Companies will start testing a new authentication technology to allow cable subscribers to get access to premium cable TV content online.(author unknown)

We've known that TerreStar Networks and AT&T Mobility were in bed together for quite some time, but evidently the honeymoon phase is finally reaching its logical end. Reportedly, the carrier is gearing up to go live with an extension of service that'll involve satellites and a pinch of luck, giving select customers the ability to roam between its GSM network and TerreStar's satellite network. If all goes to plan (we're not holding our breath, for the record), AT&T will begin to resell satellite service and phones soon after the bird is launched some 22,000 miles above North America on July 1st. Once perched, it'll provide coverage across Canada and the US, including the US Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico. There's no definitive word on pricing, but we're hearing that sat phone service will run around $1 per minute while hybrid handsets will go for around $700 (unsubsidized). Pricey, sure, but how else do you plan to phone home on your next visit to the Pitcairn Islands?

Filed under: Cellphones

AT&T to go live with TerreStar sat phone services this year originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 24 Jun 2009 11:09:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Darren Murph

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

Sign up for the Boxee for Windows Alpha from Fileforum now.

Popular and sometimes controversial, media center software Boxee was, until recently, only available for OS X and Ubuntu users. Now the majority of the computing world will be able to get its hands on the freeware social media center as the alpha version for Windows XP, Vista, and Windows 7 has been added (build number 0.9.12.6570). This alpha period will last until later this year, when the first working beta is expected to be released.

The company's Avner Ronen said the goal is to update all three platforms at the same time.

Boxee lets users manage their collections of music, movies, and photos, as well as organize and browse the wealth of streaming musical and video content on the Web and makes for a formidable HTPC. In addition to bringing more content providers on board for the latest Boxee update (MLB.TV, Digg, Current), the Ubuntu platform running Nvidia graphics cards with VDPAU hardware acceleration can now play HD videos up to 1080p. Support for Ubuntu 9.04 (Jaunty Jackalope) has also been added, while support for 8.04 (Hardy Heron) has been dropped.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

Tim Conneally

Thanks to nearly ubiquitous caller ID, it's not difficult to see what number called, but the source of the call is a little murkier. WhoCallsMe? helps solve the mystery of the unknown caller.

WhoCallsMe? is a user-driven database of phone numbers. People in the same boat as you, receiving phone calls from annoying warranty scammers and their ilk, have taken the time to post the numbers and comments to the database.

The site doesn't limit itself to US only numbers, increasing its usefulness for non-US users. If you can't find a hit for an annoying repeat caller you're being harassed by, add it to the database so others can find it. Make sure to check out previously reviewed 800Notes another server for figuring out who keeps calling you. Plagued by annoying calls from strange numbers? Sound off in the comments below. WhoCallsMe? [via MakeUseOf]

Jason Fitzpatrick

Thanks to nearly ubiquitous caller ID, it's not difficult to see what number called, but the source of the call is a little murkier. WhoCallsMe? helps solve the mystery of the unknown caller.

WhoCallsMe? is a user-driven database of phone numbers. People in the same boat as you, receiving phone calls from annoying warranty scammers and their ilk, have taken the time to post the numbers and comments to the database.

The site doesn't limit itself to US only numbers, increasing its usefulness for non-US users. If you can't find a hit for an annoying repeat caller you're being harassed by, add it to the database so others can find it. Make sure to check out previously reviewed 800Notes another server for figuring out who keeps calling you. Plagued by annoying calls from strange numbers? Sound off in the comments below. WhoCallsMe? [via MakeUseOf]

Jason Fitzpatrick

Software giant takes another step into security market with a free anti-malware product(author unknown)

4 days earlier then I had in my previous schedule, Microsoft has now set July 13th for RTM “sign-off”

Sign off is the process where all divisions sign that they agree on the final code, which means the actual RTM build will be created a few days earlier, which is targeted on July 10th.

The general availability (GA) is set to October 22nd, this is when you can buy it in stores in a box or on new PC’s (OEM).

We can expect the RTM much earlier on MSDN, Technet and Volume Licensing download sites, probably a few days after July 13th.

Send via e-mail | Submit to Digg | Add to Live Favorites Steven Bink

Since Adobe Systems relaunched its AIR marketplace, I've been spending some considerable time there. There are so many great apps, it's hard to pick just a handful worth talking about. But after taking some time to sift through all my apps, I've selected my favorites.

Adobe AIR aps

Adobe Media Player If you're a Photoshop, Premiere, or Dreamweaver user, the Adobe Media Player will come in handy. The app lets you watch a slew of videos that train you how to use Adobe's applications.

Although there are videos for advanced users, there are quite a few videos that help Photoshop novices find their way around the sophisticated program. You can also save your favorite videos and go step-by-step during instruction. It's a great app for anyone who wants to be creative.

Adobe Media Player teaches you how to use Adobe programs.

(Credit: Screenshot by Don Reisinger/CNET)

AOL Top 100 Videos If you're a music lover, you'll love the AOL Top 100 Videos app. Instead of forcing you to go to YouTube to find videos or search through Google, AOL Top 100 Videos lets you watch them all right from the app. Besides having an outstanding design, the app lets you share clips with friends, create a "favorite videos" playlist, and pick the genre of music you like. The videos load quickly, and the quality is stellar.

AOL Top 100 Videos is perfect for music lovers.

(Credit: Screenshot by Don Reisinger/CNET)

Desktop iPhone Desktop iPhone is one of the coolest apps in this roundup. You can experience the iPhone user interface, check the weather, and record voice messages. But the Desktop iPhone app's best feature is the ability to make phone calls from the app with an account from online phone company Ribbit. More features, including Google Maps, Calculator, and other options haven't been enabled.

Desktop iPhone lets you use the iPhone UI.

(Credit: Screenshot by Don Reisinger/CNET)

DeskTube DeskTube is the best YouTube AIR application I've used. The app provides you with a full listing of all the recently featured videos on YouTube. You can search the video site, as well as see all the top videos. If you have a YouTube account, you can upload videos directly from the app instead of going to the YouTube page. The app even lets you share videos on Facebook and Twitter.

DeskTube lets you search YouTube, see the top favorites, and more.

(Credit: Screenshot by Don Reisinger/CNET)

Finetune Desktop Finetune Desktop is a beautifully designed music player. It finds all the music on your computer and allows you to play those tracks. You can also search the Finetune library of music to find songs you might like, and you can add those tracks to a custom playlist.

Finetune Desktop is a good-looking music playlist app.

(Credit: Screenshot by Don Reisinger/CNET)

Quakeshakes Tracking earthquakes can be difficult, but with the help of Quakeshakes, it won't be so bad. The Quakeshakes app lets you see where earthquakes have hit around the world in the past week. You can also see where the plates boundaries around the world are, so you can determine if you're in an area with a high potential of being affected by an earthquake. It's a really neat app that will come in handy.

Track Earthquakes in Quakeshakes.

(Credit: Screenshot by Don Reisinger/CNET)

Remember the Task Remember the Task is the Adobe AIR app version of the popular to-do list site Remember the Milk. Remember the Task lets you quickly input tasks you need to complete. When you do that, it adds that task to your online Remember the Milk profile. You can set priority, input time estimates, and add tags to your tasks. It's a simple app, but it's a quick and easy way to remember all the things you need to do.

Remember the Task ensures that you won't forget your to-do list.

(Credit: Screenshot by Don Reisinger/CNET)

TweetDeck TweetDeck is the best Twitter client in this roundup. The Adobe AIR app is designed well and allows you to see your Twitter stream, replies, and direct messages. It also makes it easy to send tweets to update your status. Thanks to its URL-shortening tool, you can quickly reduce the size of a link by choosing between Bit.ly, TinyURL, and others. TweetDeck also provides a link to TwitPic so you can tweet pictures. The app even lets you update your Facebook status.

TweetDeck is the best Twitter app in this roundup.

(Credit: Screenshot by Don Reisinger/CNET)

Twhirl Twhirl is another Adobe AIR app designed to provide you with access to your Twitter account. You can update your Twitter stream, view what others are saying, see your replies, and send direct messages. You can even search Twitter Search or TweetScan to see what's going on in the social network. Twhirl alerts you to replies made to your tweets. It also sends you alerts when it receives tweets. Twhirl isn't nearly as beautifully designed as TweetDeck, so keep that in mind when deciding between the services.

Twhirl is another Twitter app worth checking out.

(Credit: Screenshot by Don Reisinger/CNET)

Wikipedia Desktop Widget This Wikipedia application isn't going to shock you with its beauty. But it's a quick and easy way to access the online encyclopedia. After it's installed, you'll find just a simple Wikipedia search box. Input your query, and the app will open the Wikipedia page for you to view. You can then search the site again or access the citations in the app.

Wikipedia in a widget is just as useful.

(Credit: Screenshot by Don Reisinger/CNET)

My top 3

1. AOL Top 100 Videos: Any music lover will love this app.

2. TweetDeck: TweetDeck is the best AIR Twitter app. Period.

3. Desktube: Desktube brings you the video you want.

Don Reisinger

LoopApps is a one-stop shop for your PDF manipulation needs. From one site, you can convert, combine, and electronically sign documents.

We've covered some excellent web-based PDF tools before, including MergePDF, HTML to PDF Converter, and Free PDF to Word Converter, among others. LoopApps combines much of the functionality of those tools into one webapp.

You can convert multiple formats like TXT, RTF, and DOC files into PDF files, or pull directly from URLs you input. You can merge multiple files together in the order you want. Files can be electronically signed using the ESIGN service, conveniently available without an account. Almost all of the functions are available without a login, but signing up for a basic account allows you to access more advanced features like the ability to shift the page order in your documents. If you have a favorite web-based tool for document conversion and manipulation, sound off in the comments below.

LoopApps [via MakeUseOf]

Jason Fitzpatrick

Microsoft plans to only allow those who buy Windows 7 machines during its first eighteen months on the market to go back to XP. Will that be a headache for businesses?(author unknown)

Finance software maker announces a variety of short-term discounts in the wake of Microsoft's discontinuation of its Money product.(author unknown)

Forty-seven percent of U.S. adults surveyed by Gartner pay bills online. And number of Net-banking households to jump to 63 million by 2014, says Forrester.(author unknown)

OK, time to fess up. We know that a few of you (at least) forgot that the plug's getting pulled on analog broadcast TV a few sweet hours from now -- just like it totally slipped your mind the first time. So, what camp are you in? Either your hard work and preparation has paid off and you're among those lucky few million getting your after work Simpsons fix in all its digital glory, or soon you'll be relegated to watching your favorite shows through the windows of a Radio Shack. Either way, we're dying to know how your personal transition plans have fared.

View Poll

Poll: Are you ready for the digital TV transition? originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 11 Jun 2009 21:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Joseph L. Flatley

The price of superfast broadband is dropping, at least for Comcast customers. The cable giant launched its 50Mbps DOCSIS 3.0 "Extreme 50" service in Washington, DC and surrounding environs on Tuesday morning. At the same time, the price for the service nationwide is dropping from $139.95 to $99.95 for customers who subscribe to at least one other Comcast service (e.g., Digital Voice or cable TV).

It has been just over a year since Comcast flipped the switch on its first DOCSIS 3.0 deployment in the Twin Cities. Since then, the company has aggressively pushed out the gear into new areas with an eye towards covering 65 percent of its territory by the end of 2009.

Click here to read the rest of this article

eric@arstechnica.com (Eric Bangeman)

It unveils a faster version of the iPhone, as well as faster notebooks. It also showed off the upcoming Snow Leopard software, iPhone OS 3.0, and more.(author unknown)

According to an internal memo from computer super-store Best Buy (found by tech blog Engadget), consumers who purchase a new computer after June 26th will qualify for a free upgrade to Windows 7 when it's released October 22nd. For the rest of us looking to upgrade from Vista, the prices don't look bad (assuming the memo has it right): $49.99 for a Windows 7 Home Premium upgrade and $99.99 for a Windows 7 Professional upgrade. [Engadget]

Adam Pash

It's the case that never ends -- the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has issued a temporary delay of of the injunction and fine handed down yesterday in the EchoStar / TiVo lawsuit while it considers an appeal, meaning that DISH owners with older DVRs won't have to worry about losing their pause-and-rewind functionality at least for now. That pretty much means we're back in stasis with this one, with even more delay to come if the appeal is granted. That's cool, we needed a nap anyway.

Filed under: Home Entertainment

DISH / EchoStar DVR injunction temporarily put on hold by court originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 03 Jun 2009 19:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Nilay Patel

Dish Network DVRs can temporarily remain functioning despite Tuesday's contempt ruling.(author unknown)

Google Labs today released Google Squared, which, according to the search giant, "constructs a table of facts about any search category you specify"—though some searches produce distinctly better results than others.

The product is still pretty raw right now, but think of it sort of like Google's short-term answer to the very cool Wolfram Alpha's structured search—with results displayed in a spreadsheet format of sorts.

Google Squared is a search tool that helps you quickly build a collection of facts from the Web for any topic you specify.

• Facts about your topic are organized as a table of items and attributes (we call them "Squares" for fun).
• Customize these Squares to see just the items and attributes you're interested in.
• See the websites that served as sources for the information in your Square.
• Save and share Squares with others.

As I said, right now the strength of results varies. One search for digital cameras, for example, produced a list of many items—viewed seven rows at a time—while the above pictured "cheese" search came up with several empty fields.

The fields themselves vary according to your search. In the digital camera query, Google Squared automatically included a product name, along with an image, description, price, design, and author fields. In addition to name, image, and description, the cheese search offered texture, milk, and country fields. Google Squared lets you delete an option, add columns or click on a link to see the next 10 results.

You can also start with an empty square and sign-in to save your selections. Running your mouse over a field will produce the source; Wikipedia is a recurring one.

Try out Squared for yourself and let us know what you think and how it stacks up against Wolfram Alpha—if at all. We'll update the post once Google provides an official announcement. Update: Google has now updated its official blog with a post about Google Squared, which also includes the above demo.

Google Squared [Google Labs]

Azadeh Ensha

Google Labs today released Google Squared, which, according to the search giant, "constructs a table of facts about any search category you specify"—though some searches produce distinctly better results than others.

The product is still pretty raw right now, but think of it sort of like Google's short-term answer to the very cool Wolfram Alpha's structured search—with results displayed in a spreadsheet format of sorts.

Google Squared is a search tool that helps you quickly build a collection of facts from the Web for any topic you specify.

• Facts about your topic are organized as a table of items and attributes (we call them "Squares" for fun).
• Customize these Squares to see just the items and attributes you're interested in.
• See the websites that served as sources for the information in your Square.
• Save and share Squares with others.

As I said, right now the strength of results varies. One search for digital cameras, for example, produced a list of many items—viewed seven rows at a time—while the above pictured "cheese" search came up with several empty fields.

The fields themselves vary according to your search. In the digital camera query, Google Squared automatically included a product name, along with an image, description, price, design, and author fields. In addition to name, image, and description, the cheese search offered texture, milk, and country fields. Google Squared lets you delete an option, add columns or click on a link to see the next 10 results.

You can also start with an empty square and sign-in to save your selections. Running your mouse over a field will produce the source; Wikipedia is a recurring one.

Try out Squared for yourself and let us know what you think and how it stacks up against Wolfram Alpha—if at all. We'll update the post once Google provides an official announcement. Update: Google has now updated its official blog with a post about Google Squared, which also includes the above demo.

Google Squared [Google Labs]

Azadeh Ensha