Amsterdam tests open source ... Internet access recovers in Asia after quake

HIGHLIGHTS
News: Amsterdam city authorities test open source software
News: Internet access recovers in Asia after quake
News: Yahoo research goes beyond computing to social science
News: Netflix best, CDW worst in customer satisfaction
Opinion: Short straw people 2
GottaGadget: What's your biggest gadget secret?
ITwhirled: U.K. already considering robot rights


NEWS UPDATES

Amsterdam city authorities test open source software
Microsoft Corp. has two years -- until the company's contract expires in 2008 -- in which to convince Amsterdam city authorities that it can offer better value for money on the desktop than open source alternatives.

Internet access recovers in Asia after quake
Asia's Internet and telecommunication infrastructure showed signs of recovery Thursday, following service disruptions caused by a series of powerful earthquakes off Taiwan's southern coast earlier this week.

Yahoo research goes beyond computing to social science
Yahoo Research has set up a team of economists, ethnographers, cognitive psychologists and sociologists to research new media experiences that will promote the formation of online communities.

Netflix best, CDW worst in customer satisfaction
This holiday shopping season consumers rated Netflix Inc.'s Web site as the best among the 40 largest retail sites, while CDW Corp.'s ranked last, according to a survey whose results were released Wednesday.

YouTube response to Japan complaints 'not satisfactory'
A group of Japanese content producers that asked YouTube Inc. to act on the large amount of copyrighted material on the popular site say a response received from the company was unsatisfactory.

Taiwan IT production largely unaffected by big quake
A pair of powerful earthquakes near Taiwan caused some factories to temporarily halt operations for safety reasons, but mostly left the island's IT production unscathed, companies said Wednesday.

Microsoft sees botnets as top cyber-threat
If there's one thing that Aaron Kornblum, a senior attorney with Microsoft Corp.'s Internet Safety Enforcement team, would like to quash, it's the botnet armies -- the remote-controlled PCs that have been taken over without their user's knowledge. Symantec counted more than 4.5 million of them during the first six months of 2006, and according to Kornblum, they are the backbone of today's cybercrime.

Taiwan allows three chip investments to China
The Taiwan government gave a formal stamp of approval on three major China-bound chip investments on Wednesday, a significant easing of regulations for its technology industry and a sign of improving ties with China.

Report: Feds looking at Apple stock-option documents
U.S. federal investigators are "looking closely" at stock-option documents that former Apple Computer Inc. officials allegedly falsified to boost their own profits, The Recorder legal newspaper reported late Tuesday in its online edition. Revelations regarding past stock-options practices are expected in Apple's delayed annual report due out Friday.

After one month, no rush to adopt Vista
Windows Vista has been on the market for nearly a month now, but enterprise users and industry experts agree that Microsoft's latest and greatest OS still isn't yet ready to replace XP.


OPINION

Short straw people 2
By James Gaskin

Two years ago I wrote Short Straw People for those of us working
during the holidays. Now it's time to revisit that issue, because
we're still working during the holidays. We drew the short straw again.


GOTTA GADGET

What's your biggest gadget secret?
Do you play games on your PDA during boring meetings? Do you have a separate account for gadget purchases that your spouse doesn't know about? Do you use your gadget in an unexpected way?

Share a secret, and enter our drawing to win an Apple iPod (with video capability).


ITWHIRLED

U.K. already considering robot rights
The Brits are definitely forward thinking on this one: A report from the United Kingdom government's chief scientist speculates that by the year 2056, robots may have reached the level of consciousness that will merit rights (voting, health care) and responsibilities (military service, taxes).