Nokia spends $8.1 billion on mapping company .. Microsoft puts Office docs online .. FTC settles with spyware operation

IN THE NEWS

Nokia buys mapping service for $8.1 billion
Nokia Corp. has agreed to buy the digital mapping company Navteq for $8.1 billion, supporting a plan to add navigation capabilities to more of its devices.

FTC settles with alleged spyware operation
A Nevada company will pay $330,000 to settle a complaint from the U.S. Federal Trade Commission that it hid spyware in other software consumers could download for free, the FTC announced Monday.

Microsoft puts Office on the Web, Adobe follows
In line with its software and services strategy, Microsoft Corp. on Monday announced new services such as Microsoft Office Live Workspace, a new Web-based feature of Microsoft Office that lets people access their documents online and share their work with others.

E.U. begins antitrust investigation into Qualcomm
The European Commission has begun an antitrust investigation of Qualcomm Inc. for suspected exploitative practices in the market for chipsets for mobile phones, it announced Monday.

San Dimas, eBay's desktop app, enters public beta testing
EBay Inc. will significantly widen the beta test for San Dimas, its PC application designed to let buyers interact both offline and online with the company's marketplace.

Adobe releases Media Player beta, boosts SaaS
Adobe Systems Inc. will boost its strategy of helping developers and users create desktop and Web applications that share a similar user experience at its Adobe MAX user conference in Chicago this week.

Fund to invest $25 million in Salesforce.com startups
Salesforce.com Inc. has launched a $25 million investment fund to encourage the development of new applications using its Force.com hosted development platform.

Adobe teams with Business Objects to fight Microsoft
Adobe Systems Inc. is teaming up with Business Objects SA to add business-intelligence capabilities to rich Internet applications (RIAs). The companies plan to announce a partnership at the Adobe MAX 2007 North America user conference, which kicks off Monday in Chicago.


UNIX TIP

Recovering from a fatal error: Lost libgen.so.1
By Sandra Henry-Stocker, ITworld.com

Unix vets know that it is possible to recover from fatal errors. A recent example is when a sysadmin accidentally zeroed out a file named /usr/lib/libgen.so.1. This file is used for string pattern matching and pathname manipulation. When you don't have this shared library on a system, you will get errors such as this. Read the full article here.


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Nokia spends $8.1 billion on mapping company ... Microsoft puts Office docs online ... Japan earthquake warning system launches

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GADGET GIVEAWAY

It's Fall, and we have a new gadget giveaway ... just for the heck of it. We've brought back the ultimate geek tool, the Swiss Army knife equipped with USB flash drive, LED light, and ballpoint pen.

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ITWHIRLED

Texas teen finds herself on Australian billboard, thanks to Flickr
When you put a picture up on Flickr with a Creative Commons license, do you know what that means, exactly? Among other things, it means that companies can use it in their advertising without paying you, or even consulting the people in the pictures. That's how Alison Chang of Dallas ended up on ads in bus shelters in Melbourne, Australia. Naturally, the lawyers are getting involved.


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