HP investigator faces ID-theft charge ... Sophos buys Endforce ... IBM leads in patents

HIGHLIGHTS
News: HP investigator faces identity-theft charge
News: Sophos buys Endforce for network access control
News: IBM leads year of record patent approvals
News: Google irks Web site owners over malware alerts
Tip: The legal burden of inaccessible data
Podcast: Today's IT news audio update
ITwhirled: Study: Most managers' info searches are useless


NEWS UDPATES

HP investigator faces identity-theft charge
A U.S. attorney has charged Bryan Wagner, an independent investigator
who worked for Hewlett-Packard Co. while the company tried to find the
source of board leaks, with aggravated identity theft and conspiracy.

Sophos buys Endforce for network access control
Sophos PLC has bought Endforce Inc., a U.S. developer of enterprise
network access control software, for an undisclosed sum.

IBM leads year of record patent approvals
IBM Corp. was awarded a record number of U.S. patents in 2006, a year
that saw the most patents awarded ever, according to a study.

Google irks Web site owners over malware alerts
Some Web site operators are complaining that Google Inc. is flagging
their sites as containing malicious software when they believe their
sites are harmless. At issue is an "interstitial" page that appears
after a user has clicked on a link within Google's search engine
results. If Google believes a site contains malware, the page will
appear, saying "Warning - visiting this web site may harm your
computer!"

EBay buys ticket site StubHub for $310 million
EBay Inc. announced Thursday it will acquire ticket selling site StubHub
Inc. for about $310 million in cash. The auction giant said the deal is
expected to close in the first quarter of this year.

iPhone faces uncertain market
Apple Inc.'s iPhone could be a hit in the high-end phone market and work
wonders for partner Cingular's image, but the device that stunned
Macworld Expo attendees is likely to have a narrow market.

New PayPal key to help thwart phishers
Over the next few months, Ebay Inc. will be offering its PayPal users a
new tool in the fight against phishers: a US$5 security key. The key is
actually a small electronic device, designed to clip on to a keychain,
that calculates a new numeric password every 30 seconds. PayPal users
who sign up to use the device will need to enter their regular passwords
as well as the number displayed on the key whenever they log in to the
online payment service.

Cisco sues Apple over iPhone name
Cisco Systems Inc. is suing Apple Inc. to prevent it from using the name
iPhone for the new smartphone Apple introduced Tuesday at the Macworld
Conference & Expo in San Francisco. The name iPhone is a registered
trademark of Linksys, a division of Cisco.

CES: UWB, Wi-Fi and powerline vie for position
While many networking vendors, both wireless and wireline,
diplomatically agree that no single networking technology will prevail
in the connected home of the future, they are still battling over which
technology is most suitable for streaming high-definition video.


TIP

The legal burden of inaccessible data
By David Hill, Mesabi Group

When you start to understand the implications of what is necessary to
bring your company in line with the changes of the Federal Rules of
Civil Procedure (FRCP) as they impact the process of e-discovery for
civil litigation in the U.S. court system, you may recognize the large
gap between what your company can do now and what it needs to do. For
example, your enterprise must ...


PODCAST

Daily IT News Audio Update
Cisco sues Apple over iPhone trademark ... Adobe issues updates for
scripting vulnerability ... Infosys posts strong Q4 profit ... EBay buys
ticket sales site StubHub


ITWHIRLED

Study: Most managers' info searches are useless
A recent Accenture survey found that middle managers spend as long as
two hours a day searching for information, and more than half of the
data they find is useless. Of all the managers surveyed, IT workers are
the least likely to find valuable information and they spend the most
time (nearly 30 percent of their working hours) searching.