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Daily news beat for April 1, 2008

You don’t know tech: The InfoWorld news quiz

Match your weekly tech news wits against our snarky quiz master

A miracle, Cringe waves goodbye, and Microsoft buys Yahoo

IBM fine-tunes model for disaster management

IBM's research labs are enhancing technology to help model and manage natural disasters such as fires, floods, and diseases

Internet has a trash problem, researcher says

As much as 3 percent of all traffic on the Internet is meaningless packets of information used in distributed denial-of-service attacks to knock Web sites offline, says Arbor

ISO adopts OOXML format as international standard

ISO has yet to decide who will control future development and improvement of the OOXML standard

Microsoft signs on to MIT Kerberos Consortium

Microsoft joins Apple, Google, and Sun on the executive board of MIT Kerberos Consortium

Microsoft readies ALM upgrade

Microsoft is considering an ambitious list of improvements for its planned ALM update

Verizon converges BlackBerry and desk phones

Verizon's PBX mobile extension product needs no dedicated hardware and enables users to set up their mobile phone or BlackBerry device to ring at the same time as their desk phone

Java IDE adds Application Factories for code reuse

CodeGear offers JBuilder 2008, which also features support for Struts, JavaServer Faces, and more

HP to buy e-discovery vendor Tower Software

Tower's software will provide additional document classification and records management capabilities to HP's existing products for compliance and e-discovery

Dell eyes $3 billion in cost savings in 3 years

The bulk of Dell's savings will come from reducing product costs, but the PC vendor will also reduce operating expenses — including jobs

Laptop, complete with Vista attack code, listed on eBay

Shane Macaulay, winner of a recent hacking contest, is offering the Fujitsu U810 laptop he broke into for sale on eBay

Linux kernel community grows, but elite group remains

Roughly 3,700 developers from more than 200 companies have contributed to the Linux kernel since 2005, according to a new report from the Linux Foundation

Source: Windows XP to get reprieve for low-cost laptops

Vista is not deemed a practical option for laptops equipped with just 512MB of RAM and 2GB of storage

IBM targets Global Services customers with System z

New mainframe product automates accounts payable, invoice fulfillment for Global Services engagements

Google buys Facebook

Two Web powerhouses unite in $25 billion deal

Dell, Intel to team on low-cost laptops

Companies will build hardware to foster education in the developing world

Steve Jobs “miracle” in the valley

Thousands of worshipers flock to view "holy site" of Apple founder in Los Altos garage

Security study: You will be owned

Spend all you want securing the enterprise, new research contends you're pretty much screwed

OLPC offshoring trend heats up

Low overhead, fresh outlooks have IT work headed overseas — and down the height stack

Study: Don’t Know tops IT’s to-do list

Nascent technology poised to take hold of enterprise, as CIOs gear up to champion Don't Know as an agent of change

Hewlett-Packard unveils new green server partnership

Hosted "Windy" servers convert hot air into CPU cycles for small and midsize businesses

Apple’s plans for iPhone Enterprise Server revealed

Bootleg download from anonymous source provides details of centralized management server for the popular Apple handset

Microsoft, Yahoo agree on buyout price

Redmond nabs Yahoo's datacenters, Web properties, and ad platform for $47.2 billion

Product review: Two routers make their mark

Cisco and Black & Decker go head-to-head in the medium-workload space

Google to acquire U.S. government: What this means for IT

President Bush and CEO Schmidt outline the benefits of the takeover to citizens and shareholders

Apple reveals Mac OS XI specs

iTunes-based operating system puts users in control of CPU task playlists

Pitching business software assurance

Fortify claims that it has discovered a new process, called software assurance, that will revolutionize enterprise security by allowing for continuous vulnerability scanning

Norway asks to suspend its ‘Yes’ vote on OOXML

Due to 'serious irregularities,' Norway's OOXML vote could be suspended pending an investigation, adding further intrigue to the ongoing standards debate

Savvis unveils managed security services

Savvis' new managed services include vulnerability and threat assessment as well as log management

Enterprises pass on Internet Explorer 7, Windows Vista

Internet Explorer 6 and Windows XP are firmly entrenched, and Microsoft is having a tough time convincing enterprises to upgrade to the new browser and OS

Intel, STMicroelectronics open doors to Numonyx

The Numonyx flash-memory joint venture is finally set to go, with a significantly reduced budget, after several delays

The low-cost laptop offer Microsoft can’t refuse

Low-cost laptops don't pack enough power to run Windows Vista, so Microsoft must either revamp its OS strategy or concede that growing market segment to Linux

Microsoft previews desktop search update

The update to Windows Search eliminates bugs and improves performance

Microsoft touts Dynamic IT for boosting developer productivity

Microsoft hopes to reverse the 80-20 time split that has developers doing maintenance more than building new software; Silverlight also hailed at the VSLive conference

iPass helps individuals go mobile

At CTIA, iPass announced availability of its consumer-oriented iPassConnect service, which includes access to Wi-Fi hotspots, 3G mobile data, and wired hotel broadband

Survey: Telework still underused in government

Percentage of government agencies offering support for telework and government workers who are eligible for telework is down, according to CDW-G survey

Despite deadlines, Windows XP to be sold a few more years

Thanks to some Vista- and geography-based exceptions, some users will be able to buy Windows XP beyond the retail and custom-system-builder deadlines

Update: Google brings offline access to Docs and Apps

Google to extend offline access first to word processor, then to spreadsheet, with other hosted services in Google Apps suite (Gmail, Calendar, Talk, and more) to follow

OOXML results in, but ISO delays announcement

The results on the ISO's vote on whether Microsoft's OOXML will be accepted as an international standard will be revealed on Wednesday

iPhone SDK: Interface Builder added; WebKit kicks into overdrive

PGP publishes encryption APIs

The company will open its encryption interfaces in order to make it easier for companies to build products using PGP's key-management scheme and console

Another take on opening PCs

Report: Number of GPL v3 projects tops 2,000

If the trend continues, the the GNU General Public License Version 3 will be used by 5,000 open source projects by the end of the year, blog reports

Office exploit hits the street

Attack code takes advantage of one of two flaws in the Office suite fixed by Microsoft in its MS08-016 security update

New mashup app links BI data and Google Maps

Information Builders' WebFocus for Google Maps GUI lets users overlay maps with operational data and reports created using its WebFocus reporting tool

Daily news beat for March 31, 2008

Mobile broadband subscribers increase by 850 percent

The installed base of HSPA subscribers isn't the only area of growth: The number of networks and devices has also exploded

Top 10 reasons to be paranoid