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Amazon.com plans to launch a digital music store later this year, featuring music downloads without copyright restrictions.

Critics of digital rights management have long insisted that record labels could boost sagging sales by offering music unencumbered by copy-protection schemes.

Microsoft is in another software patent fight, and this time, it's doing the saber rattling.

The notion of a table-like computer had garnered interest within Microsoft since at least 2001, but it wasn't until industrial designer Allan Han went to Ikea in January 2003 that the effort really kicked into high gear.

When Microsoft showed off Silverlight at an April conference, it generated near-instant buzz.