MySpace reveals sex offenders

MySpace, an online social network popular with teenagers, said in two statements yesterday that it was prepared to work with state attorneys general who have requested the identities of MySpace members who are known sex offenders, reports NYTimes.

But the company said its co-operation hinges on whether the state officials follow the law and subpoena the names, a step that a leader of the state attorneys general said was not necessary.

In its first statement, MySpace said it was "doing everything short of breaking the law to ensure the information about these predators gets to the proper authorities".

Lieutenant Daniel Zimmerman, a US army infantry platoon leader in Iraq, puts a blog on the Internet every now and then "to basically keep my friends and family up-to-date" back home, says News24.com.

It just got tougher to do that for Zimmerman and a lot of other US soldiers. No more using the military's computer system to socialise and trade videos on MySpace, YouTube and nine other Web sites, the Pentagon says.

Citing security worries and technological limits, the Defence Department has cut off access to those sites for personnel using the Pentagon's computer network.

Making its most detailed intellectual-property challenge to open source software to date, Microsoft said on Tuesday that such software, including the Linux operating system, violated 235 of its patents, reports iht.com.

The maker of the rival Windows operating system said it wanted to work out licensing deals with open source companies, instead of fighting the patent disputes in court.

Microsoft contends that open source software violates patents related to its graphical user interface, e-mail programmes and other technology.

DVR pioneer TiVo announced a new search service called Universal Swivel Search, which is describes as the first TV-centric on-screen search tool, reports PCWorld.

The tool expands TiVo's existing video search capabilities in two interesting ways. First, Universal Swivel Search expands the pool of searchable video to include Internet video, not just broadcast and cable TV. Search for the word 'Buffy' and the search results might show you an upcoming new episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer on broadcast TV, a re-run coming up on cable and several episodes available on-demand at Amazon's Unbox download service.

Using Universal Swivel Search, you can also search online and offline video for specific subject matter, like football or healthcare tips, says Bob Poniatowski, TiVo's product marketing manager for core DVR.