IBM may open source Jazz ... YouTube vows to protect video makers ... 10 fun things to do with Google Earth

HIGHLIGHTS
News: IBM may open source Jazz collaboration software
News: YouTube vows to protect video makers in InVideo ads
News: E.C. accuses Rambus of 'patent ambush'
News: Cogent: Cable was attacked with saw and gun
News: Spam fighters hit criminals' weak spot
Opinion: PDF and HTML: Splitting the difference
Podcast: Today's IT news audio update
ITwhirled: 10 fun things you can do with Google Earth


NEWS UPDATES

IBM may open source Jazz collaboration software
IBM Corp.'s Rational Software unit is considering putting parts of its Jazz collaboration framework into open source, according to an executive of the company.

YouTube vows to protect video makers in InVideo ads
Google Inc. has promised to give content makers control over advertisements overlaid on video clips they post to its YouTube video sharing Web site.

E.C. accuses Rambus of 'patent ambush'
Six months after U.S. regulators capped royalties that vendors must pay to Rambus Inc., the European Union is taking a close look at the company's monopoly on the DRAM chip market.

Cogent: Cable was attacked with saw and gun
Guns, saws, and some very dim-witted thieves were all apparently involved in a network blackout that affected Internet users, primarily in the Northeastern U.S., earlier this week.

Spam fighters hit criminals' weak spot
For years, spam haters have relied on junk-mail filters and Internet blacklists, but lately, some are saying it's time for a change in tactics. And that means going after the Web sites where spammers sell their pharmaceuticals and watches and male enhancement products.

New phones deliver speedier HSDPA downloads
Samsung, LG, and Pantech have all unveiled this month their first phones that are compatible with 7.2M bps (bits per second) variants of HSDPA (high speed downlink packet access) networks.


OPINION

PDF and HTML: Splitting the difference
By Sean McGrath, ITworld.com

I never thought I would hear myself saying this, but I think the world
needs another file format for storing images.

Like many people in this industry, I have often had to fight the file
format fight converting images endlessly from format A to format B and
back again to achieve some result or work around some application
limitation. More than once I have said to myself "It's only pixels darn
it! How many sensible ways can there possibly be to store these
things?". And now I find myself advocating the creation of another one?
What gives?

Read the full article here.


PODCAST

Daily IT News Audio Update
European Commission accuses Rambus of patent ambush ... Via Technologies shows off 1-watt microprocessor ... South Korea upgrades cell phone networks to 7.2M bps

More podcasts


ITWHIRLED

She's a 10

* Top 10 PDF tricks
* 10 fun things you can do with Google Earth
* Top 10 worst Mario games of all times
* Ten Must have Programs for Windows Mobile Smartphones

See all the tens

Subscribe to the ITwhirled alert - weird tech news direct to your inbox.

Monster shuts down rogue server after breach ... Sony demos sugar-based bio battery ... Seagate to offer solid-state drives

HIGHLIGHTS
News: Monster shuts down rogue server after breach
News: Sony runs Walkman off sugar-based bio battery
News: Seagate to offer solid-state drives
News: Paying Skype users get a week's free service
News: YouTube fans rant, threaten to leave over new ads
Opinion: The annotation age
Podcast: Today's IT news audio update
ITwhirled: Chinese couple tries to name baby "@"


NEWS UPDATES

Monster shuts down rogue server after breach
Monster Worldwide Inc., whose job-hunting sites suffered a massive data breach caused by hackers, has shut down a rogue server that had been used to gather personal details of job seekers.

Sony runs Walkman off sugar-based bio battery
A year ago it seemed Sony Corp. couldn't even get a laptop battery right. A massive recall of lithium-ion cells tainted its image and had the company scrambling, but on Thursday it reported a sweet breakthrough in bio battery technology.

Report: Seagate to offer solid-state drives
Seagate Technology LLC reportedly plans to add solid-state drives based on flash memory chips to its lineup of storage products.

Paying Skype users get a week's free service
Skype Ltd. is offering a week of free service to paying customers who may have been affected by the two-day outage of its Internet telephony service last week.

YouTube fans rant, threaten to leave over new ads
Most users responding to a YouTube blog post asking for feedback gave the idea a resounding thumbs down, and one even made a video to share his displeasure

Nokia offers Windows Live services on handsets
Microsoft Corp. has partnered with handset manufacturer Nokia Corp. to deliver some of its Windows Live services on wireless handsets in Europe and the Middle East.

AMD sales chief steps down
Advanced Micro Devices Inc. sales chief Henri Richard will leave the company in September, AMD said Wednesday. The announcement came shortly after AMD reported its third straight quarterly loss. But the company said that Richard left of his own accord and on amicable terms.


OPINION

The annotation age
By Shane Schick, ITBusiness.ca

A new feature on Google's news aggregator will allow those who are involved in a story to add their own comments to the articles. So, if you were quoted in a story and felt the media got it wrong (as we often do), you'd have a chance to set the record straight. But this is not a media story. It's an IT story, because it is a sign of what will soon become the preoccupation of technology professionals everywhere.

Read the full article here.


PODCAST

Today's IT news audio update
Henri Richard quits AMD ... Google testing in-video ads ... Intuit CEO to step down

More podcasts


ITWHIRLED

Chinese couple tries to name baby "@"
Most residents of China share a relatively small pool of about 130 surnames, but pushes for individuality are underway. One couple even tried to name their child "@", evoking the new Internet age. It doesn't hurt that the pronunciation sounds like "love him" in Chinese.

Subscribe to the ITwhirled alert - weird tech news direct to your inbox.

Apple signs iPhone deals for Europe ... Google Earth looks skyward ... YouTube launches in-video advertising

HIGHLIGHTS
News: Apple signs iPhone deals for Europe, report says
News: Google Earth gets starry-eyed
News: Sharp shows slender big-screen LCD TV prototype
News: YouTube launches in-video advertising
News: Turkish police make arrest in TJX data breach case
Windows Tip: Beyond the run box
Podcast: Today's IT news audio update
ITwhirled: Cheating on your spouse? Don't use E-Z Pass


NEWS UPDATES

Apple signs iPhone deals for Europe, report says
Apple Inc. has signed its first deals with mobile phone operators to offer its iPhone in three of Europe's largest markets, ending a period of intense negotiations, according to a report in the Financial Times newspaper.

Google Earth gets starry-eyed
Google Inc. may just be the center of the universe now: A new add-on for its Earth satellite program, called Sky, lets users explore space and see photos of the precise star formation overhead based on their locale.

Sharp shows slender big-screen LCD TV prototype
Sharp Corp. unveiled a prototype TV on Wednesday that's packed with technologies that could appear soon in its products. The wall-mounted TV is just 2 centimeters thick and gets its signal via a high-speed wireless link, meaning the only cable required is for the power.

YouTube launches in-video advertising
Google Inc.'s YouTube division has launched what it hopes will be an unobtrusive way for companies to advertise on videos hosted at its popular Web site. The ads show up briefly as an overlay on the bottom 20% of the video, and people can click and watch the advertisement if they want to.

Turkish police make arrest in TJX data breach case
Police in Turkey have arrested a man allegedly trying to sell data hacked and stolen during the now infamous theft of customer records from U.S. retailer TJX.

Storm spam poses as site confirmation
The Storm malware, which first appeared in January of this year, is showing no signs of slowing down -- just this week reinventing itself as a website membership confirmation message.

Singapore Airlines puts a PC in every seat
To make flying more enjoyable for its passengers, Singapore Airlines Ltd. is adding bigger screens, more in-flight movies and a PC in every seat on its newest planes.


TIP

Windows Tip: Beyond the run box
By Mitch Tulloch, MTIT Enterprises

I like to use the keyboard as much as possible and avoid using the mouse, but if I use my Run box for so many different purposes, my RunMRU key fills up with too many saved entries for me to make useful use of this feature. My main priority is for frequently-used UNC paths to be easily accessible from the Run box, so it would be nice if there was an alternative way for me to easily open Web site URLs by simply typing them.

Well, where there's a script, there's usually a way.

Read the full article here.


PODCAST

Today's IT news audio update
RealNetworks, MTV combine for online music store ... Apple gains market share for computers ... Skype says last week's outage was a 'perfect storm'

More podcasts


ITWHIRLED

Cheating on your spouse? Don't use E-Z Pass
Divorce attorney Lynne Gold-Bikin's client's ex-husband said that he went to Pennsylvania on business. But she got a court order to release the records of his RFID-based electronic toll pass, which revealed that he went to New Jersey for an assignation instead. E-Z Pass is "an easy way to show you took the off-ramp to adultery," according to another divorce lawyer.

Subscribe to the ITwhirled alert - weird tech news direct to your inbox.

MTV, RealNetworks to merge music stores ... Skype details 'perfect storm' outage ... Google offers refunds for irked video customers

HIGHLIGHTS
News: MTV, RealNetworks said to merge digital music stores
News: Skype offers more details of 'perfect storm' outage
News: Google offers refunds for irked video customers
News: Toshiba to offer 320GB laptop drive from Q4
News: Adobe releases Moviestar beta for Flash Player 9
Unix Tip: Viewing device aliases on the command line
ITwhirled: Scientists: Movies raising a nation of science morons


NEWS UPDATES

MTV, RealNetworks said to merge digital music stores
MTV Networks and RealNetworks Inc. will merge their online digital music stores in the latest attempt to reduce Apple Inc.'s hold on the music download market, the Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday morning.

Skype offers more details of 'perfect storm' outage
The situation that prevented millions of people from accessing Skype Ltd.'s Internet telephony service late last week was a "perfect storm" and should not reoccur, the company said Tuesday.

Google offers refunds for irked video customers
Google Inc. has apologized for the way it shut down its video sales and rental service last week, leaving people unable to play videos they had paid for, and said it will refund their credit cards and allow them to watch their films for another six months.

Toshiba to offer 320GB laptop drive from Q4
Toshiba Corp. will start producing a 320G-byte hard-disk drive for laptop computers before the end of this year, the company said Tuesday.

Adobe releases Moviestar beta for Flash Player 9
Adobe Systems Inc.'s upgrade for its Flash Player, released on Tuesday, adds support for one of the latest video encoding standards as well as new audio support.

Tech's own data centers are their green showrooms
Two Silicon Valley companies are showcasing technology in their own facilities to demonstrate how energy-efficiency can help companies act green and save green.

Dell to offer networked SCSI array
Dell is set to launch its first networked serial-attached SCSI (SAS) drive array. It will offer up to 6TB of capacity to small and medium enterprise customers and be a SAS alternative to its EMC-supplied AX150i.

VOICECON: Microsoft, others scramble for spotlight
Microsoft Corp. has licensed its RT Audio Codec for IP (Internet Protocol) voice calls to major hardware vendors including Intel Corp., Texas Instruments Inc. and Polycom Inc., the company is set to announce Tuesday at the VoiceCon conference. It joins several vendors using the event as a showcase for IP telephony advancements.

New tool turns users into SOA programmers
Serena has said it will jump into the software-as-a-service (SAAS) market next month with a user-oriented development toolset aimed at promoting the idea of "enterprise mashups."


UNIX TIP

Viewing device aliases on the command line
By Sandra Henry Stocker

Ever wish you could take a look at the device aliases on a Solaris system without having to descend all the way down to the ok prompt? Well, you can. By issuing the proper version of the prtconf (print system configuration) command, you can include a list of device aliases in your prtconf output.

Read the full article here.



ITWHIRLED

Scientists: Movies raising a nation of science morons
Two physicists who teach undergraduates in Florida are concerned that implausible physics in sci-fi and action movies are giving young people entirely incorrect ideas about how the physical world works. Thus, they're fighting fire with fire, teaching a class that uses these same movies to illustrate good and bad science.

Subscribe to the ITwhirled alert - weird tech news direct to your inbox.

Skype says crash followed Windows security update ... FCC schedules 700MHz auction ... Sony to upgrade digital camera line

HIGHLIGHTS
News: Skype says crash followed Windows security update

News: FCC schedules 700MHz auction on Jan. 16

News: Sony unveils upgrade to T-series thin camera range

News: Google Gadgets can be misused by phishers

News: Another Brocade exec faces backdating charge

Interview: Jimmy Wales talks on the future of Wikimedia

Podcast: Today's IT news audio update

ITwhirled: Crowds may provide alternative energy source


NEWS UPDATES

Skype says crash followed Windows security update
The widespread failure of Skype Ltd.'s Internet telephony service last week happened when millions of Windows users tried to log in to the system at the same time, after downloading a software update from Microsoft Corp. and rebooting their machines, Skype said Monday.

FCC schedules 700MHz auction on Jan. 16
The U.S. Federal Communications Commission will begin its long-awaited auction of 700MHz radio spectrum on Jan. 16, 2008, the agency said Friday. The sale is expected to take in $10 billion or more in bids for what has been called "beachfront property."

Sony unveils upgrade to T-series thin camera range
Sony Corp. is upgrading its thin T-series digital still camera line with a new model that packs a larger display with a touch screen.

Researcher: Google Gadgets can be misused by phishers
The domain used to host small Google Gadget applications written by Web developers could be misused by phishers, a Web security researcher said Friday. Attackers could create a phishing site on the gmodules.com domain and then send that URL to victims. Because Google's gmodules.com domain is trusted by antiphishing filters, victims might then go to the phishing site without being warned by their browser's filtering software.

Another Brocade exec faces backdating charge
A third former Brocade Communications Systems Inc. executive faces federal charges related to stock options backdating, just 10 days after the firm's former CEO became first person in the U.S. convicted on backdating charges.


INTERVIEW

Jimmy Wales talks on the future of Wikimedia
The role Jimmy Wales, co-founder of Wikipedia, plays at the organization that supports the user generated and edited encyclopedia is changing as he shifts more of his time to activities in the wiki and open source communities, and shares time with his for-profit venture, Wikia Inc. In this interview, Wales discusses his changing role at Wikimedia, plans for the future, and other topics.


PODCAST

Daily IT News Audio Update
Skype declares outage over ... Sony to upgrade digital camera line ... Google sets up resource center on click fraud

More podcasts


ITWHIRLED

Train passengers, concertgoers may provide alternative energy source
Our evil robot overlords in the Matrix movies used humans as batteries by keeping them in vats of goo. But if two MIT grad students have their way, we'll all be generating electricity by our mere presence in large numbers at the same place at the same time.

Subscribe to the ITwhirled alert - weird tech news direct to your inbox.