FTC chairman won't recuse herself in Google deal

U.S. Federal Trade Commission Chairman Deborah Platt Majoras won't recuse herself from considering the antitrust implications of Google's proposed acquisition of DoubleClick, despite a request from two privacy groups that she do so. ...continue reading 'FTC chairman won't recuse herself in Google deal'

Sun will offer back-line support for OpenOffice

Sun Microsystems on Monday plans to announce that it will provide support for the OpenOffice.org productivity software suite, citing a wave of momentum behind the open-source project. ...continue reading 'Sun will offer back-line support for OpenOffice'

Opera seeks tougher remedy in Microsoft case

With its fresh antitrust suit filed with the Commission this week, browser maker Opera Software is hoping for a tougher penalty to rein in what it sees as Microsoft's illegal bundling of its Internet Explorer (IE) browser with Windows. One legal expert said that this time around, Microsoft might not be so lucky. ...continue reading 'Opera seeks tougher remedy in Microsoft case'

Google's Picasa optimized for iPhone

Google has introduced specific support for its online photo gallery service Picasa on the iPhone. ...continue reading 'Google's Picasa optimized for iPhone'

Cisco's WiMax focus is in developing world

Cisco Systems sees a big market for WiMax, but not primarily in high-profile deployments in the developed world such as Sprint Nextel's nationwide network, planned for commercial launch in the U.S. next year. ...continue reading 'Cisco's WiMax focus is in developing world'

AMD's Ruiz 'blew it' in 2007, but still gets raise

AMD Chairman and CEO Hector Ruiz acknowledged Thursday that 2007 was a bad year for his company, but that didn't stop AMD's board of directors from raising his salary anyway. ...continue reading 'AMD's Ruiz 'blew it' in 2007, but still gets raise'

After attacks, Apple fixes QuickTime bug

Apple has released a new security patch for QuickTime, its eighth update this year for the media player software. ...continue reading 'After attacks, Apple fixes QuickTime bug'

FTC, law firm hiding DoubleClick conflict

The Web site of a law firm employing the husband of U.S. Federal Trade Commission Chairman Deborah Platt Majoras contradicts an FTC explanation that Majoras has no conflict of interest in reviewing DoubleClick's $3.1 billion acquisition by Google, two privacy groups said Thursday. ...continue reading 'FTC, law firm hiding DoubleClick conflict'

Google develops Wikipedia rival

Google is developing an online publishing platform where people can write entries on subjects they know, an idea that's close to Wikipedia's user-contributed encyclopedia - but with key differences. ...continue reading 'Google develops Wikipedia rival'

Forrester: 2008 to be a slow year for IT spending

Forrester Research has revised projections for IT investment in 2008 down from previous research published in October, predicting the year ahead will be a slow one both in the U.S. and globally. ...continue reading 'Forrester: 2008 to be a slow year for IT spending'

Atheros to acquire GPS chip maker u-Nav

Silicon vendor Atheros Communications has agreed to acquire u-Nav Microelectronics, a GPS (Global Positioning System) chip maker, for approximately $54 million in cash and stock, the companies announced after the close of trading Thursday. ...continue reading 'Atheros to acquire GPS chip maker u-Nav'

AMD gives up on 2007, aims Barcelona, profitability for 2008

AMD has delayed general availability of some key products until early next year, when it projects the chips, along with other new processors, will return it to profitability. ...continue reading 'AMD gives up on 2007, aims Barcelona, profitability for 2008'

10 reasons IT should not support the Apple iPhone

Al Sacco, CIO.com

A new report from Forrester Research suggests that the iPhone may never get a chance to succeed in business. Forrester says IT departments should refuse to support the devices for the following 10 reasons. ...continue reading '10 reasons IT should not support the Apple iPhone'

10 reasons IT should not support the Apple iPhone

Al Sacco, CIO.com

A new report from Forrester Research suggests that the iPhone may never get a chance to succeed in business. Forrester says IT departments should refuse to support the devices for the following 10 reasons. ...continue reading '10 reasons IT should not support the Apple iPhone'

Microsoft releases beta of Hyper-V virtualization technology

Microsoft Thursday did something it rarely does. The company released a beta for a long-awaited technology -- in this case its Windows Server 2008 virtualization technology Hyper-V -- ahead of schedule. ...continue reading 'Microsoft releases beta of Hyper-V virtualization technology'

Study predicts data center energy spike

An AMD study has revealed fascinating changes to global data center energy use, suggesting that even small shifts in operational procedures could cut new electricity consumption. ...continue reading 'Study predicts data center energy spike'

AMD fuses GPU, core logic, CPU on new 'Swift' chip

AMD plans to combine the functions of three chips - the GPU (graphics processing unit ), core-logic chipset and CPU (central processing unit) - into one code-named 'Swift', an executive said Thursday. ...continue reading 'AMD fuses GPU, core logic, CPU on new 'Swift' chip'

MS eScience group offers database advice to scientists

Microsoft Research's eScience group is helping scientific researchers use database and online sharing tools in ways they might not have imagined, and sharing those experiences with Microsoft product groups that can tweak their software for easier use by the scientific community. ...continue reading 'MS eScience group offers database advice to scientists'

Infidelity a problem? Offset your cheating online

A Web site is offering people the chance to offset their infidelity by paying random strangers to remain faithful in a satirical bid to highlight its view of carbon offsetting as an 'inadequate' and 'misguided' response to climate change. ...continue reading 'Infidelity a problem? Offset your cheating online'

Doris Lessing and the Internet: "We never thought to ask"

Dan Blacharski, ITworld.com

The tech blogs have been abuzz with criticism of British writer Doris Lessing's Nobel Prize acceptance speech, in which she referred to the "inanities" of the Internet. Much of the blogosphere took immediate offense. But as much as we love to defend our favored medium, one cannot deny the hard truth of the matter. She's right, the Internet is indeed full of inane and meaningless nothings, wild inaccuracies and unpolished drivel. But we cannot limit this observation to the Internet alone, and blame technology; there is also a high crap-to-quality ratio on television, and yes, even in printed books. ...continue reading Doris Lessing and the Internet: "We never thought to ask"

Opera files EU antitrust suit against Microsoft

Opera Software has filed an antitrust suit against Microsoft in the European Union, accusing it of stifling competition by tying its Internet Explorer Web browser to Windows, the Norwegian company said Thursday. ...continue reading 'Opera files EU antitrust suit against Microsoft'

AMD to face tough questions at analyst meeting

Amid further delays of AMD's quad-core server chip and plans to write off goodwill from the acquisition of ATI, AMD executives are going to face tough questions when they meet financial analysts in New York Thursday. ...continue reading 'AMD to face tough questions at analyst meeting'

Group asks FTC chairman to step down from DoubleClick review

U.S. Federal Trade Commission Chairman Deborah Platt Majoras is consulting with the agency's ethics officer to see if she should recuse herself from a review of Google's planned acquisition of online ad network DoubleClick. ...continue reading 'Group asks FTC chairman to step down from DoubleClick review'

International Trade Commission rules in Nokia's favor

A U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) judge made an initial ruling in Nokia's favor in an ongoing and long-running dispute with Qualcomm. ...continue reading 'International Trade Commission rules in Nokia's favor'

Facebook to license its platform for other social sites

Facebook already encourages developers to build applications that work with its site, publishing details of the tags and APIs needed to exchange data. Now it plans to license those details for use by other social networking sites and platforms, according to the Facebook Developers blog. ...continue reading 'Facebook to license its platform for other social sites'

HP looks to SMBs with new shared storage

HP is preparing to launch a new MSA2000 disk array product family for clustered servers, which it is targeting at SMB deployments and remote offices. ...continue reading 'HP looks to SMBs with new shared storage'

Centric CRM changes name, releases 5.0 version

Centric CRM said Wednesday it has changed its name to Concursive Corp., a move that coincides with the 5.0 release of its product. ...continue reading 'Centric CRM changes name, releases 5.0 version'

Top 10 tech stories of 2007

Marc Ferranti, IDG News Service

This year has been a time of realignment and redefinition, as Apple launched its second zeitgeist-defining product of the new century, Dell and Intel battled to regain their former dominance, the software sector consolidated, Google rallied industry heavyweights around a common mobile device platform, and major vendors scrambled to embrace social networking. So without further ado, here are the top 10 stories of the year. ...continue reading 'Top 10 tech stories of 2007'

Microsoft buys Multimap to boost advertising strategy

Microsoft continues to make acquisitions to boost its online services and advertising strategy. Early Wednesday the company said it snapped up Multimap, a U.K. company that provides online mapping for Europe, North America and Australia. ...continue reading 'Microsoft buys Multimap to boost advertising strategy'

Groups launch new white spaces campaign

A coalition of technology vendors, consumer groups and think tanks has launched a campaign to persuade the U.S. Federal Communications Commission to approve wireless devices that would operate in unused television spectrum. ...continue reading 'Groups launch new white spaces campaign'

OpenLogic wants to count open-source users - openly

Open-source enterprise software developer OpenLogic wants open-source users to stand up and be counted in a worldwide census -- and is offering a new software tool to help the process. ...continue reading 'OpenLogic wants to count open-source users - openly'

Ex-JBoss head Fleury joins startup

JBoss founder Marc Fleury has resurfaced as a paid advisor to Appcelerator, a startup based in Atlanta that makes a toolkit for developing rich Internet applications (RIA). ...continue reading 'Ex-JBoss head Fleury joins startup'

iPhone malware attacks for 2008

Security researchers are warning that the iPhone may generate a new hacker crime wave, becoming 'a primary target for hackers in 2008.' ...continue reading 'iPhone malware attacks for 2008'

Open source and the corporate elephant

More and more open-source developers these days are employees of companies, paid to work on open-source projects, rather than independent programmers doing it for fun. The change raises issues for projects, programmers and employers alike. ...continue reading 'Open source and the corporate elephant'

Survey: Interop is top open-source customer worry

The Open Solutions Alliance, a nonprofit group backed by a number of commercial open-source vendors, released a survey on Wednesday that found interoperability is a foremost concern among open-source-software customers. ...continue reading 'Survey: Interop is top open-source customer worry'

US-CERT: Attackers targeting Access files

Online criminals are exploiting a flaw in the Microsoft Office Access database to install unauthorized software on computers, the United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT) warned Monday. ...continue reading 'US-CERT: Attackers targeting Access files'

Innovators reminisce about the PC wonder years

PC innovators Jack Tramiel, Commodore's founder, and Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak reminisced about the old days of PCs in a panel discussion celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Commodore 64 PC. ...continue reading 'Innovators reminisce about the PC wonder years'

FTC charges payment company in $200M fraud

The Federal Trade Commission has filed charges against a payment processing company, accusing it of attempting to debit consumers' bank accounts for up to $200 million on behalf of dishonest merchants. ...continue reading 'FTC charges payment company in $200M fraud'

Led Zeppelin clips may be hard to wipe off YouTube

YouTube's technology for finding videos posted without the copyright holder's permission may be useless to identify footage posted to the site from Led Zeppelin's reunion concert on Monday. ...continue reading 'Led Zeppelin clips may be hard to wipe off YouTube'

Cisco's EOS online-content platform coming next year

Cisco will introduce next year its Entertainment Operating System (EOS), a platform for delivering multimedia content to online communities. ...continue reading 'Cisco's EOS online-content platform coming next year'

Nokia invests in contactless communications company

Nokia Growth Partners, the private equity and venture capital arm of Nokia, led a $38 million round of investments in Inside Contactless, the fabless semiconductor company that makes contactless chip platforms. Nokia did not reveal how much of the investment it contributed. ...continue reading 'Nokia invests in contactless communications company'

MSN puts ads on mobile phones

Microsoft began displaying advertisements to mobile users of its MSN site in the U.S. on Monday. ...continue reading 'MSN puts ads on mobile phones'

Oops! Skype forgets to tell users of bug or patch job

Skype Ltd. on Monday blamed an "unintentional communication oversight" for not notifying users a month ago that it had patched the Windows version of its voice-over-IP client software against a critical bug. ...continue reading 'Oops! Skype forgets to tell users of bug or patch job'

Microsoft fixes bug in Windows Live file-sharing service

Microsoft confirmed it has fixed a bug in its online file storage and sharing service Windows Live FolderShare after users reported problems that the service was deleting files without user authorization. ...continue reading 'Microsoft fixes bug in Windows Live file-sharing service'

Tempe Wi-Fi network on the block

An early municipal Wi-Fi network in Tempe, Arizona, has only 500 subscribers, but it may have a buyer. ... continue reading 'Tempe Wi-Fi network on the block'

Beware of 'blended threats,' phishing zombies in 2008

'Blended threats' - online security attacks that combine several techniques - are likely to become more pervasive in 2008, security industry insiders say. ... continue reading 'Beware of 'blended threats,' phishing zombies in 2008'

Microsoft details Vista SP1 changes

Microsoft Corp. has posted a detailed account of the changes to Windows Vista in the service pack it is scheduled to roll out as a public beta this week. ... continue reading 'Microsoft details Vista SP1 changes'

'08 IT forecasts: XP lives and the greening of tech

The predictable flood of 2008 IT prognostications has rolled in over the past few weeks and we have listened to analysts, vendors, consultants and our geek friends, accepting some forecasts and rejecting others. Turns out we did pretty well culling the wheat from the chaff last year and gazing ahead, though maybe we weren't bold enough in our declarations. So, this year we'll stretch a little. ... continue reading "'08 IT forecasts: XP lives and the greening of tech"

CIA no role model for CIOs

The recent news that the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency destroyed videotapes of interrogations of two terrorist suspects may offer a timely reminder for CIOs at private companies in the U.S., tasked with electronic evidence preservation rules since last December. ... continue reading 'CIA no role model for CIOs'

Facebook partners quiet on Beacon fallout

Many of the companies that were part of the launch of Facebook's new advertising platform intend to continue, despite privacy concerns. ...continue reading 'Facebook partners quiet on Beacon fallout'

NetSuite IPO auction begins

NetSuite on Monday said the auction period for its first initial public offering has begun and that it expects the price will be finalized after the stock market's close on Dec. 19. ...continue reading 'NetSuite IPO auction begins'

Mobile Linux group releases first specification

While Google's Linux mobile phone platform, Android, has been stealing the spotlight, another longer-standing mobile Linux group is also moving ahead. ...continue reading 'Mobile Linux group releases first specification'

CNBC taps Microsoft for banner, contextual ads

CNBC has picked Microsoft to be the exclusive provider of display and contextual advertising in the U.S. for the CNBC.com Web site. ...continue reading 'CNBC taps Microsoft for banner, contextual ads'

Toshiba launches its first tablet PC with LED screen

Toshiba on Monday launched its first tablet PCs with LED screens, taking some thunder away from Dell, which later in the day is expected to launch Latitude XT, its convertible PC with an LED screen. ...continue reading 'Toshiba launches its first tablet PC with LED screen'

Paris on Rails welcomes Ruby on Rails 2.0

Organizers of the Paris on Rails conference that opened Monday were so busy preparing over the weekend that they hadn't heard the good news: Version 2.0 of the Ruby on Rails software development framework was released Friday. ...continue reading 'Paris on Rails welcomes Ruby on Rails 2.0'

EMC adds VMware support to Invista SAN tools

The first upgrade of EMC's Invista networked storage virtualization tool will feature the ability to integrate with VMWare virtual servers. ...continue reading 'EMC adds VMware support to Invista SAN tools'

Iona upgrades open, closed source SOA technologies

On Monday, Iona Technologies is updating its Artix and Fuse SOA product lines, which feature the Artix closed source enterprise service bus and the Fuse open source technologies. ...continue reading 'Iona upgrades open, closed source SOA technologies'

World of Warcraft helps boy survive moose attack

When 12-year-old Hans Jørgen Olsen and his sister encountered an ornery moose while walking in the forest near their Norwegian home, the boy applied skills he acquired playing World of Warcraft. He first diverted the beast's attention away from his younger sister and then played possum, 'just like you learn at level 30', to avoid being attacked. ...continue reading 'World of Warcraft helps boy survive moose attack'

LinkedIn opens site to developers, jazzes up design

LinkedIn will let developers build applications for its professional networking site, an approach recently undertaken by social networking competitor Facebook, to make its site more interactive, the company said Monday. ...continue reading 'LinkedIn opens site to developers, jazzes up design'

Toshiba to make flash-based notebook drives

Toshiba will begin manufacturing flash-based solid-state drives for laptops early next year, which the company said will offer faster boot times and lower power consumption than hard disk drives. ...continue reading 'Toshiba to make flash-based notebook drives'

Dutch government threatens to sideline Microsoft

Proposed legislation that would mandate the use of the Open Document Format (ODF) across the entire Dutch government has infuriated Microsoft. A group promoting open standards sees no threat, however, and has invited Microsoft to join its ranks. ...continue reading 'Dutch government threatens to sideline Microsoft'

Via shrinks the PC with Artigo do-it-yourself kit

Via Technologies is shipping a do-it-yourself computer kit, called Artigo, that's based on the credit card-sized Pico-ITX motherboard announced by the company earlier this year. ...continue reading 'Via shrinks the PC with Artigo do-it-yourself kit
'

Fraud charges for former Microsoft employee

A former Microsoft employee has been charged with fraudulently charging the company $1 million in domain name registration fees. ...continue reading 'Fraud charges for former Microsoft employee'

Stolen laptop had 268,000 blood donor IDs

Following a laptop theft, Memorial Blood Centers in Minnesota is notifying 268,000 blood donors that their Social Security numbers may have been stolen. ...continue reading 'Stolen laptop had 268,000 blood donor IDs'

Delay, repairs, even success hit Palm's profit

Struggling smartphone maker Palm can't win for losing. The company's shares plunged Friday after it forecast a revenue shortfall and a loss for its fiscal second quarter ended Nov. 30. Even the success of its newly introduced Centro hurt its financial results, Palm said in a news release. ...continue reading 'Delay, repairs, even success hit Palm's profit'

Free software group files copyright suit against Verizon

A group of lawyers focused on protecting open-source and free software has filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against Verizon Communications, alleging that routers the company uses with its Fios broadband service violate the GNU GPL (General Public License). ...continue reading 'Free software group files copyright suit against Verizon'