Top Items:
Brian Jones / Office XML Formats:
Standardizing the Microsoft Office Open XML formats — Today we are making a really important announcement about our XML formats. We are going to bring the Microsoft Office Open XML formats to a standards body with the intention of eventually making the formats an ISO standard.
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Martin LaMonica / ZDNet:
Microsoft to standardize Office formats … Microsoft intends to submit file formats for its new Office 12 applications to the European standards body ECMA International. The company hopes this will allay concern about its level of control over document formats.
Scobleizer / Microsoft Geek Blogger:
Microsoft standardizes Office formats - Jean Paoli interview — I just interviewed Jean Paoli, co-inventor of XML (he usually works a few doors down from my office in building 18, so we talk often). He has been bragging to me for days now about what we just announced 22 minutes ago …
Discussion:
Don Dodge on The Next …
Maija Palmer / Financial Times:
Microsoft to give Office access to rivals — Microsoft will on Tuesday announce it is opening up access to its Office file formats to competitors, as part of a move to ensure the software giant does not lose lucrative government markets for its Office software.
Discussion:
MacSlash
EFF: Breaking News:
EFF Files Class Action Lawsuit Against Sony BMG — Company Should Repair Damage to Customers Caused by CD Software — The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), along with two leading national class action law firms, today filed a lawsuit against Sony BMG, demanding that the company repair …
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Matt Daily / Reuters:
Texas sues Sony BMG for spyware violations — HOUSTON (Reuters) - Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott filed a civil lawsuit on Monday against Sony BMG Music Entertainment (6758.T) for hiding "spyware" software on its compact discs in a bid to thwart music copying.
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Companies I'd like to Profile (but don't exist) — There are companies I review every day that I don't write about. Reasons vary - it's been done already and the product isn't even as good as what's been done, its a mostly or totally one-way application, or it isn't consumer focused …
Discussion:
Web 2.0 Explorer
microsoft.com:
Xbox 360 Arrival Spawns Midnight Madness Frenzy — More than 4,500 retailers will open at 12:01 a.m. to sell the next-generation video game console. — REDMOND, Wash. — Nov. 21, 2005 — In less than 24 hours, gamers and adrenaline junkies alike will converge on thousands of retail outlets …
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Peter Lewis / CNN:
Should you wait for the PS3? — Even if the Xbox 360 is a rousing success, Sony will likely still dominate the console universe. — NEW YORK (FORTUNE) - More than 90 million PlayStation 2 consoles have been sold worldwide since the PS2's debut in 2000, compared with some 25 million Microsoft Xboxes sold since 2001.
Discussion:
Kotaku
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Don Dodge / Don Dodge on The Next Big Thing:
SSE - Simple Sharing Extensions - A Microsoft innovation on RSS — Ray Ozzie and the team at Microsoft is working on an exciting new innovation to RSS called SSE, Simple Sharing Extensions. There is a draft specification in place, and sample code will be ready soon.
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Saul Hansell / New York Times:
AOL Joins Start-Up Company to Offer Web Video Distribution — America Online reached an unusual arrangement yesterday with a start-up company that will allow almost any producer of video content to distribute programming on its service, splitting revenue from advertising or fees.
New York Times:
Google's Shopping Service to List User's Local Stores — Google executives said last night that the company planned to move quickly to capitalize on its new Google Base database service, adding a feature that lets merchants provide local shopping information.
microsoft.com:
Microsoft Security Advisory (911302) — Vulnerability in the way Internet Explorer Handles onLoad Events Could Allow Remote Code Execution — Microsoft is investigating new public reports of vulnerability in Microsoft Internet Explorer on Microsoft Windows 98, on Windows 98 Second Edition …
John Hudson / Wired News:
Monster Scope to Dwarf Rivals — Astronomers are preparing to build the world's largest telescope that could be 100 times more powerful than the Hubble and will peer back to the very beginning of the universe. — The new TMT (Thirty-Meter Telescope) will be the first of a new generation …
Discussion:
Geek News Central …
Ben Edelman:
Cleaning Up Sony's Rootkit Mess — Late last month, Windows expert Mark Russinovich revealed Sony installing a rootkit to hide its "XCP" DRM (digital rights management) software as installed on users' PCs. The DRM software isn't something a typical user would want; the "rights" …
David A. Vise / Washington Post:
World Digital Library Planned — Library of Congress Envisions Collection To Bridge Cultures — The Library of Congress is launching a campaign today to create the World Digital Library, an online collection of rare books, manuscripts, maps, posters, stamps and other materials from its holdings …
Discussion:
TeleRead
Chris Pratley / Chris Pratley's OneNote Blog:
Out and About with OneNote Mobile — As part of our ongoing mission to capture all the information you need to keep, it makes a heck of a lot of sense to let you capture information while you're on the go away from your desk - even without your laptop. As you may know, the current version …
Discussion:
jkOnTheRun
Steve Dowling / apple.com:
Apple Announces Long-Term Supply Agreements for Flash Memory — CUPERTINO, California—November 21, 2005—Apple® today announced that it has reached long-term supply agreements with Hynix, Intel, Micron, Samsung Electronics and Toshiba to secure the supply of NAND flash memory through 2010.
