News

Amazon ordered to end free delivery on books in France

Amazon has been given 10 days to stop offering free shipping for books in France, which amounts to an illegal discount

Groups launch new white spaces campaign

The Wireless Innovation Alliance, an expansion of the White Spaces Coalition, is pushing the FCC to approve wireless devices that operate in unused TV spectrum

Where SOA vendors fall hard

Microsoft buys Multimap to boost advertising strategy

U.K. online mapping company joins list of Microsoft's recent aquisitions, including aQuantive, as well as deals with Facebook and Digg

OpenLogic wants to count open source users – openly

Software developer calls for worldwide user census, offers tool to help do it

Top 10 IT predictions for 2008

Ex-JBoss founder joins startup

Marc Fleury becomes paid advisor to Appcelerator, which makes RIA toolkit

Cisco’s EOS online-content platform coming next year

Networking giant details first product of its push to help media companies connect with customers

FTC charges payment company in $200M fraud

Group wants to refund customers, force company to forfeit money it still holds

Open source and the corporate elephant

As more developers are paid by their employer to work on open source projects, resisting corporate influences becomes an issue

Interoperability is top open source customer worry

The Open Solutions Alliance survey found mastering software interoperability as the way to be fiercely competitive against companies such as Microsoft

Cisco’s Telepresence winning big in conferencing

Telepresence combines high-definition video with high-quality audio and presentations, and is designed to create the impression of a live meeting

Microsoft Office Access files targeted for attack

The US-CERT warns users about exploitation of Microsoft Access Database (MDB) files

Commodore 64 celebrates its 25th anniversary

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, former Commodore International chairman Jack Tramiel, IBM's Bill Lowe, and other innovators reminisce about the PC wonder years

BEA adds Eclipse to ESB in SOA move

AquaLogic Service Bus, WebLogic Integration are refreshed and anchored to the Eclipse platform as part of BEA's Workspace 360 strategy

Greatest hits for OS X developers; labeling apps “10.5 or later”

Chambers: Older workers, don’t despair

At the C-Scape conference Cisco CEO John Chambers said the rise of Web 2.0 doesn't mean that twentysomethings are going to render more established workers obsolete

Nokia invests in contactless communications

Nokia Growth Partners raises $38 million for Inside Contactless, maker of MicroPass technology already in place in McDonald's and 7-Eleven, as well as Coca-Cola machines

Sun to discontinue developer tools in favor of NetBeans

Sun Java Studio Creator, Sun Java Studio Enterprise to be halted; NetBeans 6.0 shipping on Wednesday

Group files text-blocking complaint with FCC

Eight consumer groups have complained that mobile phone providers should not be allowed to block text messages from political groups and advertisers

Microsoft security patches focus on client bugs

Microsoft's group of patches for December fix flaws in Internet Explorer, DirectX, and Windows Media Format technology, including some critical fixes

Study says mobile content ready to explode in India

Boston Analytics says market size is 100 million cell phone subscribers and growing at rate of 50 percent a year, making India the next big mobile market

Facebook, ID fraud, and the dark side of the Web

At the Le Web 3 conference, panelists discussed the securiy implications of Web 2.0, including identity management and privacy concerns

The inherent bias in most surveys

Panelists: Many gov’t Web sites hard to navigate

Too much government information is unindexed and difficult to find, much of it even being overlooked by the government's own search engine

Update: SAP, VMWare ink support pact

SAP to offer expertise for its apps running on ESX Server through entire software lifecycle

Eee PC’s sales success drawing a crowd

Rivals rushing to offer low-cost laptops

Famed designer: Amazon Kindle ‘a bit sad’

Philippe Starck says 'the designer wasn't quite humble enough to completely disappear'

Hurd: Cost-cutting crucial for HP growth

Hewlett-Packard's CEO identifies three areas of cost that "we're beginning to get under"

Cognos rebrands Applix

Acquired products still do not integrate with Cognos 8

Two sentenced in Italy for massive phishing operation

One man gets five and a half years in prison, another receives six years

Wabisabilabi sells SAP remote exploit

Attacker could access entire contents of database by taking advantage of vulnerability that affects SAP's MaxDB

Coverity looks to thwart race conditions in apps

The spread of multi-threaded software means increased risk, which Coverity looks to head off with its latest Prevent SQS code analysis software

A crowdsourcing invitation to InfoWorld readers

Tempe Wi-Fi network on the block

MVNO Telscape CEO says current owner failed to market properly or develop compelling services

TI lifts Q4 view on mobile strength

When it initially predicted fourth quarter revenue would decline, TI caused concern that consumer spending might be slowing

DNS attack could signal Phishing 2.0

Only recently have hackers lined up the technology and technique to reap open-recursive DNS servers' weaknesses

SanDisk to sell flash drives, MP3 players in Vietnam

Company looking to tap into area that has become a hotbed of investment for IT makers

Group wants WTO suit against China

California First Amendment Coalition calls on organization to push China to stop Internet censorship

2008 IT forecasts: XP lives and the greening of tech

A look into the crystal ball for 2008 shows green IT, an extension for Windows XP, greater Linux adoption, and more open mobile networks, among other visions

Coghead launches VAR program for online app dev

Affiliate program from one of the first companies to offer a hosted platform for Web 2.0 application development represents yet another shift to the Web

Cenzic virtualizes Web apps testing

Companies wary of the impact of vulnerability scanning on their programs may find relief in Cenzic's virtual scanning, which scans exact replicas of apps

Microsoft forging dev tool, database links

Making Visual Studio 2008 work with SQL Server 2008 will require a patch, official says

MSN puts ads on mobile phones

Utilizing technology it acquired when it bought ScreenTonic, Microsoft has brought ads to its mobile MSN network

Microsoft fixes bug in Windows Live file-sharing service

Microsoft says it has repaired problem with Windows Live FolderShare that 'accidentally moved' user files from original slot into Trash folder

CIA no role model for CIOs

Federal Rules of Civil Procedure don't apply to the CIA, but agency's decision to destroy videotapes may show private companies how not to handle evidence

Mobile Linux group releases first specification

The Linux Phone Standards Forum has fully released its first mobile Linux standard, completing the half-specification it released in June

Toshiba launches its first tablet PC with LED screen

The Latitude XT is targeted at 'mobile professionals' and is Toshiba's effort to move tablet PCs from vertical markets into the consumer realm

Facebook partners quiet on Beacon fallout

While some partners have turned off Beacon until Facebook makes more changes, others are reticent to speak on the subject

CNBC taps Microsoft for banner, contextual ads

In a deal similar to ones already in place with Facebook and Digg, Microsoft will become exlusive provider of banner and contextual ads for the CNBC site