News

Microsoft could stumble in quest for ad speed

Microsoft's offer to buy Yahoo is fueled by a desire to boost its online ad revenue, but integration between the companies will be tricky and could doom the undertaking

Yahoo bid could backfire lest Microsoft changes ways

Microsoft is used to buying smaller companies, then absorbing and rebranding their products, but if it buys Yahoo, it will need to rethink its merger strategy

A good SOA pro is hard to find

Privacy groups vow to fight Microsoft-Yahoo deal

CDD and EPIC say the acquisition would raise serious privacy concerns, but the DOJ and FTC may have little grounds to oppose a Microsoft-Yahoo merger

Update: Microsoft offers to buy Yahoo for $44.6 billion

Microsoft says merging with Yahoo will allow it to offer a competitive alternative to Google in the market for online services

Repairs to start on undersea cable Tuesday

Flag Telecom says it will take a week to complete repairs to a damaged submarine telecommunications cable linking Egypt and Italy

Microsoft’s offer to Yahoo’s board

CEO Steve Ballmer offers Yahoo a 62 percent premium above its closing price and cites the ways in which the companies might work together in the online marketplace

VCs love virtualization now

Newsflash: Microsoft bids to acquire Yahoo

Micron, Intel speed up flash memory

New NAND chip cuts the bottlenecks affecting conventional NAND flash memory, reaching read speeds up to 200MBps and write speeds of up to 100MBps

Terry Semel quits Yahoo board

Terry Semel will be replaced as Yahoo's non-executive chairman by board member Roy Bostock

Flash price drop spurring innovation

Users are likely to see greatly expanded capacity in SD cards, USB flash sticks, and internal storage, as well as lower-cost SSDs in notebooks due to decline in NAND prices

Answer key: You don’t know tech

The facts behind this week’s top 10 tech questions

CodeGear to supply 1 million dev tool licenses to Russia

Deal covers Delphi and C++Builder products to be used in effort to bolster computer science and IT educationt

Update: Motorola may spin off mobile phone division

The handset unit, which hasn't been able to recapture the success of the Razr phone, could be spun off as it is among Motorola's weakest businesses

AMD gets big win as Gateway trades Intel chips for new PCs

Two of Gateway's new high-end desktops will use AMD's Phenom quad-core processors

Analysts give CIOs advice on weathering recession

Forrester Research held a teleconference in which a pair of its analysts helped CIO's plan for any upcoming economic difficulties

Sun’s Da Vinci Machine broadens JVM coverage

Intent is to make it easier for more languages to run on virtual machines

Update: Google’s earnings up but just shy of expectations

Reporting higher revenues for fourth quarter, Google seemingly untouched by market instability

Young mainframers’ group gains momentum

zNextGen, an organization for young mainframe programmers, has grown from a small informal gathering to a group with more than 350 members in 12 countries

Spyware forum: Computer users cause major problems

Malware writers are prevailing in large part because of computer user behavior, such as not updating software or downloading security patches

Update: AT&T data network fails for BlackBerry, iPhone users

AT&T's EDGE and UMTS data networks in the Southeast and Midwest U.S. were down, leaving BlackBerry and iPhone users with no data service

FTC goes after alleged MySpace hijackers

Online Turbo Merchant used page hijacking and phshing to lure MySpace users away from the site and bombard them with adds despite a court order to cease the practice

AOL gives Netscape last-minute reprieve

AOL's support for the Netscape Navigator browser will be extended until March 1

O Verizon, how I loathe thee

Free utility condenses Windows Vista from 15GB to 1.4GB

Croatian student created vLite utility that enables users to trim Vista to a tenth of its normal size by ditching unwanted parts

Large block in 700MHz auction exceeds reserve price of $4.6 billion

A block of eight licenses covering the 22MHz C block of spectrum being sold by the FCC received a high bid of $4.7 billion in the 17th round of the 700MHz auctions

Update: Amazon buys Audible for $300 million

Amazon does not plan to remove DRM from Audible's books unless customers complain; Audible will continue its relationships with iTunes and other partners

Update: Google slams Autonomy over enterprise search claims

Google says Autonomy's white paper contains 'significant inaccuracies' about Google's Search Appliance

TSMC’s Q4 soars, but chipmaker reduces spending

TSMC predicts mobile phone and PC shipment growth will help bolster the chip industry

PC makers to adopt chips used in MacBook Air

Two PC makers reportedly will use the miniaturized Core 2 Duo processors specially developed by Intel for Apple's new MacBook Air laptop

Phishers use DNS tricks to direct users to bad sites

Anti-phishing group reports a sharp rise in malware that directs users to DNS servers controlled by phishers

Why Vista’s too ‘incredible’ to save XP

Internet in India slowed by Middle East outage

Damage to underwater cables disrupted 50 to 60 percent of the bandwidth from India, slowing Internet traffic from India to the U.S. and the U.K.

Lenovo sees Q3 profits soar, sells mobile phone business

Lenovo's net income almost tripled in Q3, pushed by strong demand for its computers and a weak U.S. dollar

Cut cable disrupts Internet in Middle East

Underwater cables that account for 75 percent of the network capacity between Europe and the Middle East were damaged

Acer thwarts Lenovo in Packard Bell buy

Acer's purchase of 75 percent of PB Holdings effectively seals its bid to keep Chinese rival Lenovo from acquiring Packard Bell and gaining a foothold in Europe

Symantec study reframes IT risk management

New report shows that availability maintenance and compliance concerns are now as vital to businesses' risk management efforts as the installation of security tools

Renault in Linux deal with Microsoft, Novell

Era of big acquisitions largely over, Forrester says

Despite a recent wave of mega-acquisitions, Forrester projects that future consolidation will mean big companies sticking to buying smaller firms

Microsoft rolls out CRM update in eight languages

The Dynamics CRM suite will eventually support 25 languages with support for the remaining 17 getting rolled out over the next three months

Critic: Tech companies trying open spectrum too much

Scott Cleland of The Precursor Group believes things like net neutrality and open access are suppressing bids and limiting the use for wireless spectrum

Report finds licensing dissatisfaction

Three plead guilty in Nigerian spam scheme

Fraud victims lost $1.2 million to spammers, who lured them with claims of suffering from throat cancer and needing assistance donating $55 million to charity

Azingo introduces new mobile Linux platform

Formerly known as Celunite, company offers complete software stack instead of disparate components that must be integrated, sometimes with difficulty

Sprint reassures iDEN, push-to-talk users

Carrier will continue to support push-to-talk system with new handsets and added features until at least 2012, despite mounting losses in subscriber base

Dell shuts 140 retail kiosks in United States

With Dell now offering its products at major retail outlets, as well as online, stand-alone kiosks no longer fit into company's evolving U.S. business model

FTC settles with advertiser for spam campaign

Member Source Media had been sending out e-mails with misleading subject lines in violation of the CAN-SPAM act

Congress extends surveillance law for 15 days

The controversial Protect America Act has been extended temporary while Congress mulls a permanent action on the issue

Tapping herd intelligence to take on malware