Profits overflow at RIM ... Sony rootkit settlement reaches $5.75M

HIGHLIGHTS
News: Profits overflow at RIM
News: Toshiba: We'll beat Sony to the living room with Cell
News: Santa's Web site hacked
News: Sony rootkit settlement reaches $5.75M
Opinion: Net neutrality and what the Internet will become
Podcast: Today's IT news audio update
ITwhirled: Geek Comic of the Week: xkcd


NEWS UPDATES

Profits overflow at RIM
Revenue and profit both surged at Research in Motion Ltd. in the third quarter, driven by strong sales of its first consumer-focused device, the BlackBerry Pearl.

Toshiba: We'll beat Sony to the living room with Cell
Toshiba Corp. is confident that it will beat Sony Corp. to market with consumer electronics devices packing the powerful Cell microprocessor, the head of its consumer electronics business said Thursday.

Santa's Web site hacked
With Christmas fast approaching, Santa Claus reached out for a little help from Stopbadware.org this week. The consumer advocacy group said it was approached by a Nevada man named Santa Claus, who asked them to help figure out why his Web site was being flagged by Google's Web site filters. It turned out that Santa's Web site, Santaslink.net, had been hacked.

Sony rootkit settlement reaches $5.75M
Sony BMG Music Entertainment's botched attempt to stop unauthorized music copying has cost the company another $4.25 million. Two days after reaching settlements worth a combined total of $1.5 million with Texas and California, Sony on Thursday agreed to pay another 40 states the money to end investigations into its use of two copy protection programs.

Microsoft acknowledges vulnerability in Vista
A vulnerability that affects four of Microsoft Corp.'s operating systems, including Vista, doesn't appear to pose a great risk, according to one security vendor.

Wall Street Beat: The year ahead
Get set for some surprises. With 12 more months of moderate expansion expected in the global IT arena, vendors will have to get creative in 2007 to maintain the kind of growth investors want.

Microsoft releases new Longhorn build
Microsoft Corp. Thursday released a new build of its forthcoming release of Windows Server, code-named Longhorn. The company posted the release, which is the December Community Technology Preview (CTP) of the server OS, on its Microsoft Connect site.

Motorola to buy video vendor Tut for $39 million
Motorola Inc. will expand its video delivery lineup by buying Tut Systems Inc. for $39 million, the companies announced Thursday. Tut, in Lake Oswego, Oregon, sells systems to service providers for encoding, processing and distributing digital video.

Samsung exec pleads guilty to DRAM price fixing
A top executive from Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. will serve 10 months in prison and pay a $250,000 fine for his role in a global conspiracy to fix DRAM prices.

IBM tames photons in optical chips
Researchers at IBM Corp. have drawn one step closer to building a microprocessor that transfers data with light instead of electricity, a technique that could one day boost computing speed while saving power.


OPINION

Net neutrality and what the Internet will become
By Dan Blacharski

The thing I like most, and dislike most about the Internet is that anybody can publish an opinion. But as in much of life, you must take the bad to get to the good, and so I willingly wade through the inevitable and prolific web sites created by half-literate hatemongers, and am usually able to find those pearls of wisdom that I require.


PODCAST

Daily IT News Audio Update
Sony BMG pays out more for rootkit settlement ... IBM makes photonic computing breakthrough ... Motorola buys Tut Systems


ITWHIRLED

Geek Comic of the Week: xkcd
This deliberately unpronouncable comic is subtitled a "webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language." Its subjects range from the sweet (attempting to reduce the Earth's angular momentum to make a night of romance last a little longer) to the silly (John Nash trying to use game theory to pick up women in a bar). There's also a map of the Internet (really!), and plenty of equations.