NCR to spin off Teradata ... AMD Live! goes mobile

HIGHLIGHTS
News: NCR to spin off Teradata
News: Toshiba expects to ship 1.8M HD DVD players in 2007
News: Nokia slims phone and adds a new Internet tablet
News: AMD Live! goes mobile, faces off against competition
Opinion: Inviting the barbarians in
Podcast: Today's IT news audio update
ITwhirled: Zune vs. iPod: Image war goes badly for Microsoft


NEWS UPDATES

NCR to spin off Teradata
NCR Corp. and its Teradata data warehousing division will separate into two publicly-traded companies in a move designed to better focus their respective business strategies, NCR said Monday.

Toshiba expects to ship 1.8M HD DVD players in 2007
New movie releases, more market entrants, improved technology and 1.8 million HD DVD players from Toshiba Corp. are the weapons companies plan to use in the format battle against rival Blu-ray Disc this year, executives said Sunday.

Nokia slims phone and adds a new Internet tablet
Nokia Corp. unveiled a slim mobile phone, a mobile phone for bloggers, and an updated wireless Internet tablet with VOIP capabilities at the CES show in Las Vegas on Monday.

AMD Live! goes mobile, faces off against competition
Continuing to chase the grail of a media center PC, Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD) announced a notebook version of its AMD Live! package, which the company had launched for desktop users in mid-2006.

Oracle widens SQL Developer's scope
Oracle Corp. on Monday released the first major upgrade to SQL Developer, its free visual database development tool, with one key theme being the ability to browse non-Oracle databases.

U.S.-German investor group shows interest in BenQ Mobile
While production grinds to a halt at insolvent mobile phone maker BenQ Mobile GmbH & Co. OHG, negotiations to find a buyer continue with potential investors, one of them an undisclosed U.S.-German group of individuals with IT and telecommunications backgrounds.

Microsoft pulls four planned security patches
Microsoft Corp. has eliminated four of eight previously announced security patches scheduled to be available to system administrators Tuesday.

San Francisco, Earthlink agree on Wi-Fi terms
EarthLink Inc. and the City and County of San Francisco have agreed on the terms of a contract under which EarthLink would build a citywide Wi-Fi network. EarthLink would offer a paid service on that network while Google Inc. would provide a slower, free service.

LG unveils combo high-def disc players
LG Electronics Inc. took a big step on Sunday towards the end of the next-generation DVD format battle with the unveiling of a player and PC drive that support both the Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD formats.

Netgear box plays YouTube, other content, on TVs
Netgear Inc. may be hoping to steal some of Apple Computer Inc.'s thunder by introducing on Sunday an appliance that lets users play Internet and other digital content on their TVs.


OPINION

Too often, the barbarians are not left at the gate, they are invited in
By Joel Shore, ITworld.com

Windows Vista. It hasn't even hit the streets yet, and the first hack is already upon us. Corporations, already reluctant to roll out any operating system upgrade until at least the first service pack is available, are no doubt becoming even more skittish. That's not a good way to start a new year.


PODCAST

Daily IT News Audio Update
Bill Gates opens CES ... Wi-Fi Alliance releases new security specification ... Oracle upgrades SQL Developer


ITWHIRLED

Zune vs. iPod: Image war goes badly for Microsoft
If image is everything in marketing, Redmond must be smarting from this pic: One Seattle-area Costco used a box of Zunes as an impromptu table to hold a stack of iPods.