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What's New at PC Pitstop, January 2006

IN THIS ISSUE

• Taming the Wild West of the Internet
• Europe Leads PC Technology Trends
• Tracking Sony's DRM Activity
• Batteries Getting Hot--In a Bad Way

Taming the Wild West of the Internet

PC Pitstop CEO Rob Cheng takes a longer range look at the some of the larger and uglier trends on the Internet, what they mean to your privacy and safety, and what PC Pitstop is doing to help.
http://www.pcpitstop.com/news/rob/rcheng0601.asp

Europe Leads PC Technology Trends

Most hardware technologies are developed and manufactured in the United States or the Far East, but Europe is the leader in adopting the latest processors, larger hard drives, and many other important PC technologies.
http://pcpitstop.com/research/regionaltech.asp

Tracking Sony's DRM Activity

Sony recently announced that they would stop distributing current versions of their DRM spyware on music CDs as part of a pending class-action settlement. In the proposed agreement, Sony will also offer replacement CDs and $7.50 in cash compensation. Though most of the attention as been focused on Sony's XCP software, PC Pitstop research shows that five times more users have Sony's MediaMax DRM software installed. In some cases, MediaMax will still install if you decline the license agreement it shows when you insert the audio CD into a drive!
http://pcpitstop.com/research/drm.asp
http://sonysuit.com/

Batteries Getting Hot--In a Bad Way

In December, Dell announced a recall of batteries used in more than a dozen Inspiron, Latitude, and Precision portable computers. In October, Hewlett-Packard recalled batteries for several Pavilion, Presario, and Evo models. In both cases, the batteries may overheat to the point of melting and potentially cause a fire hazard. You can visit the following links to see if you have an affected system and arrange for a battery replacement.
http://dellbatteryprogram.com/
http://bpr.hpordercenter.com/bpr/

About PC Pitstop

PC Pitstop, LLC (http://www.pcpitstop.com) was formed in February 2000, and offers users a unique way to make sure their PCs are running fast, stable and secure--all through a free, Web-based interface.

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