ICANN releases toolkit for handling new TLDs ... OLPC raises laptop price to $175

HIGHLIGHTS
News: ICANN releases toolkit for handling new TLDs
News: Google Desktop 5 speaks 29 languages
News: OLPC raises hundred-dollar laptop price to $175
News: Deferred revenue drives Microsoft to solid Q3
Windows Tip: Drag and drop RunAs
ITwhirled: Geek comic of the week -- Pixelton!
Podcast: Ken Kutaragi steps down from Sony Computer Entertainment ... OLPC raises laptop price to $175 ... China's SMIC fails to impress


NEWS UPDATES

ICANN releases toolkit for handling new TLDs
The group that oversees the Internet's address system has released a toolkit for Web site designers and application developers to fix problems caused by recently added Internet addresses.

Google Desktop 5 speaks 29 languages
Google Inc. took a step closer on Thursday to being able to search everything: its desktop search application is now available in 29 languages, including Hindi, the company announced.

OLPC raises hundred-dollar laptop price to $175
The One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) group said Thursday that it had raised the price for its hundred-dollar laptop to $175, but were still confident they would collect enough orders to begin volume production by September.

Deferred revenue drives Microsoft to solid Q3
Deferred revenue from the release of Windows Vista and Office 2007 helped Microsoft Corp. increase revenue 32 percent year over year for its fiscal third quarter, with the company reporting $14.4 billion in revenue for the three months ended March 31.

Acer passes Lenovo in Q1, next up: Dell
Acer Inc. achieved its top goal for 2007 early in the year, passing Lenovo Group Ltd. as the world's third largest PC vendor in the first quarter. For the rest of the year it plans to extend its lead over Lenovo, executives said Friday, putting it in position to challenge Dell Inc.

Websense makes $400M bid for SurfControl
Security software vendor Websense Inc. on Thursday moved to acquire competitor SurfControl PLC, with a Websense subsidiary offering about $400 million in cash for SurfControl.

Falcon to be the major piece of MySQL 6.0
The most significant development in the next major release of MySQL AB's open-source database, MySQL 6.0, will be the inclusion of the vendor's homegrown Falcon storage engine, according to company CEO Marten Mickos.

Mitel calls Inter-Tel to boost its size
IP communications company Mitel Networks Corp. plans to acquire Inter-Tel Inc. for $732 million, the companies announced on Thursday.

NY teen hacks AOL, infects systems
A New York teenager broke into AOL LLC networks and databases containing customer information and infected servers with a malicious program to transfer confidential data to his computer, AOL and the Manhattan District Attorney's Office allege.


WINDOWS TIP

Windows Tip: Drag and drop RunAs
By Mitch Tulloch, ITworld.com

I'm always on the lookout for new ways of doing LUA so I can maintain
the security of my computer while still keeping things manageable.
Today I'll share a cool tip that was forwarded to me by someone inside
Microsoft.

Subscribe to Windows in the Enterprise - Tips for how to maximize Windows safely and securely.


ITWHIRLED

Geek comic of the week: Pixelton!
A pixel and a ... round-headed ... something have various adventures. If you're familiar with video-gaming lore, some of those adventures will look strangely familiar to you. This comic is just getting underway, so get in now while the getting's good!

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PODCAST

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Ken Kutaragi steps down from Sony Computer Entertainment ... OLPC raises laptop price to $175 ... China's SMIC fails to impress

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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.

Subscribe to Blog Insights - A weekly recap of what bloggers are saying about information technology.


ITWHIRLED

She's a 10
The 10 best tech products of all time ... Top 10 tech cars ... Top 10 alternate endings to the next Harry Potter book

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PODCAST

Daily IT News Audio Update
Acer recalls 27,000 laptop batteries ... BenQ to spin off branded business ... Yahoo China to appeal piracy decision

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'Evil twin' Wi-Fi access points proliferate ... CollabNet acquires SourceForge

HIGHLIGHTS
News: BenQ to spin off BenQ, change name
News: Orange seeks to deflect E.U. limit on roaming charges
News: 'Evil twin' Wi-Fi access points proliferate
News: Microsoft ups security stance with new labs
Storage Tip: Practicing information-centric security
ITwhirled: Bad idea of the week: Porn at work
Podcast: Beijing court rules against Yahoo China over music ... Apple execs charged over backdating ... Vonage wins permanent injunction


NEWS UPDATES

BenQ to spin off BenQ, change name
BenQ Corp. plans to spin off its brand name business, BenQ, and change its corporate identity, it said on Wednesday.

Orange seeks to deflect E.U. limit on roaming charges
French mobile phone operator Orange SA on Wednesday introduced new tariffs for the calls its customers make and receive while traveling abroad. Orange will charge its French customers as little as €0.25 ($0.34) per minute for calls they make or receive in other countries of the E.U., as long as they pay in advance for a block of at least 10 incoming minutes and 10 outgoing minutes, and consume all the prepaid minutes within 31 days.

'Evil twin' Wi-Fi access points proliferate
The next time you splurge on a double latte and sip it while browsing the Internet via the cafe's Wi-Fi, beware of the "evil twin." That's the term for a Wi-Fi access point that appears to be a legitimate one offered on the premises, but actually has been set up by a hacker to eavesdrop on wireless communications among Internet surfers. Unfortunately, experts say there is little consumers can do to protect themselves, but enterprises may be in better shape.

Microsoft ups security stance with new labs
In a move to strengthen its response to security threats, Microsoft Corp. is opening two labs to study the growing amount of malicious software circulating on the Internet, security executives announced Wednesday.

Stanford's Folding@home gets boost from PlayStation 3
Stanford University's Folding@home distributed computing project has seen its capacity more than double in the last month thanks to the addition of idle processor cycles from hundreds of thousands of PlayStation 3 consoles.

CollabNet acquires SourceForge from VA Software
CollabNet Inc. has acquired SourceForge Enterprise Edition (SFEE) from VA Software Corp., adding to its range of collaborative software development tools.

Apple SEC case to be watched closely
Legal and business experts will have a lot to learn from how the case against former Apple Inc. lawyer Nancy Heinen grinds its way through the courts.

Sun Microsystems posts Q3 profit
Sun Microsystems Inc. is continuing its profitable ways, reporting net income of $67 million, or $0.02 a share, on $3.29 billion in revenue in quarterly financial results released Tuesday.

Vonage wins permanent stay in patent case
A U.S. appeals court has granted Vonage Holdings Corp. a permanent stay against a lower court ruling barring it from providing service to new customers.

SEC charges former Apple lawyer
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has charged former Apple Inc. general counsel Nancy Heinen of fraudulently backdating stock options, the agency said Tuesday.

AT&T doubles profit in first quarter
AT&T Inc. on Tuesday pointed to high wireless revenue for driving the company to a $2.8 billion profit in the first quarter, twice what it earned for the same period last year.


STORAGE TIP

Practicing information-centric security
By David Hill, Mesabi Group

Information-centric security, from a data security perspective, is protecting data at its core. Not only must you prevent the wrong people from getting a key to the data vault, but you must also know how to prevent those who have a key from misusing the data.

Here's what you need to know.

Subscribe to Storage Strategies - Tips for effective storage management, technology updates and best practices.


ITWHIRLED

Bad idea of the week: Porn at work
Would you ever download dirty pictures onto your work computer? Of course not, right? Well apparently a quarter of your coworkers think otherwise.

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PODCAST

Daily IT News Audio Update
Beijing court rules against Yahoo China over music ... Apple execs charged over backdating ... Vonage wins permanent injunction

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MS hopes for Xbox Japan boost with Live gaming ... Semiconductor industry looks to 18-inch wafers

HIGHLIGHTS
News: Microsoft hopes for Xbox Japan boost with Live gaming
News: Semiconductor industry looks ahead to 18-inch wafers
News: AMD looks to raise $2.2 billion through debt sale
News: U.S. Army team wants second chance at hacker contest
Opinion: The mashup approach to application integration
ITwhirled: eBay auction of papal Volkswagon flops
Podcast: U.S. government targets ID theft .... Number of telephones grows in India ... DoCoMo to sell motion-sensing handsets for games


NEWS UPDATES

Microsoft hopes for Xbox Japan boost with Live gaming
Microsoft Corp. hopes the launch in May of a gaming platform that ties together Windows PCs and the Xbox 360 console will give PC gaming a boost in Japan and in turn mean better business for its console.

Semiconductor industry looks ahead to 18-inch wafers
The world's largest contract chip manufacturer is part of a group of companies exploring the use of 18-inch (450 millimeter) silicon wafers to drive down chip costs, but the technology faces a major hurdle: nobody can afford an 18-inch wafer factory.

AMD looks to raise $2.2 billion through debt sale
Less than one week after disclosing a $611 million first-quarter loss, chip maker Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD) Monday said it hopes to raise up to $2.2 billion through the sale of convertible notes to institutional investors.

U.S. Army team wants second chance at hacker contest
A team of U.S. Army hackers will attend the Hack In The Box (HITB) Security Conference 2007 in Kuala Lumpur later this year, seeking redemption after falling short at a hacker competition in Dubai earlier this month, the conference organizer said Tuesday.

Alcatel-Lucent sales, operating profit dip in Q2
First-quarter operating profit dipped at telecoms equipment maker Alcatel-Lucent SA on weak sales of the company's products for wireless and core networks.

EnterpriseDB upgrade aims at Oracle
EnterpriseDB is releasing an upgrade to its database software next month, hoping to lure customers away from Oracle Corp. with the promise of lower license fees and compatibility with applications written for Oracle's database.

Report: Former Apple execs may be charged this week
Two former executives of Apple Inc. may face legal action this week by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for their roles in the stock options backdating scandal at the computer company.

Apple product hazards put to shareholder vote
Apple Inc. shareholders will vote on a resolution at the company's annual meeting May 10 on a proposal to remove certain hazardous chemicals from their products.

AT&T to target iPhone to enterprise
AT&T Inc. plans to market the iPhone to business users in addition to consumers but analysts aren't recommending that enterprises supply workers with the phones.


OPINION

I'll push and you pull. The mashup approach to application integration
By Sean McGrath, ITworld.com

The phenomenon of mashup applications on the web intrigues me. The applications themselves are fascinating enough but on top of that you have the richly painted canvas of reaction and opinion from the IT community. In a scene reminiscent of a busy Hieronymus Bosch painting, many voices speak at once. Many reactions take place all at the same time, evidencing delight, horror, exacerbation in equal measure.

Read the full article here.

Subscribe to E-business in the Enterprise - Observations about business, the Internet, and cool technologies.


ITWHIRLED

eBay auction of papal Volkswagon flops
A hatchback car that Pope Benedict XVI owned before his elevation to the papacy was auctioned off on eBay, but failed to meet the reserve price. You might be forgiven for thinking the owner was being a little greedy: That reserve price was apparently more than $204,400.

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PODCAST

Daily IT News Audio Update
U.S. government targets ID theft .... Number of telephones grows in India ... DoCoMo to sell motion-sensing handsets for games

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Motorola buys Terayon for $140 million ... HP files second patent lawsuit against Acer

HIGHLIGHTS
News: Motorola buys Terayon for $140 million
News: HP files second patent lawsuit against Acer
News: Court filings: Kickbacks on gov't contracts widespread
News: Microsoft hit with patent suit over .Net
Unix Tip: Taking notes the easy way
ITwhirled: Researcher records life in detail
Podcast: HP files another lawsuit against Acer ... Singapore Exchange plans new order system ... Intuit offers refunds for e-filing problems


NEWS UPDATES

Motorola buys Terayon for $140 million
Motorola Inc. will buy Terayon Communication Systems Inc., a digital video processing and networking software maker, for $140 million, the companies announced on Monday.

HP files second patent lawsuit against Acer
Hewlett-Packard Co., the world's largest PC vendor, has filed another lawsuit against its fastest growing rival, Acer Inc., as competition in the PC industry continues to heat up.

Court filings: Kickbacks on gov't contracts widespread
An alleged multi-million-dollar kickback scheme involving work on numerous U.S. government contracts touches dozens of IT vendors and systems integrators, according to court documents unsealed Thursday.

Microsoft hit with patent suit over .Net
Vertical Computer Systems Inc. is suing Microsoft Corp. for patent infringement related to Microsoft's .Net framework for building Windows-based software.

Barclays merger will move 10,800 jobs to India
U.K. bank Barclays PLC will move 10,800 jobs to India following a giant merger announced Monday with ABN Amro Holding NV, part of an effort to generate billions of euros in annual savings.

Europe considers network security portal for SMBs
The European Union is considering a system that would alert small and medium-size businesses to network and information security threats.

RIM readies software client for non-Blackberry devices
New software from Research in Motion Ltd. (RIM) will enable all BlackBerry wireless applications to run on smartphones from rival handset makers.

Business Objects to buy financial software vendor
Business Objects SA has agreed to buy Cartesis SA, a maker of finance and performance management software, for €225 million in cash, or about $300 million, the companies announced Monday.

Google looking to expand geo-tagged information
Google Inc. is looking to increase the range and variety of information with a geographical element that it offers, and hopes its users will play a big part in the expansion.


UNIX TIP

Taking notes the easy way
By Sandra Henry-Stocker

If you ever find yourself cutting and pasting Unix commands and their output into a file in order to create a record of some anomaly you have encountered on a system you manage or to document a procedure so that someone else can take charge while you are on vacation, you may have overlooked a handy command that takes all the fuss out of recording the content of your online session -- the script command.

Read the full article here.


ITWHIRLED

Researcher records life in detail
Gordon Bell records everything about his life: He saves every e-mail and walks around with a digital camera and audio recorder. It's a bit cumbersome at the moment, but he's working on a system for Microsoft that will make it all simple!

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PODCAST

Daily IT News Audio Update
HP files another lawsuit against Acer ... Singapore Exchange plans new order system ... Intuit offers refunds for e-filing problems

More podcasts