Microsoft signs first E.U. protocol licensee ... 3M sues Sony, Lenovo over battery patents

HIGHLIGHTS
News: Microsoft signs first E.U. protocol licensee
News: 3M sues Sony, Lenovo and others over battery patents
News: Third biggest LCD maker sees laptop, camera rebound
News: Yahoo apologizes to Indian housewife
Storage Tip: Testing with confidential data
Podcast: Today's IT news audio update
ITwhirled: iTunes sleuths expose faked recordings


NEWS UPDATES

Microsoft signs first E.U. protocol licensee
Microsoft Corp. has signed up the first licensee for the workgroup server protocols the European Commission ordered it to open up to competitors in a 2004 antitrust ruling, it said Thursday.

Microsoft moves to replace JPEG with HD Photo
Microsoft Corp. will soon submit a new photo format to an international standards organization that it says offers higher quality images with better compression, the company said on Thursday.

3M sues Sony, Lenovo and others over battery patents
3M Co. has filed suit against several big electronics companies, including Sony Corp. and Lenovo Group Ltd., for allegedly violating two patents related to lithium-ion battery technology.

Third biggest LCD maker sees laptop, camera rebound
Executives at AU Optronics Corp., the world's third largest LCD panel maker by revenue, on Thursday said demand for notebook PCs and digital cameras has picked up recently, and predicted better times ahead.

Yahoo apologizes to Indian housewife
Yahoo Inc. apologized on Thursday after recipes from the blog of an Indian housewife were used without permission on Yahoo's India's new Malayalam-language Web portal. The reproduction of the recipes, which were taken from a blog in Malayalam run by a housewife in Kerala, in Southern India, sparked an online protest among bloggers.

Avaya adds IP phones, gateways, SIP
Aiming to let enterprises do more with their IP (Internet Protocol) telephony systems and keep them available when a network goes down, Avaya Inc. introduced new software, phones and a gateway at this week's VoiceCon Spring conference.

Gates calls for new privacy law
Gates repeated past Microsoft calls for a wide-ranging privacy law during a speech at advocacy group the Center for Democracy and Technology's annual gala dinner Wednesday. A comprehensive privacy bill should allow consumers to control their personal data, should provide transparency about what their data is used for, and should notify them when their data has been compromised, Gates said.

VMware questions rivals' virtualization
The president of virtualization software leader VMware Inc. Wednesday questioned the strategy of rivals that are integrating virtualization functionality into their operating systems.


STORAGE TIP

Testing with confidential data
By David Hill, Mesabi Group

IT personnel will eventually need to use a copy of confidential information for test and development purposes. Data security cannot be compromised, but the business must continue to move forward with new tested software functionality. What are the options?

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ITWHIRLED

iTunes sleuths expose faked recordings
After pianist Joyce Hatto died, classical music critics listened to CDs her husband had released on his own record label and hailed her as a neglected genius. But when users began to notice that iTunes recognized them as CDs by other artists, it was revealed that Hatto's husband had been releasing existing recordings under his wife's name.

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