Week in review: Cursing Windows' cursor flaw

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On Tuesday, the U.S. government announced that this year's limit on H-1B visas had already been reached after only one day, the first time in history the annual cap had been reached so quickly.

High-tech companies and others clamoring for additional H-1B visas to hire foreigners would be forced to give priority to American job seekers under a new U.S. Senate proposal. Just before Congress departed for its spring recess at the end of last week, a bill was introduced that appears to be the first of its kind in the Senate--designed to curb abuse of the controversial worker visa system.

The 32-page Senate bill would impose a host of additional obligations on employers. They would be required to pledge that they made a "good faith" effort to hire an American before taking on an H-1B worker and that the foreigner was not displacing a prospective U.S. worker.

Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates and other luminaries in the hardware and software business for years have pressed Congress to raise the visa limit, but politicians went home last December without enacting legislation to address the matter.

Congress is expected to hold hearings on raising the limit later this year, and will surely question why the quota was reached so quickly. Technology companies argue the surge is further proof the quota must be increased, while opponents say there already are enough Americans to fill jobs available after the visa limit is reached.

High-tech companies say the visas are critical to filling voids in their work forces and have been lobbying Congress to raise the cap, which currently stands at 65,000 (but climbs just above 100,000 when a number of exemptions are taken into account). Critics say the program has depressed U.S. wages and put qualified Americans out of jobs.

In and out of tune
Is it the beginning of the end for copy-protected songs? EMI Group will soon sell digital music with better sound quality and no digital rights management restrictions through Apple's iTunes Store.

EMI's entire digital music catalog will be available in premium DRM-free form via iTunes in May. However, Beatles tunes under EMI's control are not part of the plan.

Higher-quality music files, which will play on any computer and any digital-audio player, will not replace the copy-protected EMI music currently sold through iTunes. Rather, they will complement the standard 99-cent iTunes downloads and will be sold at a premium: $1.29 per song.

Consumers who have already purchased EMI tracks containing Apple's FairPlay copy protection will be able to upgrade them to the premium version for 30 cents, EMI said. Full albums in DRM-free form can be bought at the same price as standard iTunes albums.

Microsoft plans to follow Apple in selling unprotected songs from EMI, though the company won't say just when such tracks will appear on the Zune Marketplace store. When Apple CEO Steve Jobs issued his open letter calling for an end to DRM, Microsoft said the total abolition of such protections would be irresponsible, since they are needed for subscription music and other new business models. However, the software maker says it does indeed plan to offer the DRM-free music from EMI and others.

Meanwhile, the European Commission has sent formal charges to major record companies and Apple, alleging they are restricting music sales in Europe. Agreements between Apple and the record companies violate the European Union's rules prohibiting restrictive business practices. Apple said it wanted to offer a pan-European store but was hemmed in by the music companies' demands.

Also of note
The President's Office of Management and Budget recently sent out a directive to federal chief information officers to secure their Windows PCs...Josh Wolf agreed to release his subpoenaed video footage, but the longest-incarcerated journalist in U.S. history said his release was a victory for the media...The x86 architecture continues to thrive and has no serious competitors on the horizon because it provides "good enough" performance and because it supports the vast amount of software written over nearly three decades.

[jdr1111]

patch disables EPG in Arcsoft's TotalMedia

The recently released Microsoft security patch (KB925902) disables the EPG and digital TV programme recording functions in Arcsoft's TotalMedia 3.

[AlienEric]

Windows

Some of these flaws have been well documented in articles by http://www.mobdown.com/ users. The cursor flaw has actually been discovered a while back, but MS being MS, don't really react till the news reached the mass, but users from http://www.mobdown.com/ have done the stakes in anyway.

[Fil0403]

MS

Every month MS fixes bugs that no one knows about, so your statement that MS doesn't react till the news reaches the mass is ridiculous.