CSR is a global provider of personal wireless technology and its product portfolio covers Bluetooth, GPS, FM receivers and WiFi (IEEE802.11).

They announced today a new multi-microphone configuration for Bluetooth headsets which will improve performance. They are also looking to improve voice quality on vanilla Bluetooth headsets with VoiceField technology "uses two microphones to capture the speech of the headset user before it is lost amongst competing noise sources."

It’s good news, but can they make it look less Borg-like?

source: Home BusinessWire

A UK-based non-profit advocacy group, Privacy International (PI), has angered the popular search engine Google by classifying them as the company most hostile to privacy in their report entitled "A Race To The Bottom: Privacy Ranking of Internet Service Companies."

PI described Google as a "comprehensive consumer surveillance & entrenched hostility to privacy", the only company to receive the worst and bottom of the scale ranking.

Other organizations ranked as having privacy threats were Apple, AOL, Facebook, Yahoo and Microsoft’s Windows Live Space. Even though Microsoft ranked two points higher than Google, it still has "serious lapses in privacy practices".

Google is not taking this lying down, especially since MS scored better that they did and PI has accused Google of conducting a smear campaign against the group.

In the letter addressed to Google CEO Eric Schmidt, PI director Simon Davies accuses Google of trying to discredit the group by contacting the media and claiming that PI has conflict of interest regarding Microsoft.

IT Wire reports that in the letter, Davies writes:

"According to our sources, your representative or representatives made particular reference to one member of our 70-member international Advisory Board. This man is a current employee of Microsoft. I can confirm that he joined our Advisory Board well before he was headhunted by Microsoft. At the time he was the director of a leading UK non-governmental organization and had more than six years extensive involvement in the work of Privacy International. He is a decent, skilled and honorable man who upon his appointment with Microsoft offered us his resignation. We refused to accept it, and he continues to serve on the Board in a private capacity. As an exceptionally skilled IT and security expert he is a superb resource in our day-to-day work across many fields of privacy. To infer that he in any way influences our decisions with regard to Microsoft is not just inaccurate but it is also insulting."

Check out Google-Sux for more info in this vein and some laughs.

source: IT Wire

Google, otherwise known as the search engine we all known and love, has recently filed a complaint against Microsoft for allegedly designing the Vista operating system to discourage the use of the Google search engine.

The U.S. Justice Department, finding the matter just as ridiculous as we all might, has taken Microsoft’s side, choosing to reject the formal complaint. According to the New York Times, the action demonstrates that nearly a decade after the U.S. government began its landmark effort to break up Microsoft, the Bush administration has changed course by defending the company against accusations of anti-competitive conduct.

Modifications are said to already be underway, so Google will be expected to make a return in the Vista operating system.