Monday Madness

Good morning. I'm taking the day off. Patrick will host Call for Help. Patrick and Kevin will host The Screen Savers. But the news must go on. The US Marine Corp was organized on this day in 1775. Sesame St premiered on this day in 1969. The wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald occurred in 1975. Please don't start singing.

1. Comcast and Best Buy are both launching online music services. Comcast's service will be a branded version of Rhapsody. Best Buy will partner with MusicNow. Wal-Mart will be getting into the act by Christmas. EMI's Ted Cohen (one of our guests on music wars) says, "It's not an anomaly anymore. This is going to be part of the way music is distributed in the mainstream.''
2. Computerworld says virus writers aren't scared by Microsoft's $5 million bounty.
3. Microsoft releases a new version of Virtual PC for Windows to manufacturing today, the first since the company acquired Connectix. Available by the end of the year, Virtual PC will cost $100 less than before. It will continue to run Linux and OS/2. No word on the Macintosh version.
4. Microsoft says it will improve security by turning on the Windows XP firewall and modifying Windows Messenger in Service Pack 2. No ship date was announced.
5. The first Internet voting in North America will take place today in Ontario, Canada. 100,000 voters in the easternmost regions of the province have been mailed PINs and can vote at Can Vote's web site.