"The question is whether, in the name of network management, policy-makers permit carriers to act in unreasonable, anticompetitive fashion," Rep. Edward Markey (D-MA) said. The choice before Congress is between permitting network operators "to fundamentally alter how the Internet has historically functioned," or retaining "a level playing field" that allows entrepreneurial entry, he explained.

The Antitrust Angle

The Internet Freedom Preservation Act co-sponsored by Markey and Rep. Chip Pickering (R-MS) establishes principles, rather than regulations, to guide policy in this area. "Then it requests an examination of the market and current practices, requires the FCC to hold several broadband summits around the country to solicit suggestions and opinion, and finally, tasks the FCC with reporting the results and any recommendations back to Congress," Markey said.

However, House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers (D-MI) and Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) want a bill with more teeth. They are co-sponsoring a bill that builds upon the Clayton Antitrust Act of 1914, which expanded upon the pioneering Sherman Antitrust Act outlawing monopolies and cartels by prohibiting conduct considered harmful to consumers.

"The Internet was designed without centralized control, without gatekeepers for content and services," Conyers said in a statement reported by The New York Times. "If we allow companies with monopoly or duopoly power to control how the Internet operates, network providers could have the power to choose what content is available."

Opposing Views

Public-interest groups such as Free Press and Public Knowledge applauded Conyers and Lofgren for their commitment and leadership on what they perceive to...

Climate Counts rates companies on a scale of 0 to 100, using 22 criteria to determine if companies have measured their climate footprint, reduced their impact, supported policy change, and clearly disclosed their climate-related actions.

In the electronics field, IBM ranked highest with a score of 77 and Apple ranked lowest at 11. Apple, the scorecard found, posted no information on its efforts to measure its impact on global warming and has not supported climate-change legislation, though the company has made a few comments on its efforts to address global warming and has engaged the issue to some extent with employees and other companies.

Even so, Apple's score this year was nine points higher than last year. The organization called Apple "A choice to avoid for the climate-conscious consumer. This company is not yet taking meaningful action on climate change."

Credibility Issues for Jobs, Gore

While Apple has not been hurt by criticism of its environmental practices, the issue is likely to cause the company -- and its most famous board member -- significant pain, said Rob Enderle, principal analyst with the Enderle Group. "With [former Vice President] Al Gore on the board, this becomes a significant embarrassment, making him look disingenuous," Enderle said. "Increasingly I expect folks to point that out, which will hurt Gore's own [environmental] efforts."

The situation also "erodes the Apple brand as people focus on this topic -- and this topic is a popular one this year," Enderle said. "It does seem inconsistent with [CEO] Steve Jobs' Buddhist beliefs and makes him look hypocritical, which...

GTA IV was released April 29 and global sales totaled more than $500 million in the first week alone. The first day the latest addition to the hit Rockstar Games series hit retail store shelves, sales were $310 million. More than six million copies have been sold.

The only question is, which console is the game being played on? GTA IV was developed by Rockstar North on two platforms -- the Sony PlayStation 3 and Microsoft's Xbox 360. Both manufacturers are reporting higher console sales as a result.

Is GTA IV a Console-Seller?

According to news reports that claim to have the inside scoop on Microsoft's sales data, Redmond is the big winner. Reportedly Xbox 360 console sales jumped 54 percent. Other reports estimate more than 60 percent of GTA IV games went to Xboxers, leaving less than 40 percent for PlayStation 3 gamers.

Microsoft and Sony could not immediately be reached for comment.

Brian O'Rourke, a video-game analyst with In-Stat, said GTA IV may have sold some consoles. But he senses that many GTA IV players are hard-core gamers who probably bought next-generation consoles long before game's release.

"The GTA IV release might help sell consoles on the margins. If people were on the edge about buying a next-generation console and they wanted GTA IV, this could have pushed them off the fence and convinced them to buy either an Xbox 360 or a PlayStation 3," O'Rourke said. "But I don't think this game release is going to have a huge influence on console sales overall."

The Xbox Live Advantage

Microsoft may have an advantage, thanks to its Xbox Live Arcade and its exclusive relationship with GTA IV online....

WWT, developed by Microsoft Research Labs using the company's Visual Experience Engine, enables a home PC to become an engine for exploring the galaxies. It utilizes terabytes of images and data from telescopes worldwide and from the Hubble orbiting telescope.

'An Observatory on Your Desktop'

In a speech at a conference in Jakarta Friday, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates told news media that the software "takes very complex data gathered over many years from many telescopes" and makes it accessible to a desktop user. He described it as "an observatory on your desktop."

The WWT project was designed to be ready for 2009, which is the 400th anniversary of Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei's first public observations of space, using a simple telescope.

According to news reports, the project holds information on more than 300 million stellar systems. Some astronomers have said they expect the project to have as much of an impact on the way we view the universe as did the view conveyed by Galileo. For instance, schoolchildren will be able to devise their own visual tours of the universe as classroom projects.

Much of the interaction will make disparate images seem as if they are part of a single set of images. According to news reports, the user can zoom into sections of the sky by clicking on the images, which come from some of the largest Earth-bound telescopes as well as spacecraft. The software stitches together the images into a virtual sky.

There will also be commentaries, such as downloadable podcasts from leading astronomers and researchers that expand on the...

MySpace described the initiative as empowering "the global MySpace community to share their public profile data to Web sites of their choice throughout the Internet." CEO and cofounder Chris DeWolfe said that "the walls around the garden are coming down" and his company and several partners are pioneering ways for sharing "social experiences Web-wide."

Launch Partners

The partners at the launch were Yahoo, eBay, Photobucket and Twitter. MySpace said its partners will complement its efforts in a variety of ways. For instance, if a MySpace user has Yahoo Instant Messenger, that user's MySpace default photo, interests and favorite music could be shown through the IM client. MySpace data can also be shown in Yahoo's universal profile or through Yahoo Mail's inbox.

On eBay, profiles can have MySpace data and media, and on Photobucket users can see their photos across various sites and can, if they choose, show their MySpace profile data in Photobucket albums. Twitter profiles can also be populated with MySpace data, blogs and photos.

Information that can be shared includes publicly available basic profile data, photos, videos and friend networks. Users can control what information is shared and with whom. A centralized location on MySpace will provide a kind of control panel, and the initiative will roll out within coming weeks. According to news reports, non-MySpace sites will not store or cache the data, and permission to use the data can be revoked by a MySpace user at any time.

The initiative will make it easier to distribute news like a new job to friends. A MySpace user could update a profile and dynamically share the new information to other sites where his or her data also resides.

Embracing Open Standards

The wave...