News: FCC Reveals Nokia 6750 for AT&T

Documents became public today on the FCC web site that detail an unannounced Nokia phone for AT&T. The Nokia 6750 "Mural" is a clamshell phone with dedicated music keys and an outer display hidden behind a mirrored shell. Documents confirm 3G in the 850/1900 bands that AT&T uses. Also confirmed are a memory card slot, Bluetooth, and a camera. The early draft user manual refers to Video Share and Media Net - both AT&T service brands - and the keypad has a dedicated "CV" button for AT&T's Cellular Video service. It is not clear if the 6750 will have the S60 smartphone OS like the 6650 fold.

News: Microsoft Gives Controversial Antipiracy Tools New Name

Microsoft has rebranded its Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) validation system in Windows 7, likely an attempt to shed the controversial image of the antipiracy program.
The company said Thursday it is renaming WGA "Windows Activation Technology" because the name more accurately reflects the way the technology works, according to comments on the company's Web site.
WGA, which Microsoft introduced as an add-on to Windows XP in 2006 but built directly into Vista, checks to see, through a variety of ways including product activation, if someone is running a genuine copy of Windows.
Microsoft launched WGA as part of a widespread crackdown effort against software counterfeiting and piracy that it has undertaken in earnest for several years. Many users griped about WGA when it was first introduced, especially because of early bugs that would deem genuine software counterfeit, forcing one user to write a work-around for the glitch and irking many others.
They also complained about a feature of the tool that shut down many functions of a version of Windows if it is discovered to be counterfeit or pirated. To its credit, Microsoft responded to the outcry, fixing bugs and tweaking features. Now, the software uses a series of pop-up alerts to remind people their software is found to be counterfeit.
Microsoft unveiled the name change for WGA on its press Web site Thursday in comments made interview-style by Joe Williams, Microsoft's general manager of Worldwide Genuine Windows. In his comments, he said the reason for the name change is that WGA as developed in Vista and now Windows 7 is "fundamentally different" from the original program that was an add-on to XP, although the goals of the programs are the same.
"The guiding principle is to enable the customer to know when the software they are using is genuine and licensed and help them to do something about it if it's not," he said. "However the technology used in Windows Vista and Windows 7 ... consists of new code and the latest methods for protecting Windows in ways that can only really be achieved with the components that are built in to both Windows Vista and now Windows 7."
Williams added that Microsoft has improved the activation tool in Windows 7 with support for virtualized images and volume-activation for multiple OSes to take into consideration new business scenarios that it did not think of or were not prevalent when Microsoft first introduced the technology.
Microsoft released one of the last milestones for Windows 7, Release Candidate 1, last week, and many expect a final release of the software in October.

News: Facebook's Censorship of E-Mail Puts it in Free Speech Hot Seat

Facebook is actively filtering out Pirate Bay content from its Web site banning a Pirate Bay link-posting application that allows you to easily share torrent files from the Pirate Bay's site with Facebook members. Facebook is also censoring e-mail that contain Pirate Bay URLs from its e-mail system preventing users from cutting and pasting a Pirate Bay Web address in a Facebook e-mail message and sending it. While Facebook's evasive action may seem to be an effort to maintain its "family friendly" visage, there are now questions as to whether the social networking site is violating free speech.
In order to determine what constitutes "blocked content," Facebook must first read the e-mail message being sent. This may be an abuse of the federal wiretapping law. It's apparent from our tests that any URL originating from Pirate Bay's Web site is automatically filtered out of the system; if no other text is added to the outgoing message, the message arrives blank. Identifying what the contents of an e-mail is or "Sniffing" e-mails, as Wired calls it, is not an unknown practice -- Google does it to deliver ads -- but censoring e-mails based on content inches closer to an abuse of administrative power.

News: Nokia Announces the E52

Today Nokia announced the E52, a bar-style phone that carries forward Nokia's newer E Series design language. It looks similar to the E55, but rather than a SureType keypad, it has a standard numeric keypad. It has quad-band GSM/EDGE radios and two 3G variants, including HSDPA 850/2100 and 900/2100. It has Bluetooth 2.0+EDR with A2DP support, FM radio with RDS, and Wi-Fi. Other features include GPS, 3.2 megapixel camera with flash, noise cancellation and deep integration with Nokia's Ovi messaging services. It supports microSD cards up to 16GB. The E52 will become available in the second half of 2009 for $326.

News: Microsoft's Windows 7 Release Candidate Goes Public

The near-final version of Microsoft's next operating system, Windows 7, became available late Monday to the general public.

Microsoft will collect feedback on the Windows 7 release candidate over the next few months, fixing small issues. The company allowed developers and other testers to begin downloading the release candidate last week.
Windows 7 comes nearly three years after Windows Vista, which took five years for Microsoft to engineer but was regarded by some as underwhelming. Microsoft hasn't said when the final Windows 7 version will be released, although it's rumored to be out before year's end.
Microsoft warned it is not offering technical support for the Windows 7 release candidate, so those who install it are on their own. Users should be familiar with installing an operating system from scratch, formatting a hard drive and backing up data, among other skills, Microsoft advised.
In the Windows 7 release notes, Microsoft warns of several problems that haven't been resolved, including issues with its latest Web browser, Internet Explorer 8 (IE8).
Debugging JavaScript with the developer tools in IE8 could throw up a warning that a Web site is not responding, but that warning can be ignored. Also, some Web pages may have misaligned text or missing images. Microsoft recommends clicking on the "compatibility view" button on the address bar as a fix.
Microsoft released the Windows 7 beta in Arabic and Hindi, but those languages have been replaced with French and Spanish in the release candidate. English is available for both versions.
"We needed to ensure certain features were tested for worldwide functionality, and Hindi and Arabic help us test a number of language-related features," Microsoft said.
The Windows 7 release candidate will only work for so long. It is due to expire on June 1, 2010. Three months prior, the release candidate will automatically shut down a person's computer after two hours.
The Window 7 beta expires on Aug. 1, and computers with that version will begin shutting themselves down after two hours beginning July 1.
Microsoft said that Windows Vista users will not need to reinstall their applications after upgrading to the Windows 7 release candidate. The company does, however, recommend backing up data as a precaution. Vista users will have to do a clean install, however, to go from the Windows 7 release candidate to the final version.

Windows XP users should back up their data and do a clean install of the Windows 7 release candidate.
To run the 32-bit version of the release candidate, a computer should have a 1 GHz or faster processor, 1GB of RAM, 16GB of hard disk space and a DirectX 9 graphics processor with WDDM (Windows Display Driver Model) 1.0 or higher driver.
For the 64-bit version, Microsoft recommends a 1 GHz or faster processor, 2GB of RAM, 20GB of hard disk space and a DirectX 9 graphics processor with WDDM 1.0 or higher driver.

News: Amazon launches larger-screen Kindle

Priced at $489, the larger device is designed for easier reading of newspapers, magazines

Amazon Inc. today announced a new version of its Kindle e-reader that features a bigger screen in order to present newspaper and magazine content better than the current, smaller Kindle 2.

The New York Times Co. and The Washington Post Co. will launch pilots of the new device, the Kindle DX, this summer, according to an Amazon.com press statement. The New York Times, The Boston Globe and The Washington Post will offer the Kindle DX at a reduced price to readers who live in areas where home-delivery is unavailable and who sign up for a long-term subscription to the Kindle edition of the newspapers, the company said.

At a press conference in New York, Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos said traditional computer displays are a "worse device than paper" for reading print, and that Kindle's "paper-like display" solves that problem.
"The Kindle DX is an important milestone in the convergence between digital and print," said Arthur Sulzberger, chairman of The New York Times, at the launch event. "It significantly enhances our ability to reach millions of readers."

News: Nokia E71x On Sale at AT&T

Today AT&T made the Nokia E71x available for sale at retail stores and online for $100 after rebate with new agreement.
White Plains, NY, USA - Nokia announced that the slimmest smartphone on the market, the Nokia E71x, will be available in AT&T retail stores and online beginning today. Priced at just USD 100, this much-anticipated full QWERTY smartphone arrives at a time when one in two people surveyed** say they would prefer to communicate via text message or email over phone calls.

News: Microsoft Lays off More Workers

Microsoft on Tuesday announced new job cuts that are part of the 5,000 the company said in January that it expected to eliminate.
The company did not say exactly how many people would be affected or describe which groups will lose the positions.
However, in a memo that CEO Steve Ballmer sent to employees and that has been seen by IDG News Service, he said that this round of layoffs nearly completes the planned 5,000 total cuts. In January, the company laid off 1,400 people, so Tuesday's cuts could be close to 3,000.
Washington state, where Microsoft is based, requires companies to disclose layoffs of this size, so within a few days the exact number should become public.
People in the U.S. and several countries around the world were affected, Ballmer said.
He also said that more cuts could happen. "We will continue to closely monitor the impact of the economic downturn on the company and if necessary, take further actions on our cost structure including additional job eliminations," he wrote in the memo.

When Microsoft first announced plans to lay off workers by June 2010, under pressure of a weakening economy, it also said that it planned to hire 2,000 to 3,000 people during the same time frame. Even after laying off 1,400 people earlier this year, Microsoft said that during the first three months of this year it lost a total of 800 jobs, indicating the level of hiring that continued even amid the layoffs.

Worldwide, Microsoft employs over 95,000 people, according to its Web site.
Microsoft clearly continues to struggle in the difficult economy. For the first quarter of this year, it reported a decrease in earnings per share of 30 percent compared to last year. Revenue was down 6 percent over last year too.