Articles by Tina Harlan

Gaming console giants Nintendo and Sony are enabling music and video playback on their popular gaming devices in an effort to dominate the lucrative market, expected to account for sales of $2 billion in the United States this year Sony's PlayStation Portable (PSP) went on sale in Japan this week and essentially sold out its first production run of...

The DVD Copy Control Association (DVD CCA) has filed a suit against Kaleidescape, alleging misuse of the association's proprietary copy protection technology, known as the Content Scramble System (CSS) Mountain View, Calif.-based Kaleidescape is developer of a home audio video network that enables users to access movie DVDs from anywhere in their h...

If you're already confused by the proliferation of digital music types and don't know the difference between a DVD-R, DVD+R, or DVD-RW, get ready for the next assault. The good news is that digital television and the resulting high-definition DVD technology will be a vast improvement over the images we typically see on TV today. The bad news is that once again there is no standardized format, so compatibility remains an issue...

The ESPN sports television network is teaming up with Sprint to create its own brand of mobile phone service. The new service, to be called ESPN Mobile, is expected to launch in the second half of next year Sprint, the country's third-largest wireless carrier, will allow ESPN to use space on its network in return for a share of profits earned via t...

Lycos Europe yesterday announced that it has created a downloadable screensaver aimed at putting spammers out of business with distributed denial of service, or DDoS, attacks Available for both Mac and Windows, "Make Love, Not Spam" works by flooding a spammer's Web site with requests for data. The theory is that a very large number of requests sen...

Microsoft yesterday released a patch aimed at protecting its ISA (Internet Security and Acceleration Server 2000), an enterprise-level firewall and Web cache server, and Proxy Server 2.0, which serves as an Internet gateway for networked computers The affected software includes Microsoft Proxy Server 2.0 Service Pack 1, Microsoft Internet Security ...

Computer Associates yesterday announced the launch of its eTrust PestPatrol Anti-Spyware r5. The new product integrates CA's eTrust Security Management software portfolio with a revised version of the PestPatrol anti-spyware application CA acquired in an earlier buyout The software, with a retail price of US$39, is backed by the CA Security Advisor...

The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) -- following in the footsteps of its recording industry counterpart, the RIAA -- announced today its intent to file a series of lawsuits aimed at stopping the sharing of films over peer-to-peer (P2P) networks At least five major studios are expected to join the lawsuits, which target digital movie co...

Verizon Wireless and Nextel Communications announced yesterday that they have agreed to dismiss their pending lawsuits against each other. As part of the settlement, Verizon will drop its opposition to a July ruling by the Federal Communications Commission that awarded a valuable radio-wave spectrum to Nextel. Nextel, in turn, agreed that it did not have exclusive rights to the phrase "push to talk" in marketing its walkie-talkie phone service...

Intel, responding to market demand for ever-faster computers -- and the recent introduction of new 64-bit processors from competitor AMD -- plans to introduce a new Pentium 4 Extreme Edition (P4 EE) processor in mid-November. The P4 EE will be enabled by Intel's new 925XE Express chipset, which the company calls an extension of the 915/925X Express released earlier this year...

ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers has given preliminary approval to two new Internet domain names, ".travel" and ".post." The two suffixes have been under evaluation by ICANN, a public-private partnership that oversees the Internet's addressing system, and the approval moves the review process forward into the contract negotiation stage...

Microsoft users may feel as though they're the only ones constantly under attack from hackers, but they're not alone with that dubious distinction. Late last week, Red Hat, the Raleigh, North Carolina-based Linux provider, was also hit The threat came in the form of a fake security warning. The e-mail alerts were sent from the address security@redh...

The music choices available to you via your cell phone may expand dramatically if a new offering by EMI Music UK proves successful. The company will join with Carphone Warehouse to offer Robbie Williams' new "Greatest Hits" album on a preloaded memory card that can be played by many newer cellular phones. The release marks the first time a major company or artist has sold music in this format...

Cell phone users may have more to worry about than poor reception or using too many minutes, according to a recently released study from Sweden's Institute of Environmental Medicine The three-year study included 750 participants, 150 of whom suffered from acoustic neuroma, a normally benign tumor that affects the auditory nerve. It found the tumor ...