WinInsider

Nine consumer electronics makers including Japanese giants Sony Corp. and Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. Ltd. said on Tuesday they agreed to uniform standards for next-generation blue-laser DVDs. The pact aims to avoid the fragmentation of standards for DVD (digital versatile disc) recorders that has plagued the current line-up of red-laser products, which feature three separate formats. Blue-laser light, with a shorter wavelength than the red variety, can be honed into a finer beam, enabling it to read and write more bits of information on a given area of disc space.

Microsoft & Security
This month Microsoft announced that it was going into a lockdown to examine existing code for security flaws. Some say that it is a long time coming; others dismiss it as a PR stunt. Hopefully, MS is serious about it. Already we are seeing patches and updates for everything from XP to Messenger. My hope is that Microsoft is sincere in their efforts to produce tighter, more secure software and that it becomes one of the main focuses of the company for future developments as well. If this happens everyone will benefit. People will be more comfortable buying the latest software and that is a great thing for consumers, as well as the company.

Microsoft & the Law
We all know that Microsoft is in deep with the DOJ. Last week it was announced that MS would have to hand over its code for the lawyers to inspect. They want to see if they intentionally wrote code to mesh Windows with other programs (e.g. Internet Explorer). Now while I agree that MS has been anti-competitive and unethical in areas, this seems a bit out of control. The code is their intellectual property (either by creation or purchase), one that is the bedrock of their company. A leak of this information could wreak havoc on the company and possible future developments. Microsoft has to be careful with this one, and I hope they fight it tooth and nail.

The SmartPhone 2002 was introduced about a year ago under the code name "Stinger." It targets the cell phone market by incorporating elements of Microsoft's Pocket PC software--including e-mail, a contact manager, a media player, and an instant messaging application. It will also pit Microsoft against long-established cell phone operating systems such as Symbian's Epoc, which powers some handsets from Sanyo and Nokia.

Microsoft is announcing new server software to support its handheld operating systems. Mobile Information Server 2002 will allow people to remotely synch data in their handhelds with desktop PCs on networks. The server supports both Pocket PC 2002 and SmartPhone 2002 devices. Orange has announced plans to offer a wireless service using MIS 2002.

You downloaded a new version of Netscape Communicator or RealPlayer, only to discover that you received an uninvited "download manager" in the deal? If you think a download manager sounds useless, you're mistaken. It actually is useful to someone--just not to you.

Tools such as Real's RealDownload, Netscape's SmartDownload, and Radiate's GoZilla have just one objective: to monitor and log your download activity, and then send targeted Web advertising to you based on that activity. And those programs aren't the only nosy parkers in town. Hundreds of freeware, shareware, ad-supported, and even shrink-wrapped commercial applications contain components that maintain a record of your online activity and transmit that information to an advertiser's server.

Last Wednesday, Microsoft released a new software development program called Visual Studio.Net. It's designed to help programmers write code using Microsoft's C# programming language, and it represents the company's big leap into Web services, which many hope will trigger the next generation of corporate computing innovation. Microsoft spent $2 billion developing Visual Studio.Net and C#, but just about every other technology company on the planet.

So what the hell are Web services, anyway? In essence, the term is marketing shorthand for a set of emerging standards that are changing the way software is written, used, and distributed. Fundamentally, Web services are about creating new ways for different kinds of software programs to communicate automatically with one another. In the future you may not realize when you are using a Web service, because most of the software will be running in the background, automating machine-to-machine interactions.

South Korea's second largest mobile carrier KTF Co. said on Tuesday it had agreed with Microsoft to jointly develop a wireless Web browser that would allow access to the Internet regardless of a cell phone's system. KTF said it signed a technical tie-up with Microsoft Korea, a local branch of U.S. software giant Microsoft Corp., to unveil a mobile handset embedded with the browser around July. It said the browser would allow cellphone users to access mobile data contents produced either using Microsoft's Mobile Explorer (ME) technology or wireless application protocol (WAP), which is widely adopted by European carriers.

U.S. technology companies Microsoft Corp., Intel Corp and Texas Instruments Inc. on Tuesday announced blueprints for new cellphones and handheld computer phones. Breaking with the tradition of custom-designed technology for each cellphone manufacturer, the three companies will work to develop so-called reference designs, which, if adopted by enough vendors, could establish these blueprints as standards for much of the industry.

The companies aim to repeat what they have done to the personal computer industry, where Microsoft and Intel have standardized key software and semiconductor hardware, with the Windows operating system software and Pentium processors. Each product has more than 80 percent share of their respective markets.

At the RSA Conference 2002, the world's largest computer-security show, Microsoft announced today the offering of a new sample XML filter as a way to help customers prepare to secure their networks as they adopt Web services. The new XML filter is a free download designed to run on Microsoft's enterprise firewall, Microsoft Internet Security and Acceleration (ISA) Server. It demonstrates a thought-leading principle that analysts and Web-services architects agree will be important to securing any network that uses Web services.

Microsoft Corp said on Monday it had lined up four Japanese manufacturers to begin selling personal computers using its Mira technology that can turn flat-panel displays into portable touch-screen tablets. NEC Corp Fujitsu Ltd, Matsushita Electric Industrial Co Ltd and Sotec Co Ltd will unveil by the end of 2002 new PCs that allow more seamless home computing by freeing users from a desk without sacrificing the power of a desktop computer.

"We're seeing some strong momentum in the Japanese marketplace," said Keith While, a senior marketing director at Microsoft's embedded and appliance platforms group.

U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly delivered her order during a conference call between the parties, potentially expanding the amount of source code available to trustbusters. The states had access to some Windows source code during the liability and settlement phases of the trial.

Analysts warned Microsoft must take serious precautions to make Windows XP source code does not fall into the hands of competitors, which have been working closely with the nine states and the District of Columbia. In separate legal briefs filed over the last few weeks, Microsoft charged that competitors AOL Time Warner and Oracle had a hand in crafting a states' remedy proposal that could change how Microsoft develops and deploys software.