Adding to its expansive line of products sporting the Office name, Microsoft today announced that it will launch Office Live, a robust Web hosting service, on 15 November. The service will be available in both a free, ad-supported version as well as a premium, fee-based package.

ATI today released version 6.10 of its Catalyst driver package for Radeon graphics cards. The company claims that the tenth installment of this year has received Crossfire D3D driver improvements and got better at handling large vertex meshes. According to ATI, the changes will result in a 6.7 - 15.8% gain in 3DMark2006 scores, 9.7-10.5% in 3DMark2005 and up to 7.1% in 3DMark2003.

Redmond (WA) - Security researchers have discovered a new Windows flaw that could allow hackers to crash the built-in firewall. By sending malformed DNS packets to vulnerable machines, hackers could disable and eventually bypass the operating system firewall. So far only Windows XP computers with the Internet Connection Sharing (ICS) service turned on are affected by the attack.

Retail packaging has never been anything special for previous versions of Microsoft's market-dominating operating system and business application suites of software, but Microsoft is changing that convention with the packaging for Office 2007 and its Vista operating system.

Apple today anounced that the new version of its Ipod shuffle, which it is calling the "most wearable Ipod ever", will be available in stores throughout the country this Friday, 3 November.

Tul, a Taiwan-based graphics card supplier, has announced the PowerColor X1650 XT, its second graphics card to include a chipset manufactured at 80nm process and to feature the new CrossFire Bridge Interconnect.

Sharp Microelectronics has introduced a new 12.1" TFT LCD for outdoor and bright ambient applications in transportation, industrial, retail, medical and other markets.

Kingston expanded its "Value RAM" mainstream notebook memory with 2 GB modules. The SO-DIMMs are available in 533 MHz (CAS 4, 5) and 667 MHz (CAS 4, 5) versions.

Irvine (CA) - Gateway is trying to take all the guesswork out of over-clocking with its new factory over-clocked FX530 desktop PC. The computer will come with Intel Core 2 Duo or Core 2 Extreme processors and ATI x1900 or x1950 graphics cards. Over-clocked processors traditionally have rarely failed, but Gateway is offering a one-year limited warranty on the FX530.

Vantec has introduced a new notebook cooler that includes two flip-out speakers and a subwoofer. The "Piano" cooler has an adjustable speed fan and Vantec claims the speakers have a combined RMS output of 15 watts along with a frequency response of 60Hz to 20kHz. A 3-port USB 2.0 hub is also integrated into the cooler.

Graphics card supplier TUL Corporation today announced the PowerColor X1650 XT graphics processing unit (GPU). According to the company, it is the second GPU to be manufactured at 80nm fabrication process and to feature CrossFire Bridge Interconnect technology. It will be available in both a PCI-E and AGP versions.

Porsche Cars of North America, along with XM Satellite Radio, announced today a "long-term agreement" to exclusively install XM radios in new Porsche models, beginning in 2007.

Worldwide VoIP equipment revenues will rise to US$11.9 billion in 2010, expanding at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 24.7% from US$3.95 billion in 2005, according to iSuppli.The VoIP market encompasses three user segments: private branch exchanges (PBXs) for enterprises, infrastructure operated by service providers and residential-access equipment.

Seiko Epson has announced the S1D13771 digital video encoder LSI to be added to digital video systems for TV output from embedded products. With a built-in display buffer, high-performance DAC and high-quality scalar providing bi-cubic input/output scaling, the S1D13771 enables the production of high-quality TV output with low material cost, according to the company.

OSD Displays has introduced a new 7" WVGA transflective TFT LCD with white LED backlighting. This new low-temperature polysilicon (LTPS) TFT LCD is fully Restriction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS) compliant, according to the company.

LG Electronics (LG) said it started operations at its PDP (plasma display panel) module plant in Mexico on October 25, 2006, according to a press release from the company.LGE started building its PDP module faculties in Reynosa, Mexico in early 2006 with the plant to assemble PDPs from LGE's Gumi plant in South Korea.

China-based Shanghai SVA-NEC Liquid Crystal Display (SVA-NEC) will be the first China panel maker to invest in a seventh-generation (7G)/7.5G TFT LCD plant with the plant expected to come online in 2009 at the soonest, according to research firm Displaybank.SVA-NEC's 6G plant will also enter mass production in 2008.

On October 24, 2006, Fujitsu received a report from a customer in Japan that a Fujitsu notebook with a battery pack subject to a recent replacement program by Sony had an incident in which the battery pack overheated and sparked. After investigating the incident together with Sony, it has been concluded that the incident resulted from the Sony-made battery pack, and Fujitsu is now pursuing further detailed investigations.

Culver City (CA) - Logitech is trying to spice up normally boring speakers with its new Z10 series. The speakers have a touch-sensitive control panel and an LCD panel that can display CPU and RAM usage along with typical song information. You can see the speakers in operation in the following video.