News

Press group slams Chinese online censorship

Tens of thousands of cyberpolice monitor the activities of Chinese Internet users, block access to foreign Web sites, and censor news, according to Reporters Without Borders

Indian outsourcers thrive despite weaker dollar

Infosys reports revenue for the quarter was up 37 percent over last year, belying fears that a stronger Indian rupee might hurt profits

U.S. trade body launches hard-disk drive probe

ITC patent infringement probe will target both drive makers and companies that use hard-disk drives in their products, including HP and Dell

The changing face of globalization

Acer completes Gateway share purchase

Companies will formally merge within the next few days and Gateway will continue to operate under its own name as a subsidiary of Acer

Microsoft bows to criticism, will fix Window’s URI security flaw

Security experts have said Windows could do a better job checking links to make sure they were not malicious — Microsoft finally agrees

Getting started with X11 on Mac

Wikimedia moves to SF in search of talent

Wikipedia's parent organization is moving to San Francisco early next year to take advantage of the area's tech-heavy environment

California state site can’t shake porn problems

The Transportation Authority of Marin's site has been taken offline again after links to pornographic pages, which had bedeviled the site last week, reappeared

Mozilla working on new mobile browser

After experimenting with the idea of a mobile browser, Mozilla has hired developers to work on the project and plans to release Mobile Firefox within the next year or two

Oracle fixes glitch in PHP Web applications

The open-source Oracle Call Interface 8 driver repairs a flaw that led to PHP-based Web apps overwhelming Oracle databases with requests

Why Mac users should love X11

Agile, PHP called good match

Developing in short iterations works well with scripting language's object orientation, Zend exec says

FTC targets spammers hawking weight-loss products

Court orders Spear Systems of Wyoming and eHealthylife.com to stop sending spam and making false claims on hoodia and HGH products

Dell hands control of desktops to IT departments

Dell's new On-Demand Desktop Streaming service streams the OS, applications, and data to diskless desktop clients over a Gigabit Ethernet network

Small carriers: Spectrum auction rules will limit bids

The FCC's open-access requirement in the spectrum auction could send large carriers looking for local-area spectrum, which is typically the domain of smaller carriers

Qwest ex-CEO appeals insider-trading conviction

Joseph Nacchio, former CEO of Qwest Communications, disputes court decision that says he knowingly unloaded shares of company stock before dot-com bust

‘Flat IP’ mobile networks face new security challenges

Some mobile execs see mobile networking, like fixed-line networking, moving toward flat IP networks, but such networks come with a host of new security issues

A new twist on Web 2.0: Info 2.0

Does software life begin at 40? IBM updates IMS database

Big Blue will release Version 10 of its Information Management System for the zSeries of mainframes

U.S. presidential candidates face phishing threat

Phishing attacks that divert online contributions to an opponent's campaign pose danger to Web operations of 2008 presidential candidates

Microsoft nixes bug, fixes Excel

Redmond is in the process of adding the fix to Microsoft Update so it will be automatically pushed to users running Excel 2007, Excel Services 2007

October’s coolest gadgets

Ceatec show highlights include Sony's OLED TV, Toshiba SpursEngine laptops, Sharp LCD with optical scanner, and Omron facial-recognition software

Brits are the social networking addicts of Europe

More than three-quarters of British Internet users regularly visited social networking sites in August

France breaks deadlock on patent translation accord

French Senate's ratification of the London Agreement may re-invigorate efforts to create a single European patent

Update: PHP security issues being addressed, overseer says

Many users run older versions of the platform

What Radiohead can teach open source

AP sues VeriSign’s Moreover news aggregator

Lawsuit seeks to stop VeriSign's Moreover news aggregation services from publishing news content of the Associated Press

Low-cost laptops are great, but who will pay?

OLPC has not been able to generate the orders it originally envisioned because its low-cost laptop is still priced out of reach for children in developing countries

Commerce Bank says hacking damage was limited

Commerce Bank was able to deflect most of a hacking attempt on its database, but data belonging to 20 customers was divulged

Samsung reveals latest music phones

Samsung's new handsets are intended to be just as much music player as cell phone, but their built-in memory is disappointing

Hard drive pioneers awarded Nobel Prize

Two scientists who discovered giant magnetoresistance, enabling hard drive makers to cram even more data onto disks, win the 2007 Nobel Prize in physics

Update: IE, Outlook, Word get critical bug fixes

Microsoft has released nine patches, including four 'critical' ones, though it did not release a Windows 2000/Windows Server 2003 patch due to a quality control issue

Google unveils Gen 5 of Enterprise Search Appliance

Engine now links to content management systems and allows for simultaneous keyword searches across Documentum, FileNet, Livelink, and SharePoint

Oracle buys compliance vendor LogicalApps

Oracle sees a growing market for compliance monitoring and has bought LogicalApps, whose compliance software is already optimized for use with Oracle apps

IBM touts Info 2.0 for Web 2.0

PHP dominance cited at Zend event

Company executives highlight usage of scripting language and map out future

Supreme Court lets HP lawsuit move forward

Hewlett-Packard attempted to have a 2003 class-action suit brought against Compaq, which HP bought in 2002, dismissed, but the Supreme Court denied the appeal

UWB group certifies first products

The first ultrawideband chipsets have been approved, which sets the stage for new technologies like wireless USB and the next generation of Bluetooth

Akamai unveils IP application accelerator

Akamai has been offering Web application acceleration since 2005, but it is now expanding the service to include an IP-based app, including VoIP

Google buys Finnish social-networking company

Helsinki-based Jaiku, which lets users post their activities online, as well as via instant or text message, is the latest firm taken under Google's umbrella

On campaigns and cybercrime

Current education inadequate to fight phishing

At the eCrime Researchers Summit, members of the Anti-Phishing Work Group agreed that it is difficult to educate people en masse how to protect themselves from phishers

Thunderbird developers quit Mozilla

The only two paid developers of Thunderbird quit just weeks after Mozilla spun off the e-mail client

IE 7 bug reopens debate over patch responsibilities

Security experts argue over who is responsible for patching a protocol-handling bugs that can be used to trick IE 7 users into launching malware

Canonical chases deals to ship Ubuntu Server preinstalled

Dell says the decision of whether Ubuntu Server will ship preinstalled will be determined by customer demand

Zend sets stage for PHP

New products and alliances with Microsoft, IBM, and Oracle to be featured at Zend/Con

AT&T buys high-speed wireless spectrum for $2.5 billion

AT&T buys all of Aloha Partners' spectrum in the highly coveted 700MHz band ideal for long-range broadband services

Google delivers ad-supported video clips via AdSense

Google will work with select YouTube video producers to deliver ads related to both the content of the clip and of the Web site

IBM readies mashup maker