TechLuver.com

MySpace will open its doors to software developers allowing them to create games and media-sharing applications for the popular social network, reports the BBC.

MySpace will formally launch its “Developer Platform” next Tuesday but is already allowing people to sign up. The tools have been developed with Google and will allow programmers to create programs similar to those used by millions on rival site Facebook.

Facebook opened up its site to outside developers last year. It has since had great success, with nearly 15,000 applications written for the site.

These include photo-sharing and music recommendation tools as well as games such as scrabble. However, despite its popularity, Facebook still lags behind MySpace in terms of overall users. MySpace has around 200 million registered users, compared to 63 million who use Facebook.

Last October MySpace announced that it would join OpenSocial, Google’s platform designed to allow developers to build applications that will work on any website.

Other networks such as Bebo, LinkedIn and Orkut already use the tools.

The tools, available from 5 February, will allow developers to build applications that make use of MySpace member profile information and their connections with other users.More at BBC News.

Dec 25, `07 — Slashdot reports on Google linking up Google Reader with Google Talk to make shared items visible to your contacts on Google Talk.

“One week ago Google Reader’s team decided to begin showing your private data to all your GMail contacts. No need to opt-in, NO way to opt-out. Complaints haven’t been answered. Some users share their problems, including one family who says they won’t be able to enjoy this Christmas because of this ‘feature.’ Will Google start doing this with all their products? You can browse the thread in Google Groups.”

Comments from Google Groups

User ‘banzaimonkey’ writes:
“I think the basic mistake here, as Modulo has noted, is that the people on my contact list are not necessarily my “friends”. I have business contacts, school contacts, family contacts, etc., and not only do I not really have any interest in seeing all of their feed information, I don’t want them seeing mine either. This is a major privacy problem.”

User ‘Paul Russell’ writes:
“Using my Gmail contacts as a friends list is a dangerous thing. Especially because a lot of the addresses in there were added automatically when people emailed me. I understand that sharing is a public activity, but to date Google reader shares were pseudo private by obscurity. In reality the only people that were going to see my share were people I told about it. I don’t like the idea of an opt out only mechanism. Facebook just took a bath on this concept. Granted Beacon was a complete disaster, but I think the lesson to be learned is when you change personal sharing to become more public it should be an opt in process.”

Chrix Finne at Official Google Reader Blog invites your feedback on Google Reader features here at Google Groups.

Dec 24, `07 — Badoo, a social networking website which offers users the chance to pay to be popular while banning all advertising, is set to launch into an increasingly crowded UK market, says Mark Sweney of Guardian Unlimited.

Sweney further writes, “At the moment, Badoo is a relatively unknown web brand. However, Google recently rated it number two on its “fastest rising” list - behind the iPhone and ahead of Facebook - in its annual report based on the most popular web searches.

The fledgling company positions itself as a “natural evolution of existing social network and blogging sites”.

Badoo’s unusual business model works against the received wisdom of the primarily advertising-led efforts of established firms such as Facebook, MySpace and Bebo.

“We wanted to be advertising free in order to have a ‘clean’ site so our users weren’t subject to adverts which we know can be a turnoff,” said Neil Bryant, the managing director of Badoo.” More at Guardian Unlimited.

LOUISVILLE, Colo –BUSINESS WIRE– Dec 19, `07 — In a major milestone for the cable industry, CableLabs has awarded qualification status for Data over Cable Service Interface Specification (DOCSIS) 3.0.

DOCSIS 3.0 specifications enable downstream data rates of 160 Mbps or higher and upstream data rates of 120 Mbps or higher.

Casa Systems received “silver” qualification while Arris and Cisco received “bronze” qualification for their cable modem termination systems (CMTS) headend gear. The announcement comes at the conclusion of the recent test wave in which the first products built based on the DOCSIS 3.0 specifications were formally evaluated.

The headends were tested under a tiered program that was created as a way to encourage CMTS makers to submit gear for testing earlier than they otherwise might. CableLabs also offered suppliers numerous informal interoperability events where vendors work together in CableLabs’ facilities to test and evaluate their implementations of the specifications.

“This technological achievement is a great step for our industry,” said Brian L. Roberts, Chairman and CEO of Comcast Corp., and Chairman of the CableLabs Board of Directors. “CableLabs rapid certification effort will enable companies to begin to develop products that will support the rapid deployment of DOCSIS 3.0 services in 2008.”

To achieve these higher data rates DOCSIS 3.0 describes a methodology for channel bonding in both the upstream and downstream directions. A minimum of four channels, each with throughput of 40 Mbps, is specified. DOCSIS 3.0 also incorporates support for the Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6).

IPv6 is the next generation of the Internet Protocol and greatly expands the number of Internet addresses that cable operators may use, allowing them to provide consumers with more IP-based services. In addition, DOCSIS 3.0 is backward compatible with all existing DOCSIS products.

IPv6 also will allow cable operators to effectively manage the proliferation of devices that are capturing consumer interest, including portable media players, cellular phones, gaming consoles, PDAs and others. More at CableLabs.

NEW YORK, Dec 19, `07 /PRNewswire/ — MTV Games, a division of Viacom’s MTV Networks, today announced an exclusive deal with internationally renowned motion picture and television producer Jerry Bruckheimer to develop and create new and original video games, marking his first official foray into the gaming world.

As part of this landmark agreement, Bruckheimer will build a game incubation studio with MTV Games, where a team of experienced video game experts, artists and storytellers will seek out and deliver new game concepts and intellectual property.

By joining MTV Games with Bruckheimer’s blockbuster track record for creating successful entertainment properties in film and television, both new and experienced gamers can expect what promises to be some of the most entertaining, challenging, and unique games.

MTV Networks will support this venture across all its broadcast and digital platforms including CMT, MTV, Spike and VH1. Gaming is a focal point of MTV Networks’ overall vertical entertainment strategy of super-serving its core audiences with engaging experiences across multiple platforms.

In August of 2007, the company announced that it will invest more than $500 million over the next two years in the development and distribution of its Interactive Entertainment and Video Game business. MTV Games’ recently released Rock Band from developers, Harmonix, which MTV Networks acquired in 2006. More at Viacom.

Companies sign landmark multi-year deal to collaborate on content distribution, advertising, event promotions and gaming

Microsoft’s Atlas to become exclusive ad serving platform for Viacom US web sites

NEW YORK and REDMOND, Wash — Dec 19, `07 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Viacom and Microsoft today announced a broad-based, strategic alliance under which major divisions of both companies will collaborate on advertising, content distribution, event promotions and games over the next several years.

The comprehensive agreement spans across the two companies and includes a number of significant components. Among them:

– Microsoft will license, on a non-exclusive basis, long and short-form television and theatrical content from across Viacom’s cable network
and motion picture businesses, including MTV, Comedy Central, BET and Paramount Pictures for use on Microsoft properties such as MSN and Xbox 360.

– Microsoft’s Atlas division will become the ad server for Viacom’s US websites and Microsoft will have the exclusive right to sell remnant
display advertising inventory on Viacom’s US websites.

– Microsoft will buy advertising on Viacom broadcast and online networks over a five-year period and the companies will work together on
promotions and sponsorships for MTV Networks and BET Networks award shows;

– Viacom will work with Microsoft on opportunities to become a preferred publishing partner across Microsoft’s casual gaming platforms.

Detailed financial terms were not disclosed, but the deal has a projected base value of approximately $500 million in financial considerations and business services between the two companies over the initial five-year length of the agreement.

The deal includes a combination of revenue sharing provisions, guarantees and content licensing agreements.More at Viacom.

Dec 19, `07 — FCC has revealed all the tiny details, except the price and availability (obviously), of Creative Lab’s unannounced video conferencing device - inPerson -

To make a video call / chat you’ll need a wired or wireless Internet connection and account with SlightSpeed (provider of Internet video chat and voice calling) or alike(?)

Key Features
• High video quality (up to VGA resolution and 2 Mbps bit-rate)
• Excellent low light performance
• Wide-angle lens
• Dual Microphones with Acoustic Echo Cancellation and Noise Reduction
• Wi-Fi
• Rechargeable, removable Lithium-ion battery
• Auto Login
• Auto Answer
• Screen Saver
• Speed dial
• Call History
• Contact List

Usage Scenarios
• Built-in dual microphones, and audio output to external speakers (not included) with the bundled RCA cables.
• Built-in dual microphones and internal speaker.
• For privacy: bundled microphone and earphones.
• Viewing on a larger screen: video output to TV with the bundled RCA cables.

Network Connection
• If inPerson is connected to the network using both Ethernet and Wi-Fi, the Ethernet connection will be used.
• Wi-Fi networks requiring a webpage login are not supported.

Specifications
Dimensions (W x D x H) 7.6’’ x 5.9’’ x 1.9’’ (194.3 mm x 150.5 mm x 48 mm)
Image Sensor Color VGA CMOS (5.04 ?m active square pixels)
Lens Precision glass lens, F/2.0
Field of View 76° ultra wide angle
LCD (Color Display) 7’’diagonal (16.7 million colors)
Microphone Built-in hardware AEC with dual microphones
Video Resolution Maximum 640 x 480 (VGA)
Exposure (brightness) Automatic, manual adjustment
White Balance Automatic, manual (Auto, Fluorescent, Incandescent, Outdoors) adjustment
Video Resolution 640 x 480 (VGA), 352 x 288 (CIF), 320 x 240, (QVGA), 176 x 144 (QCIF)
Effective Focal Range 30 cm to infinity
Video Codec Support H.264, H.263, H.263+
Audio Codec Support dvi4, ilbc, G.711, G.723.1a, G.729ab, telephony tone signalling (rfc2833)
Communication Protocol SIP/SDP, RTP/RTCP, STUN, ICE
Network Protocol UDP, TCP, ARP, DHCP, SNTP, ICMP
Ethernet Connection RJ-45
Ethernet Network Interface 10/100 Base-T
Wireless Standards Compliance IEEE 802.11b and IEEE 802.11g
Wireless Security WEP (64-bits), WEP (128-bits), WPA-PAK (TKIP), WPA-PSK (AES)
Specific Absorption Rate (SAR) 0.138 mW/g
Power Source AC power adapter:100 - 240 VAC, 50/60 Hz, 5 V/2.4 A
Rechargeable Lithium-ion battery: 3.7 V/3500 mAH
Power Consumption 6 W (typical), 12 W (maximum)

More at FCC: Creative InPerson Details, External Photos, Internal Photos, User Manual (in PDFs)

Armonk, NY — Dec 18, `07 — IBM today announced the availability of IBM Atlas for Lotus Connections, a corporate social networking visualization and analysis tool.

IBM Atlas for Lotus Connections is designed to help organizations maximize their investment in social software by answering questions such as who the key experts are on a given topic, how they are connected, and whom a user’s contacts know that they do not.

Developed by IBM Research, Atlas has four Web 2.0-based components — My Net, Find, Reach and Net. These components help users spot the important connections and the relationships between various groups and navigate their personal and corporate networks.

The Net component of Atlas provides a visual indication of the important hubs among topic experts and informal groups that have developed while working on similar projects.

My Net offers similar capabilities for a user’s personal network. For example, a salesperson can better manage and understand their social networks making sure they have connections across the right topic areas.

Reach, the social software dashboard feature in Atlas, helps users navigate the up to six degrees of separation that divide them from a colleague. The dashboard shows users the shortest path to reach an expert and ranks the expert based on the level of interaction across the network.

The Find component of Atlas builds upon core Lotus Connections expertise capabilities by taking searches beyond the corporate directory to include results based on social data such as reporting structures, blogs and communities.

Atlas is designed to work with IBM Lotus Connections, the industry’s first integrated enterprise social software platform. The latest version of Lotus Connections, version 1.02, is now available and features:

* Expanded support for operating systems such as SUSE Linux, browsers such as Mozilla Firefox 2.0 and directories such as Microsoft Active Directory, enabling businesses to deploy and integrate social software across their IT environment.
* Plug-ins for IBM Lotus Notes, IBM Lotus Sametime, Microsoft Office, Microsoft Explorer and IBM WebSphere Portal, enabling people to interact with their professional networks using their everyday productivity tools.
* A rich API based on the REST and Atom standards allow other applications to utilize the profiles, community, bookmarking, blogging and activity services of Lotus Connections.

More on IBM Atlas at IBM.

SAN JOSE, Calif — Dec 18, `07 — Pressured by a lawsuit, social networking giant Facebook will adopt new measures to prevent its 58 million members from sending text messages to recycled cell phone numbers, the AP reports.

The lawsuit filed by Lindsey Abrams of Patriot, Ind., said she received text messages with explicit comments and other upsetting content — and had to pay 10 cents each time. Facebook received a share of the fee, according to the complaint.

According to the complaint, which Abrams’s lawyers had hoped would be certified as a class action, Abrams started getting the unsolicited messages shortly after she got a new mobile number from Verizon in November 2006.

Her suit alleged thousands of other unauthorized text messages had been sent nationwide to other recycled phone numbers, including some used by young children.

Without admitting any wrongdoing, Facebook agreed to make it easier for recipients of text messages to block future messages originating from the social network, and also will work more closely with mobile phone carriers to monitor the lists of recycled numbers and reduce the frequency of unwanted text messages. More at AP.

Beware of the Love Bots!

So you think you’ve found Mr. or Ms. Right online in, of all places, a Chatroom. Beware! A Russian company has just come up with software that can simulate online flirting, genuinely fooling people into thinking they’re making overtures to a real person.

The program, so far available only in Russian, will go on sale around February 15, just after St Valentine’s Day, said the CyberLover.ru website.

San Francisco, Calif — PC Tools, on Dec 12, uncovered new software developed in Russia that flirts with females or males seeking relationships online in order to collect their personal data.

The software, CyberLover, can conduct fully automated flirtatious conversations with users of chat-rooms and dating sites to lure them into a set of dangerous actions such as sharing their identity or visiting web sites with malicious content.

According to its creators, CyberLover can establish a new relationship with up to ten partners in just 30 minutes and its victims cannot distinguish it from a human being.

PC Tools is concerned about the program’s ability to mimic human behavior during online interactions and urges internet users to beware of this new breed of software that can easily be used for malicious purposes. The concept behind this software could be the catalyst for a dangerous new trend in malware evolution.

“As a tool that can be used by hackers to conduct identity fraud, CyberLover demonstrates an unprecedented level of social engineering,” says Sergei Shevchenko, Senior Malware Analyst at PC Tools. “It employs highly intelligent and customized dialogue to target users of social networking systems.”

“Internet users today are generally aware of the dangers of suspicious attachments and URLs they receive, the documents they open or the websites they visit, but CyberLover employs a new technique that is unheard of – and that’s what makes it particularly dangerous.”

“CyberLover has been designed as a bot [robot] that lures victims automatically, without human intervention. If it’s spawned in multiple instances on multiple servers, the number of potential victims could be very substantial,” says Shevchenko.

According to PC Tools researchers, the CyberLover software:

- offers a variety of profiles ranging from ‘romantic lover’ to ‘sexual predator;’

- uses a series of easily configurable “dialogue scenarios” with pre-programmed questions and discussion topics;

- is designed to recognize the responses of chat-room users to tailor its interaction accordingly;

- compiles a detailed report on every person it meets and submits then to a remote source – the reports contain confidential information that the victim has shared with the bot, which can include the victim’s name, contact details and personal photo(s);

- invites victims to visit a “personal” website or blog which could in fact be a fake page used to automatically infect visitors with malware.

Though Cyberlover is currently targeting Russian web sites, social networkers and online daters in the are urged to stay alert to unusual activity credited to programs like CyberLover.

To protect themselves, PC Tools recommends:

• Never give your personal details to anyone over the internet.
• Consider using aliases/fake names on social networking sites and when chatting online.
• Carefully monitor the online behavior of your family members and educate them of the dangers.
• Ensure you have up-to-date AntiVirus and Anti-Spyware installed, with real-time and behavioral protection.

PC Tools warns the security industry to prepare itself for this potential new trend of malware which uses “natural language dialogue systems” – already deployed within gaming technologies. PC Tools.

HOLLYWOOD, Fla –BUSINESS WIRE– Dec 13, ‘07 — MySpace and Sprint announced today that Sprint will be the first US wireless carrier to link to the free MySpace Mobile Web site once it officially launches in early 2008, at no additional charge to Sprint data subscribers.

This means that Sprint customers with enabled phones will be able to click to access MySpace from the Sprint portal. The new version of MySpace Mobile will feature rich graphical design, a revamped email interface and other new features. The site is currently in beta at http://mobile.myspace.com.

In addition to the new MySpace Mobile, Sprint customers will also be able to directly link to other leading mobile Web sites from Fox Interactive Media (FIM), including IGN, FOXSports.com on MSN, RottenTomatoes, AskMen, its network of MyFOX local affiliates and the newest addition Photobucket. The agreement was announced this morning by FIM President Peter Levinsohn at Sprint’s annual Application Developer Conference in Hollywood, FL.

Dec 07, ‘07 — UNICEF, One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) and Google today announced the launch of ” Our Stories “, a joint initiative to preserve and share the histories and identities of cultures around the world by making personal stories available online in many languages.

Using laptops, mobile phones and other recording devices, children will record, in their native languages, the stories of elders, family members and friends. These stories will be shared globally through the Our Stories website, where they can be found on a Google Map.

By making these stories accessible around the world, the Our Stories project hopes to contribute to a better understanding of our shared humanity across countries and cultures, across religious traditions, across languages, and across generations.

Low-cost XO laptops by One Laptop per Child will serve as a foundation to help build this digital archive of personal stories by providing children in developing countries with easy-to-use technology to record their stories and interviews.

The Our Stories website will initially include stories collected by Brazil’s Museum of the Person and stories recorded for UNICEF by young people in Ghana, Pakistan, Tanzania and Uganda.

Our Stories has taken inspiration from the StoryCorps project in the United States founded by MacArthur Fellow Dave Isay. “StoryCorps is proud to lend its experience in recording the conversations of nearly 30,000 Americans to this global undertaking,” said Isay. “These efforts teach us that the lives of everyone – whether they are in New York or Nairobi – matter, and that they will not be forgotten.”

More stories from more countries will be added to the site every month in an effort to preserve an oral history of humanity in the 21st Century.

Leading figures have already lent their voices to the project: Ban Ki-moon, Secretary-General of the United Nations, Her Majesty Queen Rania Al Abdullah, Queen of Jordan and UNICEF Eminent Advocate for Children, and Ishmael Beah, UNICEF Advocate for Children Affected by War and best-selling author of A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier, have all recorded messages welcoming users to the site and encouraging them to share their stories.

Listen to a story today at OurStories.org.

DAMASCUS, Syria — Dec 07, ‘07 — Syrian authorities have blocked Facebook, the popular Internet hangout, over what seems to be fears of Israeli “infiltration” of Syrian social networks on the Net, according to residents and media reports, the Associated Press reports.

Residents of Damascus said that they have not been able to enter Facebook for more than two weeks. An Associated Press reporter got a blank page when he tried to open Facebook’s home page Friday from the Syrian capital.

Lebanon’s daily As-Safir reported that Facebook was blocked on Nov. 18. It said the authorities took the step because Israelis have been entering Syria-based groups.

Human rights groups have regularly criticized Syrian authorities for blocking opposition sites and Internet sites critical of President Bashar Assad’s government.

Former President Hafez Assad’s death in 2000 after three decades of authoritarian rule raised hopes of a freer society under his British-educated son and successor.

But the younger Assad cracked down on political opponents and human rights activists, putting many of them in jail. More at IHT.

AUSTIN, Texas — Dec 05, ‘07 — Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott today took legal action against two Web sites that cater to children but fail to adequately protect their privacy and safety. Texas is the first state to file an enforcement action under the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), a federal law that generally prohibits Web sites from unnecessarily collecting personal information from children under 13.

According to Attorney General investigators, TheDollPalace.com and Gamesradar.com unlawfully collect personal information such as names, ages, and home addresses from children. Investigators also discovered that the sites’ parental consent features were easily manipulated and circumvented. The lack of reasonable controls readily allow children to access the sites’ various features, including interactive chat rooms and forums, without their parents’ knowledge.

“These defendants are charged with operating child-oriented Web sites that violate the law by failing to protect young users,” Attorney General Abbott said. “Federal law provides important protections to prevent children from divulging sensitive personal information and to shield them from inappropriate sexual or violent content online. The Office of the Attorney General will continue aggressively enforcing laws to protect young Internet users.”

Both Web sites violate COPPA by failing to include necessary disclosures and failing to obtain parental consent before collecting personal information from children. TheDollPalace.com, for example, simply asks young users who are attempting to register, “Is a parent with you right now?” Children who click “Yes” are directed to a page that allows them to simply click “OK” to vague disclosures regarding information collection and use. Gamesradar.com similarly fails to properly obtain parental consent.

Under COPPA, these Web sites must make a greater effort to ensure that parents consent to their children providing personal information online. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) offers several options for Web site operators to obtain verifiable parental consent. Among them, the FTC recommends that Web sites maintain a toll-free telephone number staffed by trained personnel for parents to call in their consent or provide a form for the parent to print, complete, sign, and mail or fax back to Web site operators.

On The Doll Palace Web site, kids who join a “friends” forum are encouraged to fill out a lengthy questionnaire and are given drop-down lists of possible answers. Under “smoking habits,” for example, kids can select answers such as “I occasionally smoke good cigars.” Among the choices for eye color are “sexy hazel” and “evening black.”

Children can also say, “I would like to meet someone older than myself” or “I like to talk about sexual issues.” One of the answers under “dress preference” allows kids to respond: “I prefer to be nude.”

More at AG,Texas.

San Francisco, Calif — Dec 05, ‘07 — Beacon, the online advertising system that was supposed to light Facebook’s way to riches, has created such a dark storm of controversy that Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg today told users they could turn it off.

The dramatic reversal in the face of huge public outcry is an attempt to restore the company’s battered image with its more than 55 million users and the marketers trying to reach them.

Excerpts from Mark Zuckerberg’s ‘Thoughts on Beacon’ on The Facebook Blog

About a month ago, we released a new feature called Beacon to try to help people share information with their friends about things they do on the web. We’ve made a lot of mistakes building this feature, but we’ve made even more with how we’ve handled them. We simply did a bad job with this release, and I apologize for it.

While I am disappointed with our mistakes, we appreciate all the feedback we have received from our users. I’d like to discuss what we have learned and how we have improved Beacon.

When we first thought of Beacon, our goal was to build a simple product to let people share information across sites with their friends. It had to be lightweight so it wouldn’t get in people’s way as they browsed the web, but also clear enough so people would be able to easily control what they shared.

But we missed the right balance. At first we tried to make it very lightweight so people wouldn’t have to touch it for it to work. The problem with our initial approach of making it an opt-out system instead of opt-in was that if someone forgot to decline to share something, Beacon still went ahead and shared it with their friends.

It took us too long after people started contacting us to change the product so that users had to explicitly approve what they wanted to share. Instead of acting quickly, we took too long to decide on the right solution. I’m not proud of the way we’ve handled this situation and I know we can do better.

People need to be able to explicitly choose what they share, and they need to be able to turn Beacon off completely if they don’t want to use it.

This has been the philosophy behind our recent changes. Last week we changed Beacon to be an opt-in system, and today we’re releasing a privacy control to turn off Beacon completely. You can find it here. If you select that you don’t want to share some Beacon actions or if you turn off Beacon, then Facebook won’t store those actions even when partners send them to Facebook.

On behalf of everyone working at Facebook, I want to thank you for your feedback on Beacon over the past several weeks and hope that this new privacy control addresses any remaining issues we’ve heard about from you.

More at The Facebook Blog.

Dec 04, ‘07 — Gmail rolled out a new feature to make it even more convenient and useful to chat from Gmail: AIM support.

Now you can now chat with all your AIM buddies right inside Gmail. Just click on the upside-down triangle next to “set status here” in your Gmail chat and select “Sign into AIM” from the drop down menu. Once you’ve entered your AIM log-in information, your AIM contacts will appear intermingled among your Gmail contacts, and you can select an AIM contact and chat with them directly.

This is just one of the first new features Google’s email service launched using Gmail’s new code structure. This is rolling out in the newest English version of Gmail first and will be available in other languages soon. More at Google.

Dec 04, ‘07 — Dell has teamed up with the folks at Blizzard Entertainment to create a product that allows fans of World of Warcraft (WoW) to immerse themselves in the game and today unveiled XPS M1730 World of Warcraft Edition.

Every system comes pre-loaded with the games themselves: World of Warcraft and The Burning Crusade expansion pack. Dell will also install all the major client patches for both games as well and will continue to test and ship future patches pre-installed as they are released by Blizzard.

Everyone who orders this system will get three things: a Quest Envelope, a WoW backpack full of stuff and the system itself.

XPS M1730 World of Warcraft Edition

* 17″ HD widescreen notebook complete with World of Warcraft backpack
* Illuminated speaker grills and faction specific Honor Badges
* Back-lit keyboard stays awake as long as you can
* Track your stats with the world’s first built-in notebook Logitech GamePanel LCD
* Pre-loaded with World of Warcraft, World of Warcraft: Burning Crusade and all major game patches
* Golden Ticket for a custom FigurePrint of your actual in-game World of Warcraft character with your actual armor and weapons
* World of Warcraft Beta Club Key Card with a key to future World of Warcraft beta tests
* World of Warcraft and The Burning Crusade Collector’s Edition Account Upgrade Certificates
* Intel Core 2 Duo Processor T7500 (2.2GHz/800Mhz FSB, 4MB Cache)
* Genuine Windows Vista® Ultimate Edition
* 2GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz
* Speed: 160GB SATA Hard Drive (7200RPM)
* CD / DVD Burner (DVD+/-RW Drive)
* 1Yr LoJack for Laptops Theft Protection (CD Shipped Separately)
* 17inch UltraSharp TrueLife Wide-screen WUXGA
* 512MB Dual NVIDIA GeForce 8700M GT with NVIDIA SLI
* AGEIA PhysX Physics Accelerator
It starts at $4500 and still comes with just one year warrenty. You can get one here.

SAN FRANCISCO –BUSINESS WIRE– Dec 03, ‘07 — Russia-based SUP, today announced that it has acquired LiveJournal from Six Apart, Ltd. LiveJournal is one of the world’s leading global online communities, with a monthly audience of more than 18m unique visitors in nearly every country in the world.

Additionally, SUP today launched a new U.S. company, LiveJournal, Inc., based in San Francisco, which will manage and operate LiveJournal. More information on the acquisition is available at Livejournal.com/LJ_2008.

This deal is the second agreement between SUP and Six Apart. In October 2006, SUP concluded a licensing agreement with Six Apart to support and develop the large Russian segment of LiveJournal, which now represents 28% of its monthly audience. In the past twelve months, SUP and Six Apart have worked in close collaboration to improve LiveJournal for Russian users during which time the community has almost doubled.

New LJ community to highlight plans launched

The new management team outlined their plans for the service in a new LiveJournal community – LJ_2008 – dedicated to addressing questions and concerns from users, and serving as a forum to discuss anything related to the acquisition. Also at LJ_2008, users will find details about LiveJournal, Inc.’s goals over the next 100 days. These goals include planned upgrades as well as new features and services for the LiveJournal community. The team will focus on such items as service performance, usability, socialization and discovery features. LiveJournal, Inc. is encouraging users to post on the community new ideas for improving the service.

The LiveJournal community was informed of the news yesterday afternoon. SUP promised significant new investment in LiveJournal in the coming months and years. SUP also reassured the community that while subscribing to a minimalist approach in managing the site, it will establish clear and concrete policies with regard to communication and consultation on issues vital to the community.

Paris, France — Dec 02, ‘07 — The French and US companies behind the hugely popular video games “World of Warcraft” and “Call of Duty” announced Sunday that they are merging in an 18.9 billion dollar deal, which could shake up the global video games industry.

Vivendi, the French media and entertainment conglomerate, said Sunday that it planned to acquire a controlling stake in the US video game publisher Activision in a deal aimed at taking advantage of booming video game markets like South Korea and China.

Under the agreement, which values Activision at $18.9 billion, Vivendi would combine its game division with Activision, creating the largest video game company in the world that is not owned by a maker of game consoles.

Vivendi and Activision executives said that by combining the two game businesses, they could help Activision, which has developed popular games for consoles like the Sony PlayStation 3 and Microsoft’s Xbox 360, move more strongly into online “massively multiplayer” games, which have legions of devoted fans in Asia and elsewhere.

Vivendi has specialized in multiplayer games like “World of Warcraft,” which has more than nine million players worldwide, including millions of paying subscribers in China and South Korea, making them some of the only successful Western entertainment exports in a region ravaged by piracy.

Blizzard is the biggest player in online gaming and Warcraft is the global market leader of what are known as massively multi-player online role-playing games, or MMORPGs.

It is currently owned by the French media group Vivendi. As part of the merger plan, Blizzard will invest $2bn in the new company, while Activision is putting up $1bn.

The merged business will be called Activision Blizzard and its chief executive will be Activision’s current CEO Bobby Kotick. Vivendi will be the biggest shareholder in the group.

Jean-Bernard Levy, Vivendi chief executive, said: “This alliance is a major strategic step for Vivendi and is another illustration of our drive to extend our presence in the entertainment sector. “By combining Vivendi’s games business with Activision, we are creating a worldwide leader in a high-growth industry.”

Meanwhile, as news of the merger reached the ears of videogamers Sunday morning, many of them began to wonder if they should be getting ready to play a merged game called “World of Guitarcraft.”

More at Vivendi. (in pdf)

San Francisco, CA — Nov 29, ‘07  — Seeking to keep the peace in its popular online hangout, Facebook has overhauled a new advertising system that sparked privacy complaints by turning its users into marketing tools for other companies, the AP is reporting.

The AP further reports, “Under the changes outlined late Thursday, Facebook’s 55 million users will be given greater control over whether they want to participate in a three-week-old program that circulates potentially sensitive information about their online purchases and other activities.

Facebook provided two different opportunities to block the details from being shared, but many users said they never saw the “opt-out” notices before they disappeared from the screen.

With the reforms, Facebook promised its users will now have to give their explicit consent, or “opt-in,” before any information is passed along.

The concessions were made after more than 50,000 Facebook users signed an online petition blasting the system, called “Beacon,” as a galling intrusion that put the Palo Alto-based startup’s pursuit of profit ahead of its members’ privacy interests.

More than 40 different Web sites, including Fandango.com, Overstock.com and Blockbuster.com, had embedded Beacon in their pages to track transactions made by Facebook users.” More at AP.

MUMBAI, India — Nov 28, ‘07  — Sony Online Entertainment is all set to open a game development studio in India, Vice President Business Development & International Operations, David Christensen, said on Wednesday.

The company is talking to developers and aims to set up the studio early next year, likely in the city of Bangalore, David Christensen, the company’s business development and international operations vice president, said Wednesday.

“We need to have Indian content for our games and we are looking for local partners,” Christensen said on the sidelines of a gaming conference in Mumbai, India’s finance and entertainment hub.

“We will contribute our technology to the joint venture,” he said. The local partner would be expected to provide the creative talent for the games and chip in toward setting up the studio.

Sony recently teamed with Virgin Comics, a Bangalore-based collaboration of self-help guru Deepak Chopra, filmmaker Shekhar Kapur and Sir Richard Branson of Virgin Group Ltd. With Sony, Virgin Comics is developing a multiplayer online game based on “Ramayan 3329,” a comic book written by Chopra and Kapur and inspired by a famous Indian epic about a battle against demons.

Online gaming is just catching on in India with about 2.8 million devotees. Developers expect the market to explode as broadband penetration grows. Analyst firm Pearl Research expects the country’s online game market to reach $200 million by 2010, up from $4 million now.

The Ramayan comic was released in the United States last year, and Virgin is in talks on a movie version.

“If the game is successful in India, we will take it to Europe and North America,” said Christensen. “It is a fresh international story and if it is created into a movie it could be a big global property.”

Virgin’s president, Suresh Seetharamanin, said the company was in the process of adding to the creative team that would work on the game with Sony.

Sony Online is a division of Sony Pictures Entertainment, which is one of the principal businesses of Sony Corp of America, the U.S. subsidiary of Tokyo-headquartered Sony.

NEW YORK — News Corp’s Internet division plans to launch an online network to sell advertising across Rupert Murdoch’s sprawling empire and even to other media companies as early as the first half of next year, reports Reuters.

Reuters further reports, “Fox Interactive Media (FIM) President Peter Levinsohn told the Reuters Media Summit in New York on Monday, Nov 26, that the network, internally dubbed “FIM Serve,” is the subject of discussion across the company after first being built for its MySpace online social network.

“It could happen as early as the first half of next year,” he said. “We’re ready to go … we’re starting to have conversations outside now.”

The launch of a broader ad network follows a frenzied buying spree of privately held ad networks by Microsoft, Yahoo, Time Warner’s AOL and Google to dominate the fastest-growing segment of the global advertising industry.

He noted that the ad network focuses on graphical display advertising and would not conflict with the company’s partnership with Google, which provides search listings.

The seeds of News Corp’s online ad push come from its work to better target MySpace users, a project which it launched over the summer called HyperTargeting. The technology mines the profiles of its 110 million global users to bring them ads more relevant to their interests.

But across the Internet, subjecting users to more marketing has drawn the ire of privacy advocates. Rival social network Facebook faced a backlash from thousands of users after it allowed marketers to place ads on user pages based on products they bought online. More at Reuters.

Nov 27, ‘07 — Google wants to offer consumers a new way to store their files on its hard drives, in a strategy that could accelerate a shift to Web-based computing and intensify the Internet company’s competition with Microsoft. Says  Kevin J Delaney and Vauhini Vara of The Wall Street Journal.

The WSJ further writes, “Google is preparing a service that would let users store on its computers essentially all of the files they might keep on their personal-computer hard drives — such as word-processing documents, digital music, video clips and images, say people familiar with the matter. The service could let users access their files via the Internet from different computers and mobile devices when they sign on with a password, and share them online with friends. It could be released as early as a few months from now, one of the people said.

Google’s push underlines a shift in how businesses and consumers approach computing. They are increasingly using the Web to access applications and files stored in massive computer data centers operated by tech companies such as Salesforce.com, Microsoft and Google. Such arrangements, made possible by high-speed Internet connections between homes, offices and data centers, aim to ease users’ technology headaches and, in some cases, cut their costs.

Other companies offer various Internet-based file storage services, but most have been slow to catch on with businesses and consumers. Some offerings, such as Yahoo’s Briefcase Web-based storage service, require users to go to a Web page and click through a few screens to upload a new file and set various limits.

For its part, Microsoft offers a test version of a service called Windows Live SkyDrive with one gigabyte of free storage.

Google faces hurdles on issues such as data privacy, copyright, the economics of adding storage capacity and the technical challenges of offering service without interruption.

For Google, one advantage of offering a broad data-storage service would be to potentially draw consumers to existing Google services that compete with Microsoft’s Office applications suite, which includes Word, Outlook and Excel.

The company has been tackling technical issues including how to get the storage service to work seamlessly with software on users’ computers so it appears like just another hard drive, say the people familiar with the matter.

A document Google inadvertently released on the Web in March 2006 said it was moving toward being able to “store 100% of user data,” citing “emails, Web history, pictures, bookmarks” as a few examples. The document referred to what appeared to be unannounced Google initiatives, including one dubbed “GDrive” and said they could help compete with Microsoft.” More at WSJ.

New York