Verizon Communications Inc. said Wednesday that it was dropping a “supplier surcharge” on its high-speed Internet service for retail customers.

The decision comes less than a week after the Federal Communications Commission mailed a letter to the company asking that it explain the reasoning for the charge.

The FCC also had sent a letter to BellSouth Corp., which said Friday that it will stop charging a $2.97 per month fee on a similar service.

“We have listened to our customers and are eliminating this charge in response to their concerns,” Bob Ingalls, chief marketing officer for Verizon, said in a statement.

The dispute followed a decision by the government to stop assessing a Universal Service Fund charge on companies that offer digital subscriber line (DSL) Internet service.

The companies had passed the charge, which subsidizes services in rural and low-income areas, on to their customers.

Consumer groups have accused the companies of simply replacing the dropped fee with a new charge rather than passing along savings to their customers.

Verizon dropped the fee on Aug. 14, but informed customers that it would be charging the new “supplier surcharge” on Aug. 26. The company told customers in an e-mail that the monthly fee would be $1.20 or $2.70, depending on their connection speed. The fee affected about half of Verizon’s 5.7 million DSL subscribers, according to the company.

Customers who have already paid the charge will receive credit, the company said.

Prior to Aug. 14, Verizon was collecting $1.25 or $2.83 from DSL customers, depending on the connection speed.

Verizon said Wednesday the fee was “imposed by its affiliated operating telephone companies to cover costs associated with providing DSL service to customers who do not also subscribe to Verizon’s traditional phone service.”

On Friday, BellSouth said it was immediately eliminating the fee and that it was “designed to recover a number of costs remaining from previous regulatory obligations and other network expenses.”

FCC Chairman Kevin Martin released a statement supporting the companies’ action.

“I am pleased that both Verizon and BellSouth have eliminated fees recently imposed on their DSL customers,” he said. “Consumers should receive the benefits of the commission’s action last summer to remove regulations imposed on DSL service.”

Also see earlier posts on this:

Bell South Gives DSL Discount To Customers, Verizon Still Holding Out

Verizon DSL Discount, Not So Fast

From PC World:

“Did you hear about Universal?” a friend asked me at dinner tonight. “They’ve made their entire catalog of music free, with ads.” I practically popped off my chair with surprise–I’d been on a plane all day and therefore a bit out of touch with tech developments.

The Universal Music Group news does indeed involve everything it owns being available for free if you look at ads, although the more I learn about it, the less certain I am whether this is the tipping point that leads to music in general adopting a free model, or simply an intriguing experiment.

The service, due later this year, will be offered by a company called SpiralFrog, which says it would like to sign deals with the other major music labels. Watch a 90-second ad and you can download a song; watch a two-minute one, and you can download a video; to keep them, you’ll need to return to SpiralFrog’s site and watch more ads. The music will be free, but not freely available, and because the music and copy protection are wrapped up in Microsoft’s WMA format, the tunes won’t play on the vast majority of audio players out there (read: iPods).

You can’t judge a music service until you’ve tried it–and try this one I will–but on paper, it sounds similar to subscription services such as Rhapsody and Napster, except that ads rather than subscriber fees pay for the content. (Rhapsody and Napster both have free options that give you limited access to music, but full access to everything will cost you.)

None of the fee-basess subscription services have anything like the traction of the iTunes Music Store and its 99-cent downloads. Whether that’s because A) the subscription model is unappealing to most folks, B) the fees are too high, C) most music lovers own iPods that won’t work with anything but Apple’s store (and underdog eMusic); or D) a little bit of all of the above remains open to question. But by doing subscriptions without a fee, SpiralFrog will test an alternate approach. And while there have been ways to listen to free music before, I don’t know of any that have provided anything like unfettered access to a library anywhere near as ginormous as Universal’s.

One major point in the iTunes Music Store’s favor is that, while the songs are copy protected, they’re copy protected in a reliable, relatively unobtrusive way that lets the music feel like, well, music. By contrast, all the services based on Microsoft technologies put the copy protection right in your face–and with more than one of them, I’ve struggled with troubleshooting issues that prevented me from listening to music I’d paid for. When you take the fun out of music, strangely enough, you tend to remove much of the incentive for peopke to give you money for it.

At first blush, SpiralFrog’s ad-watching rules sound like work that teeming masses of people may or may not want to go through, even if gets them free music. We’ll see. (free, ad-supported music in the form of broadcast radio has worked for everyone involved for decades, but it’s the least laborious music listening of all.)

Side note: I’m not remotely a wild-eyed anti-copy protection absolutist. (You want unrestricted access to music at no cost, with no obligations? Write some.) But isn’t it preposterous that this far into the digital music revolution, we’re stuck with incompatible digital rights management technologies that are frequently annoying, broken, or both? Is there any question whatsoever at this point that bad copy protection is a strong argument against buying digital music?

Me, I still find myself spending most of my music dollar on the archaic, pricey, but reliable and versatile format known as the compact disc…

SpiralFrog news release here

From Silicon Valley: 

Microsoft Corp. will charge $239 for the version of the Windows Vista operating system it hopes most consumers will buy, according to prices listed on Internet retailer Amazon.com’s Web site.

Amazon.com, which has begun taking pre-orders for Vista, also reveals list prices for two other versions. Those prices will be similar to what Microsoft currently charges for comparable versions of Windows XP, the current system.

According to Amazon.com’s Web site, the version of Vista geared toward work use, Windows Vista Business, will cost $299, similar to the price for Windows XP Professional. The consumer version, Windows Vista Home Basic, will cost $199, the same as Windows XP Home.

But Microsoft is hoping most consumers will embrace Windows Vista Premium, which offers entertainment capabilities such as the ability to record live television. That version is listed at $239. Similar functionality is available in the Media Center edition of Windows XP, but that is only available pre-loaded onto a computer, so comparable pricing is not available.

The company also is hoping to sell consumers on another version of Vista, called Ultimate. That version, geared toward home users who also want to do some work from the family den, is listed for $399 on Amazon.com’s Web site.

The prices listed on Amazon.com’s Web site are for those users who choose to buy the operating system on its own. Many consumers, however, buy Windows as part of a new computer purchase.

Microsoft declined comment on the prices. Kevin Kutz, a director in Microsoft’s Windows client unit, said the company will officially make prices public when it releases a near-final test version, called release candidate 1, which is expected by the end of September.

Amazon.com spokesman Sean Sundwall said the Seattle-based online retailer posted the listings and began taking pre-orders two or three weeks ago because consumers were asking for that option. He said the prices are from the latest price sheet that Microsoft provided.

“The one thing we were certain on is the price,'’ Sundwall said.

But Sundwall said Amazon.com can’t be certain when Vista will be released. The retailer lists the ship date as Jan. 30, which Sundwall said was an estimate based on Microsoft’s public assertions that it plans to release the consumer version of Windows in January.

Kutz said Microsoft is still on track to deliver the much-delayed Vista to big business clients in November and to consumers in January. But he reiterated that the company will not hesitate to delay Vista’s release if any problems crop up.

“Quality is the ultimate determinant,'’ he said.

Goldman Sachs analyst Rick Sherlund, who was among the first to note the Amazon.com listings, said in a research note that the prices listed on the Web site, if accurate, could provide some boost to Microsoft’s earnings. But he wrote that it was hard to judge exactly how Vista will impact Microsoft’s earnings because details such as the exact release date aren’t yet clear.

A software watchdog group is accusing AOL of bundling malicious software into its latest free Web browser upgrade, version 9.0, citing a lack of proper disclosure and the inability for users to “opt out” of certain installations.

The software watchdog organization is warning consumers to think twice about installing the latest version of AOL’s free Web browser upgrade, pointing to deceptive practices by the company that could lead to problems with their PCs.

The watchdog group’s accusations come on the heels of AOL’s release of sensitive customer information online.

The organization, operated by the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School and the Oxford Internet Institute of Oxford University, determined that AOL 9.0 engages in a variety of spyware behaviors, said Christina Olson, the project manager for StopBadware.org who is associated with the Berkman Center.

Among the troublesome issues with AOL 9.0, she said, is the installation of unnecessary software, including QuickTime, RealPlayer, Viewpoint Media Player and Pure Networks Port Magic, without informing users, and the addition of components to Internet Explorer, such as a toolbar and favorites list, without disclosure.

Those who download the bundle are immediately prompted to update to their connectivity services through a dialog box that can’t be closed otherwise. And AOL-based shortcuts, including the AOL Toolbar, additional icons, and a favorites folder are added to a user’s Internet Explorer browser without permission.

Olson noted that when a user attempts to uninstall AOL software there is no way of knowing what has been left on the PC when the process is completed.

“None of these things is particularly nasty, when compared with other badware providers,” Olson said. “But software providers must make users aware of what is happening to their machines, with the ability to choose the things they want and remove software should they decide to do that.”

Another problem with 9.0, Olson noted, was that it left two AOL processes running after uninstallation. AOL reportedly fixed this issue after notification from StopBadware.org.

“We recommend the people read through our report and not install the version of AOL software tested, unless they understand the level of risk, or until the package is updated,” she said.

At the same time, AOL is directed to disclose during installation all of the additional software, what will be installed and seek the user’s consent. That includes letting users know that components will be added to Internet Explorer and telling them during installation about any software that will automatically update and obtaining their consent.

In response, Olson said, AOL is reviewing the report and indicated that that a design flaw in the uninstaller mistakenly leaves executables running, even after a restart.

“Given the recent fiasco with its customer data, this is a problem for AOL,” Yankee Group analyst Jonathan Singer said. “Although they are not bundling malware, they are installing software on computers without the users’ consent, and that is unacceptable behavior.”

As a result of the two issues, said Singer, people may start wondering if AOL respects its customers.

“Most major software providers are partnering with other companies and combining their products in an effort to make a buck,” said Singer. “But some let users opt in or out of certain pieces of a bundle, which is the proper way to do it.”

Read entire StopBadware.org report here

Japanese microchip maker NEC Electronics Corp. began sales of image detection processors for cars on Friday, saying it aims for a 40 percent share of the global market by 2015.

The processors will be used in Toyota Motor Corp.’s flagship Lexus LS460 model, set to go on sale this fall.

NEC Electronics hopes the device will become the de facto standard in image detection within nine years, when it projects annual sales of 20 billion yen ($170 million).

The processor can differentiate vehicles, pedestrians and lane markers, and auto makers can use the device in safety mechanisms to prevent collisions, Yoshirou Miyaji, NEC Electronics general manager of auto systems, told reporters.

In 2010, 4 million cars are expected to have image detection processors in place, with the market growing to 8.6 million cars in 2012 and 18 million cars in 2015, Miyaji said. NEC Electronics, the world’s eighth-largest chip maker, 70 percent owned by NEC Corp. , posted an operating loss of 5.76 billion yen in the quarter ended June on poor sales of cellphone chips, and it sees the car industry as a long-term source of demand.

When we all heard Dell’s battery recall was because of batteries made by Sony, we knew we hadn’t heard the end of it………

Apple is recalling 1.8 million battery packs for its iBook and PowerBook notebook computers because of an overheating problem, the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) announced Thursday.

The cells in the lithium-ion batteries in the iBook G4 and PowerBook G4 computers - the only two models affected by the recall - were produced by Sony.

The recall will have “no material impact” on Apple’s finances, according to an Apple spokesman.

Apple (up $0.50 to $67.81, Charts) stock was just slightly lower after the recall announcement, but shares of Sony (down $1.16 to $43.26, Charts) fell about 2.5 percent.

“It’s primarily a Sony issue for Dell, so I expect it to be similar for Apple,” said Wendy Abramowitz of Argus Research. “Considering that Apple sells a lot fewer PCs than Dell does, I don’t see it having a substantial impact.”

Apple has received nine reports of batteries overheating, including two reports of minor burns from the computers, the CPSC said.

The company said the recall affected 1.1 million notebook batteries in the United States and 700,000 batteries abroad.

The computers were sold from October 2003 through this month, according to the CPSC.

We originally had a link here to the CPSC site with the bulletin on this.  According to an article on PC Magazines’ web site, the range of serial numbers for the affected Apple 12-inch iBook G4, were incorrect on that site.  Apple’s battery recall web site, lists the affected batteries as “6C519 - 6C552″.

Under pressure from the Federal Communications Commission, BellSouth Corp. said yesterday that it will stop collecting a $2.97-per-month regulatory fee from its high-speed Internet customers.

The company made the announcement after learning that the FCC had begun investigating whether it and Verizon Communications Inc. — which planned to charge a similar fee — were violating federal truth-in-billing laws.

BellSouth said it is “immediately eliminating” the fee, which was “designed to recover a number of costs remaining from previous regulatory obligations and other network expenses.” BellSouth said most of its DSL Internet customers will see the change on their bills within a week.

Both companies have been accused of continuing to collect regulatory fees that the government is no longer assessing. The FCC confirmed yesterday that “letters of inquiry” had been mailed to the two carriers seeking information about their billing practices.

FCC spokeswoman Tamara Lipper said the agency prefers to let competitive forces govern the markets with minimum government regulation but is “willing and quick to act to protect consumers.”

At issue is the Universal Service Fund, a fee the government imposes on carriers to subsidize communications services in rural and low-income areas. Carriers pass the charge along to customers and usually itemize it on their bills.

The FCC decided last year that carriers would no longer be required to collect the fee for digital subscriber line service starting Aug. 14, 2006.

Verizon sent DSL customers an e-mail stating that on Aug. 26, it would charge a new monthly “supplier surcharge” of $1.20 or $2.70, depending on the connection speed. The fee will affect about half of Verizon’s 5.7 million DSL subscribers, according to the company.

Before Aug. 14, the company was collecting $1.25 or $2.83 from DSL customers, depending on their connection speed.

Until yesterday’s announcement, BellSouth had continued to collect $2.97 per month from all 3.2 million of its DSL customers.

As of yesterday, Verizon did not indicate a plan to cancel the fee, which the company says is needed to recover costs related to offering the service.

“We would have no comment on it other than to say obviously we will explain to them [the FCC] whatever it is they want to have explained,” said Brian Blevins, a Verizon spokesman.

 See related NJ4T post, “Verizon DSL Discount, Not So Fast”

A software update for Intel wireless hardware is faulty and can hog PC memory, Intel acknowledged Thursday. A fix is due on Friday.

The problem affects the Intel PROSet software version 10.5, Amy Martin, an Intel spokeswoman, said. The PROSet software accompanies Intel’s drivers that run the company’s wireless hardware on PCs.

“One of the processes used by the Intel PROSet software was not releasing the (file) handles correctly, which caused more and more memory to be used by the process,” Martin said. As a result, a PC slows down, she said.

Intel has made a fix available to PC makers and plans to post it to the Intel Web site on Friday, Martin said.

The PROSet software was released early in August as part of Intel’s scheduled updates. The new version included some fixes for security flaws, the most serious of which could allow an attacker to break into a PC via Wi-Fi or even create a worm that jumps from one wireless-enabled PC to another.

Intel recommends that users of PCs equipped with Intel wireless hardware install the latest version of the company’s software. A telltale sign that the Intel hardware is present is the “Centrino” sticker on laptops. Some PC makers will ship the updated software on new PCs and make it available to customers with driver updates, Martin said.

Intel download center here

Microsoft Corp. released a near-final version of its Internet Explorer 7 browser Thursday, and the company said the free Web-surfing software is on track for completion by the end of the year.

Internet Explorer 7 Release Candidate 1 contains all the features Microsoft hopes to include in the final product, its first major update for the program in years. Among the bells and whistles is the ability to open multiple “tabs'’ in the same browser window — a popular function in rival Mozilla’s Firefox browser — plus updated security functions.

The near-final release is aimed at industry professionals and tech experts who may help the world’s largest software company spot last-minute kinks and bugs.

Microsoft won’t say how many people have downloaded previous test versions.

Tony Chor, a group program manager with Internet Explorer, said the company also has not decided whether it would put out one more test version before the final product is released. He said Microsoft is currently planning to make the final version of IE7 broadly available in the last three months of this year, barring any unexpected problems.

IE 7 will be available for download for people using Windows XP, and it will be included in the forthcoming version of Windows, called Vista. After many delays, Vista is currently scheduled to be available for business users in November, and for consumers in January.

Download IE 7 here

From a Logitech press release  (advertising spin condensed):

Logitech today announced two advanced mice.

Logitech’s new mice move quickly and intuitively through multiple Web pages, large spreadsheet files, digital photos, playlists, etc. The Logitech® MX™ Revolution cordless laser mouse and the Logitech® VX Revolution™ cordless laser mouse for notebooks mark a radical change in navigating.

Both mice feature hyper-fast scrolling with a revolutionary alloy wheel — the MicroGear™ Precision Scroll Wheel — that spins freely for up to seven seconds, spanning hundreds of pages with a single flick of the finger. Computer navigation with these mice is also enhanced with an innovative One-Touch™ Search feature that allows people to select a word or phrase on a Web page or in a document and, with a single click, view Internet search results on that subject. They also sport new ergonomic designs.

The MicroGear Precision Scroll Wheel helps navigate in two different ways. Its free-spin mode takes people through long documents as quickly as they want. A single flick of the finger yields as many as 10,000 lines of a Microsoft Excel® document in seven seconds — with a traditional scroll wheel, it would take 500 spins and seven minutes to cover the same territory. The new wheel also offers an improved click-to-click scrolling option that results in familiar tactile feedback for each small unit of distance scrolled, allowing people to precisely navigate lists, slides and individual images.

The One-Touch Search feature can be married to a user´s search application, such as Yahoo!® or Google®. When a word or phrase is highlighted in a document or on a Web page, a click of the One-Touch Search button, located just beneath the scroll wheel, automatically begins a search of the Web or computer system.

The Logitech MX Revolution mouse includes an intelligent twist to the MicroGear Precision Scroll Wheel: The motorized wheel automatically switches between free-spin mode and click-to-click mode, with Logitech´s SmartShift™ technology, based on the best setting for the application being used. In some applications, such as Microsoft Excel, Logitech´s technology also senses the speed at which people spin the wheel — if spun rapidly, the wheel goes into free-spin mode; if spun slowly, the wheel shifts into click-to-click mode. People can also toggle manually between modes — by pushing down and clicking the wheel. And settings for the wheel and for all of the mouse´s seven buttons can be customized for individual preferences within the included Logitech SetPoint® software or with Logitech Control Center software for Mac®, available via download.

The MX Revolution also features a second wheel near the thumb that can either be used to zoom in and out of photos and documents, or to quickly switch between applications, furthering people´s navigational efficiency.

The Logitech MX Revolution mouse has a suggested retail price of $99.99 in the U.S. It is now available in the U.S. and in Europe.

The Logitech VX Revolution mouse, for notebook users,is smaller in size than the MX Revolution mouse and includes a slot to store the 2.4 GHz micro-receiver, making it more portable.

The base of the mouse features a switch that can shift the MicroGear Precision Scroll Wheel from free-spin mode to click-to-click mode. The mouse also includes a zoom slider that makes it easy to zoom in and out of open documents and photos. The Logitech VX Revolution mouse has a suggested retail price of $79.99 in the U.S. It is now available in the U.S. and in Europe.

More information about the MX Revolution and VX Revolution mice is available here

A review at Macworld here