Articles by Chris Maxcer

The biggest problem with online streaming video is that one must be connected to the Internet to view it. That problem may be mitigated by Adobe's new media player. The company on Monday announced at the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) trade show in Las Vegas a new Flash-focused, application-based player that will let consumers download and view content online or offline...

Microsoft has pushed back its plans to deliver the much-anticipated public beta of its next-generation server virtualization software, code-named "Viridian." Instead of delivering the beta in the first half of the year, Microsoft will offer it up to the public sometime in the second half of 2007 The company still plans to deliver its Windows Server...

In response to customer feedback from the original beta version, Nintendo and Opera Software on Thursday beefed up the Internet Channel on Nintendo's Wii game console with a faster and more functional version of the Opera Web browser Designed for browsing the Web via the Wii remote and the user's television, the Opera-powered Internet channel now l...

Google has teamed up with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) to promote awareness of recent atrocities in the Darfur region of Sudan The USHMM has assembled photographs, data and eyewitness testimony to form a Global Awareness layer in Google Earth, which Google has enabled by default for all 200 million Google Earth users....

The Indiana Court of Appeals has ruled that a student's obscenity-filled MySpace post blasting a school principal is protected free speech. The student, who is identified as "A.B." in court documents, was originally placed on probation by a lower court judge in Indiana after she commented about her body piercings and school policy on a MySpace page created by another student...

As part of its latest enhancement to the Xbox 360, Microsoft announced Monday it is bringing Windows Live Messenger instant messaging features to Xbox Live, letting gamers text chat with more than 200 million Windows Live Messenger users The new IM feature, which will be delivered in a firmware update scheduled for May 7, will let Xbox Live members...

Leading IT vendors have proposed a new Fiber Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) standard to the T11 Committee of the American National Standards Institute (ANSI). The new FCoE specification is designed to let organizations transmit Storage Area Network (SAN) traffic over Ethernet networks, which would give organizations more flexible options for deploying and managing existing SANs...

Mozilla Labs is working on the next generation of browser innovation, and it's all about integrating massively popular social networking features directly into the browser Mozilla Labs, a virtual research and development organization stemming from the Mozilla Foundation, is calling its latest project "The Coop," and it comes from one of the most co...

Josh Wolf, an independent and freelance video blogger who refused to turn over his footage of a San Francisco street protest and testify about it to a grand jury, is now out of jail after spending a record-setting 226 days behind bars. Wolf spent more time in jail than any other journalist being held in contempt To get out, Wolf had to cut a compro...

The world's largest online social networking site, MySpace, is leaping into politics The site plans to host a virtual primary Jan. 1 and 2, 2008, in advance of traditional bellwether political events such as the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary....

AT&T, Qwest and Verizon won the right to bid for US$20 billion in federal telecommunications contracts, the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) announced Thursday Noticeably absent from the list is Sprint, which previously held the rights to bid for U.S. government telecommunications contracts....

AT&T, Qwest and Verizon won the right to bid for US$20 billion in federal telecommunications contracts, the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) announced Thursday Noticeably absent from the list is Sprint, which previously held the rights to bid for U.S. government telecommunications contracts....

AT&T, Qwest and Verizon won the right to bid for US$20 billion in federal telecommunications contracts, the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) announced Thursday Noticeably absent from the list is Sprint, which previously held the rights to bid for U.S. government telecommunications contracts....

In May, Yahoo will go to infinity and beyond. The world's largest free e-mail provider will give its 250 million users unlimited e-mail storage, up from its current offer of a single gigabyte After the system is put in place, Yahoo inboxes will apparently be impossible to fill. The offer trumps the storage capacities of rivals such as Google and Mi...

The Linux Foundation announced on Tuesday its new board of directors, all of whom were chosen to represent the key stakeholders from every corner of the Linux universe, according to the organization The diverse group includes members from big companies like IBM, Oracle, Intel and Novell, as well as prominent individuals such as Ubuntu Founder Mark ...

IBM researchers are touting a new, tiny optical transceiver chipset that can move data at speeds up to 160 GB per second, which is eight times faster than previous optical components The new chipset generates fast data transfer rates because it uses light pulses to move data instead of sending electrons over wires. If the infrastructure is in place...

Even though interest in server-side Linux has been steadily growing in enterprises and organizations around the world, desktop and laptop-based Linux solutions have faced a steady series of uphill climbs For starters, demand for end-user and consumer Linux operating systems is sporadic at best, partially because most of the people who want Linux on...

The industry-rocking news that NBC and News Corp. plan to start their own video broadcasting Internet site -- which will include partnerships with AOL, MSN, MySpace and Yahoo, not to mention Fox, which is owned by News Corp. -- has the potential to radically reshape the online video world The yet-to-be-named site will compete with Google's immensel...

In its latest move to promote its plan to merge with XM Satellite Radio, Sirius Satellite Radio says it will offer lower-priced packages to consumers if the companies are allowed to join The goal, Sirius noted in a federal filing, would be to offer customers fewer channels at a price less than the current basic package of US$12.95 per month, with t...

One of the most astounding IT stories of the week comes courtesy of a computer technician from the Alaska Department of Revenue who wiped out a disc drive containing an account worth US$38 billion, the Associated Press reported The unnamed computer technician, while reportedly doing routine maintenance work, accidentally deleted applicant informati...