APPLE WON'T SELL NBC SHOWS THIS FALL: Apple Inc. escalated a dispute with NBC Universal over the pricing of television shows by announcing Friday it would not sell any of NBC's programs for this fall season on iTunes. Earlier, NBC had told Apple that it no longer would allow its programs to be sold via iTunes at the end of the year. NBC Universal- controlled television programming accounts for an estimated 40 percent of the video downloads on iTunes. "We are disappointed to see NBC leave iTunes because we would not agree to their dramatic price increase," said Eddy Cue, Apple's vice president of iTunes. Rather than cut off NBC programs in the middle of the season, Apple decided to stop before the new fall episodes premiere next month, he said.
FEDS TEST VISTA VERSION FOR COMPLIANCE: Microsoft Corp. has submitted a test version of its Windows Vista operating system with features that make it easier to use non-Microsoft programs to search PC hard drives, according to a report issued by the Justice Department Friday. The report, a regular update on Microsoft's compliance with a 2002 antitrust settlement, said the Redmond, Wash.-based company was on schedule in other areas, including the enormous task of rewriting documentation it provides to licensees of its technology. Microsoft agreed to make changes to Vista in response to antitrust complaints from Google Inc., which in June said Microsoft's hard-drive search program was interfering with Google's own tool. The Justice Department said preliminary testing shows the new version, which will let Vista users set a competing search program as their default and see it in the Windows Start menu, works as expected. The changes will be available in Service Pack 1, a package of upgrades and fixes expected in the first quarter of 2008, the department said.
NORTHWEST IMPROVES FLIGHT RECORD: Northwest Airlines Corp. is ending August without the waves of cancellations that plagued it earlier this summer. Northwest canceled just two flights Thursday and 10 on Wednesday, well under 1 percent of its schedule on both days, according to FlightStats.com. On four days this month, the airline completed 100 percent of its flights, spokesman Roman Blahoski said. It was canceling more than 100 flights a day in some of the final days of June and July when it couldn't find enough pilots to keep the planes flying. The airline blamed "absenteeism" by pilots. Their union said pilots who called in sick were exhausted by a new, tougher schedule. On Aug. 1, the airline reached a deal aimed at reducing cancellations. It reduced the number of hours pilots routinely would be expected to fly. Northwest also said it would pay union workers a bonus of as much as 15 percent of their pay -- up to $1,000 -- for perfect attendance through Labor Day. Northwest also reduced its August schedule by 4 percent, recalled furloughed pilots, and has said it plans to hire as many as 350 pilots in the coming year.
