Week in review: Glitches, gadgets rule

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Also from Tinseltown, actor Morgan Freeman said services that will deliver first-run movies over the Internet to people's homes while the movies remain in theaters are "absolutely" analogous to what happened in the PC business when consumers began to buy their machines directly. Freeman did a brief interview with reporters after Intel CEO Paul Otellini's keynote speech.

Meanwhile, Skype is making a play for the mainstream IP telephony market with a series of new products being announced at CES. The company, which provides free calling from computer to computer over the Internet, announced several new products developed through partnerships with consumer electronics manufacturers to make it easier for people to use its Internet phone service. It also announced a new service it is launching with Kodak that combines live voice conversations and photo sharing.

Manufacturers of NAND flash memory are also making noise at CES by showing off the solid-state technology as an increasingly important component in cell phones and talking up how it will find its way into notebook hard drives in 2006.

Yahoo CEO Terry Semel was undoubtedly hoping for smoother sailing than he experienced in his keynote address Friday morning. While trying to demonstrate the new Yahoo Go TV service, which allows people to access Yahoo content and services through a Windows XP-based PC connected to a TV, the Internet connection failed. Executives tried to ad lib until Semel called his surprise guest, Hollywood star Tom Cruise, to the stage.

Music to the ears
Singer Justin Timberlake, along with MTV Networks head Van Toffler, joined Gates at CES to tout the Urge music subscription service, soon to be released by MTV. Unlike rival services, Urge is built directly into Microsoft's upcoming version of the Windows Media Player.

But a shadow shaped like an apple was looming. Competitors to Apple Computer's iPod dotted the Las Vegas convention halls this week. Even the biggest companies, however, concede they've got a long way to go to catch the most successful consumer electronics product of the past decade.

In other music news, New York state's antitrust probe of digital-music pricing has stalled record labels' plans to move away from the 99-cents-per-song standard fee set by Apple. And some in the music industry view the antitrust probe as a warning to the labels not to collude on pricing, but observers also say the prospect of further investigations could dampen enthusiasm for changes in the per-song pricing structure.

Consumer beware
Dozens of federal agencies are tracking visits to U.S. government Web sites in violation of long-standing rules designed to protect online privacy, a two-part CNET News.com investigation shows.

From the Air Force to the Treasury Department, government agencies are using either "Web bugs" or permanent cookies to monitor their visitors' behavior, even though federal law restricts the practice. Some departments changed their practices this week after being contacted by CNET News.com.

The folks on Capitol Hill are also quietly tracking visits to their Web sites even though they have publicly pledged not to do so.

Sixty-six politicians in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives are setting permanent Web cookies even though at least 23 of them have promised not to use the online tracking technique, News.com discovered.

Some consumers might also be dismayed to find their Social Security numbers printed on unsolicited packages from H&R Block, the result of a recent labeling blunder at the company.

The packages, which H&R Block mailed in December, contained free copies of the company's tax preparation software, TaxCut. By mistake, some of the packages also displayed recipients' Social Security numbers, which were embedded in 47-digit tracking codes above mailing labels.

Hotel chain Marriott admitted last Tuesday that backup computer tapes containing data on approximately 206,000 customers were missing from a company office in Florida.

The data, which relates to customers of its time-share division, Marriott Vacation Club International, included personal information such as the credit card details, Social Security numbers and, in a few cases, the bank details of customers.

Also of note
As Google's stock inched above $450 per share, Google executives have little reason to call for a split...Advanced sound-detection technology showed endangered whales sing in distinct "dialects"...The Internet is shaping car preferences, a trend in evidence at the LA Auto Show...Many businesses track public opinion by monitoring blogs...Google plans to sell television shows and sports programming that can be downloaded from its site...Massachusetts is "on track" to use OpenDocument-based desktop software next year.

[megazone]

And don't forget the TiVo Series3 HDTV DVR

<a class="jive-link-external" href="http://www.tivolovers.com/252572.html" target="_newWindow">http://www.tivolovers.com/252572.html</a>

[wbenton]

Get Serious...

&gt;&gt;&gt;"It's so easy to blame Microsoft and want things to be fixed yesterday but that doesn't change the fact I don't have a clue what's going on inside the Redmond campus right now," he wrote. "Are they playing tiddly-winks, or wearing their finger nails down typing like mad?"&lt;&lt;&lt;

Average operating system vendors come out with critical patches within 24 hours on average and 72 hours at about a max... there are a few which go over 72 hours... but ONLY Microsoft continues to have 2 year, 3 year and 4 year flaws.

So as for how easy it is to blame Microsoft... sure it's easy... because they're blameable!!!

Are you on the Microsoft payroll? If not... stop pushing them as a credible source and let them fend for themselves for their lack of support for their own products!

Until such time as Microsoft takes the responsibility which they SHOULD but HAVE YET TO take... there's no need to stand in their corner...

Unless of course... you're on their payroll!!!

And with the recent few articles that I've seen this year... I'm seriously considering changing news sources!!!

So it's not only Microsoft's credibility... but also CNet's recent credibility which I call into question!!!

Walt