Many analysts have said Apple is all but certain to introduce a version of the No. 1 digital music player that can also play video. Most models of the current iPods, in addition to playing music, can also display photos and perform other functions with accessories that are sold separately.

"There's a whole generation coming up that doesn't have a lot in their checking account but will some day, who think this is a cool idea," said Roger Kay, president of market research firm Endpoint Technology Associates, referring to a video iPod.

"Apple Computer has begun production of a new version of its iPod digital. music player that will be capable of playing videos, AppleInsider has learned," according to a Tuesday post on the AppleInsider Web site. "Sources who claim to have seen the new iPod describe it as being similar to Apple's 60 GB iPod photo player, but several millimeters thinner."

The invitation itself from Apple gave no indication what the announcement might be, but in a separate post on Tuesday on AppleInsider, the site said: "Recent information suggests that Apple may be preparing to introduce a version of its iPod with video capabilities."

I spent a fun hour talking with Sam Schillace of Writely. We talked about the uptake (enormous) and different approaches to the idea of word processing on the web, but two things really stuck with me: platform and people. Every entrepreneur wants there to be a secret sauce for success -- if you use Ajax, or Linux, or tagging, or (insert delicious top tag du jour) you'll have a great product. Sam's secret sauce isn't platform.

That said, the platform is interesting. Writely is written in C# and deployed on Windows boxes. This isn't interesting because of "oooh, he's using The Enemy" or any nonsense like that, it's interesting because this makes it the first Web 2.0 success that I can think of that was written in .NET. That's an interesting datapoint in and of itself. The reason for choosing C#, other than "we had Visual Studio laying around", was the integrated debugging of browser and server components. He demo'd it for me, and it's mindblowingly useful. It is to Venkman as Venkman is to alert("foo has value " + foo).

Malicious hackers could take down cellular networks in large cities by inundating their popular text-messaging services with the equivalent of spam, said computer security researchers, who will announce the findings of their research today.

Such an attack is possible, the researchers say, because cellphone companies provide the text-messaging service to their networks in a way that could allow an attacker who jams the message system to disable the voice network as well.

And because the message services are accessible through the Internet, cellular networks are open to the denial-of-service attacks that occur regularly online, in which computers send so many messages or commands to a target that the rogue data blocks other machines from connecting.

By pushing 165 messages a second into the network, said Patrick D. McDaniel, a professor of computer science and engineering at Pennsylvania State University and the lead researcher on the paper, "you can congest all of Manhattan."

Are larger attacks possible?
Certainly. While the paper gives all of the necessary specifics, it would be theoretically possible to knock out cellular service for the continent with a data rate of approximately 370 Mbps. Such bandwidth could be harnessed from a moderately sized "zombie" network. Much larger Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks have already been seen, making this attack plausible.

So why have we not seen widescale attacks on the cellular network?
The answer is that simply sending SMS messages to every possible number is not effective. A successful adversary would have to collect data on the phones available in a given area. While the full details of such "hit-list" creation is given in extensive detail in the paper, suffice it to say that all of the necessary data can be collected through a variety of means via the Internet.

First, by dramatically lowering the cost of the display. The first-generation machine may use a novel, dual-mode LCD display commonly found in inexpensive DVD players, but that can also be used in black and white, in bright sunlight, and at four times the normal resolution?all at a cost of approximately $35.

Second, we will get the fat out of the systems. Today's laptops have become obese. Two-thirds of their software is used to manage the other third, which mostly does the same functions nine different ways.

Third, we will market the laptops in very large numbers (millions), directly to ministries of education, which can distribute them like textbooks.

"The consistent growth in overall revenues shows marketers may be shifting more of their total advertising budgets to online," said David Silverman, partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Paid search listings, which allow advertisers to pay to display ads next to relevant search terms, remain the bulk of online advertising at 40 percent, buoying results for Internet companies like Yahoo and Google .

Regular display ads, such as Web page banners, represent 20 percent of online advertising, classified ads grew slightly to 18 percent, while rich media comprises 8 percent.

Hi-tech, trendy colours, rock music, punchy slogans... remind anyone of anything? When technology watcher John Ousby realised the modern day parallels, he knew he had to do something. Ousby told the BBC that thousands of people looked at his Flickr post.

"I did a bit of digging around," he says, "and found a good website on vintage electronics. I then matched photos of the transistor with photos of the iPod Mini."

He then posted the above picture on the photo-sharing website Flickr. "Normally my photos there are viewed less than 100 times. But I was away for couple of days and came back to see there had been more than 15,000," he says.

The similarity between the two has "created quite a stir", he says, particularly in the Mac community. He is, however, at pains to point out that he believes the similarity between the 50s radio and the iPod mini is purely coincidental.

Pew's May 2005 survey indicated that 53 percent of Americans get online with high-speed connections, up 3 percent since December 2004, but described by Pew as a "statistically insignificant increase" that is likely to remain flat or even drop further in the near future.

Analysts attribute the slowdown to a saturation of users, and a reluctance of today's dial-up Internet users to pay more for bandwidth that they don't necessarily need.

"The issue is that the remaining pool of dial-up users today is a different demographic category," author of the report and Pew research director John Horrigan told the E-Commerce Times. "A couple years back, you had people making the bit-per-buck calculation, where the dial-up wait was costly in time, and prompted them to switch. The existing pool of dial-up users is not accessing as many bits."

AOL Spyware Protection 2.0 (ASP 2.0) is powered by Computer Associates eTrust PestPatrol Anti-Spyware technology and finds and blocks up to 28,000 different types of adware, spyware, Trojans and keyloggers.

Every minute, the software scans for thousands of types of spyware and adware that may be running silently, as well as every 15 minutes, daily and weekly in various memory and system sweeps aimed at keeping systems spyware- free.

"Spyware and adware threats are growing more significant as users spend more time online and visit more malicious or infected Web sites, so we want to offer our members the most comprehensive possible protection against those new and emerging threats," Andrew Weinstein, AOL spokesperson, told internetnews.com.

The youth pleaded guilty to breaking into the phone, stealing photos and phone numbers from the hotel heiress and posting them on the Internet.

The boy also pleaded guilty to making bomb threats at two high schools and hacking a phone company's computer system to set up free cellular accounts for friends. He also attacked the data-collection firm LexisNexis Group that exposed personal records of more than 300,000 consumers, the Post said.

Prosecutors said the teen's victims suffered about US$1 million in damages.

The Justice Department said it is continuing its investigation of the teen's associates but "it could be some time" before the case is wrapped up.

Microsoft is in talks with Time Warner over the sale of AOL or a business partnership, the New York Post reported Thursday. Details of the discussions are murky, but the two companies appear to be discussing a wide array of possibilities, including combining efforts in Internet searching, instant messaging and online advertising, according to the Associated Press

While speculation centered on Microsoft buying all or pieces of AOL, the New York Times reported that Microsoft offered to sell its Internet division to Yahoo and AOL so it could focus on Web searching. The offers ultimately spurred the ongoing discussions with AOL.

Microsoft and AOL declined to comment on the reports.

An alliance between the two companies could result in an even more formidable competitor to Google and Yahoo, both of which have strong head starts over their peers in search technology and online advertising.

One of the most elaborate proposal under discussion would involve combining America Online with the MSN Internet portal and dial-up Internet business, creating the world's largest Internet company. The venture's Web search would be provided by Microsoft. A combination along those lines would be a significant blow to Google, which provides the Web search on AOL's services. This year, 11 percent of Google's revenue came from advertising it placed on AOL sites.

A combination of AOL and MSN would have 18 percent of the search market in the United States, according to Nielsen NetRatings, making it third after Google, with 46 percent, and Yahoo with 23 percent.

1. Guidance and escorting - enon is suited for reception duties or explaining of exhibits, as it can detect when people stand in front of it and can provide a variety resourceful information such as product details, in addition to escorting guests to designations. Aside from its voice function, through its touch panel LCD monitor enon can also offer a multitude of user-friendly information through visual images. This monitor can also be utilized to administer questionnaires and through interconnection to a server can be used to accumulate guest information.

2. Transport of objects - enon can carry parcels an internal storage compartment in its torso and deliver them to a designated location. Through network interconnection, users can call for enon to come from a remote location and have goods delivered to a specified designation.

3. Security patrolling - enon is capable of regularly patrolling facilities following a pre-set route, and by using a network has the ability to transmit images of stipulated locations to a remote surveillance station. enon can also respond flexibly or to users' spontaneous requests through a network, such as directing enon to view specific sites.

South Korean-based Samsung said its latest NAND memory device has 16-gigabit density. That's twice the density of the 8-gigabit NAND memory developed last year by Samsung, Toshiba, Hitachi and others.

NAND flash memory is widely used in consumer devices like digital cameras, cell phones, USB flash drives and portable music players such as Apple Computer's new iPod Nano.

But Samsung's top brass are touting the new small-size, large-capacity device as an alternative to mini hard drives and even the hard drives used in laptops.

"This year, it appears clear that NAND will surpass NOR as the most popular flash memory," a representative with Samsung said. (NOR flash is highly reliable and used to store software code, but it's less dense than NAND.)

Online auction giant eBay (Quote, Chart) is expanding its communications services with a $2.6 billion cash and stock deal to acquire Voice over IP (define) darling Skype Technologies.

In announcing the deal Monday, which had been rumored for weeks, eBay said the acquisition of the Luxembourg-based Skype would strengthen eBay's global marketplace and payments platform. Plus, it's keen to open several new lines of business for both companies.

News Corp. said the new deals, along with its existing sites, would increase its total Web traffic to 70 million unique monthly users.

The transaction is expected to close in the fourth quarter. In July, IGN filed for a U.S. initial public offering of as much as $200 million in common shares.

Those trapped in the water-logged city of New Orleans found it harder to call for help Wednesday with phone lines down and cell service failing in the aftermath of the monster hurricane Katrina.

Cingular, Verizon Wireless, and Sprint, the country?s three largest wireless carriers, said cellular service was severely affected in the Big Easy, and that they?re unable to even enter the city to assess the full extent of the damage.

The lack of communications is complicating the already difficult task of trying to save storm victims. New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, when asked about the number of fatalities he expected in his city, said: "Minimum hundreds. Most likely, thousands." There've been numerous tales of residents trapped in the attics of their homes or other places until they were found by rescuers.

The wireless companies would not estimate how long service would be down in inaccessible areas, saying only that the timeframe would depend on conditions. For the most part, emergency workers were restricted to using their two-way radios.