Sony ends game controller legal dispute ... YouTube to broadcast BBC ... Slashdot gets Digg-y

HIGHLIGHTS
News: YouTube to offer BBC news and entertainment videos
News: Dell beats earnings mark despite sinking profits
News: Adobe to launch Apollo beta later this month
News: Slashdot revamps tech news aggregation site
Security Tip: Password cracking reminder
Podcast: Today's IT news audio update
Geek comic of the week: The Book of Biff


NEWS UPDATES

YouTube to offer BBC news and entertainment videos
Users of YouTube's online video service will soon be able to view news, TV series, documentaries and other programs from the BBC. Under the nonexclusive partnership, the BBC and its commercial subsidiary BBC Worldwide will create its own advertising-funded commercial "channels" on YouTube, the companies said Friday.

Dell beats earnings mark despite sinking profits
Still gasping from the resignation of its chief executive in January and an ongoing investigation of its accounting practices, Dell Inc. reported fourth quarter profits of $673 million, down sharply from the $1 billion it reported for the same period last year. Still, the company posted earnings of $0.30 per share, just over Wall Street expectations of $0.29 per share.

Adobe to launch Apollo beta later this month
Adobe Systems Inc. later this month plans to launch the beta of a new runtime that will allow rich Web-based applications to run offline, technology that could threaten the popularity of programming platforms such as Java and Microsoft Corp.'s .NET.

Slashdot revamps tech news aggregation site
Slashdot.org released on Thursday a new feature designed to give more participation in the selection of articles to its users, who submit links to stories and comments about them to the site.

Sony ends game controller legal dispute
Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. and Immersion Corp. said Friday that a five-year-old legal battle between them was settled and that they will explore ways to use Immersion's technology in PlayStation products.

Sanyo and Lenovo may share cost of battery recall
Japanese electronics company Sanyo Electric Co. Ltd. and computer vendor Lenovo Group Ltd. are discussing how to pay for the recall of over 200,000 laptop PC batteries, and may end up sharing the burden.

Study: Businesses 'flounder' over outsourcing value
More than 4 in 10 businesses are unable to quantify the benefits of their outsourcing deals, new research from KPMG International shows. And nearly 4 out of 5 of respondents to the KPMG survey of CIOs and senior executives at more than 650 major enterprises worldwide admitted they did not accurately know the cost of selecting their outsourcing providers.

Finally from Sony, a video Walkman
Eighteen months after rival Apple Inc. raised the bar in the music player market with its video iPod, Sony Corp. will launch its first digital video Walkman. The NW-A800 series Walkman will initially go on sale in Europe in April.

IBM aims for midmarket with BI appliance server
IBM Corp. hopes to bring business intelligence (BI) to a wider audience of midmarket customers with a new software stack developed in partnership with Business Objects SA, industry sources said.

Rivals launch dueling virtualization products
Two makers of virtualization software for running Windows on Apple computers have issued dueling upgrades this week. On Feb. 27 Parallels unveiled an update to its Desktop for Macs software. And VMware said Friday it's going to release sometime in June a beta 2 upgrade to its VMware virtualization software for the Mac, code named Fusion.

Nokia-Palm buyout reports baffle some experts
Recent reports that Nokia Corp. is in talks to buy Palm Inc. surprised some analysts, who nonetheless said some type of buyout might make sense and could even be a good thing for customers.

Red Hat updates RHEL 4
Red Hat will provide a taster of the upcoming version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) by adding Xen into the current version of RHEL. Version 4 becomes 4.5 and is the first version of the OS to include the open source Xen, which uses para-virtualization technology to enable virtual machines. Xen is already included in the latest version of the Fedora kernel, Red Hat's community release, and is also part of Novell's SuSE Linux Enterprise 10.


SECURITY TIP

Password cracking reminder
By Brent Huston, MicroSolved, Inc.

Attackers have made a quantum leap in password cracking in the last few years. Time is no longer on our side. In many cases, it is faster to crack the password than to change it across an enterprise, especially if politics, change controls and cross-platforms are involved. Quite simply, we must checkmate attackers before they get the password hashes.

Read the full article here.

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Daily IT News Audio Update
Oracle to buy Hyperion for $3.3 billion ... Lenovo recalls more batteries ... Dell's Q4 profits sink

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ITWHIRLED

Geek comic of the week: The Book of Biff
Biff -- an odd-looking fellow with some unruly eyebrows -- has a series of ideas that in hindsight might be best described as "sounding good at the time." Like speeding up the painting process with dynamite. Or watching a fireworks display from a hot-air balloon. Or using a glacier as a cold-water source.

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Oracle to buy Hyperion for $3.3 billion ... Google fights click fraud

HIGHLIGHTS
News: Oracle will buy Hyperion for $3.3 billion
News: E.U. criticizes Microsoft interoperability efforts again
News: Google to enhance tools to fight click fraud
News: Apps not 'certified' for Vista may still work on the OS
Security Tip: Password cracking reminder
Podcast: Today's IT news audio update
ITwhirled: Dutch government proposes 'knee lock' for parolees


NEWS UPDATES

Oracle will buy Hyperion for $3.3 billion
Oracle Corp. has agreed to acquire business intelligence software vendor Hyperion Solutions Corp. for $3.3 billion in cash, it said Thursday. Oracle will combine Hyperion's software with its own business intelligence and analytics tools to offer customers a broad range of performance management capabilities, including planning, budgeting and operational analytics.

E.U. criticizes Microsoft interoperability efforts again
The European Commission has again criticized Microsoft Corp.'s response to a 2004 antitrust ruling, opening up the possibility of further fines for the company. The regulator said that the software giant proposes overcharging for vital interoperability information needed by rival software makers to allow their products work properly with the Windows operating system.

Google to enhance tools to fight click fraud
Google Inc. will provide more data and tools to help its advertisers assess and combat click fraud, a controversial practice that is the biggest enemy of the otherwise highly popular and profitable online advertising model known as pay per click.

Apps not 'certified' for Vista may still work on the OS
Major applications from Symantec Corp., Adobe Systems Inc., Apple Inc. and IBM Corp. aren't included on an official Microsoft list of applications that qualify for a "Certified for Windows Vista" or "Works with Windows Vista" logo. However, chances are they could currently be involved in the testing process to achieve those logos, Microsoft and its partners said.

Deutsche Telekom to expand int'l mobile phone business
The T-Mobile brand could soon be coming to a market near you. As part of a strategy to revive profits, Deutsche Telekom AG intends to expand its T-Mobile cellular business in markets in which the German telecommunications group is already offering fixed-line services and possibly in entirely new markets, the company said Thursday.

Nokia venture pushes phone payments
Nokia Corp., one of the first handset makers outside Japan to turn a phone into a wallet, now wants to sell services that will make these kinds of devices useful.

War of words erupts between figures in HP scandal
The attorney for ousted Hewlett-Packard Co. chairman Patricia Dunn fired back Wednesday at public comments made by board rival Thomas Perkins about the HP pretexting scandal. In an appearance at the VentureOne Outlook Conference, a gathering of venture capitalists, Perkins said the HP dispute about how to control leaks of board deliberations to the media was really a fight for control of the board, which Dunn won, according to media reports of his speech.

Toshiba says 51GB HD DVD still under development
A three-layer HD DVD disc with enough room for about 7 hours of high-definition video is still under development and hasn't been submitted for approval to the DVD Forum, the standard's governing body, despite reports to the contrary, Toshiba Corp. said Thursday.

Download DVD specification gets approval
A technology that allows movies to be downloaded and burned to blank DVDs using the same content-protection system as commercial discs received official approval on Thursday.


SECURITY TIP

Password cracking reminder
By Brent Huston, MicroSolved, Inc.

Attackers have made a quantum leap in password cracking in the last few years. Time is no longer on our side. In many cases, it is faster to crack the password than to change it across an enterprise, especially if politics, change controls and cross-platforms are involved. Quite simply, we must checkmate attackers before they get the password hashes.

Subscribe to Security Strategies - Tips and technologies to protect your enterprise.


PODCAST

Daily IT News Audio Update
RFID vulnerabilities spark debate at Black Hat ... Symantec sees holes in Vista ... Microsoft revamps antipiracy tool

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ITWHIRLED

Dutch government proposes 'knee lock' for parolees
Most of us are familiar with shopping carts whose wheels lock up when pushed too far from the supermarket. The government of the Netherlands is now proposing a similar technology to restrict the movements of criminals on parole.

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MS tackles 'false positives' in antipiracy tool ... Sony adds HDTV output to digital cameras

HIGHLIGHTS
News: Microsoft tackles 'false positives' in antipiracy tool
News: AMD releases PC chipset with ATI graphics
News: iAnywhere adds IM to mobile management suite
News: YouTube reaches deals for music video, sports content
Windows Tip: Two Vista tips and a story
Podcast: Today's IT news audio update
ITwhirled: Wireless doorbell rings you in


NEWS UPDATES

Microsoft tackles 'false positives' in antipiracy tool
Microsoft will start to give some customers the benefit of the doubt with an updated version of its software antipiracy tool, Windows Genuine Advantage Notifications. The company has added a new category to the tool, "indeterminate," for instances where it can't be sure whether the OS running on a user's PC is legitimate.

AMD releases PC chipset with ATI graphics
Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD) Wednesday announced the availability of its 690 chipset, the company's first integrated chipset for AMD processors the includes the ATI Radeon X1250 graphics processor.

iAnywhere adds IM to mobile management suite
IAnywhere Solutions Inc. is adding an instant messaging (IM) component to Information Anywhere Suite, a set of products for managing applications on PDAs and other wireless devices.

YouTube reaches deals for music video, sports content
YouTube Inc. furthered its attempts to offer legitimate footage on its video-sharing Web site this week by announcing deals that will provide users with music video and professional basketball content.

ITU approves HomePNA standard
The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) is now backing a technology that may send high-definition video around the average home in a few years.

Benioff promotes 'Salesforce.com 2.0' platform
Everyone knows Salesforce.com Inc. as the company that pioneered software as a service (SAAS) and survived the dot-com bust when many other application service providers (ASPs) didn't. Now, Chairman and CEO Marc Benioff said the company is ready to take on Microsoft Corp. as a leading development platform provider, a strategy he unveiled as "Salesforce.com 2.0."

Former McAfee lawyer indicted for backdating
The former legal counsel for McAfee Inc. is facing federal charges of improperly backdating stock options at the security software company.

Sony adds HDTV output to digital cameras
Sony Corp. is aggressively promoting high-definition televisions (HDTVs) to consumers and soon it will have a range of digital still cameras to match. Many of the company's new Cybershot cameras, which will hit global markets in March and April, offer an output for HDTVs.


WINDOWS TIP

Two Vista tips and a story
By Mitch Tulloch, MTIT Enterprises

Today I've got two tips for you concerning Windows Vista, plus a story from a reader to lighten up your day. First, an article was recently published in the Knowledge Base on Microsoft TechNet that will help you determine which third-party vendors have been certified by the Windows Logo Program as working with Windows Vista. What's really interesting when you read this article is not which vendors' apps are on the list but which vendors aren't listed, such as Adobe, Symantec, McAfee, and so on.

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PODCAST

Daily IT News Audio Update
Acer predicts big rise in PC shipments ... Technology industry calls for US patent reform ... LCD TV technology to improve

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ITWHIRLED

Wireless doorbell rings you in
For those of you who spend lots of time away from home, there's now a device to answer the doorbell from nearly anywhere in the world with your mobile phone.

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Faster LCD panels are next front in TV battle ... Corel releases WordPerfect Lightning public beta

HIGHLIGHTS
News: Corel releases public beta of WordPerfect Lightning
News: Faster LCD panels are next front in TV battle
News: HP moves to simplify data center setup
News: Acer sees strong Q1 PC sales on Vista, CPU war
Unix Tip: Core dumps for dummies
Podcast: Today's IT news audio update
ITwhirled: Welcome robot overlords!


NEWS UDPATES

Corel releases public beta of WordPerfect Lightning
Corel Corp. released a free public beta of WordPerfect Lightning on Tuesday, a word processor that blends a desktop-based application with online collaboration and storage features.

Faster LCD panels are next front in TV battle
In the world of LCD TVs, the latest buzz is around "100Hz" or "120Hz" technology, which relates to how often the image on the screen is refreshed or redrawn. The technology is already appearing, and if you haven't seen promotional stickers for it yet you probably will soon.

HP moves to simplify data center setup
HP has begun shipping Virtual Connect, a management tool for its BladeSystem c-Class servers that the company thinks will give it an edge over rival IBM Corp. in the market for blade servers.

Acer sees strong Q1 PC sales on Vista, CPU war
The chairman of Acer Inc., the world's fourth largest PC vendor, forecast the company's PC shipments will grow by as much as 50 percent year-on-year in the first quarter and 40 percent for all of 2007, the company confirmed on Tuesday.

HP to buy storage software vendor PolyServe
Hewlett-Packard Co. is acquiring a storage software company that the company says will give it important leverage in the enterprise-class network-attached storage (NAS) market.

HP launches SMB storage products
Competing with Dell Inc. for small business users who needs to back up their data, Hewlett-Packard Co. launched a low-priced, disk-based backup and recovery system on Monday.

Gov't agency CIOs: IT security remains top concern
IT security remains a top concern of U.S. government chief information officers, but it's also an area where they're making much progress, according to a survey released Monday by the Information Technology Association of America.

Comtel project stalls as countries go their own way
The proposed African multinational broadband project, Comtel, has stalled as individual member countries develop their own regional telecommunication infrastructures.

World Bank weighs in on Africa gateway fees
World Bank officials are speaking out about the international gateway license-fee wrangle between mobile phone service providers and African governments, with a view to spurring economic development in the region.

Sony plans cheaper Blu-ray Disc player
Sony Corp. is planning to launch a Blu-ray Disc player in the middle of this year that's significantly cheaper than many current models on the market. The BDP-S300 will cost about $600 -- about $400 cheaper than Sony's current BDP-S1 -- even though the new player will offer superior capabilities.


UNIX TIP

Core dumps for dummies
By Sandra Henry Stocker

If once every several years, you have problems with a process and end up with a troublesome core dump, you might be able to extract some useful information from the file before you delete it from your system. In this week's column, we look at an extremely simple script intended to help you analyze core dumps without requiring you to remember the relevant commands.

Read the full article here.


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IBM, Intel prepare for next-generation chips ... Apple delays shipments of Apple TV ... Sony to release cheaper Blu-ray player

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ITWHIRLED

Here come our robot overlords
Science fiction Cassandras have long warned of metallic beings rising up against us, enslaving us with their mighty limbs and devastating weapons. But scientists now believe that the robots will take over by being so helpful that we'll be unable to function without them.

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BitTorrent opens online store for digital media ... Apple, Samsung, Sandisk sued over MP3

HIGHLIGHTS
News: BitTorrent to open online store for digital media
News: Apple, Samsung, Sandisk sued over MP3
News: Green Grid powers up to save energy
News: Mozilla fixes Firefox bugs
Windows Tip: Windows Vista and GPT disks
Podcast: Today's IT news audio update
ITwhirled: Top 10 fashion suggestions for nerds


NEWS UPDATES

BitTorrent to open online store for digital media
BitTorrent Inc. rolled out a paid music and movie download service on Monday, leveraging its fast distribution system infamous for the massive piracy it facilitated when it debuted in 2001.

Apple, Samsung, Sandisk sued over MP3
Little-known Texas MP3 Technologies Ltd. is taking on Apple Inc., Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. and Sandisk Corp. with a patent-infringement lawsuit.

Green Grid powers up to save energy
The Green Grid, a group of technology companies collaborating to improve energy efficiency in data centers, is officially open for business as of Monday.

Mozilla fixes Firefox bugs
Mozilla Corp. has released an update to its Firefox browser, fixing a number of security flaws in the product.

Toshiba's HD DVD-R laptop goes on sale
The first laptop computer to feature an HD DVD-R drive, Toshiba Corp.'s Qosmio Q30, went on sale in Japan over the weekend.

Google tweaks Chinese search engine with more features
Google Inc. may be steadily losing market share in China to rival Baidu.com Inc., but the company is not giving up, adding several new features to its Google.cn search engine, including some capabilities that are not available on Google.com.

BenQ Mobile to be split up and sold
Attempts to find an investor for bankrupt German mobile phone maker BenQ Mobile GmbH & Co. OHG have failed, after the last potential buyer ended negotiations, the company's insolvency administrator said Sunday.

E.C. warns Germany on broadband competition
The European Commission said Monday that it has threatened the German government with legal action unless it scraps a new law that protects Deutsche Telekom AG from competition in the broadband Internet access market.

Skype asks FCC to force open mobile networks
Skype Ltd. is looking to a 1968 ruling by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission to open up the country's mobile phone industry for "unlocked" devices and third-party applications -- such as Skype.

Researchers: Second Google desktop attack possible
Google Inc.'s PC search software is vulnerable to a variation on a little-known Web-based attack called anti-DNS (Domain Name System) pinning, that could give an attacker access to any data indexed by Google Desktop, security researchers said this week.


WINDOWS TIP

Windows Vista and GPT disks
By Mitch Tulloch, MTIT Enterprises

Windows Vista supports two types of disk partitioning: Master Boot Record (MBR) and Globally Unique Identifier Partition Table (GPT). GPT disks offer several advantages over MBR disks including more partitions (128 instead of 4) and larger partition sizes (theoretically up to 18 exabytes or about 18 million terabytes). But before you run out and get a zillion terabyte drive for your Vista workstation so you can store all your YouTube videos, you need to know the following.

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


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Daily IT News Audio Update
Another vulnerability uncovered in Google Desktop ... Few willing to pay $500 for an iPhone ... Veritas pays $30 million SEC fine

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ITWHIRLED

She's a 10
Top 10 hilarious viruses, trojans and worms ... Top 10 fashion suggestions for nerds ... Ten best free Wordpress templates ... The 10 best things you can do with Google Earth ... Skymall's 10 worst products

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