Dell launches three Ubuntu Linux PCs

HIGHLIGHTS

News: Dell launches three Ubuntu Linux PCs
Related Reading: Dell gives Ubuntu details
News: Nokia to add lightning detector to mobile phone
News: New tree for every phone handed in for recycling
News: INTEROP: Microsoft says licensing protects customers
News: Researcher: RSA 1024-bit encryption not enough
News: Microsoft funds new open-source digital ID projects
News: Toshiba's terabit per square inch technology
News: 3Com offers cheap IPS gateways
News: INTEROP: Cisco says wait for 802.11n
News: Ubuntu founder: Microsoft is our patent pal
News: Stratus offers green backup option
Go Figure: Study: Resolved calls in contact centers falling
ITWhirled: Geek Comic of the Week: Breakfast of the Gods


NEWS UPDATES

Dell launches three Ubuntu Linux PCs
Dell Inc. will officially launch its first three consumer PCs running the Ubuntu 7.04 Linux OS on Thursday, two desktops and an Inspiron E1505n notebook PC.

Related Reading: Dell gives Ubuntu details
Dell has published on its blog the first details of what users can expect for some of its forthcoming Ubuntu Linux systems, even though the company remains coy on many specifics.


Nokia to add lightning detector to mobile phone
If you thought developers were running out of new applications to squeeze into mobile phones, think again. Nokia Corp. hopes someday to add a new feature to its phones that could warn users of imminent lighting strikes.


New tree for every phone handed in for recycling
The official recycling program of Australia's mobile phone industry, MobileMuster, has launched a new environmental campaign in partnership with Landcare Australia.


Researcher: RSA 1024-bit encryption not enough
The strength of the encryption used now to protect banking and e-commerce transactions on many Web sites may not be effective in as few as five years, a cryptography expert has warned after completing a new distributing-computing achievement.

Microsoft funds new open-source digital ID projects
As part of its plan to promote identity management across multiple platforms, Microsoft Corp. is funding several new projects to develop open-source versions of its digital-identity technology for information cards.


Toshiba's terabit per square inch technology
Toshiba and Tohoku University researchers have found a read head drive technology that could increase areal density five hundred percent. It could mean a 5TB 3.5-inch drive or a 1TB 2-5-inch drive, both by 2013. The highest areal density of any shipping disk drive product is 178.8Gbit/sq inch. The new technology could push this to 1Tbit/sq inch and beyond.


3Com offers cheap IPS gateways
3Com is jumping into the unified security business, with branch office and SMB gateways that include enterprise-grade security technology from its TippingPoint subsidiary.


Ubuntu founder: Microsoft is our patent pal
Microsoft is not the real patent threat Linux and open source developers should be worried about, said Ubuntu founder Mark Shuttleworth. In fact, the software giant will itself be fighting against the software patents system within a few years, Shuttleworth predicted.


Stratus offers green backup option
Fault-tolerant server supplier, Stratus Technologies, has announced green fault-tolerant storage for its servers. The ftScalable Storage product does away with battery backup for its continuous availability feature. It is designed to offer fully-redundant, fault-tolerant storage to organizations that want the same level of reliability across both their storage and servers and have a green agenda.


INTEROP ROUND-UP

INTEROP: Microsoft says licensing protects customers
A top Microsoft executive promoted the company's licensing of network security protocols at the Interop trade show on Wednesday, but not before taking time out during a keynote address to defend the company's patent licensing program for open-source software.

INTEROP: Cisco says wait for 802.11n
Cisco has added location sensing to its wireless LAN and allowed it to scale up -- but it has stopped short of launching faster 802.11n Wi-Fi access points, with a set of announcements at the Interop event in Las Vegas.


GO FIGURE

69.8%
The share of customer service calls, worldwide, that were resolved by the first agent in 2007; that's a drop of 12.3 percent from 82.1 percent in 2005, according to a survey of 400 call centers in 42 countries by Datacraft and Dimension Data Group.
SOURCE: IDG News Service


ITWHIRLED

Geek Comic of the Week: Breakfast of the Gods
This one's for everyone who's ever eaten too much sugary cereal before bedtime: a totally unauthorized and very detailed imagining of a battle between good and evil, as personified by breakfast cereal mascots. Can the forces of righteousness, led by Tony the Tiger and Captain Crunch, defeat the sinister Count Chocula?