By Peter Kaplan 1 hour, 41 minutes ago

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -
Verizon Communications Inc (VZ.N)
said on Friday it would use the airwaves it acquired in a
government auction last month for its next generation of
high-speed wireless services, expected to debut around 2010.

In a telephone conference with analysts the company said
the $9.36 billion worth of new 700 megahertz spectrum would
give Verizon Wireless, the No. 2 U.S. mobile service, enough
resources to build a faster wireless data network.

McAdam said the spectrum would be used for a network
Verizon Wireless plans to build based on an emerging technology
known as Long Term Evolution, which it expects to boost revenue
by connecting "everything and anything together."

Verizon Wireless, a venture of Verizon and Vodafone Group
Plc (VOD.L), will use the airwaves to connect a broad array of
devices, such as digital media players, gaming consoles and
even home appliances, McAdam said.

Verizon Wireless and AT&T (T.N) won the lion's share of the
spectrum up for grabs in the $19.12 billion auction, with AT&T
spending another $6.64 billion.

Verizon Wireless won the largest single block of nationwide
airwaves offered in the Federal Communications Commission
auction, paying $4.74 billion for the portion of spectrum known
as the "C" block.

Commenting on the 700 megahertz spectrum for the first time
since the landmark auction ended on March 18, Verizon said it
expected to launch its next generation wireless network "in the
2010 time frame."

The 700-megahertz airwaves are considered valuable because
they travel long distances and can penetrate thick walls. They
are being returned by television broadcasters as they move to
digital from analog signals in early 2009.

As part of the rules for the 700-megahertz auction, the FCC
required the winner of the C block spectrum to make it an "open
platform" accessible to customers using any device or software
application.

As a result Verizon has promised to support devices and
software applications that it does not offer directly itself.

They echoed a statement issued on Thursday night by AT&T,
which said its added 700-megahertz auction would be used to
move into the next generation of wireless broadband services.

AT&T executives estimated the roll-out of more advanced
network at about 2012. However, unlike the airwaves acquired by
Verizon, AT&T noted that its new spectrum was not burdened with
many regulatory requirements imposed on a nationwide block of
spectrum that Verizon won in the auction.

The comments by Verizon came a day after the deadline
expired for anti-collusion restrictions that were in effect
during the auction and barred carriers from discussing the
auction results.

(Reporting by Peter Kaplan; editing by Derek Caney)

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LONDON (Reuters) -
The Rolling Stones and the YouTube video
Web site have teamed up to launch a new entertainment channel.

According to a statement from the band and record label
Universal, fans can upload questions to the Stones about "Shine
a Light," a new documentary about the veteran rockers directed
by Martin Scorsese, as well as "any other burning questions."

"By visiting www.youtube/livinglegends, viewers will be
able to upload footage of themselves asking their questions to
Mick Jagger and/or Keith Richards," the statement said.

"The best questions will be personally answered, with the
subsequent footage of the Rolling Stones available to watch
exclusively on this new YouTube channel in a few weeks' time."

YouTube is featuring a short video clip of Jagger and
Richards to promote the channel on the main page of its site in
the United States and across much of Europe and Asia.

YouTube is launching a music channel called YouTube Living
Legends which invites top pop acts from around the world to
communicate with fans via the popular site.

The announcement on Friday comes shortly after MySpace, the
world's biggest social networking site, said it had created an
online music venture with three major record companies in a
challenge to Apple Inc's iTunes Music Store.

(Reporting by Mike Collett-White, editing by Paul Casciato)

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Jeremy Kirk, IDG News Service

A Welsh government Web site has been hacked to serve up malicious JavaScript, a sign that the spate of attacks first spotted last month are continuing, analysts from security vendor Sophos warned Friday.

The method of attack is similar to one that recently victimized pages within Trend Micro's Web site, said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant for Sophos.

Trend Micro's Web site was one of up to 20,000 sites discovered in mid-March where hackers found a weakness in the server's security that allowed them to implant malicious JavaScript.

If a user visits an infected page, the JavaScript initiates a download of malicious code from another server. Sophos named the attack Troj/Badsrc-A.

In this particular case, the server that is hosting the malicious code is down, Cluley said. One possibility is that the server exceeded its allowed bandwidth due to a high number of downloads of malicious code, which would indicate that many people could be infected, Cluley said.

Hacked Web sites are increasingly being used to infect PCs with malicious software. The attack method can be used to infect fully patched computers. Once the bad JavaScript runs, a user could be prompted to download a piece of software, which the victim may believe they need in order to access the legitimate Web site, but the software is actually harmful.

In other cases, the JavaScript could launch an attack that seeks to exploit vulnerabilities in, for example, QuickTime, Cluley said. Earlier this week, Apple issued 11 patches for its media player. JavaScript could launch QuickTime, and if the application isn't patched, the PC could be infected.

The Welsh site is one of hundreds upon hundreds of sites that Sophos has catalogued as infected. The vendor chose to publicize its findings on the Welsh site to make a point about how seemingly legitimate sites are being affected by this latest round of attacks, Cluley said.

Absent using security software, one sure-fire way to block this kind of attack is by using the Firefox browser with the NoScript extension. NoScript blocks the execution of JavaScript, Java and Flash in the browser, which hackers are using to get into machines.

NoScript hampers the function of legitimate Web sites using JavaScript and those plugins, but users have the option of white listing safe sites. The extension, as well as Firefox, are free. In the case of the Welsh Web site, NoScript would block the attack, Cluley said.

Sophos has contacted the organization responsible for the Web site but has yet to receive a response, he said.

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By Paul Bond

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) -
Move over, Matt Drudge.
A fresh site for aggregating links to the hottest news stories
is coming courtesy of Barry Diller and Tina Brown.

Diller' and his IAC/InterActiveCorp. business will bankroll
the effort, which doesn't have a name or a launch date. The
site will be run by Brown, the so-called "Queen of Buzz" famous
for having once been the editor of Vanity Fair and the New
Yorker.

Brown also authored "The Diana Chronicles," her tell-all
book about Princess Diana, and is writing "The Clinton
Chronicles" for release in 2010.

Diller, IAC and Brown aren't discussing details of their
venture, though published reports have former Wall Street
Journal deputy managing editor Edward Felsenthal as the site's
planned editor.

Diller recently won his legal battle with Liberty Media
chairman John Malone for control over IAC, and insiders said
the victory was instrumental in moving the Brown project
forward.

The new site might be nonpartisan and feature links to
worthwhile news stories from many sources, as opposed to
relying on its own content.

Although several published reports are comparing the
concept of the Diller-Brown site to the Huffington Post, the
Drudge Report is a closer analogy because the big draw to the
former is its original blog content while Drudge relies mainly
on links to outside news sources.

The Huffington Post, run by Brown's friend Arianna
Huffington, by some accounts, is worth $200 million, many times
more than the published speculation of the worth of the Drudge
Report. That figure, though, is surely an exaggeration, as the
Drudge Report, run on a shoestring budget, is no doubt
profitable while the Huffington Post is a money loser.

According to Nielsen//NetRatings, the Drudge Report had 3.5
million unique visitors in February who each spent an average
of one hour on the site, while the Huffington Post had 3.8
million visitors who each spent eight minutes on the site.

Reuters/Hollywood Reporter

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by P. Parameswaran 2 hours, 11 minutes ago

WASHINGTON (AFP) -
Yahoo boss Jerry Yang, whose company once allegedly helped Chinese police nab and jail cyber dissidents, is today in the forefront of a global campaign to free those languishing in prison for expressing their views online.

He has established a "Yahoo! Human Rights Fund" to provide humanitarian and legal support to political dissidents who have been imprisoned for expressing their views online as well as support for their families.

And in between his gruelling schedules as chief executive of the Internet giant, the billionaire Yang paces the corridors of the US Congress, writes to government officials and meets with human rights groups to champion Internet freedom.

Yahoo also provided one million dollars to Washington-based Georgetown University to carry out research on the link between international values and Internet and communication technologies.

"I think that I'm a big believer in the American values (but) as we operate around the world, we don't walk around having a very heavy-handed American point of view," Yang said Thursday as he marked the first anniversary of the university's Yahoo fellowship program.

In November the US Congress sharply rebuked the Taiwanese-American Yang and Yahoo, which he co-founded, over the company's role in landing a Chinese journalist, Shi Tao, behind bars.

Shi was convicted in 2005 of divulging state secrets after he posted a Chinese government order forbidding media organizations from marking the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square uprising on the Internet.

Police identified him using information provided by Yahoo. He was sentenced to 10 years in jail.

The US corporation, which defended its action on the grounds that it had to comply with China's laws in order to operate there, later reached a settlement with the families of Shi Tao and another cyber dissident Wang Xiaoning to stop a lawsuit, which charged that Yahoo provided information that enabled Chinese police to identify the duo.

"As an early Internet pioneer, Yahoo has been at the forefront as our innovative technologies opened up new frontiers for citizens of the world," Yang said.

"With these opportunities also come challenges when these technologies are used for other purposes, ones that contradict our core values of access to information and freedom of expression," he said.

Following Yahoo's nasty experience in China, Yahoo is now holding talks with industry partners, academics, human rights groups and investors to promote an industry code of conduct governing the behavior of top global technology and communication companies operating in "challenging markets," Yang said.

"We seem to be getting more grey areas in terms freedom of expression versus censorship, legal versus illegal and border versus non-border," said Yang, who came to the United States from Taiwan at the age of 10 and whose net worth today is about 2.3 billion dollars.

The US government as well as other states which believe in freedom have to play a more important role in advancing such values, he said.

Recently, Yang asked US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to "redouble our government's diplomatic efforts" to pursue the release of Chinese dissidents imprisoned for posting information and their own views on the Internet.

"I do believe we can use technology to improve people's lives," he said.

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Barry Levine, newsfactor 1 hour, 41 minutes ago

With new online music retailers springing up to challenge its Net dominance, Apple's iTunes Store moved the goalposts again Thursday. It announced its store has overtaken even Wal-Mart

The new designation is based on data during January and February from the NPD Group, a market-research firm. NPD's MusicWatch survey compiles unit purchases in a given week.

Physical CD Sales Drop

According to news reports, Apple now has 19 percent of the market and Wal-Mart, including both its online and brick-and-mortar sales, has 15 percent. Best Buy took third with 13 percent, and Amazon, which has launched a music store to compete with Apple, is fourth at six percent. Target, also with six percent, is fifth, followed by FYE/Coconuts, Borders, Barnes & Noble, Circuit City, and Rhapsody.

Apple's move to the top of both the real and virtual worlds of music retailing is a milestone not only for the Cupertino, Calif.-based company, but also for the industry. Physical CD sales have been plummeting as the industry tries to adjust to the new digital reality. In fact, NPD reports that nearly half of all teens in the U.S. didn't buy even one physical CD in 2007, up from 38 percent in 2006.

But it's not just the real-vs-virtual ratio that is radically changing the music industry. There was a 10 percent decline in overall music spending in 2007.

Michael Gartenberg, an analyst with industry research firm JupiterResearch, said the new position for the iTunes Store "demonstrates the remarkable shift that has taken place in the music industry." He noted that this shift not only means an increasing role for online distribution, but the "reinvention of the single."

Four Billion Songs

The new claim to fame for Apple's store comes as it faces new competition. Apple said its iTunes Store, which launched less than five years ago, has sold more than four billion songs, has 50 million customers, and has "the world's largest music catalog" with more than six million songs.

One potential new competitor launched Thursday as social-networking site MySpace joined with three of the four biggest music companies, Sony BMG, Universal Music Group and Warner Music, to create what MySpace described as a "fully integrated 360-degree global music solution."

In addition to music sales, there will socializing tools, ad-supported audio and video streaming, a mobile storefront, concert tickets, artist T-shirts, and integration with MySpace's millions of artist profile and user pages.

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Verizon to use spectrum for broadband

1 hour, 32 minutes ago

BASKING RIDGE, N.J. - Verizon Wireless said Friday it will use the spectrum it agreed to buy in the government's wireless auction this winter to expand its data services.

The company will pay a total of $9.36 billion for a nationwide spectrum footprint in the consumer-friendly "C-Block" group of licenses, as well as 102 licenses for individual markets around the country.

Verizon Wireless won almost all the "C block" spectrum on offer in the Federal Communications Commission auction, which the company said will allow it to offer the speed and performance "ideal" for connecting consumer electronics such as mobile phones, medical devices and gaming consoles.

The new spectrum will not be clear for use until mid-February 2009, when the companies using it for analog television broadcasts are required to stop and switch to digital broadcasting.

The company plans to launch a new wireless network in 2010 in the 700-MHz spectrum, which is considered especially valuable because it can transmit through walls and help meet the growing demand for faster wireless downloads.

"We now have sufficient spectrum to continue growing our business and data revenues well into — and possibly through — the next decade," Lowell McAdam, the company's president and chief executive, said in a statement.

Verizon Wireless is a joint venture of Verizon Communications Inc., which owns the majority stake, and Britain's Vodafone Group PLC.

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