The Buzz

Sports key in Yahoo's new video service

After spending more than a year trying to figure out what sort of video programming Internet users will pay for, Yahoo introduced its first subscription video service.

So far, it has determined that America wants to see college basketball, investment news and the latest boiled rat recipe from CBS' Survivor.

Internet users can sign up for Yahoo Platinum, which includes a variety of video and audio programming, for $9.95 a month.

A $16.95 SportsPak adds access to some NASCAR races and, most significantly, the ability to watch live broadcasts and replays of the 56 games of the first and second rounds of the NCAA men's basketball tournament, which began last week. The finals will be broadcast on television first, although replays will be available later on Yahoo's service.

Sports are proving to be a major draw for the fledgling online broadcasting services. Many of the 900,000 users of the leading service, RealOne SuperPass, by Real Networks, were attracted by its audio broadcasts of baseball games last year. And this year, along with Major League Baseball, Real will offer video broadcasts of 45 games a week.

Headphones for music and fashion styles

Portable music players have became a mainstay of modern, mobile life since Sony introduced the Walkman in 1979, and the headphones that go with them have evolved in their own right, as audio equipment and as fashion statements.

This month Sony is turning up the amperage on performance and look with a new line of lightweight clip-on headphones called Elements of Style.

The headphones cost $29.99 and come in three styles, each meant to enhance a particular kind of music and to reflect the taste of the wearer. Information is available at www.sonystyle.com.

The most rugged-looking model, AIR, is built to render a big bass sound, making it suited for hip-hop and rock music.

The SLD, with a silvery high-tech look, enhances hard-hitting sounds common to techno and house music. The LQD, in gray and gold Art Deco style, is better for the warm, smooth tonality of jazz, said Jeanne Lewis, the product manager for headphones at Sony Electronics.

Microsoft, Verizon delay high-speed Net plans

Microsoft Corp. delayed starting up a fast Internet-access service it plans to offer with Verizon Communications Inc. to work out some "technical details." The service will be available by the end of June, MSN marketing director Bob Visse said in an e-mail. The companies had intended to start the service this quarter.

Meanwhile, Verizon says it will make 10-million of its existing phone lines capable of delivering fast Internet access this year to challenge cable-modem services. That would bring the total number of Verizon's digital subscriber lines to 46-million, or 80 percent of its lines, vice chairman Lawrence Babbio said.

Apple bids original iMacs goodbye

Apple Computer Inc. has stopped making the original iMac personal computers, the colorful one-piece models that helped revive the company after chief executive Steve Jobs introduced them in 1998.

Apple discontinued the older versions after adding new flat-panel models, spokeswoman Natalie Sequeira said in an e-mail. The company last year started selling an iMac with a flat-panel monitor mounted on an adjustable chrome arm, replacing the original's cathode ray tube screen.

Fewer computer viruses in 2002, but higher costs

Computer virus infections rose more slowly in 2002, but a stronger breed meant the costs of recovery increased, a survey has found.

The 306 companies examined had more than 1.2-million virus incidents affecting 900,000 personal computers, servers and network gateways, said ICSA Labs, a unit of TruSecure Corp. of Herndon, Va.

That's 113 infections a month for every 1,000 machines, up 10 percent from the 103 infections a month reported in the previous survey. The infection growth rate was about 13 percent in 2001 and 2000.

The most recent survey looked at virus attacks from July 2001 to December.

The number of respondents who suffered virus disasters fell to 80 from 84 in 2001.

According to the report, disaster-causing incidents cost an average of $81,000 apiece, up from $69,000 in 2001. The median cost was $9,500, up from $5,500, with the large gap reflecting the fact that a handful of companies report only disasters costing more than $1-million to fix.

ICSA Labs said these estimates, which are provided by technology workers and mostly reflect the IT department's costs, are probably low.

In the survey, ICSA Labs defined a "disaster" as a virus that simultaneously affects 25 or more machines and causes significant financial pain or damage to data.

A new strategy for MSN?

Is Microsoft charting a new course for its MSN online service?

IDC, the big technology research firm, certainly thinks so. In a report posted on its Web site, which is accessible to clients, IDC said Microsoft had abandoned its goal of trying to overtake America Online as the largest online service. "MSN," the report states, "has adopted a new strategy -- to ultimately become a portal or software company, with customers obtaining their own Internet access from any source."

The new plan, the IDC report said, is "a gigantic strategic shift."

The report's author, Steven Harris, an IDC analyst, writes that Microsoft is not touting the plan as new but more as "a refinement of existing strategy." Yet Harris said that a gradual exit from the business of being an Internet service provider is the logical conclusion to Microsoft's present strategy. That strategy, he said, is to aggressively push its MSN software as the Web site portal into co-branded high-speed Internet services offered by telecommunications companies such as Qwest and Verizon.

Bob Visse, director of marketing for MSN, said Microsoft did not plan any retreat from the provision of slower, telephone dial-up access to the Internet. "But it is true that the market is shifting more and more to broadband," he said. "And the best thing we can do is use leading-edge software as our competitive advantage."

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