Microsoft releases first Longhorn public beta ... Adobe to open-source Flex SDK

HIGHLIGHTS
News: Microsoft releases first Longhorn public beta
News: Adobe to open-source Flex SDK by end of year
News: Disgruntled employees may seek IT revenge
News: Siemens reports profit growth as CEO plans departure
Opinion: Hack-A-Mac Contest and the Mac Faithful
ITwhirled: The 10 best tech products of all time
Podcast: Acer recalls 27,000 laptop batteries ... BenQ to spin off branded business ... Yahoo China to appeal piracy decision


NEWS UPDATES

Microsoft releases first Longhorn public beta
Microsoft Corp. is posting the final beta and first publicly available and feature-complete version of Windows Server "Longhorn," marking the final time the product will be available for testing and feedback before the long-awaited server update is available later this year.

Adobe to open-source Flex SDK by end of year
In an effort to build a larger community of developers for its Flex environment, Adobe Systems Inc. said Thursday it plans to open-source the Flex software development kit (SDK), designed to let developers build multimedia-rich Internet applications, by the end of the year.

Disgruntled employees may seek IT revenge
Of all the security vendors exhibiting at InfoSecurity in London this week, none claim they can detect a major threat to enterprises: unhappiness.

Siemens reports profit growth as CEO plans departure
One day after announcing his unexpected decision to step down, Siemens AG's embattled CEO Klaus Kleinfeld could put on a smile Thursday morning to discuss the company's higher sales and earnings.

BlackBerry from Verizon works worldwide
Verizon Wireless Inc. is hoping to appeal to the international business traveler -- a customer segment that it may have struggled to attract previously -- with a new BlackBerry designed to work around the world.

Nintendo sales surge, but Wii misses target by a hair
Nintendo Co. Ltd. reported a big increase in sales and profit for its financial year just ended, although sales of its smash-hit Wii console missed their target by a whisker.

CSC to buy outsourcer Covansys for $1.3 billion
Computer Sciences Corp. (CSC) will spend $1.3 billion in cash to acquire outsourcing company Covansys Corp. and double its staff in India, the company said Wednesday.

Acer recalls 27,000 notebook PC batteries
Just six months after saying Acer Inc. laptop PC users would not need to replace any batteries amid a massive global recall, a company subsidiary announced a recall for 27,000 batteries in the U.S.

Apple's board defends Jobs in stock options case
The same day the company posted strong financials, the board of Apple Inc. Wednesday publicly defended CEO Steve Jobs against allegations by a former executive about Jobs' involvement in stock options backdating.

PC vendors push automated management
In a bid to attract business users, improved IT-management capabilities will be a key element of Intel Corp.'s launch of Weybridge vPro desktop PCs later this year, and in the 2008 version of their Montevina Centrino notebook PCs. It's just the latest sign that desktop management is coming of age.


OPINION

Hack-A-Mac Contest and the Mac Faithful
By Dan Blacharski, ITworld.com

There is plenty of righteous indignation around the blogosphere this week in response to the CanSecWest "hack-a-Mac" contest. Of course, the inevitable happened, and a software engineer named Shane Macaulay, along with his associate Dino Dai Zovi, won the prize, hacking into a MacBook through a zero-day security flaw in Safari. The response varies from "say it ain't so!" to just plain "it ain't so." Unfortunately, regardless of platform, denial is the biggest security flaw of all.

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