VMware’s chief scientist says that it is focusing on improving virtual infrastructure via high availability, automatic restart, better tolerance, masking of hardware failure, and site disaster recovery. Sony yanks the bloatware removal fee from its laptops, after raising users’ ire for charging $49.95 to remove trail software from the hard-disks of new laptops. Marking a big jump in capacity, Fujitsu plans to sell new range of high-performance hard-disk drives in June, including a speedy 320GB drive for laptops. Microsoft warns of a new Word attack by which cyber criminals could tap an unpatched flaw in Windows to install malicious software on a victim’s PC, though the company downplayed the flaw’s significance. And Robert X. Cringely weighs in with Sequoia and e-voting, the best government money can buy. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed lately, but our elected officials are being determined by people who can’t do simple math or write a comprehensible sentence in English. And no, I don’t mean people who voted for Rudy Giuliani,” Cringe begins. Technology Industry