Top 10 stories of the week: Windows worries, visa caps, malware spreads

Windows is in danger of “collapsing” under the weight of all its code and needs a serious overhaul, according to Gartner analysts who spoke at a conference this week. We also learned that more malicious code is being developed worldwide than legitimate code. And in case you were wondering, Yahoo and Microsoft are still duking it out over Microsoft’s bid to buy Yahoo, with another little flare up in their back and forth.

[ Video: Review the week in IT news with the World Tech update ]

1. Windows is collapsing, Gartner analysts warn: Windows needs a serious overhaul lest Microsoft’s flagship fall into irrelevance as users increasingly clamor for leaner operating systems with updates released on a steadier cycle, Gartner analysts warned this week. “Windows as we know it must be replaced,” analysts Michael Silver and Neil MacDonald said in a presentation at a Gartner conference in Las Vegas. The OS is “collapsing” under its own weight, victim of legacy-code bloat that slows development and makes innovation sluggish. Silver and MacDonald had plenty of advice for Microsoft, urging the company to get with the virtualization program.

2. U.S. reaches 2009 H-1B visa cap and DHS extends time foreign students can stay in U.S.:

Foreign graduates of U.S. colleges with degrees in science and technology fields can stay in the country and work without a worker visa for 29 months instead of 12 months after the Department of Homeland Security extended the timeframe. Companies have been pushing the government to loosen up on regulations and to expand the cap on how many people can obtain H-1B worker visas. The annual cap on H-1Bs is 65,000, with another 20,000 visas allotted to graduate students at U.S. universities. But those caps are met soon after the application period opens and students still in school can’t get in on the H-1B lottery, so the extension is expected to help at least some of them qualify for the worker visas. The 2009 cap was reached this week; applications opened just last week.

[ Analysis: Did DHS offer a backdoor increase to H-1Bs? ]

3. Web users in malware crosshairs and As storm fades, botnet fight goes on: More malicious code is being created worldwide than legitimate code, Symantec CEO John Thompson said at the RSA Conference this week. “If the growth of malicious software continues to outpace the growth of legitimate software, techniques like white-listing will become much more critical,” Thompson said. “Identity management will only grow in importance and will need to expand beyond the enterprise environment — into consumers. And this is not an easy problem for law enforcement — the criminals themselves could be anywhere on the planet.” Meanwhile at the big security conference, we also were told that botnets are so profitable that when someone is arrested in connection with them, some other criminal quickly steps in to fill the gap. Botnets are enormous international networks of compromised computers and although law-enforcement efforts have led to high-profile arrests and some botnets being at least slowed down, those haven’t made much of a dent.

4. U.S. presidential election can be hacked: Electronic voting machines that will be in wide use in the November U.S. presidential election could be hacked, security researchers experts warned at the RSA Conference in San Francisco this week. The tumultuous 2000 presidential election, with the results hinging on Florida’s controversial recount, led scores of county election offices nationwide to spend billions of dollars to move from paper ballots to e-voting machines, only to find the machines come with security issues.

5. Centrino 2 processor details leaked by PC maker: This week’s installment in the “whoops!” category comes from Australian vendor Pioneer Computers, which leaked information about Intel’s forthcoming Centrino 2 platform, code-named Montevina and due out in the middle of the year. Intel will release five Core 2 processors with clock speeds between 2.26GHz and 3.06GHz. Pioneer’s DreamBook Style 9008 Centrino 2 is expected to be one of the earliest on the market using Intel’s newest mobile platform and information on that laptop, along with other details, popped up on the computer maker’s Web site.

6. Google pulls real-time chat app: Google launched App Engine, its hosted Web-applications service this week along with a demonstration application meant to let developers test things out. But the real-time chat application, HuddleChat, seemed too much like Campfire, a similar service from 37Signals, which prompted complaints from those who were checking out Google’s offering. Google quickly removed HuddleChat. The App Engine team had asked for some sample apps “to kick the tires on their new system” and HuddleChat was one that came in. For its part, 37Signals says it didn’t ask Google to remove the app and the resulting Internet-fueled brouhaha that erupted over the incident was “overblown,” according to co-founder Jason Fried. “The story quickly incited passions on all sides and took on a life of its own. We just said a few words, the rest of the Web said a few thousand,” he said

7. Clash of the Titans: Yahoo’s fate in the balance: Talks are reportedly under way between Yahoo, which is trying to stave off Microsoft’s hostile bid to buy the company, and Time Warner over the possibility of Yahoo and AOL joining forces. Meanwhile, News Corp. is reportedly talking to Microsoft about a joint bid for Yahoo, which has rejected the previous $42 billion offer as too low. It will take “a cabal of participants” to thwart Microsoft’s attempt to buy Yahoo, Interarbor Solutions analyst Dana Gardner says. Although speculation is rife, there seems to be general agreement that Yahoo’s intent is to force Microsoft to ante up more for the bid.

8. Google, IBM, and Sun cite developer outreach: At the Evans Data Developer Relations Conference this week, officials from Google and IBM discussed their plans to start extending their platforms to developers utilizing APIs and various forms of Web 2.0 technology. The companies hope to draw increased developer interest and thereby extend their reach. They also want to keep developers in the loop about their new technologies; Google, for example, has expanded from having three APIs available three years ago to having 55 APIs now. Sun, meanwhile, emphasized the need for responsibility in handling outreach programs like these, cautioning that sharing via blogs and forums can have negative consequences if not managed well.

9. FCC calls for mobile alert system: The U.S. Federal Communications Commission adopted technical requirements for transmitting alerts to mobile devices in the event of natural disasters and emergencies. The Commercial Mobile Alert System would send out three types of alerts — when there is an imminent threat, a child abduction or something called a “Presidential Alert,” which presumably would be the Big One and pre-empt all other alerts. One catch in getting the system up and running is that there isn’t a federal agency designated to collect the alerts and transmit them to mobile carriers for distribution to users.

10. Nokia readies iPhone response: While the iPhone continues to make big strides in the handheld market, other hardware vendors are trying to duplicate Apple’s success (proving once again that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery). At the Evans Data Developer Relations Conference this week, Nokia showed slides of its upcoming handheld, codenamed “Tube,” that features an iPhone-like touch interface as well as something the iPhone doesn’t have as of yet: Java support.