Time Warner Inc’s HBO cable network is expected to start selling shows on Apple iTunes digital entertainment service, with flexible pricing, sources familiar with the discussions said on Monday. Episodes of some HBO shows are likely to be sold at the standard price of $1.99 per episode or higher, these sources said, marking the first time Apple has agreed to selling television shows at different prices in the United States. The deal could be announced as early as Tuesday, one of the sources said. Although some global iTunes stores, including Japan, already sell songs at different prices, Apple has resisted offering music or television shows at different prices for the sake of simplicity for consumers.

But studio and music company executives have pushed for variable pricing, such as the ability to sell some content at lower prices and new releases at higher prices, which they believe would improve sales from its older catalogs. Apple’s pricing structure also was part of the reason why NBC Universal decided last year to pull its shows from iTunes. Since then, NBC has made some shows available for streaming on Apple’s iPhone as well made some available for sale on iTunes’s U.K. store. For HBO — home to hit series like “The Sopranos” and “Sex and the City” — the move marks the first time it has made its shows available for sale in electronic form. It is currently testing a broadband service for subscribers in Wisconsin, which streams episodes of shows shortly after their first airing.

Source: NY Times

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In a newly-opened online showcase, search engine specialist Powerset is now previewing a contextual search engine seen by some as a possible threat to Google, Yahoo and other major players through its support for “conversational phrasing.” Although right now, Powerset queries Wikipedia only, rumors are circulating that investment bank Allen & Co. is shopping the emerging natural language search engine to potential buyers that might even include Microsoft, which decided to drop its recent attempt to take over Yahoo. Unlike the search engines of Web sites like Google, Yahoo, and Ask.com, for example, Powerset does not rely on keyword searches.

Instead, users submit their queries as questions that don’t necessarily need to include keywords. Like traditional search engines the results are returned as URL links, often accompanied by pieces of text from the linked pages. With the Powerset search engine, however, the answer is often included directly within the search results. Users can expand the result to see the full text with pertinent sentences highlighted. Indexing the web is expensive, though, and Powerset’s way of doing it requires even more time and computing power dedicated to a web page. That’s why they say they aren’t indexing the entire web yet - the company has raised just $12.5 million. Powerset is has taken a lot of criticism for their goal of trying to redefine how people search the web ( including from us). But their lofty goals are what makes Silicon Valley so great - succeed or fail, Powerset is trying to do something pretty spectacular.

Source: Betanews, Washington Post

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The FBI announced Friday that an investigation into counterfeit network components made in China and sold to the U.S. government has recovered about 3,500 fake devices with a value of $3.5 million. The criminal probe, code-named Operation Cisco Raider, was prompted by concerns that counterfeit network components could give hackers access to government databases. But one U.S. official told Reuters that the components discovered by the FBI are not believed to have made government computer systems more vulnerable. The existence of the probe came to light after an unclassified FBI PowerPoint presentation in January on the agency’s efforts to counter the production and distribution of counterfeit network hardware showed up on Abovetopsecret.com.

“This unclassified briefing was never intended for broad distribution or posting to the Internet,” James Finch, assistant director of the FBI’s Cyber Division, said in a statement. Operation Cisco Raider involved 15 investigations at nine FBI field offices and the execution of 39 search warrants, the bureau said. The FBI release did not mention if any arrests had been made. Components included pirated versions of Cisco Systems routers as well as switches, interface converters and wide area network interface cards, Reuters reported. The People’s Republic of China has not been accused of orchestrating the counterfeit sales, but for several years, U.S. officials have been investigating a wave of government computer breaches thought to have originated in China.

Source: ABC, Cnet 

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Research In Motion Ltd. on Monday is introducing its first major new BlackBerry model in more than a year: the Bold, a high-end model that further demonstrates the company’s desire to make tools for both work and play. The Bold, or 9000, has twice the screen resolution of the current Curve model, making for a very sharp display. It matches the resolution, but not the size, of the screen on Apple Inc.’s iPhone, which has emerged as a potent competitor in the “smart phone” category. It also has much more internal memory, a glossy metallic look, and adds corporate-strength Wi-Fi capabilities to third-generation cellular and Bluetooth radios. Otherwise it stays close to the formula of the Curve, with a horizontal screen above a trackball and a keyboard with one letter per key.

Waterloo, Ontario-based RIM didn’t announce a price for the Bold, nor agreements with specific carriers. It said the phone would be available from various carriers this summer. The initial model would support GSM networks, the kind employed by AT&T Inc. and T-Mobile USA. Later models could work on the Sprint Nextel Corp. and Verizon Wireless networks, according to RIM co-chief executive Mike Lazaridis. Like the Curve and the Pearl, BlackBerry’s consumer-oriented phones, the Bold has a full-size headset jack and a camera that can also capture video. At the same time, it has dual-band Wi-Fi, a feature previously only found on a model aimed at the corporate market. The Bold will also have exchangable back plates in different colors, a first for a BlackBerry. RIM also was set to announce a $150 million fund that will invest in companies creating software for BlackBerrys and other mobile devices.

Source: AP, Cnet

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Two men arrested after a woman whose computer they’re accused of stealing managed to log onto the laptop and photograph them with it are scheduled to appear in City Court next week to face felony charges. Edmon Shahikian, 23, and Ian Frias, 20, are charged with second-degree burglary and fourth-degree criminal possession of stolen property in the April 27 burglary of a Ridgeview Avenue apartment in which $5,000 worth of electronics were stolen. They were arrested Wednesday, after one of the three roommates who live in the apartment used her stolen laptop’s “Back to My Mac” software to determine that it was signed onto the Internet, police said.

The 19-year-old victim, who works in the Apple Store in The Westchester mall, then used the laptop’s camera to photograph Shahikian, police said. She also found photos of Frias using the computer after it had been stolen, police said. The computer-savvy victim did not recognize either man, but one of her roommates did, remembering they had attended a recent party at the apartment. The information was turned over to police, who nabbed both men at their homes a short time later. did not return calls. Shahikian, of 13 Cobbling Rock Road, Katonah, is free on $3,500 bail. Frias, a Bronx resident, is being held at the Westchester County jail on $7,500 bail. Both are due in City Court on May 15.

Source: NY Times, Lohud

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Advanced Micro Devices plans to release processors with 12 cores, which changes its product road map and kills earlier plans to release 8-core chips. The 12-core processor, code-named Magny-Cours, will be targeted at servers and is due for release in the first half of 2010, according to the company’s updated road map announced Wednesday. The chip will include 12M bytes of L3 cache and support DDR3 RAM, according to the road map. AMD is jumping from a 6-core chip code-named Istanbul, due for release in the second half of 2009, straight to a 12-core chip the following year, an AMD spokesman said. Until last month, AMD officials repeated plans to ship the 8-core server chip, code-named Barcelona, in 2009.

Montreal has now been replaced by Istanbul, followed by a 12-core product in 2010, the spokesman said. AMD is also planning to release a 6-core chip code-named Sao Paulo in 2010. The chip will include 6M bytes of L3 cache and support for DDR3 RAM. Sao Paulo chips could meet the need of systems that don’t require 12 cores, Allen said. The new chips will be more power efficient as they will be manufactured using the 45-nanometer process, an upgrade from the 65-nm process currently used to manufacture Barcelona. Even with AMD’s altered road map, Intel will remain formidable. Intel shipped 78.5 percent of chips in the first quarter of 2008, while AMD held a 20.6 percent market share, a slight gain from the 18.7 percent market share it held in the first quarter of 2007.

Source: NY Times 

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MySpace has launched a data-sharing project in which the social networking site will open up its code to partner sites Photobucket, Twitter, eBay and Yahoo. The MySpace Data Availability Initiative will involve the creation of a new section of the site which will manage the data sharing. Users will access the system and share data on an ‘opt-in’ basis, meaning that only information which the user has chosen to share will be viewable by others. The information will then be available for use on other sites, allowing users to display MySpace profile information along with photos and video files on other participating sites.

All user data will remain hosted on MySpace, allowing the information to be updated as users change their profile information. “The walls around the garden are coming down, and the implementation of Data Availability injects a new layer of social activity and creates a more dynamic internet,” said Chris DeWolfe, chief executive and co-founder of MySpace. The move is designed to complement Yahoo’s open strategy initiative, in which the company offered to open its own applications to outside developers. The two sites are also working together as part of the OpenSocial project. “Yahoo believes in an open internet that gives users the flexibility to make their web experiences as relevant, social and personalised as they can,” said Ash Patel, executive vice president of platforms at Yahoo. I’m looking forward to first lawsuits where people complain about their personal data being shared all over the internet…

Source: Vnunet 

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