Consumer content

Update 7 p.m. on Friday: Craigslist CEO Jim Buckmaster issued a statement. You can read the story here.

Catherine is a 35-year-old sex worker in San Francisco who relies on Craigslist to reduce the physical risks often faced by a woman in her line of work.

"Craigslist is important to helping us avoid violence," says the woman, who is originally from Europe. "Craigslist is a way to filter out that kind of person...and with Craigslist there is no need for pimps."

For people in her trade, she adds in a thick accent, "Craigslist … Read more

In its bid to broaden the appeal of Windows Media Center, Microsoft is launching a new sports channel that will offer a range of sports coverage, including replays of NCAA basketball tournament games.

WMC has yet to go mainstream and is still primarily used by hardcore techies. Microsoft is out to change that by making the WMC easier to use, as well as acquiring rights to premium video content.

Microsoft has licensed the rights to sports content from Fox Sports, CBSSports.com (owned by CBS, parent company of CNET News), and MSNBC.com.

The new sports channel goes live Thursday … Read more

Updated March 5 at 10 a.m. to clarify link policy, and at 12:20 p.m. to address privacy concerns.

Google Health has introduced a new feature that lets people share their online health records with designated doctors, friends, and family members.

Google said the move is in response to people's concerns that caregivers and loved ones might not be up-to-date on all the details of a patient's health situation, especially in the event of an emergency.

Sameer Samat, director of product management at Google, explained his personal impetus behind the new feature in a company blog … Read more

Universal Music Group, the nation's largest recording company, and YouTube are closing in on a final agreement to create a new premium music video Web site, according to sources close to the negotiations.

The sources said that the proposed service, which is tentatively named Vevo, would be a destination site closely linked to YouTube. Should an agreement be reached, Vevo would likely be the largest music-oriented site on the Web. Talks are ongoing, but a deal could be reached as early as the next few weeks, sources said.

A YouTube spokesman said: "We are always working with our … Read more

PALM DESERT, Calif.--How does one measure the effects of economic meltdown?

At Demo 09 here, there are two ways, one that's obvious, yet hard to see, and another that is both obvious and visceral.

While Demo for years has featured about 65 to 70 companies, this time around there's just 39. Everybody knows that, but it's hard to actually see it. The main ballroom where Demo presentations are held is packed, with every seat at every table full. But that's an illusion: the wall at the back of the room has been pulled in dramatically … Read more

A new company called ZillionTV says it will soon introduce a new service that will enable cable and satellite subscribers to cut the cord and get subscription-free movies and TV shows right on their TVs from the Internet.

The company, which officially launched on Wednesday, has struck deals with some major Hollywood movie studios and TV networks, including Disney, 20th Century Fox Television, NBC Universal, Sony Pictures, and Warner Bros. Digital Distribution.

The plan is to offer streaming movies and TV shows directly to TVs using a broadband connection. The company has created a small piece of hardware it calls a Z-bar, which provides the connection between the TV and the Internet via an Ethernet cable or Wi-Fi. The Z-bar also acts as a receiver for the company's unique remote control, which works a lot like a laser pointer and uses sensing technology to navigate through the content menu on the TV screen.

The ZillionTV service, which is currently being beta tested, will only be offered through an Internet service provider. It will be commercially available starting in the fourth quarter of 2009.

Unlike some other Internet-to-TV services, such as Netflix's movie rental service, ZillionTV does not require a subscription. It also doesn't require users to buy an expensive box, such as Microsoft's Xbox 360, Apple's AppleTV, or even Roku's $99 digital video player. Instead, for a nominal activation fee of less than $50, users will get the Z-bar and remote. And then they will be able to view up to 15,000 titles of TV shows and movies through the service without having to sign up for a monthly subscription.… Read more

Updated 5:25 a.m. PST Wednesday to note the official release of the Kindle application.

Amazon on Wednesday unveiled a free application that will allow the same electronic books available on the e-tailer's Kindle to be read on Apple's iPhone and iPod Touch.

The program will be available for download for Apple's App Store and give users access to the more than 240,000 e-books that Kindle users can buy on Amazon. The program's Whisper Sync service promises to keep track of a reader's place in their chosen book, allowing users to pick up … Read more

Netflix is trying to locate the source of a series of glitches that some users of the company's streaming service are blaming on Microsoft's Silverlight video player.

Over the weekend, a steady stream of angry messages was posted to Netflix's blog. The complaints range from choppy video, to audio that doesn't sync with the picture, to grainy image quality.

The complaints began accumulating soon after the Web's largest video-rental service switched to Microsoft's Silverlight in November. The posts appear to have trickled in until last weekend, when a score of customers began reporting problems. … Read more

The White House has denied that it has "abandoned YouTube as the provider of the embedded videos on the president's official home page."

In the report written by Chris Soghoian, a contributor to CNET's Blog Network, the author correctly noted that President Obama's weekly video address was distributed via a Flash player from Akamai instead of YouTube. But the author also wrote that the White House was bowing to pressure from privacy activists. White House officials acknowledged switching players but denied making any permanent decisions about them, or that they were motivated by privacy concerns. … Read more