The two companies have attracted several significant manufacturing and content allies in the attempt to bring new smarts and interactivity to a part of the electronics world that has remained a more passive part of people’s digital lives. Intel and Yahoo showed off Net-enabled TV prototypes in August, but the companies’ technology will be presented in more finished form at the electronics show within products by Samsung, Toshiba, and a number of new partners that have signed on since the debut.

What exactly are they trying to achieve?

For Yahoo, it’s establishment of the Widget Channel, a software foundation that can house programs for browsing photos, using the Internet’s abundant socially connected services, watching YouTube videos, or digging deeper into TV shows–and through which Yahoo will be able to show advertisements. For Intel, it’s a foothold in an industry whose microprocessors have typically been cheaper, less powerful, and less power-hungry.

But some quick action on the part of a security researcher and collaboration among Microsoft, Cisco Systems, and other companies in simultaneously releasing patches for a major flaw in an important protocol likely prevented a major attack on the Internet.

Malware jumped after the credit crisis forced the closing and consolidation of banks and other companies starting in the early fall. One report found a direct correlation between the fall of the stock market and the rise in malware. The targeted attacks include fake antivirus software scams that trick consumers into making an online transaction and phishing e-mails aimed at people whose bank had merged with another one, like Chase and Washington Mutual.

PCs weren’t the only targets for malicious hackers. Threats against newer gadgets and devices rose this year. Apple was forced to fix several holes that would allow people to compromise a password-locked iPhone and do things like view incoming SMS messages and launch applications, as well as make phone calls. Meanwhile, the ubiquity of USB thumb drives meant it was only a matter of time until they were used to spread viruses.

But letting what happened at the end of the year color our thinking could lead us to overlook impressive innovation and progress in Web start-ups and online technology in general. The glimmer of hope: more companies are hiring people than firing people–even though the overall number of jobs lost far outstrips jobs gained.

The Web 2.0 battleground remained not just a fight for users of services, but a fight for developers. Competing standards for online applications, media, identity, and social networks duked it out in 2008 and will continue to do so in 2009. Many of the battles put open-source standards–such as OpenID for identity–against “walled gardens” run by single companies.

Social-network giant Facebook, for example, has been strategically slow to embrace standards, opting for its own identity system (Facebook Connect) instead of embracing OpenID, and for its own application platform as opposed to the emerging Open Social platform.

The impasse comes at a time when all four major labels, including Universal Music Group, Sony Music, and EMI, are renegotiating their licensing deals with YouTube.

“We are working actively to find a resolution with YouTube that would enable the return of our artists’ content to the site,” Warner said in a statement. “Until then, we simply cannot accept terms that fail to appropriately and fairly compensate recording artists, songwriters, labels and publishers for the value they provide.”

YouTube has become an important revenue stream for at least one of the top labels. This week, Rio Caraeff, Universal Music’s digital chief, told CNET News that YouTube has generated “tens of millions” of dollars for the recording company this year, up 80 percent from last year.

Caraeff said that Universal and YouTube enjoy a strong relationship and that the companies are trying to expand their relationship beyond music videos. A source close to Universal said that the label will likely book nearly $100 million in video-streaming revenue–most of it from YouTube.

This could come across negatively because MySpace runs MySpace Music, a service that competes with Project Playlist. And that’s probably why the News Corp.-owned MySpace is making it very clear that it has blocked Project Playlist because of complaints from major music labels.

“MySpace is an open platform that welcomes all developers to build rich and legitimate applications for its global community,” according to a statement from the company. “We take copyright issues very seriously and our goal is to help developers build a substantial business by creating an environment that respects rights holders and protects their content.”

The statement continued: “MySpace has received notices of infringement about Project Playlist at different times from several of the major music companies currently suing Project Playlist. Per our policy of taking very seriously the requests of rights holders to block access to third party sites that are believed to be infringing, we have evaluated the requests of the major music companies and determined that it is in our best interest not to allow Project Playlist widgets on MySpace, and effective immediately, we will no longer be allowing these widgets within the MySpace platform.”

After going over the trade-offs associated with allowing insiders to use social networks at work, his team confirmed that they would use data leak prevention technology to monitor the network traffic–balancing the desire to benefit from such new technologies while ensuring company secrets remain protected.

Warren had a similar meeting with a U.S. government agency last week to discuss strategies for dealing with public employees using Web apps at work and mobile devices, which can introduce viruses and other security problems into a corporate network. And she’s been preparing for the launch early next year of McAfee’s Cybercrime Response Unit, a site where consumers can go when they think they’ve been victimized by online scams.

People also are getting e-mails and seeing ads on the Web for work-from-home “jobs” where all they have to do to become an “international sales rep” is open a bank account to receive money in and then wire the money to some international third party. In reality, the transaction is nothing more than a money-laundering move, known as a “cyber mule operation,” to transfer money to another country and hide the trail in an illegal deal.

Typically, the transaction is a payment for some kind of illegal activity such as the exchange of lists of credit card information or personal data that can be used for identity fraud.

The Internet Watch Foundation had taken exception with a page dedicated to a 1976 album by rock band The Scorpions. The cover of that album–called Virgin Killer–includes the image of a prepubescent girl, which the group deemed a “potentially illegal indecent image,” landing Wikipedia on the group’s blacklist.

As a result, Internet service providers in the U.K. began filtering access to all pages of the online encyclopedia over the weekend.

The IWF announced in a statement Tuesday that it would reverse that decision after an appeal and presentation by the Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit organization that operates Wikipedia.

“The IWF board has today considered these findings and the contextual issues involved in this specific case, and–in the light of the length of time the image has existed and its wide availability–the decision has been taken to remove this Web page from our list,” it said.

The group went on to acknowledge that its effort to prevent people from seeing the image actually resulted in the opposite effect, bringing more attention to the album cover worldwide.

“IWF’s overriding objective is to minimize the availability of indecent images of children on the internet, however, on this occasion our efforts have had the opposite effect,” the watchdog group said. “We regret the unintended consequences for Wikipedia and its users.”

The Wikimedia Foundation applauded the Internet watchdog’s “swift action,” but noted that the episode emphasized the need for watchdog accountability.

Business Division President Stephen Elop said in an October interview that a technology preview of the browser-based applications would come this year, followed by a beta in 2009. However, it turns out Microsoft is using a rather tortured interpretation of the term “technology preview.”
Click for gallery

It’s currently being used by fewer than 1,000 Microsoft employees, as part of a test that started last month and is slated to go through February. Consumers won’t be able to try a test version of the products until sometime next year. Microsoft isn’t saying when, but I’d say you’ll have plenty of time to try the Windows 7 beta before you have to worry about testing the Office Web apps.

Ultimately, Microsoft is planning the release of the Office Web Applications in conjunction with the next wave of Office product, code-named Office 14. Microsoft has not offered a release date for the desktop version of Office 14.

Microsoft is planning two ways of offering the browser-based Office programs–one for consumers and the other for businesses looking to offer Office Web apps to their workers. Consumers will be able to use them through Office Live. The company currently has a free product called Office Live Workspace that lets users view and share–but not edit–Office documents.

Meanwhile, rivals like Google and Zoho already offer editing abilities. Microsoft is staking its claim on being able to offer better compatibility and document fidelity with its products. The company has recently had some big customers consider abandoning Office and move to Google Apps, but has wooed some of them back by sharing their plan for the Office Web apps.

But don’t read this as an admission that the Mac operating system is suddenly insecure. It’s more a recognition that Mac users are vulnerable to Web application exploits, which have replaced operating system vulnerabilities as the bigger threat to computer users.

Apple quietly signaled its shift with an item titled “Mac OS: Antivirus utilities” posted on its Support Web site November 21: “Apple encourages the widespread use of multiple antivirus utilities so that virus programmers have more than one application to circumvent, thus making the whole virus writing process more difficult.”

The item offers three software suggestions: Intego VirusBarrier X5 and Symantec Norton Anti-Virus 11 for Macintosh, both available from the Apple Online Store, and McAfee VirusScan for Mac.

Brian Krebs, who first reported on the Apple antivirus recommendation Monday in his Security Fix blog at The Washington Post, said an Apple store employee told him he didn’t need antivirus software when he purchased a MacBook three months ago.

In the past year, Meebo has launched an application programming interface, partnered with media brands such as Hearst to power embeddable chat rooms, and launched a “Community IM” initiative for social sites.

Meebo is just the latest of many video partners for Universal. Universal has made investments in Imeem, a music playlist-based social network, and Buzznet, a music fan community hub.

Earlier this year, the label struck a music video deal with Last.fm, a music-focused social network owned by CBS Interactive (which publishes CNET News) and Kiwibox, a community site for teens. Like the major other labels, it has a stake in MySpace Music.

Universal is also reported to be working on a “Hulu-like” site for its music video content. There’s no word if that’s still on the books, now that music video portal MTV Music has launched.