows Vista

Yahoo will give users a preview of what it will be like to use a new and improved version of Yahoo Messenger on Microsoft's Windows Vista at the 2007 International Consumer Electronics Show this year.

Yahoo will show off an early version of Yahoo Messenger optimized for Vista, with new features that take advantage of some of the user interface enhancements Microsoft has added to the OS.

"It feels very much at home as though it's living and breathing in Windows Vista," said Joshua Jacobson, a Yahoo senior product manager, of the version of Messenger built for Vista. The company plans to release a beta of the application in the second quarter of 2007, and a final version should be available four to six weeks after that, pending feedback, he said.

New Features
Windows Vista is already available for business users, and is expected to be available to consumers on Jan. 30.

Yahoo used the new GUI (graphical user interface) development framework in Vista called Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) as the basis for several of the new features of Messenger. New abilities to scale up in size the avatar and contact information for people in a user's contact list, a color wheel that allows users to choose a new color for Messenger's skin, and a feature that shows a large-sized emoticon that goes beyond the boundaries of the Messenger window before shrinking to its normal size all use WPF, Jacobson said.

Yahoo also has added a feature called Yahoo Show and Tell that allows users who are connecting via voice on Messenger to share photos so they can converse or send IMs (instant messages) about them while they are talking. Eventually, Messenger will allow users to share videos this way as well, Jacobson said.

Tabs Similar To Firefox
Another new feature in the Vista version of Messenger follows the lead of both Internet Explorer 7 -- the browser included in Vista -- and Mozilla's Firefox browser. Like those applications, which allow users to create tabs for new browser windows to more efficiently keep track of where they are surfing, Yahoo Messenger will do the same for instant messages, Jacobson said.

The application does not automatically create tabs as some IM software does, however; it lets users create the tabs themselves so they have control over which conversations they would like tabbed, he said.

Voice Visualization
Finally, Yahoo has added a new "voice visualization" feature to Messenger that lets Vista users see their voice on the IM window coming through as a visual sound wave, Jacobson said. This will help let them know if the person they are speaking with can hear them and if their voice is at an appropriate volume level, as well as to make the connection between users a more "intimate" experience, he said.

"We're trying to let people express themselves through Messenger and make it more engaging to communicate," Jacobson said.

Yahoo will be exhibiting at CES, which is being held this week through Thursday in Las Vegas.