BRIEFCASE.

Byline: -- Staff and Wire Services

Calif. United Bank branch approved

ENCINO -- California United Bank announced Wednesday that it has received regulatory approval to establish a branch office in the Santa Clarita Valley at the corner of Tourney Road and Magic Mountain Parkway.

This will be the third office of the bank, which opened for business in May 2005 and has branches in Encino and West Los Angeles.

The Santa Clarita Valley Regional Office, which is expected to open in the first half of 2007, will offer commercial, real estate and construction lending, along with personal banking services.

The full-service branch will be located on the ground floor of a new commercial office building, Gateway Plaza, adjacent to the Golden State (5) Freeway.

NBC primetime shows on Internet

NBC will begin streaming on the Internet episodes of several primetime shows a day after their network airing, joining CBS, ABC and Fox in offering free, advertising-supported shows online.

NBC will show episodes of all six of its new primetime series' on its video player, called NBC 24/7, beginning Oct. 1, the network said Wednesday.

The network said it would air the first four episodes of its new comedies, ``30 Rock,'' and ``Twenty Good Years,'' and the first eight episodes of its new dramas, ``Kidnapped,'' ``Friday Night Lights,'' ``Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip,'' and ``Heroes.''

NBC will also allows fans to interact with the creators of all its shows on the night of their premieres, the company said.

Sony BMG glitch still a problem

The much-maligned copy protection program that Sony BMG Music Entertainment put on CDs last year is still posing a threat to computer users running certain versions of AOL or PestPatrol anti-spyware software.

The glitch may cause a computer's CD-ROM drive to be disabled, according to the Texas Attorney General's Office, which said Wednesday that the problem was discovered by officials who have been testing the XCP copy-protection technology as part of the state's lawsuit against Sony BMG.

State investigators found that if a CD with XCP technology is loaded on a computer running AOL's ``Safety and Security Center'' software, the program's antispyware feature will attempt to delete the XCP components, but often while also disabling the CD-ROM's configuration in the PC's operating system.

The same glitch surfaced on computers running CA Inc.'s PestPatrol separately from AOL, the state said.

Miltec gets $3.7M NASA contract

A subsidiary of Los Angeles-based Ducommun Inc. was awarded a $3.7 million NASA contract for developing sensor testbeds for launch vehicle systems, it was announced Wednesday.

Miltec, supplier of the space shuttle's external fuel tank, is working with NASA and the Army's Redstone Arsenal Aviation & Missile Research, Development & Engineering Center to develop sensors to gather launch data, such as temperature and pressure, in areas previously considered too risky or challenging, according to Ducommun.

Ducommun provides engineering and manufacturing services to the aerospace and defense industry.