Microsoft offers enterprises incentives for search ... WebEx buy makes Cisco a collaboration player

HIGHLIGHTS
News: Japanese Internet icon found guilty
News: Microsoft offers enterprises incentives for search
News: WebEx buy makes Cisco a collaboration player
News: Ballmer questions business strategy of Google
Opinion: Is Google Book Search fair to authors?
Podcast: Today's IT news audio update
ITwhirled: Meteorite bombardment in Illinois


NEWS UPDATES

Japanese Internet icon found guilty
The founder and former CEO of Japanese Internet portal Livedoor Co. was found guilty of violating securities laws on Friday and sentenced to two and a half years in prison in one of the biggest cases of corporate abuse for Japan in recent years.

Microsoft offers enterprises incentives for search
In an apparent attempt to boost its disappointing Web search market share, Microsoft Corp. is giving financial incentives to large enterprise customers whose employees use Microsoft's Live Search engine.

WebEx buy makes Cisco a collaboration player
Cisco Systems Inc. is entering new territory with its planned $3.2 billion acquisition of WebEx Communications Inc., with plans to deliver collaboration tools as an online service and possibly integrate the company's business-related offerings with consumer social networking technology.

Ballmer questions business strategy of Google
Microsoft Corp. CEO Steve Ballmer criticized rival Google Inc., saying it is devoted primarily to ad-supported search while Microsoft has reinvented itself many times over.

Vodafone takes hybrid approach to mobile VOIP
Vodafone Group PLC is demonstrating a service at the Cebit trade show that allows mobile phone customers to call and exchange presence information with users of Internet phone services such as Skype.

Wall Street Beat: M&A heats up market
With Cisco Systems Inc. and Pitney Bowes Inc. announcing big acquisitions Thursday, buyout activity is giving nervous IT investors something to think about besides the volatility that has hit stock markets -- and tech companies -- since the big selloff two weeks ago.

Skype gains business reviews, expertise marketplace
Skype Ltd. has released a new version of its Internet telephony and instant messaging software that adds a feature to let users create business reviews, and another one to sell expertise, as the eBay Inc. subsidiary promotes interaction among its users.


OPINION

Is Google Book Search fair to authors?
By Dan Blacharski

I admit, when I first heard about the Google Book Search, I was afraid they were digitizing and posting entire libraries online - a practice that would be disastrous for the publishing industry, blatantly unfair to authors, and outright illegal. Fortunately, they're not doing that.

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


PODCAST

Daily IT News Audio Update
Cisco buying WebEx for $3.2 billion ... Microsoft offers credits for enterprise Web search ... Livedoor's Horie found guilty

More podcasts


ITWHIRLED

Meteorite bombardment in Illinois
A central Illinois woman had her window broken by a piece of metal the size of a deck of cards. A university professor tentatively identified the projectile as a meteorite. No further strikes have been reported, which means that the Earth is safe from the planet-killing meteorite swarms ... for now.

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

Cisco to buy WebEx ... Google embraces anonymous searches ... Intel to shrink chip size

HIGHLIGHTS
News: Cisco to buy WebEx for $3.2 billion
News: Intel promises more energy-efficient chips
News: Google to make search logs anonymous
News: OpenBSD hit by second flaw in 10 years
Unix Tip: Last workday of the month: A retake
Podcast: Today's IT news audio update
ITwhirled: Navy researching vomit ray


NEWS UPDATES

Cisco to buy WebEx for $3.2 billion
Cisco Systems Inc. announced Thursday it will buy the online conference provider WebEx Communications Inc. for $3.2 billion to sell collaboration tools to small and medium businesses.

Intel promises more energy-efficient chips
Intel plans to further reduce the size and power consumption of its mobile microprocessors over the next year or so, paving the way for computers that are smaller and consume substantially less power, a company executive said Thursday.

Google to make search logs anonymous
Google Inc. will start making its records about users' searches anonymous after 18 to 24 months under a policy announced Wednesday. Until now, the dominant search company has indefinitely retained a log of every search, with identifiers that can associate it with a particular computer.

OpenBSD hit by second flaw in 10 years
The security-conscious OpenBSD team has acknowledged that the operating system contains a serious security flaw in the code that handles IPv6 packets. OpenBSD is known for its strict security policies, and until this week its website boasted "Only one remote hole in the default install, in more than 10 years!"

RSA to offer Trojan take-down service
EMC Corp.'s RSA division plans to launch a new service next month that will help financial institutions take down Web sites associated with malicious Trojan Horse software. The service is planned as an extension to the FraudAction phishing takedown service already offered by RSA

Researcher: Cingular, Travelocity still in spyware net
Just weeks after reaching a settlement with New York's attorney general, AT&T Inc.'s Cingular division and Travelocity.com LP are again being accused of having ties to spyware companies.

Siemens teams with Nokia on Wi-Fi-GSM hand-over
Siemens Enterprise Communications GmbH & Co. KG is working with Nokia Corp. to polish the hand-over of voice calls between corporate wireless LANs and public mobile phone networks, a Siemens executive said Wednesday.

SAP to offer regular updates for Business One
SAP will start releasing frequent updates to its Business One software for small businesses in the form of what it is calling "enhancement packages." The packages will include maintenance updates, new features and best-practice tools, the company announced Thursday during a news conference at the Cebit trade show.

New Red Hat OS features modular design
The newly launched Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 operating system features a modular design that counters the argument by critics that operating systems are becoming too large and complex, a Red Hat Inc. executive said at launch ceremonies Wednesday in San Francisco.

Ballmer talks up CRM Live
Microsoft demonstrated Dynamics Live CRM, its planned hosted customer relationship management software, during the closing Wednesday keynote given by CEO Steve Ballmer at its Convergence show in San Diego. CRM Live will be another member of the vendor's growing Live software-as-a-service product family, joining Windows Live and Office Live.


UNIX TIP

Last workday of the month: A retake
By Sandra Henry-Stocker

One of my articles last month described an approach to determining whether some particular weekday happens to be the last workday of the month. In response, a reader offered a version that has a particularly interesting advantage. Instead of being implemented as code which can be inserted into any script in which you want to execute certain commands only on the last workday of the month, this script is a standalone that you would use to invoke other scripts or specific commands when it's the appropriate time for them to run -- when it's the last workday of the month.

Subscribe to Unix in the Enterprise - Tips and tricks for managing your Unix systems.


PODCAST

Daily IT News Audio Update
Microsoft unveils Dynamics Live ... Google embraces anonymous searches .... Intel to shrink chip size

More podcasts


ITWHIRLED

Navy researching vomit ray
Looking for new methods to incapacitate without killing, the U.S. military is researching a proposed radio-frequency weapon that would throw its target's equilibrium out of whack, resulting in dizziness and vomiting but no permanent damage. But who will clean up?

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

BenQ's cell phone nightmare continues ... Samsung remakes the Q1 ... MS sues cybersquatters

HIGHLIGHTS
News: Mobile phone nightmare not over yet for BenQ
News: After one year, Samsung remakes the Q1
News: Intel may face hurdle on China factory: TSMC chairman
News: Microsoft files lawsuits against cybersquatters
Windows Tip: Managing Windows Firewall in Mixed Environments
Interview: Flickr co-founder talks about growth, plans
ITwhirled: Italian minister buys Second Life island


NEWS UPDATES

Mobile phone nightmare not over yet for BenQ
Just when BenQ Corp. thought the worst of its mobile phone woes were behind it, Taiwanese prosecutors raided its offices and hauled away three executives for questioning over alleged insider stock trading related to when it revealed losses incurred from BenQ Mobile GmbH & Co. OHG.

After one year, Samsung remakes the Q1
One year after Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. introduced its first Q1 ultra-mobile PC, the company has revamped the device, making it lighter and more powerful. The new device, called Q1 Ultra, will be unveiled Thursday during a press conference at the Cebit exhibition in Hanover, Germany.

Intel may face hurdle on China factory: TSMC chairman
The U.S. government may prove to be a major hurdle in any plan by Intel Corp. to build an advanced chip factory in China, the chairman of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. warned Wednesday.

Microsoft files lawsuits against cybersquatters
Microsoft Corp. has filed two new lawsuits against companies it accuses of registering domain names similar to certain of its trademarks. It has also settled three similar suits with other companies, it said Wednesday.

Microsoft's new industry focus yields IP buy
Just a day after debuting a new initiative to produce more industry-specific functionality for users of its Dynamics business applications, Microsoft Corp. Tuesday announced it had purchased intellectual property (IP) and code relevant to the manufacturing sector.

Red Hat release renews OS debate
As Red Hat Inc. prepares to launch the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 operating system on Wednesday, the question is again being asked whether a robust and feature-laden operating system is really needed for some computing situations.

Microsoft releases major Server 2003 update
Microsoft Corp. has queitly released a major update to its server operating system designed to make the product more stable and secure.

Lenovo to ship Windows Live on PCs
In a modest win for Microsoft Corp.'s struggling online services business, Microsoft said late Tuesday that computer maker Lenovo Group Ltd. will pre-load Windows Live services on its ThinkPad notebooks, ThinkCentre desktops and Lenovo-branded PCs.

AMD system pumps PC content to TV screens
Claiming it has forged a new link for consumers who want to connect their TVs and PCs, Advanced Micro Devices Inc. announced Wednesday at Cebit it has designed a mix of technologies that solve the perennial challenge of converging the computer and the television.


WINDOWS TIP

Managing Windows Firewall in Mixed Environments
By Mitch Tulloch, MTIT Enterprises

If you migrate all the desktops in a given organizational unit to Windows Vista, you can simply manage the firewall on these computers using the new Group Policy node found under Computer Configuration\Windows Settings\Security Settings\Windows Firewall With Advanced Security. But what if your OU will contain a combination of Windows XP and Windows Vista computers? What's the best way to use Group Policy to manage the Windows Firewall on these computers? Here's a brief answer taken with permission from the soon-to-be-released Windows Vista Resource Kit.

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


INTERVIEW

Flickr co-founder talks about growth, plans
In this interview, Stewart Butterfield, co-founder and general manager of the lauded photo management and sharing site Flickr, talks about Flickr's growth in size and quality, its status as a Yahoo Inc. company, and near and long-term plans, as well as peanut butter.


ITWHIRLED

Italian minister buys Second Life island
His main political rival controls three national television networks, a newspaper, a weekly magazine and a publishing house, so an Italian minister has decided to try and level the propaganda playing field by buying himself an island in Second Life.

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

Viacom slaps Google with $1 billion YouTube lawsuit ... Microsoft, IBM add community support

HIGHLIGHTS
News: Viacom slaps Google with $1 billion YouTube lawsuit
News: Acer is on the lookout for M&A targets
News: IDC: Q4 storage revenue drops at Dell, HP
News: Microsoft to offer 'MySpace' for apps users
Storage Tip: Not your father's backup/restore software
Podcast: Today's IT news audio update
ITwhirled: South Korea explores robot ethics


NEWS UPDATES

Viacom slaps Google with $1 billion YouTube lawsuit
Viacom Inc. has sued Google Inc., alleging copyright infringement from video-sharing site YouTube and seeking $1 billion in damages.

Acer is on the lookout for M&A targets
Acer Inc., the world's fourth largest PC vendor, plans to make a meaningful acquisition this year and is already looking at candidates, the company said Tuesday.

IDC: Q4 storage revenue drops at Dell, HP
Dell Inc. and Hewlett-Packard Co. reported declines in storage hardware revenue in the fourth quarter of 2006, running contrary to a growth trend for the storage industry.

Microsoft to offer 'MySpace' for apps users
Microsoft Corp. introduced the first in a planned series of online communities for users of its Dynamics applications to provide forums where peers can exchange best practices. Centered around specific industries or job titles, the first community is aimed at finance professionals such as corporate controllers, finance managers and accountants.

SEC charges ex-Nortel executives
U.S. and Canadian stock regulators filed fraud charges on Monday against several former executives of Nortel Networks Corp., accusing them of twisting accounting practices to make it seem that the company was meeting Wall Street expectations.

Philips starts selling off stake in TSMC
Koninklijke Philips Electronics NV sold just over 887 million shares of stock in Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. (TSMC) Monday for NT$57.66 billion ($1.75 billion), part of a sale intended to finalize Philips' exit from the semiconductor industry.

IBM enhances software development program
IBM Corp. is enhancing its software developer's support program by creating a software code exchange.

VC firm, ex-Microsoft execs back Internet OS company
A venture capital firm has given a $10 million boost to a Swedish company that could soon be in the competitive crosshairs of Google Inc. and Microsoft Corp.


STORAGE TIP

Not your father's backup/restore software
By David Hill, Mesabi Group

If you are looking at traditional backup/restore with the extra-added appeal of disk, contact the vendors in your market space with whom you are familiar (and those could be through your current storage hardware vendor). If you are interested in overall recovery management or a new technology, such as continuous data protection, you can contact companies that focus in those spaces. If, on the other hand, you are looking at a storage hardware solution, then you will know that the vendor that you are choosing also has a backup/restore story and probably one that involves disk-based backup as well. In any event, you are likely to find at least one -- and probably more than one -- company that will meet your needs.

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


PODCAST

Daily IT News Audio Update
Microsoft, IBM add community support ... Nortel ex-executives charged ... Xcerion gains backing

More podcasts


ITWHIRLED

South Korea explores robot ethics
South Korea, always on the cutting edge of technology, foresees a robot in every home by 2020. Getting a head start, the government is putting together a "robot ethics charter" to help keep people mentally and emotionally healthy in their dealings with the humanoid machines, and to stave off the inevitable robot revolt and takeover.

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

Otellini e-mail among those missing in AMD case ... HP pitches PCs for new Energy Star standard

HIGHLIGHTS
News: Otellini e-mail among those missing in AMD case
News: HP pitches PCs for new Energy Star standard
News: Samsung samples 8 GB flash chip for mobile phones
News: EDS acquiring Indian testing company
Book Review: MySQL Cookbook, 2nd Ed.
Podcast: Today's IT news audio update
ITwhirled: 10 Biggest nerds in TV history


NEWS UPDATES

Otellini e-mail among those missing in AMD case
E-mail messages from some of Intel Corp.'s most senior executives are among those that should have been preserved but were not after the chip-maker was sued for alleged antitrust violations by Advanced Micro Devices Inc., according to a court transcript released by AMD.

HP pitches PCs for new Energy Star standard
Four months before federal regulators apply stringent new efficiency standards to desktop PCs, Hewlett-Packard Co. has tweaked three computers to qualify for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Energy Star 4.0 label.

Samsung samples 8 GB flash chip for mobile phones
Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. has begun shipping samples of an 8 G-byte flash memory chip, enough to store up to 2,000 songs on a mobile phone, the company said on Monday.

EDS acquiring Indian testing company
Electronic Data Systems Corp. is acquiring RelQ Software Pvt. Ltd., a privately owned software testing company in Bangalore, India, to strengthen its global testing capabilities by offering applications testing, validation and verification, and quality assurance services.

Cisco, IBM expand joint support to 46 countries
Cisco Systems Inc. and IBM Corp. are expanding a cooperative support offering from the U.S. to 46 other markets. Through the offering, called Managed Maintenance Solutions for Cisco Products, enterprises that use IBM as a systems integrator can get Cisco technical support by calling IBM.

More efficient quad-core Xeons coming Monday
Intel Corp. quad-core microprocessors that work at an energy-efficient 50 watts per processor will officially be on the market starting today, according to the company.

GoDaddy hit with denial-of-service attack
Domain registrar and hosting company GoDaddy.com Inc. was hit with "significant and sustained" distributed denial-of-service attacks Sunday, causing four to five hours of intermittent service disruptions, including hosting and e-mail, the company said.

Seagate ships super secure hard drive
Two years after first being announced by Seagate, the world's most secure hard drive is finally to go on sale in a laptop from system vendor ASI.

Verizon ruling could be hard on Vonage
Shares of Vonage Holdings Corp. plunged Friday in the wake of a patent-infringement ruling against the company that some analysts called a grim outcome for the VOIP (voice over Internet Protocol) service provider.


BOOK REVIEW

MySQL Cookbook, 2nd Edition
By Sandra Henry-Stocker

MySQL is one of the most popular open source databases. With an estimated 10 million active installations and more then 50,000 downloads every day, it runs on nearly every Unix platform and Windows as well. Along with this popularity, however, comes a host of questions from users on how to best accomplish any of a myriad of tasks. That's where MySQL Cookbook comes in. Whether you're new to MySQL or a long-time user, you will find numerous "tricks" that you can put to immediate use.


PODCAST

Daily IT News Audio Update
Daylight saving time shift goes smoothly in U.S. ... Intel ships low-power quad-core Xeons ... TSMC reports lowest sales in 20 months

More podcasts


ITWHIRLED

She's a 10
10 Things to do if you get pulled over ... 10 Biggest nerds in TV history ... 10 Job hunting mistakes and how not to make them ... 10 Ways to prevent interruptions ... 10 Predictions for XML in 2007

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

Wikipedia founder speaks on 'Essjay' controversy ... Jury: Vonage infringed on Verizon patents

HIGHLIGHTS
News: Wikipedia founder speaks on the Essjay controversy
News: Jury finds Vonage infringed on Verizon patents
News: No Microsoft security updates coming next week
News: Clearwire IPO jumps up on opening
Windows Tip: Daylight Savings Time fix
Podcast: Today's IT news audio update
ITwhirled: Geek Comic of the Week: Teaching Baby Paranoia


NEWS UPDATES

Wikipedia founder speaks on the Essjay controversy
Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia, the user-generated and edited encyclopedia, said he expects contributors to the site who claim certain credentials will soon have to prove they really have them.

Jury finds Vonage infringed on Verizon patents
A federal jury has found that Vonage Holdings Corp. infringed three Verizon Communications Inc. patents and must pay $58 million in damages plus royalties to Verizon, Vonage confirmed Thursday.

No Microsoft security updates coming next week
Microsoft Corp. is not planning to release any security updates on Tuesday, one of only a handful of times the company won't have security patches available since its monthly security updates began in 2003, Microsoft said Thursday.

Clearwire IPO jumps up on opening
Clearwire Corp. shares soared after the WiMax service provider's IPO (initial public offering) on Thursday, though later in the day they settled around their initial price.

SEC shuts down trading for 35 companies due to spam
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has suspended trading for 35 companies that allegedly benefited from spam e-mail campaigns to hype their stocks.

Jury: ex-Gateway execs manipulated earnings
Two former executives with Gateway Inc., the nation's third-largest PC vendor, are guilty of manipulating earnings and revenues to meet Wall Street expectations, according to a verdict delivered Wednesday by a federal jury in California.

Fon lands $13.1 million more to fund community Wi-fi service
Wi-fi startup Fon Technology SL has secured an additional €10 million ($13.1 million) in funding for its plan to establish a global network of shared hotspots, the company said Friday.

Chip giant TSMC reports worst revenue in 20 months
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd., the world's largest contract chip maker, reported its worst monthly revenue in 20 months on Friday, but analysts applauded the figure as further proof that an industry glut is dissipating.

Wall Street Beat: Vendors upgraded
Now that the dust has settled after last week's stock-market plunge, industry insiders are looking forward to continued stable growth in the IT sector.


DAYLIGHT SAVINGS TIME TIPS

Daylight Savings Time fix
By Mitch Tulloch, MTIT Enterprises

Windows 2000 Professional has been out of lifecycle now for over a year, but I know for a fact there are a number of enterprises out there that still run it on their desktops. This can pose a big problem when it comes to something like the changes to Daylight Savings Time. If a product is no longer supported by a vendor, yet some feature must be updated for it to continue working properly. Here's what you can do.


Examining TimeZone data in Solaris
By Sandra Henry-Stocker, ITworld

In last week's column, I encouraged anyone who hasn't already patched their OSes for the imminent daylight savings time changes. This week, we look at a command for displaying timezone data and verifying the date on which the switch to DST will be made.


Wake up and patch the OSes
By Sandra Henry Stocker, ITworld.com

Time is running out for anyone planning to ready their systems for the biggest time-related change since Y2K -- the 2007 Daylight Savings Time change. As Americans turn their clocks ahead one hour this year -- three weeks earlier than previously, systems administrators will be well advised to ensure their systems will do the same. Timezone configurations on systems from Solaris and Linux to Windows will require updates if not already updated through a patch, OS upgrade or service pack, to accommodate the new dates for switching to and then back off daylight savings.


PODCAST

Daily IT News Audio Update
No Microsoft security patches next week ... Reports say Microsoft's search chief steps down ... Lawsuit charges another with responsibility for Winfixer software

More podcasts


ITWHIRLED

Geek Comic of the Week: Teaching Baby Paranoia
Here's a series of stylishly drawn, reasonably footnoted fun facts -- or hoaxes? That's part of the paranoid fun, I guess. Did a pre-Gutenberg inventor of the printing press meet his fate at the hands of the inquisition? Was there a rash of sightings of "forest spirits" in 19th-century Massachusetts? Have scientists buried bogus holy objects around the world as part of a study?

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

Microsoft signs first E.U. protocol licensee ... 3M sues Sony, Lenovo over battery patents

HIGHLIGHTS
News: Microsoft signs first E.U. protocol licensee
News: 3M sues Sony, Lenovo and others over battery patents
News: Third biggest LCD maker sees laptop, camera rebound
News: Yahoo apologizes to Indian housewife
Storage Tip: Testing with confidential data
Podcast: Today's IT news audio update
ITwhirled: iTunes sleuths expose faked recordings


NEWS UPDATES

Microsoft signs first E.U. protocol licensee
Microsoft Corp. has signed up the first licensee for the workgroup server protocols the European Commission ordered it to open up to competitors in a 2004 antitrust ruling, it said Thursday.

Microsoft moves to replace JPEG with HD Photo
Microsoft Corp. will soon submit a new photo format to an international standards organization that it says offers higher quality images with better compression, the company said on Thursday.

3M sues Sony, Lenovo and others over battery patents
3M Co. has filed suit against several big electronics companies, including Sony Corp. and Lenovo Group Ltd., for allegedly violating two patents related to lithium-ion battery technology.

Third biggest LCD maker sees laptop, camera rebound
Executives at AU Optronics Corp., the world's third largest LCD panel maker by revenue, on Thursday said demand for notebook PCs and digital cameras has picked up recently, and predicted better times ahead.

Yahoo apologizes to Indian housewife
Yahoo Inc. apologized on Thursday after recipes from the blog of an Indian housewife were used without permission on Yahoo's India's new Malayalam-language Web portal. The reproduction of the recipes, which were taken from a blog in Malayalam run by a housewife in Kerala, in Southern India, sparked an online protest among bloggers.

Avaya adds IP phones, gateways, SIP
Aiming to let enterprises do more with their IP (Internet Protocol) telephony systems and keep them available when a network goes down, Avaya Inc. introduced new software, phones and a gateway at this week's VoiceCon Spring conference.

Gates calls for new privacy law
Gates repeated past Microsoft calls for a wide-ranging privacy law during a speech at advocacy group the Center for Democracy and Technology's annual gala dinner Wednesday. A comprehensive privacy bill should allow consumers to control their personal data, should provide transparency about what their data is used for, and should notify them when their data has been compromised, Gates said.

VMware questions rivals' virtualization
The president of virtualization software leader VMware Inc. Wednesday questioned the strategy of rivals that are integrating virtualization functionality into their operating systems.


STORAGE TIP

Testing with confidential data
By David Hill, Mesabi Group

IT personnel will eventually need to use a copy of confidential information for test and development purposes. Data security cannot be compromised, but the business must continue to move forward with new tested software functionality. What are the options?

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


PODCAST

Daily IT News Audio Update
Gates wants more visas for foreign workers ... Samsung ships hybrid disk drives ... IFPI sues Yahoo China for piracy

More podcasts


ITWHIRLED

iTunes sleuths expose faked recordings
After pianist Joyce Hatto died, classical music critics listened to CDs her husband had released on his own record label and hailed her as a neglected genius. But when users began to notice that iTunes recognized them as CDs by other artists, it was revealed that Hatto's husband had been releasing existing recordings under his wife's name.

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

Public beta due soon for new Microsoft VOIP server ... Three security technologies to watch

HIGHLIGHTS
News: Public beta due soon for new Microsoft VOIP server
News: HTC in race to put out first Windows Mobile 6 handset
News: Samsung ships its first hybrid disk drive
News: Google updates desktop search tool
Security Tip: Three security technologies to watch
Podcast: Today's IT news audio update
ITwhirled: Ten leading open source innovators


NEWS UPDATES

Public beta due soon for new Microsoft VOIP server
Microsoft Corp. will release a public beta of new VOIP server software by the end of this month. The software smoothly integrates with legacy phone networks and its Office application suite, the company said.

HTC in race to put out first Windows Mobile 6 handset
Taiwanese handset maker High Tech Computer Corp. (HTC) is racing to put out the first smart phone based on Microsoft Corp.'s Windows Mobile 6 OS, a company representative said Wednesday.

Microsoft TechFest provides glimpse of future
What do cats and Internet security have in common? If you had attended Microsoft Corp.'s TechFest 2007 on Tuesday in Redmond, Washington, you would know.

Samsung ships its first hybrid disk drive
Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. has begun shipping its first hybrid hard-disk drives that mix conventional magnetic storage with flash memory, it said Wednesday.

Google updates desktop search tool
Google Inc. has released a new version of its desktop search tool, adding a preview feature to help find information more quickly and making some improvements to the interface design.

Windows Mobile handsets get Yahoo Go 2.0
Yahoo Inc. has teamed up with High Tech Computer Corp. (HTC) to put a suite of Internet software applications on millions of Windows Mobile handsets, the companies said Wednesday.

HP piles up PC sales lead over Dell
Hewlett-Packard Co. (HP) continued to pull ahead of Dell Inc. in global PC sales during the fourth quarter of 2006, according to an industry report released Tuesday.

Sony to delay full-year results due to Sarbanes-Oxley
Sony Corp. will delay the release of its full-year earnings by about three weeks due to stricter U.S. accounting rules, the company said Wednesday.

IBM surpasses HP in storage hardware sales
IBM Corp. earns bragging rights for surpassing Hewlett-Packard Co. in 2006 storage hardware sales, though it still trails industry leader EMC Corp., according to an industry report published Tuesday.

Ingres, Wipro team on open-source enterprise software
Indian outsourcer Wipro Ltd. is to develop open-source business software and offer system integration services around the open-source database from software vendor Ingres Corp., which will be marketed jointly by the two companies.


SECURITY TIP

Three security technologies to watch
By Brent Huston, MicroSolved, Inc.

Three security-related technologies that are worth watching are: Security information management and unified threat management products, buffer overflow protection shims, and source code assessment tools.

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


PODCAST

Daily IT News Audio Update
Microsoft attacks Google over copyright ... Dell losing marketshare to HP ... China bans new Internet cafes

More podcasts


ITWHIRLED

She's a 10
Ten leading open source innovators ... Top 10 Digg clones ... Top 10 ways to motor your home ... 10 New ways to make money online

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

Intel loses e-mails related to AMD case ... Security expert cracks RFID chip in U.K. passport

HIGHLIGHTS
News: Security expert cracks RFID chip in U.K. passport
News: Intel may have lost e-mails related to AMD case
News: France bans citizen journalists from reporting violence
News: Microsoft hits Google over book search model
Windows Tip: Enabling weak crypto in Vista
Podcast: Today's IT news audio update
ITwhirled: Bad idea of the week: Driving while laptoping


NEWS UPDATES

Security expert cracks RFID chip in U.K. passport
Security expert Adam Laurie, who has worked with RFID and Bluetooth technology, has cracked one of the U.K.'s new biometric passports. The attack, which uses a common RFID reader and customized code, siphoned data off an RFID chip from a passport in a sealed envelope.

Intel may have lost e-mails related to AMD case
Intel Corp. may have lost some internal e-mails that the company is required to produce in a lawsuit brought against it by Advanced Micro Devices Inc., lawyers for the company said Monday.

France bans citizen journalists from reporting violence
The French Constitutional Council has approved a law that criminalizes the filming or broadcasting of acts of violence by people other than professional journalists. The law could lead to the imprisonment of eyewitnesses who film acts of police violence, or operators of Web sites publishing the images, one French civil liberties group warned on Tuesday.

EMC's DeWalt named new McAfee chief
McAfee's board of directors on Monday named former EMC executive Dave DeWalt as the security software company's CEO and president. DeWalt takes the helm of a company tainted by allegations surrounding backdating of stock options by former executives.

Microsoft hits Google over book search model
In a speech Tuesday to the Association of American Publishers (AAP), a Microsoft attorney attacks Google's book search service, saying iGoogle is misappropriating principles of fair use to further its own business model.

Hurd says HP's cost structure still too high
Despite the turnaround Mark Hurd has engineered at HP, the president, chairman and CEO of the technology giant remains unsatisfied. Hurd said at a Morgan Stanley Technology Conference on Monday in San Francisco that the company still has to reduce its cost structure in order to be more profitable and grow.

Intel pitches plan to beat chip glut
Facing a market glut of microprocessors and weak corporate demand for PCs running Microsoft Corp.'s new Windows Vista OS, Intel Corp. hopes to stay profitable by producing new chip designs faster than its competitors, Intel CEO Paul Otellini said Monday.

Cisco buys another social-networking firm
Cisco Systems Inc. is continuing to buy its way into social networking, acquiring some assets of the company that operates Tribe.net while letting the site remain independent.


WINDOWS TIP

Enabling weak crypto in Vista
By Mitch Tulloch, MTIT Enterprises

If you're planning on deploying Windows Vista on mobile computers that remotely access your company network using a virtual private network (VPN) connection, you must be aware that support for weak or non-standard cryptographic algorithms has now been removed from Windows Vista. This can result in compatibility issues with certain VPN servers and the result is that some clients may not be able to connect to your corporate network after upgrading them to Windows Vista. Here's an explanation from the Windows Vista Resource Kit concerning why this change was implemented, plus a workaround you can use if you can't upgrade your VPN servers or don't have access to high-crypto for regulatory reasons.

Read the full article here.

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


PODCAST

Daily IT News Audio Update
Former EMC executive tapped to head McAfee ... Production problems hurt AMD ... Hurd says HP must do better

More podcasts


ITWHIRLED

Bad idea of the week: Driving while laptoping
One LA resident found out, in the most tragic way possible, that just because you can plug your laptop into your car's cigarette lighter and use it while you drive doesn't mean that you should.

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

Virtualization now comes in a USB drive ... SugarCRM aims for Euro expansion

HIGHLIGHTS
News: China Network, Taiwan TV to test Qualcomm mobile TV
News: Virtualization now comes in a USB drive
Report: Palm discussing strategic options with bankers
News: SugarCRM aims for Euro expansion with Dublin office
Unix Tip: Examining TimeZone data in Solaris
Podcast: Today's IT news audio update
ITwhirled: Is that a poison dart frog, or just your phone?


NEWS UPDATES

China Network, Taiwan TV to test Qualcomm mobile TV
China Network Systems and Taiwan Television Enterprise Ltd. (TTV) plan to begin testing mobile TV technology from Qualcomm Inc. in Taiwan starting this month, the companies said.

Virtualization now comes in a USB drive
VMware is introducing Monday a public beta version of ACE 2 Enterprise Edition, an upgrade of its two-year-old ACE program for virtualizing desktop computers. One of the new features is Pocket ACE, which allows the user to store the ACE desktop virtualization tool on a USB drive, a portable hard drive or an Apple iPod, plug it into a remote computer, and run the virtualization software on that computer.

Report: Palm discussing strategic options with bankers
Smartphone maker Palm Inc. is consulting with investment bankers on its strategic options, including the prospect of selling the company, seeking investment from venture capitalists, or making an acquisition of its own, according to a report in the The Wall Street Journal.

SugarCRM aims for Euro expansion with Dublin office
SugarCRM Inc., an open-source customer relationship management (CRM) vendor, has opened a new office in Dublin to help extend its European presence.

Toshiba to hasten NAND flash expansion
Toshiba Corp. is expanding production of NAND flash memory chips faster than originally planned, the company said Monday.

Global stock turmoil hits Gates share sale
Bill Gates sold over 20 million shares of Microsoft Corp. stock last month, and turmoil in the global stock markets probably shaved a few million dollars off of the money he made.

Microsoft announces 512MB Xbox upgrade
Microsoft plans to release worldwide on April 3 a 512MB Memory Unit for the Xbox 360. The company also plans to increase the size of its Xbox Live Arcade games from 50MB to 150MB.


UNIX TIP

Examining TimeZone data in Solaris
By Sandra Henry-Stocker, ITworld

In last week's column, I encouraged anyone who hasn't already patched their OSes for the imminent daylight savings time changes. This week, we look at a command for displaying timezone data and verifying the date on which the switch to DST will be made.


PODCAST

Daily IT News Audio Update
Microsoft wins one patent case with Alcatel-Lucent ... YouTube strikes content deal with BBC ... Italian minister buys island in Second Life

More podcasts


ITWHIRLED

Is that a poison dart frog, or just your phone?
Certain endangered species aren't getting any more numerous -- but the noises they make are carrying further. An environmental group is offering free ringtones that sound like the cries, howls, and croaks of various threatened animals in order to raise awareness of their plight.

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

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.

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


PODCAST

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

More podcasts


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.

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

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

More podcasts


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.

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

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.

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


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

More podcasts


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.

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

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.


Subscribe to Unix in the Enterprise - Tips and tricks for managing your Unix systems.


PODCAST

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

More podcasts


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.

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

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.


PODCAST

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

More podcasts


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

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

Microsoft ordered to pay Alcatel-Lucent $1.5B ... Open-source guru knocks Fedora

HIGHLIGHTS
News: Jury orders Microsoft to pay Alcatel-Lucent $1.5B
News: SAP to offer hosted midmarket apps later this year
News: Qualcomm, Broadcom drop some patent claims
News: Toshiba secures quantum key distribution
Storage Tip: Putting privileged information on hold
Product Review: Turbolinux Wizpy
Podcast: Today's IT news audio update


NEWS UPDATES

Jury orders Microsoft to pay Alcatel-Lucent $1.5B
Microsoft Corp. must pay $1.5 billion in damages to Alcatel-Lucent SA for infringing on patents for MP3 encoding and decoding technology, a jury said Thursday.

SAP to offer hosted midmarket apps later this year
SAP AG's planned suite of hosted midmarket applications will be available in select markets later this year. The company will offer more details on pricing and functionality after the Cebit trade show in March, according to CEO Henning Kagermann.

Qualcomm, Broadcom drop some patent claims
Qualcomm Inc. and Broadcom Corp. have settled some of their patent claims against each other, avoiding a jury trial scheduled to begin next month, Qualcomm said on Friday. They remain deadlocked over other patents, however, and still face several potential trials this year.

Toshiba secures quantum key distribution
Researchers at Toshiba Corp. have developed a method that they say makes it possible -- barring a change in the laws of physics -- to absolutely secure distribution of encryption keys across a network.

Samsung speeds up GDDR4 graphics memory
Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., one of the world's biggest chip makers, said Friday it has managed to make GDDR4 (graphics double data rate 4) memory chips that work at 4G bps (bits per second). That's two-thirds faster than the current fastest GDDR4 chips generally available, which operate at 2.4G bps.

Gartner: x86 server sales growth slowed in Q4
Sales growth for x86 servers slowed in the fourth quarter of 2006 as buyers adopted virtualization technology and waited for quad-core processors, according to a Gartner Inc. report released Thursday.

News Corp. buys Web ad company to boost online profit
News Corp. aims to increase ad revenue from its online division by completing the acquisition Thursday of Internet ad placement company Strategic Data Corp.

Wall Street Beat: M&A a good sign for tech
While consolidation can be a sign of a mature, slowing market, the M&A activity happening now, especially seen in context of this week's six-year Nasdaq Composite Index high, signals confidence in IT and prospects for growth.

Open-source guru knocks Fedora
In a message distributed to several high-profile Linux mailing lists and news organizations, Eric Raymond, influential developer and co-founder of the Open Source Initiative, said he is switching to the Ubuntu distribution after 13 years as a loyal Red Hat user, citing numerous technical and governance problems around Fedora.

Dell users demand Linux on laptops
The new team of leaders at Dell Inc. is weighing a request to give customers the option to purchase PCs with the Linux OS, instead of the default Windows, after thousands of users voted for that idea on a company blog.

Apple, Cisco settle iPhone dispute
Cisco Systems Inc. and Apple Inc. have settled a dispute over rights to use the iPhone name. Under terms of the agreement, both companies have the right to use the name. In addition, Cisco and Apple have agreed to "explore opportunities for interoperability" in security and communications technologies for consumers and business users.


STORAGE TIP

Putting privileged information on hold
By David Hill, Mesabi Group

As part of the process of putting data on litigation hold in anticipation of or because of an actual lawsuit against your company, you may put privileged information on hold. Privileged information is any of the following: trade secrets, financial information, or other information that has nothing to do with the lawsuit at hand and can be considered confidential to your company. Your problem is to prevent producing (i.e., delivering) privileged information to the requesting party (i.e., whoever is suing your company) or, if you do produce it, getting it back.

Here's what you need to know.

Sign up for Storage Strategies - Tips for effective storage management, technology updates and best practices.


PRODUCT REVIEW

Turbolinux Wizpy
By Martyn Williams

On Friday Japan's Turbolinux Inc. begins dispatching the first batch of its Wizpy handhelds to people who ordered them from its Web site. The flash-based multimedia player contains a version of Linux, so it can be used to boot a PC into the operating system, allowing users to access their files in their own working environment on almost any PC.

The devices have proved hot items on the TurboLinux Web shop since preorders began in late January, but what's it like to use one? We tested a pre-production version of the Wizpy for a week and found it delivers on its promise with some annoyances.

Read the full review here.


PODCAST

Daily IT News Audio Update
Microsoft faces $1.5 billion fine from Alcatel-Lucent suit ... India played key role in development of teraflop chip ... Dell considers selling Linux on computers

More podcasts