India warns visa issue could have wider impacts

HIGHLIGHTS

News: India warns visa issue could have wider impacts
News: Secunia: Firefox more likely to be fully patched
News: Microsoft tweaks Patch Tuesday advance notification
News: Google moves to 'universal' search
Related Reading: Google mulls tighter link between Gmail and Docs
News: Patent overhaul bill moves forward in Congress
Related Reading: Small tech firms oppose patent reform bill
News: New York says Dell defrauded PC buyers
News: Microsoft patent claims complicated by GPLv3
News: MS Research project solves mobile touch screen problems
News: Drive-by download threat looms
News: Apple introduces laptops without 'Santa Rosa'
ITWhirled: Geek Comic of the Week: Isotown


NEWS UPDATES

India warns visa issue could have wider impacts
An investigation by two U.S. senators into the use of H-1B visas by Indian outsourcing companies could negatively impact other outstanding trade issues between the two countries, warned Kamal Nath, India’s minister for commerce and industry, on Wednesday.


Secunia: Firefox more likely to be fully patched
Firefox users have something new to brag about. Security vendor Secunia ApS reports that users of the open-source browser are more likely to have installed the latest security updates than Web surfers running Internet Explorer or Opera.


Microsoft tweaks Patch Tuesday advance notification
Microsoft Corp. is changing the way it documents its monthly security patches.


Google moves to 'universal' search
Google Inc. will make a significant push toward integrating results from a variety of its search engines in an attempt to deliver as relevant and comprehensive a result set as possible to search queries.

Related Reading: Google mulls tighter link between Gmail and Docs
Brains are working overtime at Google Inc. to explore ways of further integrating its e-mail and instant messaging services with its hosted productivity applications.


Patent overhaul bill moves forward in Congress
A subcommittee of the U.S. Congress has taken the first step toward overhauling the U.S. patent system by approving a patent reform bill Wednesday.

Related Reading: Small tech firms oppose patent reform bill
More than 100 organizations, including small technology firms, biotech companies and venture capital groups, have raised concerns about a patent overhaul bill being debated this week in the U.S. Congress.


New York says Dell defrauded PC buyers
The New York attorney general has filed a lawsuit charging that Dell Inc. used fraud and false advertising to increase profits on PC sales.


Microsoft patent claims complicated by GPLv3
The expected approval of the GNU General Public License version 3 (GPLv3) could further muddy the waters for Microsoft Corp.'s claims it will collect payment on its patents for Linux technology as there is a question about whether the company's interoperability deal with Novell Inc. will violate the forthcoming final draft.


MS Research project solves mobile touch screen problems
A computer science student and a developer at Microsoft Research have created a technique designed to make it easier to select items on a mobile-phone screen with a finger and not a tiny pointed stylus.


Drive-by download threat looms
The problem of drive-by downloads from seemingly safe websites is worse than previously thought, according to Google, which counted hundreds of thousands of such malicious sites in a recent study.


Apple introduces laptops without 'Santa Rosa'
Apple has refreshed its MacBook line of laptops, but unfortunately the new machines are already looking a bit out of date.


ITWHIRLED

Geek Comic of the Week: Isotown
Trendy Sara, jocky Jane, and oddball Beans all share an apartment and a certain degree of mutual antipathy. Their beautifully rendered adventures can get as wild and wooly as they want, as each comic picks up as if the last hadn't happened, sans continuity.