Articles by Fred J. Aun

The vow Tuesday by Apple CEO Steve Jobs -- that he would willingly remove copyright protection from songs sold at his company's iTunes store -- was cheered by those who've been arguing that digital rights management (DRM) systems are a failure Advocates for music-sharing freedom said they expect music labels will eventually abandon the practice, bu...

Eastman Kodak shoved its way into the tough world of desktop printing Tuesday by tipping a sacred cow of the segment: the overpriced inkjet cartridge For a decade, other printer makers relied on the model pioneered by Gillette, which gave away its razors but charged customers a premium to buy replacement blades. Printer companies, including market ...

In a wide-ranging, sometimes forceful and frequently upbeat e-mail to employees, Dell founder Michael Dell said he doesn't forget what was involved in creating a company and making it succeed. The e-mail, made public Saturday by a Texas newspaper, was sent on Friday, the same day Dell returned as CEO of the company "I remember what it's like to sta...

Microsoft has acknowledged a clever person might be able to remotely exploit the voice recognition features of the new Vista operating system to gain access to a PC, but a company representative downplayed the seriousness of the problem The company's response was posted on the Microsoft Security Response Center (MSRC) blog. MSRC program manager Adr...

After this week's arrest of a California man accused of selling pirated copies of Microsoft and Adobe Systems software, police said the suspect had brazenly offered the disks on eBay and on personal Web sites. This latest case highlights an ongoing trend that software makers are battling "It may take a lot of guts, but there are a lot of people wi...

Online auction giant eBay is reportedly cracking down on the sale of "virtual assets" won in online games like "World of Warcraft," a move that comes as good news to other companies making money by hosting virtual asset sales and bartering Millions of people worldwide are avid players of the online games. Over time, as they gain expertise, players ...

Priceline, Travelocity and Cingular have settled a lawsuit over their secret use of adware Internet software programs as marketing tools filed by New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo As part of the settlement, Priceline, Travelocity and Cingular agreed to pay US$35,000, $30,000 and $35,000, respectively, to New York to cover penalties and i...

Despite a 38 percent drop in quarterly profits when compared to its 2005 fourth-quarter results, Verizon Communications' performance exceeded Wall Street estimates for the second consecutive quarter largely due to its strength in the cell phone sector Verizon said it earned US$1 billion in the final quarter of 2006, or 35 cents per share. While tha...

A month after a miffed hacker told the world he had figured out how to copy a supposedly copy-protected high-definition movie disc, the consortium backing the encryption system admitted all was not well in its world The Advanced Access Content System Licensing Authority (AACS LA) on its Web site stated that it "confirmed that AACS Title Keys have a...

Gamers in Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Australasia have two months to save their money for a PlayStation 3 as Sony Computer Entertainment Europe (SCEE) plans to launch the new console in those regions on March 23 While consumers might still be upset about the debt they accumulated during the holidays, Sony seems confident they'll be ready to...

If Microsoft really wanted to make a splash with the upcoming international rollout of its Live OneCare antivirus, anti-spyware, firewall and PC tune-up product, it might have picked a bad day to do it The new version of Live OneCare will ship on Jan. 30, which happens to be the same day Microsoft starts selling Windows Vista, its heavily-hyped new...

Bad news outweighs the good in the new "Threat Report 2007" issued Monday by Sophos, the global IT security company The good news, which might provide significant hope, is that computer users are finally refraining from opening attachments connected to unsolicited e-mail....

In the competitive world of digital music download services, Ruckus Network upped the ante by announcing it is offering free music downloads to any college student. The Herndon, Va.-based company gets its revenue from selling advertising instead of charging users to download files Under the new system, any student with an e-mail address ending in "...

"Storm Worm" is the name that seems to have stuck for a massive malware attack that spread Thursday and Friday by teasing e-mail recipients to open infected messages supposedly about European wind storms The attackers use of the subject line "230 dead as storm batters Europe" was an effective way to lure careless computer users into opening mail in...

In announcing Thursday the release of its new Prada phone, LG Electronics didn't claim it was competing with the heavily-hyped Apple iPhone scheduled to be released in June It didn't have to. The media did it on its own with headlines boldly suggesting the iPhone already had a competitor....

In the 2005 movie "The World's Fastest Indian," actor Anthony Hopkins is blindingly propelled across the Bonneville Salt Flats on an old Indian motorcycle. Don't be surprised if we soon see TV ads bySeagate Technology featuring a Sir Anthony look-alike piloting a piece of computer hardware In announcing its new Savvio 15K hard drive on Tuesday, Sea...

When your company name is already synonymous with "search the Internet," it's safe to say you're king of that realm. Further proof that Google tops the heap of search engines came Tuesday, as comScore Networks reported the company increased its share of the U.S. Web search pie by 0.4 percent last month The increase means Google enjoyed a 47.3 perce...