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The recording industry is demanding Jammie Thomas-Rasset pay $25,000 to settle out of court the nation’s first file sharing case against an individual to have gone to trial –- a settlement offer the Minnesota mother of four is rejecting, lawyers in the case said Wednesday.

The development came days after the federal judge in the case reduced to $54,000 a jury’s June finding that Thomas-Rasset must pay $1.92 million for file sharing 24 songs on Kazaa. Following Friday’s decision by U.S. District Judge Michael Davis, the Recording Industry Association of America proposed that Thomas-Rasset pay $25,000 to close the case.

“She is rejecting it,” Joe Sibley, one of Thomas-Rasset’s lawyers, said in a telephone interview. “I think it proves our point. They want to use this case as a bogeyman to scare people into doing what they want, to pay exorbitant damages.”

The rejection means there could be a new jury trial solely on the amount of damages the woman must pay, or an appellate court might step in and review Davis’ head-spinning Friday ruling. It also leaves the door open for Thomas-Rasset to challenge the constitutionality of the reduced award, which Sibley maintains is still excessive.

“It is a shame that Ms. Thomas-Rasset continues to deny any responsibility for her actions rather than accept a reasonable settlement offer (.pdf) and put this case behind her,” Cara Duckworth, an RIAA spokeswoman said via e-mail.

The Copyright Act allows damages of up to $150,000 per track. A Minnesota jury dinged Thomas-Rasset $80,000 a song. Davis, the judge who presided over the trial in Duluth, Minnesota, lowered it to $2,250 per song — three times the $750 minimum. The judge declared the $1.92 million verdict “shocking” and said damage awards “must bear some relation to actual damages.”

Judge Davis declined to rule on Sibley’s position that the Copyright Act in the file sharing context was unconstitutional. Instead, the judge exercised what is called remittitur. That’s when a judge reduces a jury’s damages award upon a finding that there was no rational basis for the jury to have reached its decision.

Davis’ decision was the first time a judge has reduced the amount of damages in a Copyright Act case.

Still, the legal jockeying may not have much application in the real world.

The RIAA is winding down its six-year-old lawsuit campaign and instead is working with other rights holders and internet service providers to adopt a program to discontinue internet access of online copyright scofflaws. The only other file sharing case to have gone to trial resulted in a Boston jury in July awarding the RIAA $675,000 for 30 songs.

Lawyers in that Joel Tenenbaum case are asking for a new trial or for the judge to reduce damages to the minimum $750 a track.

Apple will sell its newly unveiled tablet-style iPad starting at $499.

The iPad resembles an iPhone, but larger. Apple will sell some iPad models with data plans from AT&T, with no contract required.

Apple Inc. will have to convince consumers, many of whom already have Internet-connected phones, computers and TVs, that they’ll want to pay that much for such a device, when many small, lightweight “netbooks” cost less than $400.

CEO Steve Jobs says the iPad will be better for reading books, playing games and watching video than either a laptop or a smart phone.

The initial price is likely to drop. Apple sold the first iPhone for $599 but slashed the price to $399 after a few months, upsetting early buyers.

Google’s end run around Apple’s App Store is complete: Google Voice is ready as a Web application.

Owners of the iPhone and Palm’s WebOS devices can now get in on the mobile Google Voice experience with the Web app, which will run in the browsers of iPhones with the 3.0 software installed and all Palm WebOS devices, said Vincent Paquet, senior product manager at Google. The application should be available for current users of Google Voice–which is still an invitation-only service–as of Tuesday at m.google.com/voice.

Google Voice allows incoming calls to ring mobile phones, office phones, or desk phones depending on how the user sets their Google Voice profile. It also treats voice mail like e-mail, transcribing voice messages into an in-box where they can be read and deleted.

Last year Google submitted a native version of Google Voice to Apple in hopes of getting the software onto the iPhone. As most will recall, Apple and Google then entered into a semantic war of words over whether Apple rejected the application (Google’s version) or merely continues to study it (Apple’s version). Either way, the FCC got involved and Google Voice remains in App Store limbo, Paquet said.

“We haven’t had any updates regarding our native app for the iPhone, unfortunately,” Paquet said. However, now that the Web app is ready iPhone users will be able to get essentially the same experience that the native app would have delivered, although the user interface will be slightly different because the application will be running in the browser. Paquet declined to comment on whether Google plans to continue the App Store approval process with the native version.

The Web application is another sign of Google’s strong desire to encourage people to think of Web-based applications as a ready alternative to native applications. The company has spoken about its plans for Web development at length, and even plans to develop a lightweight operating system based on its Chrome browser as a sort of proof-of-concept for the Web development mindset.

My colleague Rafe Needleman did a test-drive of the new application, which you can read here.

Apple is in talks to bring its rumored tablet device to the 3G networks of both Verizon and AT&T, according to reports. Since Verizon uses the wireless network standard called CDMA, and AT&T uses the GSM standard, Apple may have to produce two different versions of the device, according to a report at Fox News. Then again, a “world edition” device that runs on both network types may not be out of the question–assuming Apple’s new product will have cellular connectivity at all.

A third option may be Apple may not have a carrier deal lined up for its product launch next Wednesday. This might mean Apple may not be able to announce pricing of a tablet at the event.

This latest rumor also suggests Apple is confident that public demand for its rumored tablet will be high enough to warrant releasing the device on two different networks. Meanwhile the research firm Retrevo has some interesting insight into how much consumers will pay for a tablet and what they want and don’t want from Apple in terms of connectivity.

Connectivity Everywhere

Fox News believes the Verizon version of the tablet will be designed to automatically switch between Verizon’s public hotspots and the carrier’s 3G network when no Wi-Fi connection is available. Verizon would offer free access to its Wi-Fi hotspots as part of the rumored tablet’s data plan. The tablet on AT&T would likely have the same feature since AT&T’s iPhone users already receive free access to AT&T Wi-Fi hotspots. AT&T says it has more than 20,000 hotspots nationwide including, while Verizon has just fewer than 15,000.

Tablet on the cheap?

If the tablet is going to be a carrier-specific device this also raises some questions about pricing. Retrevo research reveals 70 percent of those surveyed would not buy a tablet if it cost more than $700. Most estimates put the rumored tablet’s price tag closer to $1000, which means Apple would likely need to offer a carrier-subsidized device to encourage widespread adoption. Problem is, a monthly data plan for the tablet could also discourage sales. Forty-four percent of those surveyed by Retrevo said they would not buy a tablet that required a monthly data plan.

Verizon and Apple Rumors

The suggestion that Apple’s latest device may show up on Verizon’s network also raises the question of whether Apple’s other mobile product, the iPhone, will ever be offered by Verizon. The latest rumors say Apple will announce an iPhone deal with Verizon at its “latest creation” event next Wednesday. But it should be pointed out the iPhone on Verizon rumor has been suggested several times, and yet the device remains an AT&T exclusive. In other words: don’t get your hopes up.

Loose Ends

The AT&T/Verizon tablet rumor is the second time it’s been suggested Apple has a few loose ends to tie up before the device can officially launch. On Monday, the Wall Street Journal reported that Apple was still in talks with publisher Harper Collins to bring e-books to Apple’s new device.

In the past few years, we’ve seen tremendous advances that allow people to communicate more effectively — from smartphones to collaborative workspaces to content management systems, it’s easier than ever for people to record and share ideas. And yet still, if you ask someone what communication technology is absolutely essential to their business, chances are they’ll say email.

Email not only serves as many companies’ preferred communication tool, but also as an informal repository of institutional knowledge. And that in turn makes it vital not only to the regular flow of business, but also as a component in the legal discovery process.

Email serves as evidence in many business-related legal proceedings nowadays and can be subject to subpoena just like paper files. If your business ended up in a legal dispute, would you be able to easily access and search several years’ worth of archives in order to produce evidence requested by a lawyer or judge?

That’s the idea behind email archiving — making sure that all the content contained in email communications is readily accessible and searchable. You don’t need to be involved in a lawsuit to recognize what a benefit that can be. An email archive can help you track down years-old communications and documents. It can also help you start operating again, quickly, in the event of a disaster.

Unless you’re brand new to computers, the recent news that an Internet Explorer hole was exploited in China-based attacks against Google Gmail users and dozens of high-tech companies was no surprise.

Lately, malware has increasingly targeted holes in media players such as Adobe’s Flash Player and Reader PDF software, so the Chinese attack on IE is in some ways a throwback. Many tech pundits have responded by recommending against using Internet Explorer at all. The free and easy availability of alternative browsers such as Firefox, Opera, Apple’s Safari, and Google’s own Chrome would appear to make this sound advice.

Unfortunately, some Internet users don’t have a choice of browser. The Web sites of many organizations use custom applications that require IE. More importantly, Windows itself relies on Internet Explorer to receive updates and for other behind-the-scenes operations. Even if you never open IE, you still need to make sure the browser is fully patched and up to date.

Review IE’s security settings
In a mid-November post, I compared the security features of IE 8, Firefox 3, Chrome 4, Safari 4, and Opera 10. Topping the list of new security features in IE 8 are automatic blocking of click-jacking and cross-site scripting attacks, automatic crash recovery, and highlighting of the actual domain name in the address bar.

That’s why the safest thing any Internet Explorer user can do is upgrade to version 8. If you must use IE 7, be sure to keep the browser patched and set to either its High or Medium-High security setting. To check IE’s security settings, click Tools > Internet Options > Security. In IE 7 and 8, make sure the option to Enable Protected Mode is checked (it’s on by default in IE 8 on XP SP3, Vista SP1 and SP2, and Windows 7).

IE 8 also enables Data Execution Prevention (DEP) by default, although you can turn on the feature in IE 7 by clicking Tools > Internet Options > Advanced, scrolling to the Security section, and making sure “Enable memory protection to help mitigate online attacks” is checked. Mary Landesman provides instructions for setting DEP in IE 6 on the About.com site.

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Perhaps Google’s announcement that Chinese cyber attackers went after human rights activists’ Gmail accounts has made you skittish about just how private your own messages are on the Google e-mail service.

Well, if you want to take a significant step in keeping prying eyes away from your electronic correspondence, one good encryption technology that predates Google altogether is worth looking at. It’s called public key encryption, and I’m sharing some instructions on how to get it working if you want try it.

Unfortunately, better security typically goes hand in hand with increased inconvenience. But some human rights activists who used Gmail right now likely wish they’d put up with a little hardship to help keep hackers at bay. I’m not going so far as to recommend you use e-mail encryption, but I think this is a good time to take a close look at it.

Specifically, I’ll show here how to use a collection of free or open-source software packages: GPG, or GNU Privacy Guard, Mozilla Messaging’s Thunderbird e-mail software, and its Enigmail plug-in. CNET Download.com also hosts Thunderbird for Windows and Mac and Enigmail for all platforms.

But first, some background about how it works.

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On Monday, the Mozilla Foundation made a release candidate for the next point version of the organization’s popular Firefox Web browser version 3.6, code-named Namoroka, publicly available.

While it’s far from being a huge overhaul from the currently released version 3.6, the release candidate adds several powerful new capabilities both for end-users and developers. These include a faster JavaScript engine, built-in support for “Personas,” or visual themes, support for location-aware Web sites, and open video, audio, and font standards.

Unlike a beta, the release candidate designation means Mozilla considers it safe for everyday browsing. The idea is that the release candidate will be identical to the final release of 3.6, and it will actually update itself to be so when that version becomes the default Firefox version. The subversion has already undergone a healthy five beta test versions. Over 70 fixes were made to that beta to get to the release candidate. “As a release candidate, this is considered to be stable and safe to use for daily Web browsing, and represents the features and content that will be in the final product release,” Mozilla’s blog post states.

In addition, the new browser includes code to warn users about out-of-date add-on code, such as the popular extensions, which enhance the browser with custom functionality. Mozilla’s blog post on the announcement reported that over 75 percent of Firefox extensions are now compatible with version 3.6.

The Personas capability has already been available as a browser add-on, or extension from Mozilla, and lets users dress up the window borders with colors and images. Personas are actually more limited than the Theme add-ons, which can also change navigation buttons.

Firefox’s JavaScript performance has been notably faster than that of Microsoft Windows Internet Explorer, but recently has yielded the speed crown to Google’s Chrome and Apple’s Safari. In the beta, Firefox still trailed those competitors by a good margin, but look for an upcoming PCMag.com review testing the released 3.6 software.

Developers get support for more HTML 5, CSS, and DOM standards in the new release. They can also run scripts asynchronously, and make use of the Web Open Font Format, allowing page designers to use any fonts they like, which will be downloaded to the users’ computers. HTML 5’s supported open Ogg Theora video format can now be viewed at full screen.

Web users who want to get a jump on the next version of Firefox can download the 8-Mbyte installer from Mozilla’s download site. It’s available in 70 languages for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux.