If seemingly imminent plans by Apple to buy a small online music specialist from California go ahead, it could signal the end of music downloading as we know it.

The apparently solid rumours that Jobs and co. are set to snap up Lala, a cloud-storage music website, suggests that Apple is either looking to add streaming music to iTunes or build something even more innovative.

No offline tracks

Lala’s ability to make entire music collections available from the cloud obviates the need for users to keep downloaded copies offline on any of their own media, whether that’s a portable player or a computer hard drive.

Should iTunes eventually morph into a music library in the sky, as many observers are speculating, then both downloads and music copying could disappear.

What’s left?

After all, when companies like Apple are merely selling the right to listen to music stored remotely on hardware with permission to access it, then there won’t be a lot left to copy.

LOS ANGELES – Apple Inc. is in advanced talks to buy online music retailer Lala.com, a Silicon Valley startup that has threatened “the end of the MP3″ with its fast song-streaming application.

A person familiar with the matter confirmed the talks with The Associated Press but was not authorized to speak publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

In October, Lala co-founder Bill Nguyen demonstrated to the AP a working model of an application the company had developed for Apple’s iPhone.

The app, which is not available to the public, allows users to buy the right to stream songs from a digital locker for an unlimited time on their iPhones for just 10 cents each.

The song quality is lower than what Apple’s iTunes songs offer, but “intelligent caching” allows tracks to load and play in seconds, with playback possible even outside of cell phone coverage. The model undercuts prices charged on iTunes, where songs generally cost 69 cents to $1.29.

Nguyen described the concept as the start of “the end of the MP3.”

A key reason for Apple to buy Lala is to keep Nguyen and the development team on board, the person said.

Representatives from Apple and Lala did not immediately return messages seeking comment.

Lala, a private company based in Palo Alto, Calif., was launched in 2006 with $35 million in venture capital from Bain Capital LLC, Ignition Partners and Warner Music Group Corp.

In October, Lala became a part of Google Inc.’s new music search feature that put links to free song plays at the top of search results. Lala, which has deals with all the major recording companies, provides music for about half of the links that appear.

Lala also debuted a service that month that allows Facebook friends to send each other 10-cent Web songs to stream on their pages or 90-cent song downloads in the MP3 format.

Lala began as an online CD-trading site but relaunched in October 2008 as a music retailer that sold song-streaming rights for 10 cents and MP3 downloads for an extra 79 cents.

Channel Five has followed Channel 4 in signing a deal with YouTube to stream content to the video sharing site for free for UK customers.

YouTube watchers in Blighty will be able to catch up on some of Five’s Australian content such as Home and Away and Neighbours as well as British TV shows like The Gadget Show for 30 days after transmission.

The content, which is free thanks to an advertising deal with Google, will not include some of the channels more popular shows.

Those hoping to catch up on CSI and FlashForward starting Joseph Fiennes will disappointed. Five doesn’t own the rights to offer those programmes on its YouTube channel.

Five also intends to use YouTube as a platform to engage with fans of its shows says Google on its company blog. Citing that it plans to offer YouTube users the opportunity to audition for a guest appearance on “Neighbours”.

~ Ben

In case you missed it–and most of you probably did–Microsoft’s Bing search engine was offline for about 30 minutes on Thursday evening. What’s noteworthy here isn’t that fact that a Web service was down briefly (just ask Gmail users) but that the short-lived outage resulted in a flurry of media coverage, including a couple of stories right here on PCWorld.com.

In fact, a quick check of Google News reveals numerous reports on Bing’s minor glitch–and not just from tech news sites and bloggers, the folks you’d expect to cover such things. Mainstream media outlets including the BBC, UPI, and Seattle Times did as well. The Washington Post‘s site also had the story, but it was really a repost of TechCrunch’s take.

The updates continued Friday morning when Microsoft’s Satya Nadella, senior vice president of online service, apologized for the outage in a blog post. The glitch was caused by “a configuration change during some internal testing that had unfortunate and unintended consequences,” she wrote.

~ Benpetben

Thanks, Ben

Windows System Defender – a rogue security software application from the same family of rogues that spawned Windows Enterprise Defender and Windows PC Defender – is usually distributed by specially crafted webpages such as windowssystemdefender.com. On this page the rogue is praised for being a properly good security software solution. The site says Windows System Defender will protect against viruses and spyware, will protect your IM (instant messaging) client and will use little processing power. This is all nothing but a lie meant to push you to download the software onto your machine

The site also presents a long list of Windows System Defender features that should convince you to download the rogue:
- Fast automated updates
- Real-time protection against malicious and suspicious software
- Advanced protection against spyware and adware.
- Real-time protection against security threats when using ICQ and IM clients
- Self-protection from being modified, stopped or even uninstalled by another application
- Low CPU load
- Compatible with Windows XP, Windows Vista
- Free support 24/7 in touch.

The graph showing how efficient Windows System Defender is at detecting/removing malware is fake as well. So are the Awards it claims to have received from prestigious IT-oriented sites.
Keep in mind that Windows System Defender is a rogue. This means it cannot detect, remove and protect against malware. It also means it will try to scare you into thinking your system is infected -> then it will ask you to purchase a full version of Windows System Defender to remove the infection (assuming of course that you fell for the scam and you believed the rogue can detect and remove threats).
Don’t let the malicious advertising get to you. Windows System Defender is not a genuine, legitimate security software application. Do not download it and do not pay for it!
If you didn’t download Windows System Defender but somehow it managed to get on your computer, you should ignore the fake pop-ups, system scans and requests to purchase a full Windows System Defender version. Remove the rogue from your system as soon as possible!

Automatic removal guide

Step 1. If you have a printer, make sure to print out this tutorial. If you do not have a printer, save this tutorial, go out to a copy center and print it out there. If you do not have a printer and do not want to go out, then use the pen and paper method: grab a pen and a piece of paper and write down the instruction presented in the steps below. In the process of eliminating Windows System Defender from your machine you will need to shut down the browser. And since this will also shut down the tutorial, you need to know what you should do next.

Step 2. You will have to install Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware. In this regard you need to download the software’s setup executable. Just click this link and save the .exe file on your computer (preferably on your desktop).

Step 3. Double click the Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware setup executable. It should be on the desktop under the name mbam-setup. This will launch the installation process. If you already know how to install a piece of software, proceed to step 4. If you do not know how to do this, we’ll walk you though it all:

- The Select Setup Language window should have popped up. By default, the language in which the software will be installed is set to English, but you can change this. The software provides support for 30+ languages. After selecting the language of your choice, click OK. It would be best to just leave it set to English though.

- The Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware Setup Wizard will now popup. Just click Next.

- You will be presented with the License Agreement. Click I accept the agreement and then click Next. If you do not accept the agreement you will not be able to continue.

- Keep clicking Next until you get to the Ready to install window. Now click Install. After the installation process completes click Finish. Do not uncheck the boxes next to Update Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware or Launch Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware.







Step 4. The Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware application will launch automatically. The Perform quick scan option should be checked by default – if it isn’t then check it and then click Scan. You are well advised to close all running apps before clicking scan. This will ensure the scan for Windows System Defender will complete swiftly.

Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware will start scanning your files for signs of Windows System Defender. This may take a while, so be patient. It all depends on how powerful your computer is and how many files Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware has to scan.

When the scan for Windows System Defender is complete you will be presented with a notification box. Click OK to close the notification box and go to the main Scanner screen. Click Show Results and you will be presented with a list of all the infected files Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware has detected.


Step 5. Click Remove Selected and Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware will remove all the infected files it has detected. It may be necessary to restart your computer in order to remove some of these files. After Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware is done removing all the infected files, it will open Notepad and present the scan log to you. You can review the log at your leisure – save it If you want.

Step 6. Close Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware and you’re done. No traces of Windows System Defender should be left on your computer.

~ Benpetben