Monday Merry Mausoleum

The live transit of Venus webcast from down under begins tonight. Miss it and you'll have to wait until 2012. The first network color TV broadcast happened on this day in 1953. Ford began designing the Edsel in 1954. Before Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, there was the $64,000 Question. It debuted on this day in 1955. Happy birthday Tom Jones and Prince.

1. Give up your CrackBerry? You might have to. The US Court of Appeals hears arguments today that Research in Motion, BlackBerry's Canadian parent, violated US patents. The plaintiff, NTP, seeks to bar the popular little wireless e-mail devices in the US. Fortunately I lost mine in a cab years ago and I've already recovered from the withdrawal.
2. Steve Jobs is California's richest CEO, despite only getting $1/year in salary. Jobs received $74.75 million in stock grants last year.
3. Apple is expected to announce the launch of iTunes Europe on June 15.
4. Pictures of Apple's next G5 desktop have leaked out but no word on when it will ship. The next big Apple event is the Worldwide Developer's Conference June 28.
5. Pop-ups are back. According to CNET News, advertisers have figured out how to get around the popular Google Toolbar and its pop-up blocking. Other third party pop-up blockers are also less effective. I haven't noticed any problems with browser based blockers in Mozilla, Firefox, and Safari, however.
6. Cisco has released a patch for the Linksys WRTS54G 802.11g wireless router. The box has a flaw which gives an attacker access to the routers configuration page without a password. If you're using a WRTS54G make sure your router's firewall is turned on or download the patch from Cisco.

Listen in tomorrow at 6:45a Pacific for my weekly news commentary on KGO 810 AM in San Francisco.