UPDATE: follow it live. Chris Nuttall will be providing live coverage from San Francisco of Wednesday’s Apple event, starting at 10am local time. Follow it here.

Apple is holding a music-themed press event tomorrow, where it is expected to unveil a package of  goodies that will start being attached to sales of full digital albums.

The product, code-named Cocktail by the record labels, will include interactive lyric sheets, photos and other virtual extras aimed at replicating and improving on the old experience of opening a vinyl record sleeve or CD boxed set filled with trinkets. Continue reading "Apple might offer a `Cocktail’ of new iPods and music"

• Barnes & Noble unveiled its challenge to Amazon’s Kindle e-book service with an expanded online store selling more than 200,000 e-book titles for both laptop computers and mobile devices. The chain also said it would provide the e-book store for a wireless portable e-reader being developed by Plastic Logic that is scheduled for launch next year.
• Texas Instruments, the second largest US chipmaker, reported a surge in demand for its products in the second quarter as it beat revenue and profit expectations. Following Intel’s positive outlook last week, TI gave another boost to the tech sector, forecasting solid growth in the current quarter. Continue reading "techfile 21.07.09"

• IBM reported an unexpected surge in quarterly profit, providing further evidence that the technology industry is stabilising and poised for a comeback in the second half of the year. The technology group’s strong results followed a similar showing by top chip-maker Intel on Tuesday and came as dominant internet search group Google said that online advertising had steadied.
• Facebook has “serious privacy gaps” and must make changes to comply with Canadian laws, according to a report issued by the country’s privacy commissioner on Thursday. The report is the first time a government has found Facebook in direct violation of its laws, and comes as the world’s largest social network with 250m users is pushing its users to share more of their information with everyone on the web.
• Palm suffered a blow as Apple released a new version of iTunes that prevents syncing the popular music software with the Palm Pre. The Pre, launched last month, had been able to snyc with iTunes, and will still sync with older versions. Lauded as the first true rival to Apple’s iPhone, the Pre won positive reviews, but has not yet captured a significant share of the smartphone market.
• Mashups maybe ain’t what they used to be. Microsoft has announced that its two-year-old Popfly service, which showed off what its Silverlight technology could achieve, will shut down on August 24. It gave no explanation for the closure.
  

• Intel, the world’s biggest chipmaker, reported its strongest pick-up in business in more than 20 years, giving a major lift to the PC industry and technology sector. Intel reported second-quarter revenues of $8bn, up 12 per cent on the first quarter and well ahead of analyst expectations of $7.23bn. Its profit of 18 cents a share also easily exceeded a consensus of 8 cents. The chipmaker was the first big technology company to report earnings this season, providing a boost to the sector and the wider market.
• Dell plans to plunge into the crowded smartphone market and invest in other new areas, fuelling investor concerns that profit margins will continue to erode at the world’s second-largest computer maker. Ronald Garriques, president of Dell’s consumer division, said the company would “work with the top three to four” telecommunications carriers “and see what their needs are”.The declaration follows innovations in recent months from other manufacturers of internet-enabled phones such as Apple and Research in Motion, while spending on other computing products is flagging.
• Microsoft unveiled pricing details and launch plans for Windows Azure, the “cloud” operating system that Ray Ozzie hopes will become the online analogue to Windows on the personal computer – a platform that supports applications on the internet. The formalising of the plans, with Azure services going on sale in November, caps the first stage in an planned cultural and technological transformation of the world’s biggest software company. Continue reading "techfile 15.07.09"

• Digital Sky Technologies, the Russian internet group that has invested $200m in Facebook, will purchase up to $100m in common stock from existing shareholders in the social network. The deal clarifies Facebook’s valuation, giving its common stock a value of about $6.5bn. This is higher than the rumoured valuations last autumn when a similar deal was considered, but lower than the value of Facebook’s preferred stock.
• Microsoft escalated its battle with arch rival Google, reacting to an assault on one of its core businesses with the announcement of a free online version of its widely used Office software, to be launched next year. While likely to take only a small bite out of Office revenues in the short term, the move represents one of the most radical steps yet by Microsoft as it tries to refocus its software business around the internet, according to analysts. Continue reading "techfile 14.07.09"

• The chipmaker Broadcom has admitted defeat in its attempt to acquire smaller rival Emulex, putting its market share in corporate networks and data centres under pressure. In what has been a bitter takeover battle, the Emulex board unanimously rejected Broadcom’s latest and final offer of $11 a share, valuing the company at $912m.
• The waves of cyber-attacks that crippled government and commercial websites in the US and South Korea relied on roughly 200,000 computers, more than triple earlier estimates, and used an established technique for spreading the infections through other compromised internet pages, researchers said on Thursday.
• Following widespread reports that advertisers were being overcharged on Facebook, one company has filed a lawsuit against the social network. RootZoo, a sports site, is alleging that Facebook charged it for more “clickthroughs” than RootZoo actually received. RootZoo also said that it sought compensation from Facebook, but was denied.

• Google’s unveiling of the new Chrome OS at least a year before consumers will actually be able to buy it brought cries of “vapourware!” from critics.  Yet the prospect of a Google PC operating system to rival Windows created an even bigger splash than the arrival of the Chrome browser last year. Fake Steve had the last laugh - while also successfully puncturing some of the hype that has already built up around the promised software.
• With both public and private websites in the US and South Korea coming under assault in an unusually powerful cyber-attack, it was not surprising that suspicion fell on North Korea. Yet if this follows the pattern of most other attacks, the true source will never be identified. Continue reading "techfile 09.07.09"

• Microsoft and Brussels have started a new round of talks over a potential settlement of the software company’s antitrust travails in Europe. The resumption of what one person close to the situation described as the “on again, off again” discussions comes as the regulators move closer to imposing stringent penalties on Microsoft over its practice of “bundling” its Internet Explorer browser with the Windows operating system.
• Facebook showed off the power of its Connect service today, as about 1m of its users logged into sites like CNN, ABC and MTV to chat about the Michael Jackson memorial service. Some members were wallflowers, but others were chatty, posting upwards of 800,000 status updates through the partner sites. Twitter, no doubt, also experienced a boost during the memorial service, but Facebook clearly proved that it, too, could be a prominent forum for public discussion. Continue reading "techfile 08.07.09"