Xbox to stop making HD DVD add-on

About 300,000 of the HD DVD add-ons have been sold

Microsoft has decided to stop making the HD DVD add-on for its Xbox 360 games console after Toshiba abandoned the high definition DVD format.

Toshiba estimated last week that about 300,000 of the add-ons had been sold.

Microsoft was one of the key backers for the HD DVD format, competing with Blu-ray, which was the format available in Sony's rival PlayStation 3 console.

Microsoft said it would continue to provide warranty support for the $130 (£115 in the UK) HD DVD add-on.

Last week, Toshiba said it would stop production of HD DVD players and recorders after major film studios decided to back Sony's Blu-ray format instead.

Toshiba said the tipping point came last month when Warner Brothers decided to release its movies only in Blu-ray.

The Xbox add-ons sold represented 30% of the one million HD DVD devices that were sold worldwide.

That compares unfavourably with the 10.5 million PS3s sold by Sony, which come with a built-in Blu-ray drive.

Vulnerability Found in Some Symantec Products

eEye Digital Security, a noted security vendor, recently provided an alert regarding a susceptibility in Symantec Antivirus that allows a hacker to infiltrate and take control of a computer system that is running certain Symantec software. Shortly after the eEye's alert, Symantec confirmed the veracity of the story. The finding of this security flaw is of special importance since Symantec is one of the world's leading makers of antivirus software.

Fortunately for home users, the flaw is found only in Symantec Antivirus Corporate Edition and Symantec Client Security 3.x. Home users of Norton Antivirus and Norton Internet Security products are not at risk. Symantec is working on a patch to eliminate the problem and will download the fix to corporate users as soon as it is available.

New Zunes to take on Apple's iPod

Microsoft has launched three new models of its Zune digital media player in an effort to compete with Apple's iPod.

The players - which come in 4GB, 8GB and 80GB models - have wi-fi so users can automatically download music, photos, and video from their computer.

Microsoft is also launching a social networking site dubbed Zune Social to allow users to display and share music.

Last year Microsoft sold 1.2 million Zunes compared to 100 million iPods shifted since its launch in 2001.

The new players go on sale in the US in mid-November. There are no details yet as to when they will be released in Europe.

They will be priced at $149 (£73), for the 4GB player, $199 (£97) for the 8GB player and $249 (£122) for the 80GB player.

It comes with a familiar circular touch-sensitive navigation button.

New songs

Analysts are not convinced that the new-look Zunes will allow Microsoft to close the gap on Apple any time soon.

"This device with the all-too-familiar dial wheel compares reasonably favourably with last generation iPod players," said Mark Mulligan, analyst with Jupiter Research.

"Microsoft needs to come at Apple from an unexpected angle but at the moment it is Apple with its new iPod touch and nanos that is shaking up the market," he said.

According to data from the NPD Group, Apple controls over 80% of the digital media player market with SanDisk in second place with 5.8% and Microsoft in third, with 4.4%.

Microsoft said at the launch of the new Zunes that it expected the devices to take three to four years to bed in and become a legitimate rival to Apple.

"Twenty years ago we bet the company on an integrated productivity suite of word processing, spreadsheets and presentations, and we changed the way people work," Bill Gates said at the launch.

"Today we're making big bets on games, music, video and connecting these entertainment experiences to help change the way people play," he added.

The company also said that it would add more than one million MP3 songs free of digital rights management onto Marketplace, its digital music store which currently sells music videos and offers video podcasts free.

There were no more details about what music would be available.

Search giants offer new features

Yahoo and Microsoft have announced upgrades to their search engines in efforts to gain ground on rival Google.

Yahoo's makeover will include features that allow users to refine searches as well as offering links to photos, music and video on the results page.

Microsoft's new-improved Live Search represents a "quantum jump in search results" according to the company.

Google remains the most popular net search engine, accounting for over half of web searches.

According to data from comScore Media Metrix, Google had a 56.5% share of the US search market, compared to Yahoo wtih 23.3% and Microsoft with 11.3%. In the UK, Google's dominance is even greater with around 75% market share.

Its dominance has forced rivals to relaunch, add new features and improve the relevance of its searches in an effort to compete.

Microsoft's improved Live Search - which will be available globally by the end of October - will offer a series of new featues, including a quadrupling of its index of searchable web pages as well as improving the way it delivers answers to specific questions.

It will draw on its three-dimensional mapping service for location-relevant searches as well as offering video, charts and pictures for relevant results.

Yahoo's upgrades include offering ways to phrase a search request as a user types into the query box. It will also use information from its calendar service, Upcoming.org, to highlight local events when relevant to requests.

Search rival Ask.com relaunched with a dramatically different interface in June, offering search suggestions and thumbnail pictures of listed sites.

There has been a rise in so-called metasearch engines which trawl through a variety of other search engines to find results.

Bill Gates leads Forbes rich list

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has been ranked as the wealthiest person in America for the 14th year in a row.

Forbes magazine put Gates' fortune at $59bn, with investment guru Warren Buffet in second place with a net worth of $52bn.

Casino magnate Sheldon Adelson and software tycoon Larry Ellison remained at third and fourth place on Forbes' list of the 400 richest Americans.

It took a net worth of at least $1.3bn to earn a spot in the rankings.

Google founders fifth

For the first time since 1989 there were no members of Walton family, which established Wal-Mart Stores, in the top 10.

They were displaced by Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page, who came in joint fifth place, with fortunes of $18.5bn apiece.

Investor Kirk Kerkorian was the biggest gainer on the list, his fortune rising by more than $9bn in the past year to $18bn, putting him in seventh place.

"Wall Street really led the charge this year," said Matthew Miller, editor of the Forbes list. "God only knows if they'll be on it next year. It really just depends on what the market does."

The collective net worth of the 400 billionaires totalled $1.54 trillion - more than Canada's GDP.

Microsoft loses anti-trust appeal

The European Court of First Instance has dismissed Microsoft's appeal in its long-running competition dispute with the European Commission.

The court upheld the ruling that Microsoft had abused its dominant market position.
A probe concluded in 2004 that Microsoft was guilty of freezing out rivals in server software and products such as media players.
It was ordered to change its business and fined 497m euros (£343m; $690m).
Microsoft has now been ordered to pay 80% of the Commission's legal costs, while the Commission has to carry a specific part of Microsoft's costs.
The court threw out just one small part of the European Commission's ruling, which had established an independent monitoring trustee to supervise Microsoft's behaviour.
The 2004 ruling ordered Microsoft to ensure its products could operate with other computer systems by sharing information with rival software companies.
It was also ordered to make a version of its Windows operating system available without software such as Media Player.
Last year, Microsoft was told to pay daily fines adding up to 280.5 million euros over a six-month period, after it failed to adhere to the 2004 decision.