Comcast plans to release a device called HomePoint that will integrate "a wireless home router and the company's VoIP service, integrating all of their digital voice functionality via up to five handsets. The device is also integrated with Comcast email service, and will allow users to check email, manage Comcast contacts and access visual voicemail. Users will have to part with $60-a-year for the device. Says Om Malik, "Ha! I'd charge Comcast just to display it in my house; HomePoint is about as attractive as a Soviet-era office block." He says he remembers hearing about similar gadgets when …

Opening the application floodgates to its home page, Yahoo is hoping that that external developers will soon build tens of thousands of programs that its more than 330 million visitors will find useful. Yahoo's plans on using its Open Hack Day conference in New York City on Friday and Saturday to get out the message. The event, giving third-party developers, advertisers and Web publishers hands-on educationa sessions, is being held in New York for the first time. Announced in April 2008, Yahoo's Open Strategy initiative aims to open all of the company's online services, sites and applications to …

In a New York Times op-ed, Google co-founder Sergey Brin makes the case for his company's highly controversial Books project. "I often find that the past has valuable lessons for the future," he says in reference to the project's ability to search dated texts. He also alludes to "a vanishing number of libraries and used book stores," which he portrays as a problem for Google Books to solve rather than make worse. Regarding the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers, he says: "While we have had disagreements, we have a common goal -- to unlock the …

Barnes & Noble's forthcoming eReader will run on Google's mobile operating system Android, an unnamed source tells Gizmodo. Making the partnership more likely, is the fact that Barnes & Nobile has "conveniently" stalled on releasing an Android app, long after they went to market with iPhone and BlackBerry versions of the mobile ebook software. Gizmodo, for its part, thinks the move "would be pretty fantastic, and it's eminently plausible. "At six inches, it's a smallish device, and we've seen Android on similarly-sized screens already ... Wireless connectivity is built into the OS ... Extraneous, inappropriate software and settings …

When it launches next year, Microsoft Office 2010 is now expected to come in a "diet" version. Called Office Starter, it will be preloaded on new PCs and include a basic version of Word and Excel that can be used to create, edit and view documents. It's not clear how the Office Starter version will compare to Office Web Applications, Microsoft's free online version that will compete with Google Docs. Separately , if you buy a new PC, you can purchase a key card at a retailer instead of a boxed copy of a software DVD. The key …

YouTube cofounder Chad Hurley wrote a blog post on Friday to celebrate the third anniversary of Google purchasing his company. That's all well and good, but some bloggers suggest that Hurley might consider keeping a lower profile seeing as how Google just admitted overpaying for the video sharing site, which is still failing to generate revenue proportionate to its user-base. Calling Hurley's post "rather self-congratulatory," NewTeeVee.com notes that some principles co-founder reiterates "have nothing to do with premium content, and indeed that's where YouTube's biggest problems have arisen: the Viacom lawsuit, the music label fights, the …

This week, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled in favor of Skype and eBay, affirming a judgment from the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, which found that two patents asserted against Skype and eBay are invalid. The case was filed two years ago by Peer Communications Corp., a subsidiary of Acacia Research Corp. Peer, which alleged that Skype's Internet communications product infringed two of its patents relating to a peer-to-peer communications network. The case reached the Federal Circuit after the district court ruled favorably for Skype and eBay on a …

Expanding broadband's national footprint northward, United Airlines is now offering inflight Wi-Fi service on flights between New York and California. Relying on Itasca-based service provider Aircell, the airline plans to use customer feedback from the initial rollout to see whether it makes sense to expand the Wi-Fi service. On the United flights between New York and California, Aircell's Gogo costs $12.95 for laptops and $7.95 for Wi-Fi-enabled handheld devices a al BlackBerrys. Passengers, however, cannot make cell-phone calls or use Voice over Internet Protocol applications. AirTran Airways and Southwest already offer Wi-Fi to flyers, while Delta Airlines and …

Despite the falling valuations of many digital music startups, online music store Amie Street has secured another $3.9 million in second round financing. The company, best known for its dynamic pricing of songs, has been raising the round for about a year, and inked a regulatory filing on Sept. 30, with a formal announcement expected on Thursday. Menlo Park, Calif.-based digital media specialist Deep Fork Capital was the lead investor. Amie Street's dynamic pricing model introduces new songs as free downloads, then raises the price as they are downloaded more frequently. Though primarily a channel for indie labels …

Fast Company talks with Richard Cleland, assistant director of the Federal Trade Commission's division of ad practices, regarding bloggers, gifts, and full disclosure. Contrary to various rumors, bloggers will not be fined $11,000, or any other amount of money, the first time they're caught failing to disclose gifts received. Rather, "Our approach is going to be educational," he says, adding that the FTC's focus is on the advertisers. "What kind of education are [advertisers] providing [bloggers], are [advertisers] monitoring the bloggers and whether what they're saying is true?" Furthermore, the FTC is hoping that bloggers will self-impose ethical …