CES: Sony gives energy to power-line home networking

Sony is leading a group of companies in a return to the power-line networking fray. This form of plug and play is an old goal, but Panasonic, Mitsubishi Electric and Sony are making new efforts to support the use of power lines for audio, video and data networking. The CE-Powerline Communication Alliance (CEPCA) is seeking to agree a common specifications for power line communication (PLC) networking. ...more

European mobile companies queue up for iTunes phone

With Apple seemingly poised to unveil Motorola's iTunes phone at its 'special event' later this week in San Francisco and announce that network operator Cingular will carry the phone in the US, European mobile companies are now queuing up to bring the phone across the Atlantic. O2 is reputedly looking to offer the phone in the UK, while German giant T-Mobile said at a Berlin tradeshow that it plans to carry it. All parties declined to comment. ...more

McAfee and CNet heads fall to stock sham probe

The stock options scandal sweeping corporate America has claimed two more high profile victims - the CEOs of McAfee and CNet Networks. George Samenuk, chief executive at the computer security firm McAfee and Shelby Bonnie of CNet - which owns Downloads.com and GameSpot - both stepped aside on Wednesday following investigations into stock options irregularities that will wipe out some of the companies' past profits. ...more

US Department of Justice narrows focus for Google demands

The US Department of Justice has agreed to a much narrower focus for the US administration to force Google to hand over user information as evidence to back up child porn legislation. US District Court Judge James Ware told a hearing yesterday that he would likely approve the reduced request and intends 'to grant some relief to the government'. Since Google stood its ground and refused to hand over user data on a random sample of millions of searches and web addresses, the DoJ has now culled its request to around 5,000 search terms and 50,000 web addresses. ...more

iTunes 7 boasts new iPod settings

Apple's new iTunes 7 release includes new software management for iPods. iPod updates, which were previously released as standalone downloads, are now applied applied directly within iTunes when the iPod is connected to a computer. Settings are no longer determined in the Preferences, but via a Settings tab in the main iTunes window. ...more