Ryan Naraine

In a deal that signals the beginning of consolidation in the digital music subscription space, RealNetworks has acquired a minority stake in rival Listen.com, prompting speculation that a complete buyout is coming down the pike. Financial terms of the transaction, believed to be a cash-for-equity swap, were not released but Listen.com said the RealNetworks investment […]

Microsoft has appended a ‘critical’ rating to a security patch issued for buffer overflows in its Windows Me Help and Support Center. The Help and Support Center, which gives users a centralized facility to get assistance on a variety of topics, contains an unchecked buffer in the way it handles the hcp:// prefix in a […]

The Recording Industry Association of America’s (RIAA) latest offensive against online piracy at U.S. colleges arrived at the doorsteps of Congress Wednesday with RIAA boss Hilary Rosen declaring it a “growing epidemic.” Rosen, who will quit as RIAA chairman and CEO at the end of this year, testified before a key House panel on the […]

The buzz around digital music got louder Wednesday with the launch of ‘MusicNet on AOL,’ a paid subscription service that will allow users to listen, download and burn music files for between $4 and $18 a month. One day after Roxio released plans for a legitimate reincarnation of Napster, AOL rolled out its first premium […]

Napster, the rogue file-sharing service that lost the battle with the recording industry, will reincarnate as a paid subscription service later this year. Santa Clara, Calif.-based Roxio plans to add Napster to the crowded marketplace for online download music but, instead of being a peer-to-peer application, it will employ client-server technologies, spokeswoman Kathryn Kelly told […]

More than a year after the release of Windows XP, Microsoft is intensifying its push for enterprise adoption of the client platform, rolling out a Web-based repository of tools to prod sysadmins into switching operating systems. Microsoft’s new Desktop Center will shuttle tools to aid IT administrators deploy Windows XP Professional and Office XP and […]

Sun Microsystems’ ding-dong battle with Microsoft for command of the market for word processing software took another step forward Monday with the launch of a massive education initiative and an expansion of its no-cost StarOffice licensing plan. Santa Clara, Calif.-based Sun lifted the wraps off the Sun Education Software (EduSoft) Portfolio initiative that offers access […]

The CERT Coordination Center on Thursday warned of numerous security vulnerabilities in vendor implementations of Session Initiation Protocol (SIP), a signaling protocol for Web conferencing, telephony, presence, events notification and instant messaging. A security alert from CERT/CC said the vulnerabilities open the doors for an attacker to gain unauthorized privileged access, cause denial-of-service attacks, or […]

That clicking sound you hear is Microsoft hanging up on third-party Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) providers in a coming upgrade of Windows Messenger for XP. Back in 2001, when Windows XP was being positioned as a clearinghouse for Internet-based services, VoIP firms jostled for placement on the platform, but, with Microsoft pushing its own […]

Napster may be dead and gone but the billion dollar litigation that marred its existence has shown no signs of letting up. German media conglomerate, Bertelsmann AG, a one-time backer was slapped with a $17 billion lawsuit in New York late Wednesday alleging its financial support to Napster contributed to copyright infringement by users of […]

A British security research firm has released a slew of security warnings for flaws in enterprise products from Oracle and IBM’s Lotus. Security advisories from NGSSoftware warned of six serious flaws in components of Oracle’s database server software, including four “critical” buffer overrun vulnerabilities. Oracle has released patches for the flaws, which also affect its […]

The PHP Group has released a new PHP version to fix a “serious security vulnerability” that could lead to arbitrary code execution. PHP, a project of the Apache Software Foundation, said it released the new version 4.3.1 to squash a bug in the CGI SAPI of an earlier version. “Anyone with access to websites hosted […]