News

White spaces group: Device testing on track

The National Association of Broadcasters had said that a white spaces device had failed, but the FCC disputes the NAB's rhetoric

Update: Hard drive encryption has Achilles heel, say researchers

Researchers at Princeton have found a way to steal the hard drive encryption key used by hard-drive encryptors like Windows Vista BitLocker or Apple's FileVault

RIM gains despite outages

Even though it has suffered several embarrassing outages recently, Research in Motion has revised its forecast for new subscribers upward

E.U. has guarded reaction to Microsoft open-source move

The European Union welcomed Microsoft's move to open up its APIs, but the group noted warily that Microsoft has failed to deliver on similar promises in the past

50 open source alternatives to proprietary apps

Daily news beat for Feb. 21, 2008

AOL really kills Netscape this time

AOL releases its last Netscape update; prods users to switch to the Flock or Firefox browser

Document format battle takes shape ahead of meeting

If the ISO does not approve the OOXML format, Microsoft might be forced to rethink its strategy around document formats if it wants government IT contracts

Update: Microsoft makes boldest move yet embracing open source

Redmond promises 'greater transparency' in business practices and will provide more access to APIs and previously proprietary protocols for Windows and Office

Microsoft opening APIs

Microsoft plans ‘significant’ news unrelated to Yahoo

Steve Ballmer, Ray Ozzie, and Bob Muglia all will be present at the press conference to reveal 'significant' company news

Former HP India chief faces prosecution over security

Former HP exec is charged with not providing adequate security to an employee in India who was raped and murdered when traveling to work for the night shift

SOA and the new Web

Turning Green IT into greenbacks

Nanya denies report of tie-up with Micron

Nanya says it is not planning to dump its current DRAM partner, Qimonda

Google to manage health records for Cleveland Clinic

Google's new online medical record service lets patients control who gets to see their health information

Raising the hackles of open source developers

Vista, even with SP1, still slower than XP

Java under fire

YuMe to use Google InVideo overlay ads in videos

YuMe's ad management system will use Google InVideo and AdSense to help match video content with related ads

Asustek delays launch of U2E laptop PC

Asustek will keep its battery-friendly U2E laptop under wraps so it can launch along with other products

Flash memory prices to plummet, analysts say

Reduced prices for NAND flash memory could lead to cheaper products for consumers

McAfee: Virus writers going local

Virus writers are creating malware that is specially designed to infect users in a specific country

Despite Yahoo drama, Microsoft forges ahead with search

Microsoft continues to expand its enterprise and Internet search offerings, though a successful acquistion of Yahoo could disrupt the proceedings

Cisco tries to turn cities green

Company CEO sings new tune at Connected Urban Development Global Conference in San Francisco

Web pioneer quits OpenSolaris project

Roy Fielding announces his departure, accusing Sun of taking too much control over project

Opera patches bug, bashes Mozilla

Opera patched three vulnerabilities, including one deemed 'highly severe' and took the opportunity to chide Mozilla for its handling of security issues

Fiber network to connect Indian Ocean countries

Indian Ocean Commission approves project to link Madagascar, Mauritius, Réunion, Comoros, and Seychelles through fiber-optic network

Poor IT security to blame in Société Générale fraud

Internal investigation finds staff missed warning flags that led to €4.9 billion loss for the French bank

Update: BlackBerry network down again on Wednesday

The national BlackBerry outage was first reported at around 6 a.m. East Coast time

ODF standard editor calls for cooperation with OOXML

In an open letter to the standards-setting community, the editor of ODF said that ODF and OOXML should work together and create the two standards in parallel

Lessig considers running for Congress

Stanford University law professor and crusader for online civil liberties eyes seat created by the death of Rep. Tom Lantos

Vista SP1 sparks outrage

Microsoft reveals details of new small-business OS

The Windows Small Business Server, code-named Cougar, joins Centro in Microsoft's SMB-targeted Windows Essential Server Solutions package

Daily news beat, Feb. 20, 2008

Microsoft yanks Vista SP1 update causing endless reboots

Update has been pulled from Windows Update, but Microsoft has not yet produced a fix for users whose machines either won't boot or reboot constantly

Update: Security issues scuttle Bain/Huawei bid for 3Com

Deal to buy 3Com is on hold because of security concerns raised by networking giant Huawei's close ties with the Chinese government

Green IT machine

BPM growth, challenges cited

Cringe: Shame on Swiss bank Julius Baer

Microsoft: HD DVD demise won’t hurt Xbox 360

Microsoft did not say whether it will stop manufacturing the HD DVD drive for the Xbox 360 in the wake of Toshiba's decision to end its support of HD DVD

Brave new technologies revisited

T-Mobile, AT&T join Verizon on unlimited plans

U.S. mobile operators rush to match Verizon Wireless' offer of unlimited voice plans; Sprint Nextel resists

Windows Server 2008 jumps from RTM to SP1

Top technology companies form gaming alliance

Intel, Microsoft, Dell, and AMD join forces and form the PC Gaming Alliance to promote the PC as a gaming platform

Survey: IT spending set for slowdown in Q2

Survey results underscore recent concerns about a U.S. recession

TSMC to make Sun’s UltraSparc processors, join OpenSparc

TSMC will collaborate with Sun in the OpenSparc program to expand research on the processors in Taiwan

Bill Gates: Internet censorship just won’t work

Restrictions on free speech will curtail business activity, so commercial forces will work against censorship, Microsoft chairman says

Yahoo protects employees in case of Microsoft takeover

Yahoo introduces new severance plans to provide economic benefits to employees in the event their employment is terminated by Microsoft or another acquirer

Users taste mobile outsourcing

Companies are starting to look at offloading as much of the process of launching and maintaining wireless business tools as possible in order to keep things simple