Week in review: Video goes Vegas

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distributed prerelease versions of Tiger, the next iteration of Mac OS X. In a separate action, it is suing unnamed individuals who leaked details about a forthcoming music device code-named Asteroid.

Apple also found itself on the receiving end of a lawsuit from an unhappy iTunes customer who alleged that the company broke antitrust laws by allowing iTunes to work only with its own music player, the iPod, freezing out competitors, court filings showed. One antitrust expert called it a long shot, but Californian Thomas Slattery is hoping for unspecified damages for being "forced" to buy an iPod,

Meanwhile, Apple released a speedier version of its Xserve rack-mounted server, along with a final version of its Xsan storage file system. The company will now offer a version of the Xserve with two 2.3GHz processors, a model previously made available only to Virginia Tech, which used the machines as part of its System X supercomputer.

On the line
Things are heating up on your cell phone: A tepid version of strip poker for cell phones has debuted in the United States. And while there's no nudity--on the screen, at least--the game's distributor is preparing for complaints that it stretches the boundaries of good taste.

Wireless-game provider ThumbPlay said players first download the game onto their cell phones for a fee of $4, then play against a virtual female opponent. The game's most controversial feature allows even a player who loses, for 99 cents (each time), to click a "cheat" button that lets him or her--OK, him--buy garments off the virtual opponent. Losing players get to watch their virtual opponents change outfits.

Clothing isn't the only thing coming off cell phones. A new variant of the Skulls Trojan horse kills off all system applications from Symbian-based cell phones. But rather than turning individual application icons into skulls, as the first version of the malicious software did, Skulls.D tells people their cell phones have been infected by displaying a full-screen flashing skull.

The Trojan horse also prevents people from installing new applications, so the majority of people with infected handsets will need to reset their phones. This will leave the phone in its default factory condition and delete data such as address books.

For those feeling a little lost, MapQuest has unveiled a new feature called Send to Phone that is designed to let subscribers send color maps to their mobile phones. The feature--part of the company's MapQuest Mobile service--also lets users send driving instructions. Subscribers use the MapQuest Web site to find the maps and directions they want, then send them to their handsets.

Also of note
Various companies are currently trying to perfect the technology behind a new type of flat-panel display that will rely on diamonds or carbon nanotubes--two forms of pure carbon--to produce images...Microsoft is putting the finishing touches on its spyware killer, which is based on technology from a recently acquired company, Giant Software...Just weeks after legal attacks crippled the popular BitTorrent file-swapping community, an underground programmer from its ranks has stepped forward to announce new software designed to withstand future onslaughts from Hollywood...Transmeta, the mobile-processor manufacturer that has lost millions of dollars over the past four years, is seriously looking at getting out of chips.