Timothy Block, a lawyer for Best Buy, has admitted to falsifying documents for Best Buy in a lawsuit filed against the company. Block admitted to altering emails along with a memo before handing the items over to plaintiffs.

The lawsuit was originally filed against Best Buy by Samuel Kim in 2003. It accuses Best Buy and Microsoft of running a scam in which Best Buy signed up customers for MSN Internet access without their consent between 1999 and 2003. Ultimately, the credit cards of Best Buy customers were charged for services they never signed up for. Kim accuses Best Buy and Microsoft of working together on this scam, and says that Best Buy received a cut for each person it registered with the service. The scam is said to have affected 100,000 people.

Best Buy has had past history of not cooperating with courts in handing over papers. Timothy Block's law firm has requested to be removed from the case, the judge will rule June 22 whether to allow them to withdraw.

Joost today announced that it has appointed Mike Volpi as its new chief executive officer. Volpi will replace founding CEO Fredrik de Wahl, who will remain at Joost as chief strategy officer. The change in positions is effective immediately.

“Mike brings unparalleled leadership and technology expertise that will enable us to accelerate the growth of the company,” said former Joost CEO de Wahl. “I am excited to work with Mike, both because he is an exceptional leader and strategist, and because we share a common ambition for Joost.”

Prior to joining Joost, Volpi worked in various strategic marketing roles at Cisco for 13 years. During his time at Cisco, he took part in the acquisition of more than 70 companies. In his most recent role at Cisco Volpi served as senior vice president and general manager for Cisco’s Routing and Service Provider Technology Group, through which he directly managed an $11 billion business.

Joost has garnered significant corporate and user attention since it launched its beta program. Currently, CBS, Viacom, and Warner Brothers have all signed content partnerships with the company. Although the official launch date of the program is still unannounced, the Beta program is in its final stages, and the recent change in corporate leadership might indicate that Joost is gearing up for its debut.

According to ZDNet Google has bought Green Border, a company that specializes in virus protection software and tools. No financial details about the transaction were revealed.

Although the acquisition might not seem very interesting to the unsuspecting eye as it would only indicate the possibility that Google will integrate virus protection in its toolbar or come out with its own virus protection software, looking at exactly what Green Border does makes everything a lot more interesting.

Green Border offers virus protection by isolating each Internet session from the rest of the PC and any earlier Internet sessions. Basically, it offers its virus protection by keeping all of the files of an Internet session in one place, and after the session is over, deleting everything, including cache, temporary files, etc. What this method of virus protection does is virtually eliminate the need for updating for protection against new virus signatures. All files are simply flushed away after each session ends.

Adding this feature into the Google toolbar would have some very interesting effects. Naturally, there would be minor inconveniences such as an erased cache each time a new Internet session is started, but the Green Border method of security management still offers tempting results.

Microsoft's Hotmail email service received a faceflift today, marking the first major design change implemented on the email service in over ten years. The new interface of Hotmail is heavily based on Ajax and closely resembles Microsoft Outlook, especially in terms of functionality offering features such as drag-and-drop capabilities and auto-complete addressing. The service has also been re-branded, now called Windows Live Hotmail.

In a move similar to Google and Yahoo, Microsoft has also provided a built-in version of Windows Live Messenger. Microsoft also allows users to VOIP call contacts directly through their web browser. Inbox storage has also been improved, now ringing in at 2GB. We are quite interested to see how Microsoft will respond when Yahoo rolls out its infinite inbox.

For those of us who aren't as easily adjusting, Microsoft also provides an option to revert back to the "classic" Hotmail interface, which has been around since 1996.

TechCrunch has confirmed that MySpace and Photobucket were engaging in acquisition discussions for the past few weeks, and that both companies have agreed on an acquisition amount of $250 million for Photobucket. Photobucket has been on the market ever since it hired Lehman Brothers to help sell the company. Although Photobucket generated $6.3 million in revenue, and planned to make $25 million this year, the only serious bidder for the company was social-networking-giant MySpace.

The discussions began a few weeks ago after MySpace began blocking videos from Photobucket. This dispute is expected to have led to serious acquisition discussions, which in turn led to the eventual unblocking of Photobucket videos.

With the 2008 presidential elections creeping up, MySpace today announced that it will be holding a virtual presidential primary January 1 and 2. With thousands of Americans visiting MySpace daily, especially younger Americans, presidential candidates are taking the announcement quite seriously. The two day elections will encourage all MySpace users to vote and allow them to track votes after their vote is submitted.

A number of 2008 Presidential hopefuls already have MySpace pages. This includes Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, Rudy Guiliani, John McCain, and Barack Obama.

The virtual election, though an interesting idea, raises the question of whether the results will actually be reliable. Making duplicate accounts on MySpace is quite easy and with very few methods to prevent this, the results of the virtual election could potentially be tampered with. However, considering the sheer size of MySpace (if it was a country it would be the 11th largest) it would require a lot of duplicate accounts to make a large difference.

Netflix has begun to roll out the company’s long rumored video streaming service. The new feature will automatically be added at no extra charge to Subscribers' Monthly Membership over the course of the next six months.

Netflix’s new video streaming feature will allow users to stream movies instantaneously online. The new feature does not require Netflix users to download any large media files. Instead, video clips are instantly streamed using real-time playback technology. The only software needed is a one-time installation of a Netlfix browser applet. After that, videos can be viewed directly inside the browser. Users are allowed to pause the movie along with jumping to any part of it. Naturally, Internet connectivity is required at a minimum bandwidth of one megabit per second. The higher the bandwidth, though, the better the video quality will get. Quality ranges from “current Netflix previews to DVD quality with a three-megabit-per-second connection.”

“Subscribers on the entry-level $5.99 plan will have six hours of online movie watching per month and subscribers on Netflix's most popular plan, $17.99 for unlimited DVD rental and three discs out at a time, will have 18 hours of online movie watching per month.” Each minute of video you watch will count against you. This feature will come in especially handy when previewing content, such as watching the first ten minutes of a movie to see whether you will actually like it.

The service is currently Windows XP only. Netflix is planning, however, to expand it to a larger number of platforms, including cellphones. "Over the coming years we'll expand our selection of films, and we'll work to get to every Internet-connected screen, from cell phones to PCs to plasma screens. The PC screen is the best Internet-connected screen today, so we are starting there. "

At its launch, the new feature will have around 1,000 titles. Netflix hopes to have the selection rapidly expand throughout this year and it already has a number of launch partners, including , “NBC Universal, Sony Pictures, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios, 20th Century Fox, Paramount Pictures, Warner Bros., New Line Cinema and Lionsgate.”

The feature is aimed at attracting Internet users who have made streaming video-based websites like YouTube popular. In addition, the new feature will also allow Netflix to continue competing with rival BlockBuster.

Today the official name for the project has been announced. A press release on the new company website stated, “Today, the company formerly known under the code name The Venice Project™ has revealed its official brand, Joost™. Powered by a secure, efficient, piracy-proof internet platform, Joost enables a high-quality video experience based on premium content, while guaranteeing copyright protection for content owners and creators.”

"People are looking for increased choice and flexibility in their TV experience, while the entertainment industry needs to retain control over their content," Fredrik de Wahl, chief executive officer of Joost, stated in the press release. He believes that with Joost, his company has “married that consumer desire with the industry's interests."

Wahl hopes to see Joost “become synonymous with the best of TV and the best of the Web.” Joost is currently in a very limited beta phase, and hopes to add more upgrades to the program with its 0.8 release. Additional invitations for the beta should be sent out soon.

On his blog on the Joost website, Wahl also revealed the original reason for why the project was initially known as “The Venice Project” by saying “There was a lot of speculation about why we were called The Venice Project™ in the first place. The truth is admittedly slightly less intriguing than the mystery. The "Venice" of The Venice Project™, is not that of gondolas and canals. It's not Venice Beach, California. It's not even related to the movie. Our "Venice" was simply the name of the hotel conference room where we first decided to start this venture, the initial idea that is now Joost™. At that point we really just needed a name.”