FTC forces Rambus to license memory chips ... Super Bowl infection much more widespread

HIGHLIGHTS
News: FTC forces Rambus to license memory chips
News: Verizon Business makes firewall more flexible
News: Super Bowl infection much more widespread
News: Business Objects product targets midmarket
News: Microsoft: Excel vulnerable to new attack
Tip: Put Skype's security risks into perspective
Podcast: Today's IT news audio update
ITwhirled: Top 10 Internet scandals of all time


NEWS UPDATES

FTC forces Rambus to license memory chips
U.S. government regulators will require Rambus to license its DRAM chips to other vendors, and will cap the royalty fees Rambus can charge to both current and future DRAM manufacturers, according to an announcement Monday by the Federal Trade Commission.

Verizon Business makes firewall more flexible
Enterprises using the network-based firewall offered by Verizon Business will now be able to control it much as they would a firewall on their own networks. The global business services unit of Verizon Communications Inc. will let customers go outside the standard templates it has offered so far and tune firewall features to meet their specific needs.

Super Bowl infection much more widespread
Security experts are finding an increasing number of Web sites hosting malicious JavaScript code first detected on Super Bowl-related sites last week.

Business Objects product targets midmarket
French software maker Business Objects SA released the first of three new versions of its business intelligence software tailored for small to medium-size companies, a market area poised for growth, the company said Monday.

Microsoft: Excel vulnerable to new attack
With its February security patches now two weeks away, Microsoft Corp. is warning of another critical flaw in its Office software. This time Excel is the target.

Wait on Vista upgrade, Apple says
Apple Inc. has released a small repair tool that solves one compatibility issue between its jukebox software iTunes and Microsoft Corp.'s new operating system Windows Vista, but says PC users are better off waiting for the next version of iTunes before upgrading to Vista.

IBM eyes expanded water cooling for data centers
IBM Corp. researchers are counting on a 40 year-old technology to keep modern, state-of-the-art data centers running cool and allow companies to squeeze more computing power from the electricity they consume. Water cooling, which uses small pipes filled with distilled or deionized water to dissipate heat, was first used by IBM to cool mainframe computers during the 1960s.

Oracle extends reach of its enterprise search software
Oracle has shipped the first major upgrade to the stand-alone enterprise search software it debuted last year, emphasizing new links to third-party data sources and identity management systems.

Virtualization vendors target smaller businesses
As large enterprises embrace the concept of virtualization to more efficiently manage their information technology systems, vendors are now targeting the small to medium-sized market.

Users, analysts: No rush to adopt Exchange 2007
Windows Vista isn't the only recently released Microsoft Corp. software that will give users headaches when they upgrade their systems. Corporate users, partners and analysts said upgrading to Exchange Server 2007 from previous versions also may be a lengthy and painful process for companies, which may want to take a wait-and-see approach to the new software.

Transmeta turns to technology licensing model
Transmeta Corp. will stop offering engineering services in order to focus entirely on developing and licensing intellectual property, the Santa Clara developer of chip technologies said on Monday.


TIP

Put Skype's security risks into perspective
By Brent Huston, MicroSolved

Skype tends to bring out the extremes in the security community. They tend to hate Skype or love it. Few stand in the middle. While Skype use can create quite a bit of traffic on the network, and allow unmanaged inside to outside communications, it is hardly a high-risk application. Why the fear?


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