Flying well-equipped for business and pleasure gets a bit more complicated on Jan. 1, as the U.S. Transportation Department bars travelers from packing loose lithium batteries in checked luggage.

The move is designed to help minimize the risk that such batteries could overheat and catch fire on board, the agency’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration said in a statement on Friday.

The new rules say travelers can bring a laptop computer, digital camera, cellphone and other equipment on board or in checked luggage if their lithium batteries are installed in the items.

And flyers can bring spare batteries in carry-on luggage if they’re stored in plastic bags or if they’re in the original retail packaging. But travelers can bring only as many as two such spare batteries, and each must be packed separately.

Travelers Advisory: U.S. limits lithium batteries on flights - MarketWatch

Blogged with Flock

Tags: Airlines, Security, Hysteria, Travel

More than half of Americans visited a library in the past year with many of them drawn in by the computers rather than the books, according to a survey released on Sunday.

Of the 53 percent of U.S. adults who said they visited a library in 2007, the biggest users were young adults aged 18 to 30 in the tech-loving group known as Generation Y, the survey by the Pew Internet & American Life Project said.”

These findings turn our thinking about libraries upside down,” said Leigh Estabrook, a professor emerita at the University of Illinois and co-author of a report on the survey results.

Generation Y biggest user of libraries: survey | U.S. | Reuters

Blogged with Flock

Tags: Library, Gen Y, Knowledge

The honeymoon between Microsoft and the partners and customers who’ve been gleefully awaiting the arrival of Windows Home Server may be over, thanks to a serious data corruption glitch in the software.

Using certain applications to save digital files to Windows Home Server could cause files to become corrupted, according to Microsoft, which last week said the issue had affected “a few people” on its community forums, and posted a Knowledge Base article outlining the issue.

Microsoft didn’t offer a timetable for a fix, but recommended that users not use the following applications to save data to Windows Home Server: Windows Vista Photo Gallery, Windows Live Photo Gallery, Microsoft Office OneNote 2007, Microsoft Office OneNote 2003, Microsoft Office Outlook 2007, Microsoft Money 2007, and SyncToy 2.0 Beta.

File Corruption Bug Bites Windows Home Server - Software - IT Channel News by CRN and VARBusiness

I thought people knew better than to use the first version of a Microsoft Product?

Blogged with Flock

Tags: Microsoft, Windows, NoSurprise, Software, Bugs

Sony Corp said on Thursday it would stop making rear-projection televisions, becoming the latest company to distance itself from a technology once seen as a promising rival of LCD and plasma displays in the flat-TV market.Sony said it would focus its resources on liquid crystal display (LCD) and organic light-emitting diode (OLED) technology to address the flat-TV market, which is growing rapidly as consumers trade in their boxy tube sets for sleeker flat screens.

UPDATE 1-Sony becomes latest to quit rear-projection TVs | Industries | Consumer Goods & Retail | Reuters

Blogged with Flock

Tags: Sony, HDTV, LCD, TV, Television

Wal-Mart Stores Inc quietly canceled its online video download service less than a year after the site went live, a company spokeswoman said on Thursday.Wal-Mart shut down the download site after Hewlett Packard Co discontinued the technology that powered it, Walmart.com spokeswoman Amy Colella said in an e-mail. She added that it will not look for another technology partner.

HP spokesman Hector Marinez said the company decided to discontinue its video download-only merchant store services because the market for paid video downloads did not perform “as expected.”

A message at www.walmart.com/videodownloads said the service was stopped on December 21 and Wal-Mart offered no refunds for the downloaded videos.

Videos purchased on Walmart.com can be played using the Microsoft Windows Media Player or the Wal-Mart Video Download Manager, but cannot be transferred to a computer other than the one used to download them, according to the site.

Wal-Mart cancels movie download service | Reuters

Blogged with Flock

Tags: Walmart, Movies, DRM

“Given AOL’s current business focus and the success the Mozilla Foundation has had in developing critically acclaimed products, we feel it’s the right time to end development of Netscape-branded browsers, hand the reins fully to Mozilla, and encourage Netscape users to adopt Firefox,” Drapeau said.

As of November 2007, IE accounted for 77.35% of the market, and Firefox 16.01%, according to Internet metrics firm Net Applications. Netscape had 0.6%.

AOL Kills Netscape’s Future, Leaves Firefox To Battle IE — Browser Wars — InformationWeek

Blogged with Flock

Tags: Firefox, IE, BrowserWars, Netscape

Google Inc.’s online search engine increased its lead in the U.S. Internet search market in November over October, according to a report released Thursday by Nielsen Online.Users performed 4.25 billion searches through Google in November, representing 57.7 percent of U.S. online searches performed that month, compared with 4.40 billion searches, or 55.5 percent of queries, performed through Google in October.

Google gains in U.S. search in November

Blogged with Flock

Tags: Google, Search Engines

Russia successfully launched a rocket on Tuesday carrying the last three satellites to complete a navigation system to rival America’s GPS.The military-run GLONASS mapping system works over most of Russia and is expected to cover the globe by the end of 2009, once all its 24 navigational satellites are operating.

Russia launches final satellites for its own GPS | Technology | Reuters

Blogged with Flock

Tags: Technology, GPS, Space

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Apple Inc and Twentieth Century Fox are set to announce a deal that will allow consumers to rent Fox movies through Apple’s digital iTunes Store, according to media reports on Thursday.

Apple and Fox plan movie rental deal: reports | Reuters

Blogged with Flock

Tags: Apple, Online Movie Rentals, The Long Tail, Fox

Apple now derives 20 percent of its revenue from its physical stores. And the number is growing. In the fourth quarter in 2007, which ended Sept. 30, Apple reported that the retail stores accounted for $1.25 billion of Apple’s $6.2 billion in revenues, a 42 percent increase over the fourth quarter in 2006.

Inside Apple Stores, a Certain Aura Enchants the Faithful - New York Times

Blogged with Flock

Tags: Apple, Apple Store