Top ten: Firefox 3.0, Yahoo leavings, ‘Net and politics

Mozilla servers were overwhelmed Tuesday after the company encouraged Firefox fans to download version 3.0 and help set a world record for the number of software downloads in a 24-hour period. Once problems were fixed, Firefox users complied, with more than 8 million downloads of the Web browser. No word yet from the Guinness Book of World Records about whether the effort will be declared a record. Meanwhile, the first vulnerability was verified within a few hours of the new version’s availability. In other news, the list of top supercomputers was released with energy-efficiency calculations for many of the machines, more Americans than ever are using the Internet for information about the 2008 presidential campaign, and more executives left or are leaving Yahoo.

1. Firefox 3.0 released, servers overwhelmed and Mozilla logs 8 million-plus Firefox downloads in a day: Mozilla released Firefox 3.0, the latest version of its popular Web browser, declaring Tuesday “Download Day” with the aim of setting a world record for the most software downloads in a 24-hour period. At the start of that endeavor, Mozilla got a lesson in watching out what it asked for as company servers were overwhelmed. Once the problems were rectified, though, Firefox 3.0 was downloaded 8,349,074 times within a 24-hour period. The company hopes that will lead to an entry in the Guinness Book of World Records, which apparently does not yet include a record for software downloads. As expected by anyone who has ever downloaded a new software version, we arrive at the next entry in this week’s news, the first Firefox 3.0 vulnerability …

2. Firefox 3 vulnerability found: Five hours after Mozilla released Firefox 3.0, security researchers at Tipping Point verified the first vulnerability with a “high” severity rating, but they declined to say just what the problem was so that Mozilla could work on fixing it. Once a fix is ready, Tipping Point will put an advisory about the vulnerability on its Web site.

3. A misconfigured laptop, a wrecked life: This week’s cautionary tale comes from Massachusetts, where Michael Fiola was fired from his job as an investigator with the state’s Department of Industrial Accidents after he was accused of downloading child pornography onto his work-issued Dell Latitude laptop. Prosecutors recently dropped criminal charges against Fiola because they had insufficient evidence to show he downloaded the porn. Initially, state investigators found such evidence, but Fiola hired an independent forensic investigator to help defend him against the charges. What she found is enough to give all of us who use computers for work a bad case of the jitters — the Microsoft SMS (Systems Management Server) software that was supposed to keep Fiola’s laptop up to date wasn’t functioning, nor was anti-virus software. The laptop was full of malicious programs that probably were responsible for the pornographic files his former employer says it found on the laptop.

4. How power-hungry are the Top500 supercomputers?: The twice-yearly Top500 list of supercomputers was revealed this week at the International Supercomputing Conference in Dresden, Germany, with an interesting twist — energy-efficiency calculations were provided for many of the machines. “Power consumption is becoming one of the most important aspects of computing,” said Jack Dongarra, a co-creator of the Top 500 List and a distinguished professor at the University of Tennessee. “It will be the most important driving force for supercomputing in the future. Without focusing on that, building bigger machines will be prohibitive. We’re trying to understand which machines are more efficient, why they’re more efficient, and understand the trends in high-performance computing.”

5. Web use in 2008 political campaigns shattering records in the U.S.: Forty-six percent of Americans have turned to the Internet, e-mail, or cell-phone text messaging to find out about political campaigns or to offer up their opinions, the Pew Internet & American Life Project found in its latest report, “The Internet and the 2008 Election.” Followers of Sen. Barack Obama, an Illinois Democrat, are outpacing supporters of Sen. John McCain, an Arizona Republican, in their online efforts to find out more about their candidate of choice, the report found. By comparison, at this point in the 2004 presidential campaign, 31 percent of Americans had used the Internet to obtain political news and information. “Moreover, the proportion of Americans getting political news and information on any given day in the spring of 2008 has more than doubled compared with a similar period in 2004,” the report said.

6. HP reorganizes printer division: Hewlett-Packard is cutting the divisions in its printer unit from five to three, combining the hardware and software supplies units into a new ink-jet and Web-solutions division that will focus on consumers and small businesses. The changes, which are meant to more efficiently serve customers, take effect Aug. 1. The company didn’t say whether it will lay off employees as a consequence of the reorganization.

7. Flickr founders leave Yahoo: The exodus of Yahoo executives continues with the departure of Flickr founders Caterina Fake and Stewart Butterfield. The two, who are married to each other, became Yahoo employees when their photo-sharing site was acquired in March 2005. Fake, who was Flickr’s senior director of technology development, wrapped up at Yahoo last week, while Butterfield, Flickr general manager, finishes his tenure in July. Their departures are the latest in what has become a long string of them.

8. OLPC spin-off developing UI for Intel’s Classmate PC: Intel is working with Sugar Labs Foundation to develop a version of Sugar for its low-cost Classmate PC, revealed Walter Bender, a Sugar Labs founder and former One Laptop Per Child Project president of software and content. The user interface could well be similar to the one developed by Sugar for the OLPC’s XO laptop. Intel resigned from the OLPC board six months ago, adamant in its refusal to end its Classmate program in lieu of the XO project.

9. Will Ozzie era at Microsoft signal a revolution?: For anyone in IT who has managed to miss the news, Bill Gates is in his last days as a full-time Microsoft employee, and as of July 1 will devote most of his attention to the philanthropic foundation he and his wife established. He’ll still be Microsoft chairman and work part time for the company, but his stepping down undoubtedly means a new era for the software monolith. And in the days ahead, there will undoubtedly be a lot of stories examining the changes likely to come. This entry takes a look at the rise in Microsoft ranks of Ray Ozzie and the changes that can be expected as a consequence of him being tapped to lead the way in the company’s online services strategy.

10. Summer Olympics stream to a PC near you: NBC Universal plans to offer more than 2,200 hours of live streaming video from the Summer Olympics in Beijing, which kick off Aug. 8. Viewers will have the option of checking out four streams at once, and NBC will also offer interactive data, including athlete biographies. After each event ends, the network plans to post 3,500 hours of recorded video during the entire Olympiad, which ends Aug. 24. The content will be free of charge. Fans outside the United States will be out of luck, though — the content will be available only in the United States.