Week in review: Intel's 'revolutionary leap'

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In more browser news, Mozilla on Wednesday released an update to its popular Firefox Web browser that fixes a dozen vulnerabilities, seven of which it deems "critical."

The most serious of the flaws could be exploited by cyberattackers to commandeer a vulnerable PC, according to Mozilla. The company, which oversees Firefox development, has published security advisories for each of the flaws repaired by the Firefox update.

The heat is on
MySpace.com felt the heat this week, as the record-breaking temperatures that knocked out power infrastructures throughout California shut down the popular social-networking site for nearly 12 hours, starting Sunday night.

The outage at West Hollywood, Calif.-based MySpace was just one consequence of the power failures that swept through the state after a week of soaring temperatures. As of about 6 a.m. PDT on Monday, the site was back up. While outages occur, even on major corporate sites, the MySpace outage raised eyebrows, with some finding it hard to believe that MySpace, famously purchased by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. a year ago, could fall victim to a localized power outage.

On the gadget front, Microsoft showed a prototype of a cell phone-based computer that could one day find a use as a cheap PC for emerging markets.

The FonePlus device stems from discussions that began at the World Economic Forum in January. To create the computer, Microsoft combined its Windows CE operating system with a phone that could then be connected to a television display and a keyboard.

Motorola, for its part, unveiled several new handsets, including the Krzr and the Rizr, which are narrower than the company's flagship Razr. The new models are part of a family of cell phones Motorola is building around the Razr, which has helped the company revitalize its brand in the last few years.

Return of the V-Chip
Remember the V-Chip? The Ad Council is embarking on a $300 million campaign to inject the controversial technology back into public consciousness.

The council on Wednesday rolled out a series of public-service announcements meant to create awareness of the software, which lets parents block violent or sexual content on television. The V-Chip is required in all televisions 13 inches or larger per the 1996 Telecommunications Act, though critics have long decried the program as being ineffective.

At least one group, in fact, came out against the newly announced ad campaign. The family programming advocacy group Parents Television Council slammed the ads, calling the cable- and satellite-industry rating system on which V-Chip blocking is based "inaccurate," and offering its support instead for legislation that would require cable and satellite providers to apply broadcast indecency standards or offer a la carte or new "family tier" programming.

And on the subject of television, Reuters reported this week that Republican Sen. Ted Stevens, now famous for his speech about the Internet being a "series of tubes," just might consider appearing on Jon Stewart's "Daily Show" to defend himself against the comedian's barbs.

Stewart parodied the senator's remarks about the Internet on three episodes, which have spread over the Internet and were widely viewed on YouTube.com. He questioned Stevens' knowledge of the Internet and quipped, "You're just the guy in charge of regulation."

"I have a letter from a big scientist who said I was absolutely right in using the word 'tubes,'" Stevens told reporters, adding that a stint on the Comedy Central show is not out of the question.

A Jon Stewart/Ted Stevens interview...now that would make our week.

Also of note
Tech heavyweights team up on 3G...New GPL draft takes second crack at DRM...Online storage service adding a terabyte a week...Google rides the radio waves...New UV gun takes aim at meth users...Open-source firm polishes interface with AJAX...High-definition video add-on coming to iPod...U.S. voices openness to private Net control...Google launches open-source repository...Symantec, Yahoo team on security.