Today could be the day for some of the best online deals to be found all year. But will consumers bite? Internet market research firm comScore released its "Black Friday" figures, showing a drop in online sales by 4%.
Top Stories
One-day (and sometimes more, in the case of Best Buy) online sales are the hallmark of "Cyber Monday," so BetaNews is keeping track of some sales most pertinent to our readers' interests.
Chasing down the latest Cyber Monday tech deals
December 1 - 2:01 PM ET
One-day (and sometimes more, in the case of Best Buy) online sales are the hallmark of "Cyber Monday," so BetaNews is keeping track of some sales most pertinent to our readers' interests.
Microsoft Cashback goes offline to Black Friday shoppers
December 1 - 12:38 PM ET
UPDATED Like Sears and several other major retail sites, Microsoft Cashback became a temporary technical casualty on Black Friday, a time when generally hesitant consumers were actually trying hard to buy holiday gifts.
1 Comment...
DTV broadcasters could make another transition to mobile next year
December 1 - 11:19 AM ET
With surprising speed, a coalition of US broadcasting interests and Korean manufacturers has completed a "release candidate" for a mobile digital TV standard that could displace everything else tried in America thus far.
Teacher must still surrender license in bizarre 'exposure to porn' suit
November 29 - 1:41 PM ET
A week after the close of the four-year case of Julie Amero, the Connecticut substitute teacher accused exposing middle-students to online smut, Sunbelt Software CEO Alex Eckelberry doesn't see any real win in the settlement.
46 Comments...
Spambots edge back online post-McColo
November 26 - 9:19 PM ET
It was just too good to last: Researchers report that spam levels that dropped in the wake of a high-profile takedown are edging back up -- and that a particularly pernicious botnet made it back online Wednesday night.
19 Comments...
Connecting the Black Friday dots: What to expect from CE retail
November 26 - 9:17 PM ET
In anticipation of the coming annual Black Friday spending surge, analysts have come out of the woodwork to voice their predictions. This afternoon, we took some time to parse some of them.
7 Comments...
Google admits that its iPhone voice search breaks Apple's rules
November 26 - 9:09 PM ET
A Google spokesperson confirmed to BetaNews today that the company's new voice search for iPhone violates the terms of Apple's SDK. But questions still linger around why the updated Google Mobile app still appears on Apple's App Store.
22 Comments...
Apple uses DMCA as a weapon against an open source iTunes hack
November 26 - 5:15 PM ET
A simple effort by an open source developer to make his iPod's data legible by a Linux-based program, could balloon into a test of copyright so important that the fate of global trade agreements could hang in the balance.
41 Comments...
US DHS eases off its '10+2' import rules
November 26 - 5:13 PM ET
To the joy of many computer manufacturers, the Department of Homeland Security has done some significant reworking of the "10+2" security regulations for imports, including computer components.
3 Comments...
IBM unveils 'cloud validation' to harden security and lower TCO
November 26 - 5:08 PM ET
After last month's launch of a set of cloud development tools, IBM this week rolled out new global "cloud validation" and consulting services for its cloud computing program, two new customers, and a cloud computing platform for China.
3 Comments...
Thanks, EchoStar: TiVo nears its first profitable year
November 26 - 2:15 PM ET
Despite TiVo's recent SEC filing that showed it would be laying off employees to cut expenses during the economic downturn, TiVo posted another "best quarter ever," bringing it closer to its first profitable year ever.
2 Comments...
Google integrates Earth-like controls in new Maps interface
November 26 - 1:49 PM ET
The Google Maps interface has been redesigned, putting ever greater emphasis on the Street View tool.
6 Comments...
Mozilla developers readying one more beta cycle for Firefox 3.1
November 26 - 11:28 AM ET
Serious issues evidently remain with recent builds of the latest edition of Firefox, leading developers to propose a new Beta 3 cycle, but with the aim of not delaying the new browser's final release.
11 Comments...
Apple claiming iPhone 3G is 'really fast' deemed false by UK regulators
November 26 - 11:27 AM ET
The UK's Advertising Standards Authority determined today that an Apple TV ad's claims about its iPhone 3G's relative download speeds is misleading and exaggerative, and must be pulled.
63 Comments...
PayPal takes another crack at tightening security
November 25 - 9:24 PM ET
EBay's PayPal service wants users to take security more seriously. To that end, it's combining an old security concept with a device most of us don't associate with security at all. Has PayPal chosen wisely?
18 Comments...
Google to cut contracting costs, not full-time employee headcount
November 25 - 9:13 PM ET
Rumors of 10,000 upcoming job layoffs at Google are false, according to an informed source. Although Google does plan to significantly reduce its contracting expenses, some contractors may be converted into full-time employees.
Kindle in slow-burn mode 'til 2009
November 25 - 7:07 PM ET
Long, thin and late to the holiday parties: Amazon's plan for the Kindle 2 is apparently to emulate a fashion model and hope for the best.
4 Comments...
Faster page loads for Opera Mini 4.2
November 25 - 6:54 PM ET
The launch two weeks ago of a new server park in the US gives graphical mobile browser users the promise of faster performance. Since that time, the makers of Opera have been finalizing their 4.2 edition for various smartphones.
2 Comments...
$873 million Facebook award could add fuel to CAN-SPAM lawsuits
November 25 - 5:54 PM ET
Now that courts have awarded hundreds of millions of dollars in damages to both Facebook and MySpace, will more civil lawsuits start smacking spammers directly in their wallets?
8 Comments...
HP: Not a bad year, and not changing its plans for '09
November 25 - 4:46 PM ET
Monday night's earnings call with HP wasn't so bad compared to the mess that much of 2008 has proven to be, though even a no-worries report wasn't enough to cheer up the market Tuesday.
6 Comments...
Nero General Clean Tool 2.2.0.37
December 1 - 3:22 PM ET
Nero General Clean Tool will deactivate drivers that caused problems in Nero in the past after uninstallation of Nero or Nero related software.
Windows 2000/2003/9x/XP
License: Freeware
Not Yet Rated
License: Freeware
Not Yet Rated
Clipdiary 1.98 Beta
December 1 - 3:01 PM ET
Clipdiary is a freeware utility for keeping the clipboard history. You will never lose the data you once copied. The utility will run on Windows startup and will record everything you place to the clipboard into the database. At any moment you can view the clipboard history, copy the necessary item back into the cache memory or even paste it into an application. All you have to do is press the "Ctrl+D" keys combination or click the program icon in the system tray.
ClipDiary can log clipboard history and record data of several formats: plain text, RTF (Rich Text Format) and bitmap images (BMP). So, besides saving parts of text, you can easily make series of screenshots in your favorite games, and ClipDiary will save them for you.
Windows 2000/2003/Vista/XP
License: Freeware
User Rating: 4.7
License: Freeware
User Rating: 4.7
SiSoftware Sandra 2009.1.15.65
December 1 - 2:40 PM ET
SiSoftware Sandra is an information & diagnostic utility. It should provide most of the information (including undocumented) you need to know about your hardware, software, and other devices whether hardware or software. It provides similar level of information to Norton SI, Quarterdeck WinProbe/Manifest, etc. The Win32 version is 32-bit and comes in both ANSI and native Unicode formats. The Win64 version is 64-bit and comes in native Unicode format.
Windows 2000/2003/Vista/XP
License: Shareware
User Rating: 3.6
License: Shareware
User Rating: 3.6
AnyDVD HD 6.4.8.8 Beta
December 1 - 2:19 PM ET
AnyDVD works in the background to automatically remove the copy protection of a DVD movie as soon as it's inserted into the drive, allowing you then to backup the movie using a DVD backup tool such as CloneDVD and CloneDVD mobile. You can also remove the RPC region code, thereby making the movie region free and viewable on any DVD player and with any DVD player software. It is capable of removing unwanted movie features, including subtitles and prohibition messages such as copyright and FBI warnings. It also allows you to launch an external application whenever you insert or remove a disc, or prevent 'PC-friendly' software from automatically launching when you insert a video DVD.
Decryption is not all that AnyDVD offers. You can control the drive speed of your DVD drive, allowing you to reduce the noise level when watching movies on your PC. You can even adjust the display frequency of your monitor for both NTSC and PAL displays. It also decrypts protected audio CDs to allow you to copy them.
Windows 2000/2003/9x/Vista/XP
License: Shareware
User Rating: 4.4
License: Shareware
User Rating: 4.4
VLC (VideoLAN) for Windows 0.9.7
December 1 - 1:58 PM ET
VLC (VideoLAN) is a multi-platform multimedia player. It can read DVDs, VCDs, MPEG, and DivX files and from a satellite card. It can also read a stream from a network sent by the VideoLAN Server or another source. The stream can be MPEG 2 TS in UDP or HTTP packets unicasted or multicasted on an IPv4 or IPv6 network.
VLC (VideoLAN) has the following other editions available: VLC (VideoLAN) for Linux and VLC (VideoLAN) for Mac OS X.
Windows (All)
License: Open Source
User Rating: 4.0
License: Open Source
User Rating: 4.0
Startup Delayer 2.3.134
December 1 - 1:37 PM ET
Startup Delayer allows you to setup how many seconds after Windows has started to load each program.
Windows 2000/9x/Vista/XP
License: Freeware
User Rating: 4.3
License: Freeware
User Rating: 4.3
CCleaner 2.14.763
December 1 - 1:16 PM ET
CCleaner is a freeware system optimization, privacy and cleaning tool. It removes unused files from your system - allowing Windows to run faster and freeing up valuable hard disk space. It also cleans traces of your online activities such as your Internet history. Additionally it contains a fully featured registry cleaner. But the best part is that it's fast (normally taking less than a second to run) and contains NO Spyware or Adware.
Windows (All)
License: Freeware
User Rating: 4.6
License: Freeware
User Rating: 4.6
PeaZip for Windows 2.4.1
December 1 - 12:55 PM ET
PeaZip is a free, open source, cross platform, portable archiving and compression utility, with encryption and volume split features. It has full for support: 7Z, 7Z-sfx, ARC/WRC, BZ2/TBZ2, GZ/TGZ, PAQ/LPAQ, PEA, QUAD/BALZ, split, TAR, UPX, ZIP. You can open, browse, extract, test: ACE, ARJ, CAB, CHM, COMPOUND (MSI, DOC, XLS, PPT), CPIO, ISO, Java (JAR, EAR, WAR), Linux (DEB, PET/PUP, RPM, SLP), LHA/LZH, NSIS, OOo, PAK/PK3/PK4, RAR, WIM, XPI, Z/TZ. Other features include split/join files, wipe files (secure deletion), byte to byte compare files, checksum/hash files, system benchmark, bookmark files and folders.
Installable Windows version, providing system integration and automatic uninstaller.
PeaZip has the following other editions available: PeaZip for Windows (Portable), PeaZip for Linux (Portable), PeaZip for Linux (RPM) and PeaZip for Linux (DEB).
Windows (All)
License: Freeware
User Rating: 4.6
License: Freeware
User Rating: 4.6
foobar2000 0.9.6
December 1 - 12:34 PM ET
foobar2000 is an advanced audio player for the Windows platform. Some of the basic features include full unicode support, ReplayGain support and native support for several popular audio formats.
Windows 2003/2008/Vista/XP
License: Freeware
User Rating: 4.5
License: Freeware
User Rating: 4.5
µTorrent for Windows 1.9 Build 13520 Alpha
December 1 - 12:13 PM ET
µTorrent is an efficient and feature rich BitTorrent client for Windows sporting a very small footprint. It was designed to use as little cpu, memory and space as possible while offering all the functionality expected from advanced clients.
µTorrent has the following other editions available: µTorrent for Mac OS X.
Windows (All)
License: Freeware
User Rating: 4.6
License: Freeware
User Rating: 4.6
Mp3tag 2.42b Beta
December 1 - 11:52 AM ET
Mp3tag can rename files based on the tag information, replace characters or words from tags and filenames, import/export tag information, create playlists, and more. It supports online freedb database lookups for selected files, allowing you to automatically gather proper tag information for select files or CDs.
Windows 2000/2003/2008/Vista/XP
License: Freeware
User Rating: 4.8
License: Freeware
User Rating: 4.8
Free Download Manager 2.6.829 Beta
December 1 - 11:31 AM ET
Free Download Manager (FDM) is a full-featured freeware downloading program. It allows you to download files and whole web sites from any remote server via HTTP, HTTPS and FTP.
Windows 2000/9x/XP
License: Open Source
User Rating: 4.7
License: Open Source
User Rating: 4.7
PC Wizard 2008.1.871
December 1 - 11:10 AM ET
PC Wizard is a powerful utility designed especially for detection of hardware, but also some more analysis. It's able to identify a large scale of system components and supports the latest technologies and standards. This tool is periodically updated (usually once per month) in order to provide most accurate results. It is also a utility designed to analyze and benchmark your computer system. It can analyze and benchmark many kinds of hardware, such as CPU performance, Cache performance, RAM performance, Hard Disk performance, CD/DVD-ROM performance, Removable/FLASH Media performance, Video performance, MP3 compression performance.
Windows 2000/2003/9x/XP
License: Freeware
User Rating: 4.8
License: Freeware
User Rating: 4.8
AIMP 2.51.323
December 1 - 10:49 AM ET
AIMP Classic is a powerful audio player that allows you to listen to your favorite music with an outstanding sound quality. Its appearance resembles that of another classical audio player (Winamp), so you'll get used to it very quickly. It can also be customized with skins. The program includes a 18-band equalizer, a visualization window to display rhythmic visual effects and a playlist editor to organize your audio files. A nice fading effect makes your list of songs look like an endless music loop and a handy volume normalizing feature avoids drastic volume changes between tracks. Also, the player's main functions can be conveniently controlled by global hotkeys. Besides playing music, AIMP Classic features three extra utilities which also enable you to record any sound on your computer, convert audio files from one format to another and view or edit tags. AIMP Classic is based on the well-known audio engine BASS, so it's easy to connect new plug-ins (from the plug-in library included in the program) and expand the player's functionalities.
Windows 2000/Vista/XP
License: Freeware
User Rating: 4.4
License: Freeware
User Rating: 4.4
Floola for Windows 4.1
December 1 - 10:39 AM ET
Floola is a freeware application to efficiently manage your iPod or your Motorola mobile phone (any model supporting iTunes) under Linux, Mac OS X and Windows. It can be run directly from your iPod and needs no installation. It supports all common used iPod features including artwork, podcasts and smart playlists. It is also able to convert audio or video incompatible with the iPod so that you can copy almost any file to it. It even allows adding youtube and myspace videos just entering the page url.
Floola has the following other editions available: Floola for Mac OS X and Floola for Linux.
Windows (All)
License: Freeware
User Rating: 3.7
License: Freeware
User Rating: 3.7
