While Microsoft isn’t about to flip-flop to Blu-ray Disc any time soon, the company’s gaming group expressed that it will consider supporting the competing format with the Xbox 360 should its consumer base demand so.

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A study conducted last year by the Electronic Frontier Foundation and independently verified by the Associated Press revealed that Comcast interferes with BitTorrent and Gnutella sessions by sending TCP “reset” packets to users. Despite the growing body of unambiguous evidence, Comcast still denies allegations that it specifically targets BitTorrent.

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He said ministers were also looking at possibilities including the greater use of more renewable energy sources.

Speaking during prime minister’s questions, he said the UK would become more “independent” of other countries in supplying its own power.

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Olmert told Bush the “bond between the state of Israel and United States of America is unshakeable,” and described Bush “as our strongest and most trusted ally in the battle against terrorism.” Israeli President Shimon Peres said, “We greet you as a great friend.”

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It’s the first time in more than six months that such a rocket has been fired from Lebanon into Israel.

Israeli munitions experts have examined the rockets, which landed in the northern city of Shlomi, police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said.

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But the president of the European Union insisted the bloc still had the momentum to keep expanding despite higher inflation and a credit crisis that may curb the region’s recent surge.

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As many as 20 companies that are members of the HD DVD Promotion Group could be preparing to remove their names from the alliance’s 130-strong membership list, The Times has learnt.

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The founder of Microsoft Corp used his swansong to the technology industry on Sunday to spell out a vision of a “digital decade” of telephones, televisions and cars that respond to voice and touch.

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The cut will bring the UK into line with the charges in the rest of Europe.

Apple currently charges 79 pence per download in the UK, compared with 99 euro cents (74p) in the rest of Europe.

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The shouts and wild applause, and willingness to knock on doors and work on telephone banks late in the evening transformed the Iowa caucuses.

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The attack came on the day before President Bush is scheduled to arrive in Israel in support of ongoing peace talks between Israeli and Palestinian leaders.

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The restructuring plan will cost $530 million, up from a previous estimate of $500 million, of which $460 million will have been taken through the fourth quarter of 2007. The remainder will be recognized by the end of 2009.

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ViaSat and Eutelsat are cooperating around ViaSat’s Ka-band SurfBeam networking system and a common wholesale business model to offer service through ISPs, telecommunication companies, and direct-to-home television providers, the US company said.

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“Under the terms of the Memorandum of Understanding, SNIM and ArcelorMittal will jointly develop a large iron ore mining project, using the El Agareb Iron ore resource in Mauritania,” a statement from the company said.

The move is part of a broader push by Japan’s consumer goods manufacturers to “add value” to their products, in the face of stiff price competition from Asian and US rivals.

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The two rival camps have divided consumers since the two incompatible systems were launched.

But Blu-ray supporters are touting the decision by Warner Bros to shift allegiance as a tipping point.

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Millions of people already “rip” discs to their computers and move the files to MP3 players, although the process is technically against copyright law.

Intellectual property minister Lord Triesman said the law should be changed so it “keeps up with the times”.

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Vehicle sales fell 7.6% to 3.434 million units, its fourth consecutive annual decline and the lowest level since 1972 when 3.406 million vehicles were sold, according to wire reports which cited data released by the Japan Automobile Dealers Association.

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As the plane was taxiing, the airline’s board was getting ready for a momentous decision. Maxjet, one of a new wave of business-class-only carriers plying the Atlantic, had for several weeks been running dangerously low on cash. Last-ditch efforts to find new investors had proved fruitless.

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The price is 42% above Fast’s closing share price on 4 January and the shares have risen close to the offer level.

Fast’s board of directors have recommended that shareholders accept the offer and says that holders of 37% of its stock have already done so.

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Read full story.

The troops crossed into northern Iraq apparently in pursuit of Kurdish rebels two days after the Turkish military launched an air and missile assault across the border.

Abdullah said “a small group estimated at about 300 troops” crossed about two to three kilometers into northern Iraq. (more…)

Tymoshenko won the vote with the minimum number of 226 votes, Ukrinform said.

She had failed to win the election a week earlier after receiving only 225 votes, but the 450-member parliament then decided to change the voting procedure by rejecting the electronic system in favor of a show of hands. (more…)

The four were charged with planting crude bombs on two trains at the Cologne station on July 31, 2006.

The bombs, found later, failed to explode because of faulty detonators. (more…)

Dating Web site Match.com, owned by media mogul Barry Diller’s InterActiveCorp conglomerate, plans to launch two new features this week that bring greater social networking capabilities to its more than 15 million Match members and to the roughly 58 million active users of Facebook. (more…)

The Czech IPTV launch has proved a big success for O2 and its owner, Telefonica, since it launched in September 2006, attracting 70,000 customers so far. It offers more than 50 channels with content from leading producers including Sony, Disney, Warner Bros and HBO, the US TV producer behind The Sopranos.

O2 has been expected to launch IPTV services in the UK after it snapped up the small broadband player Be, which has the fastest network in the country. Although O2 has launched broadband services, the capacity of the Be network would allow for a robust IPTV service to be carried to customers. (more…)

James Lin, a senior analyst at MDB Capital Group, believes that Nintendo could be selling twice the 1.8 million Wiis it is manufacturing a month.

The $1.3 billion that Mr Lin estimates the group is leaving on the table in the run-up to Christmas by underestimating the market for Wii hardware does not include sales of games software for the console, traditionally the source of the lion’s share of profits in the industry. (more…)

Their device, called a point contract transistor, conducted electricity and amplified signals, a job then currently handled by bulky and delicate vacuum tubes and other components.

Their colleague William Shockley followed soon after with junction transistors. Although Bardeen and Brattain were first, Shockley’s device became the basis for a scientific and industrial juggernaut. (more…)

The move comes at the direction of the court-appointed trustee who has the authority to affect the divestiture of Sparrows Point, Mittal said.

The deal was announced in August but delays have caused Esmark’s agreements with its partners in E2 Acquisition Corp. to lapse. This raised the possibility of a revised proposal for financing the $1.35 billion transaction. The closing date in the purchase agreement was Nov. 30, and that date was extended to Dec. 11. (more…)

Around a foot (30 centimeters) of snow had fallen on parts of the Chicago area, with 10 inches (25 centimeters) in Vermont. The U.S. National Weather Service on Sunday posted winter storm warnings from Michigan and Indiana all the way to Maine. Meteorologists said 18 inches (46 centimeters) was possible in northern New England; more snow was still expected in parts of Michigan. (more…)

A lawsuit has been filed in Weifang, a city in eastern China’s Shandong province, seeking 10m yuan ($1.4m; £0.7m) in damages.

Danone has claimed Wahaha has been illegally selling copies of its drinks, contrary to their joint venture terms. (more…)

The Ministry for Emergency Situations. ministry said improved weather was helping the effort to clear the spill, which environmentalists fear could damage the area for years.

About 2,000 workers are being called on to clean up the oil which has washed up over the past few days. (more…)

CNN Worldwide, a unit of Time Warner, said it would invest almost $10 million to add 15 or 16 correspondents to its staff of 150. (more…)

Carlsberg called the new offer a “full and fair” price, pointing out that it valued the group at a considerable premium to its value as an independent entity.

The increased offer sent Scottish & Newcastle shares 3 per cent higher to 766p in early trade. (more…)

Freight drivers began a 62 hour strike at 1100 GMT, and are expected to be joined by passenger train drivers at 0100 GMT on Thursday.

Drivers’ union GDL is demanding a 31% pay rise, but the national rail operator Deutsche Bahn is not prepared to improve on its current 10% offer. (more…)

It is one of several ventures Google is making into the wireless market as it tries to expand its Internet advertising empire to cellphones. In addition to forging partnerships with wireless carriers, Google is also talking to software developers and handset makers, these people said. Official agreements could be reached during the next two weeks. (more…)

The Mountain View-based company’s shares traded as high as $704.79 before falling back to $700.04 in afternoon trading, up $5.27 for the session. It took less than a month for the stock to leap from $600 to $700, building upon a fervor that has lifted Google’s market value by more than 30 percent since mid-September. (more…)

Leopard may have 300 new features, but it is unable to run Java 1.6, even though that same version is available for both Windows and Linux. That has taken some Mac users by surprise, including some on this user forum on Apple’s website. Several users there say 1.6 is so central to the development work they do on a daily basis that they will be forced to use an OS other than Leopard if it remains incompatible. (more…)

For a while the HP forum, here, has been all a-buzz with problems about the lappies’ Wi-fis not working. The wireless card detected the network with all the efficiency of a blind person trying to find a black cat in a dark room that was not there.

However there had not been a dicky bird from HP until hacks at ZDNet wrote an attack on the outfit for ignoring its users. (more…)

To me, the ultrasmall, ultralightweight computer remains the Holy Grail. Unfortunately, you still pay a premium for miniaturization. The $399 Asus Eee PC 701 (available November 1) shatters that perception, though. For a fraction of the cost of competing ultramobile computing devices, Asus delivers a highly functional portable, without the fancy specs. (more…)

Huchison 3G, branded as “3″ in the U.K., is offering free calls between Skype users through the 3G mobile phone, which goes on sale Friday in the U.K. The Skypephone will be released by the end of the year in Australia, Denmark, Hong Kong, Italy, Ireland, Macau and Sweden.
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Users who want SSH access can do so by installing the BSD subsystem, Community Sources and then Open SSH, the last of which allows Finder drag-and-drop access to iPhone/iPod contents. All of these do however require a desktop computer to be available, as well as more technical knowledge. Jailbreakme also does not provide an easy means of installing the third-party software it is meant to open access for. (more…)

Within hours of Leopard’s Friday debut, users began reporting a “blue screen of death” that appeared after running the default Upgrade option. On affected Macs, the blue screen stymied the required restart after the install, locking users out of their computers. (more…)

Alexander Pichushkin was convicted of murdering 48 people, but insisted he had killed 60 in his quest for one death for each square on a chessboard - a total of 64.

The sentence was the harshest possible under Russian law. (more…)

The group arranged for an independent UK lab to test the phone’s components. “An independent scientific laboratory tested 18 internal and external components of the iPhone and confirmed the presence of brominated compounds in half the samples, including in the phone’s antenna, in which they made up 10% of the total weight of the flexible circuit board,” according to a statement on Greenpeace’s website. “A mixture of toxic phthalates was found to make up 1.5% of the plastic (PVC) coating of the headphone cables.” (more…)

To coincide with the NVIDIA’s GeForce 8800 GT launch scheduled for later today, Intel jumped the gun today with its immediate embargo lift on its high end 3.0 GHz 45nm quad-core Penryn QX9650 processor.

The Extreme Edition QX9650 desktop processor is Intel’s first 45nm offering. True to Intel’s “tick-tock” approach to processor design, all initial 45nm processor offerings will be process node shrinks of the Core 2 Duo architecture. The only feature difference between these processors and the Core 2 Duo Kentsfield processors announced last year is the inclusion of additional L2 cache, SSE4 instructions and higher clock frequencies. (more…)

Some attempts to upgrade to Leopard were stymied after the installation process was almost complete and users attempted to restart their machines. A long thread on Apple’s discussion forums outlined the problems, in which their Macs would get hung up on the initial boot screen. That screen happens to be blue, inviting comparisons to the infamous Windows “blue screen of death” encountered when Windows crashes. (more…)

In other words, MTV Networks, the Viacom division that encompasses the MTV, VH1, and CMT brands as well as a host of other pop culture channels, is aiming to renew its focus on music by bringing lyrics to the forefront. This will begin rolling out in November and is expected to be complete by the middle of 2008. (more…)

Hulu is a web platform for viewing and sharing TV shows, movies, and clips. The programming selection (via newTeeVee PDF) for Hulu on launch is pretty impressive. Content providers include Fox, NBC, E!, Bravo, FX, SciFi, USA, and Universal. Hopefully we will start to see some more TV networks and movie studios jump on this because I’ll admit that I was a little disappointed to see that a couple of my personal favorites, Lost and Adult Swim weren’t included in the list. (more…)

Ars has heard from multiple Comcast employees since the story broke, and they’re all telling us the same thing. They’re supposed to tell customers asking whether Comcast limits access to BitTorrent that the ISP doesn’t block access to any application, including BitTorrent. Furthermore, tech support workers are supposed to toe the party line at all times, or they’ll be fired. (more…)

The ex-Hollywood actor said in a GQ interview that he had not taken drugs, even though he was shown smoking a joint in 70s documentary Pumping Iron.

“That is not a drug. It’s a leaf,” he told the magazine. He added: “My drug was pumping iron, trust me.” (more…)

The new policy started Oct. 25, said Apple spokeswoman Natalie Kerris. Before then, there was no cash restriction and the purchase limit was five per person.

“Customer response to the iPhone has been off the charts, and limiting iPhone sales to two per customer helps us ensure that there are enough iPhones for people who are shopping for themselves or buying a gift,” Ms. Kerris said. (more…)

The Thai company, privately-held Global Care Solutions Thailand Ltd., designed and developed its software in collaboration with Bangkok’s Bumrungrad Hospital PCL, one of the world’s leading international hospitals. (more…)

China, a permanent member of the Security Council that can veto any U.N. resolution, is expected to overtake Germany as Iran’s biggest trading partner this year. Germany and other European countries had consistently been Iran’s largest trading partners for more than a decade, according to the Iran Investment Monthly. (more…)

Acer is known as the top PC vendor in Taiwan, but here in the United States Acer doesn’t give much competition to likes of HP and Dell.

In August, DailyTech reported that Acer announced it would purchase Gateway for $710 million USD. The move specifically allows Acer to gain market share in the United States. The purchase price raised the ire of some Gateway shareholders who claim that Gateway was worth well over the selling price Acer paid. In September, Gateway shareholders had filed two separate lawsuits over the purchase. (more…)

In early Asian trading on Monday, US light crude broke through $93 a barrel for the first time, hitting $93.20 before easing back slightly to $93.06.

London’s Brent also hit a new high of $89.90 a barrel, up $1.21. (more…)

One-club man
Aside from a single season at CS Târgovi?te in 1981/82, Dobrin dedicated his entire career to his local side, Arges, making his first appearances for the club at the age of 15 and continuing to work for them as a coach and administrator after he retired. He helped the club to lift their only two Romanian titles in 1972 and 1979.

Bad luck
Regarded as the most talented Romanian player of his age, he scored six goals in 48 international appearances but suffered two major setbacks in his career. He did not get to play in a FIFA World Cup match – as an unused squad player in all three of Romania’s games at the 1970 finals – and was widely believed to have been denied a move to Real Madrid CF in the 1970s by Romanian authorities.

Read full story.

“Due to the restructuring of the Playing for Good Foundation, the philanthropic trip to Rwanda that the foundation had previously planned with Paris Hilton has been postponed,” the organization said Thursday in a statement.

“Paris has been a loyal and gracious supporter of Playing For Good but the foundation has to regrettably reschedule this trip. Playing for Good would like to thank Ms. Hilton for her generosity and her continued support of this initiative and is looking forward to rescheduling the trip with her at a later time.” (more…)

Spears was not required to attend the hearing on the misdemeanor charges stemming from an Aug. 6 parking lot mishap.

Superior Court Judge Susan Speer dismissed the hit-and-run charge after a lawyer for the pop star said his client had paid an undisclosed amount to a woman whose car was hit in a Studio City parking lot.

A charge of driving without a license was not dismissed and a pretrial hearing was scheduled for Nov. 26. Speer accepted a not guilty plea entered on Spears’ behalf by lawyer Michael Flanagan to that charge. (more…)

Lohan’s 21-year-old daughter Lindsay, star of “Mean Girls,” “Freaky Friday” and other films, has said that her father’s behavior and her parents’ divorce have caused her to act out.

Michael and estranged wife Dina Lohan settled their long-simmering divorce in August, months after he left a New York state prison where he served almost two years for drunken driving and other charges.

He reunited with Lindsay in September after a 3 1/2-year estrangement. She had entered a drug and alcohol treatment center the previous month after reaching a plea deal on misdemeanor drunken driving and cocaine charges. (more…)

As flames continued to light up the sky, most of these evacuees have no choice but to wait out what may be the worst fire in San Diego’s history, reports CBS News correspondent Hattie Kauffman.

By day three, the dozen wildfires had burned 1,200 homes and businesses and set 245,957 acres — 384 square miles — ablaze, and the destruction may only be the start for the region. Tuesday’s forecast called for hotter temperatures and more explosive Santa Ana gusts. (more…)

Fears grew north of Los Angeles that the winds may fan three wildfires into one monster blaze, with too few resources available to fight it.

More than 56,000 homes are threatened by the three fires.

In San Diego County, 300,000 evacuees sought refuge in shelters, schools and stadiums as fires pushed into new areas Tuesday. (more…)