Universal gets Zune pay-off

Microsoft will pay Universal Music a cut of proceeds from its forthcoming Zune portable media player, in a deal that will give Microsoft more freedom to allow music sharing between Zune users. Neither company would reveal the financial details of the agreement, which news agencies say will be formally announced later today. Chris Stephenson, general manager of global marketing for Microsoft Entertainment, told AP that the company is seeking similar deals with the other major record companies. ...more

Bank domain names overdrawn - F-Secure

Computer security firm F-Secure has done an survey into the number of bank names that have been registered as Internet domains, but not by the banks themselves. A simple search across the .com, . ...more

Media Center PCs prone to new DoS attack flaw

Microsoft has issued a security advisory over a flaw discovered in Remote Desktop Services, a component of Windows found in versions of Windows XP, Windows Server 2003 and Windows 2000. The vulnerability, described in advisory number 904797, could enable a limited denial of service attack - it can be exploited to cause the Windows system to crash via a specially crafted RDP (Remote Desktop Protocol) request. This protocol, which is used for example by Terminal Services, allows users to create a virtual session onto their desktop computer, allowing access to data and applications from another computer. ...more

BPI records music download boom

Music fans switching to legal music downloads are fuelling a digital sales boom, according to new figures from the UK record industry's trade association, the BPI. The digital music market has grown at a rapid rate, with 5.7 million tracks sold in 2004 compared to virtually zero in 2003 and sales continue to snowball. ...more

Price cuts for the Visor Deluxe

Handspring has announced it is to cut the price of its Visor Deluxe PDA from ?199 to ?169 inc VAT. No other models have been reduced, but the chop comes after speculation following Palm's similar price cuts across the older models in its PDA range. Likewise, Handspring has recently brought new models to market, such as the higher end Visor Edge. ...more