Daily news beat for May 16, 2008

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May 16, 20082 mins

InfoWorld’s Save Windows XP campaign reached yet another milestone, signature-wise, but will Microsoft give the people the people what they want? More than 200,000 demand that Microsoft Save Windows XP. Related: Sign our petition!

Responding to the billionaire investor’s threat of a proxy fight, Yahoo tells Carl Icahn that its own board knows best in a letter saying he has a “significant misunderstanding of the facts” about how it handled Microsoft’s acquisition proposal. All the wrangling, meanwhile, leads to a question: Does Icahn have a backup plan?

Despite a security researcher publishing a demonstration of an exploit that enables attackers to download files onto a Safari user’s system, Apple dismisses the flaw, saying it does not consider it a security vulnerability.

Apple broadened the reach of its phone on Friday, extending it, via provider Orange, into Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. But actually selling the device in those regions could be another matter altogether — and not just because it’s an expensive gadget. Apple’s iPhone may face uphill battle in some areas.

And in Geek week in review, Cringe riffs on Descartes: I think, therefore Icahn. Then he switches gears after a Timothy Leary fashion only to deny that he’s having an acid flashback to the botched Time-Warner AOL merger while contemplating the fact that CBS bought CNET. Cringe doesn’t stop there, either. Instead he touches in with a few geek girlfriends, just for a dose of sanity.