News

Update: California e-voting security not up to snuff

Research teams contracted by the state found security issues in every single e-voting system tested, casting doubt on the reliability and security of e-voting

Hotmail maintenance glitch locks users out

An unspecified number of Hotmail's 310 million users were unable to access their accounts for several hours

Google plans YouTube antipiracy tool for September

During a hearing in its lawsuit with Viacom, Google claimed it is developing a tool that will automatically block illegal uploads to YouTube

Amp’d is latest mobile niche casualty

Mobile virtual network operators, which buy wholesale access to major networks and resell it to consumers, are faring poorly with Amp'd being the latest to fall

Online legislation-writing effort gets good reviews

Senator Dick Durbin visited the blog OpenLeft.com and took part in a debate about broadband legislation — a process all participants found helpful

Cell phones bring bees to knees?

Mozilla CEO: Google didn’t decide Thunderbird’s fate

No link between move to drop development of Thunderbird e-mail client and Google's Gmail push, says Mozilla head

Study: Web 2.0 meets ROI

Corporate benefits of wikis, blogs, and RSS often show up as 'soft' returns in improved worker productivity, efficiency, and communication, not necessarily in bottom line

Update: Wikia search engine gains a Web crawler

The Wikia project to create an open source search engine akin to Wikipedia has acquired the Grub Web crawler and has released it under an open source license

Judge orders ex-Qwest CEO Nacchio to pay $52M

The former Qwest CEO has been ordered to pay back the amount he took from illegal stock trades and has been sentenced to six years in prison

Core Security flux leaves questions about direction

Penetration testing specialist Core has a large customer base but small revenue; as its executive ranks are shuffled, some wonder if the company wants to be bought out

Intel antitrust case is simpler than Microsoft’s, AMD says

EU's case against Microsoft involves IP rather than abuse of a dominant position, so Intel's case could move ahead much faster, AMD says

BBC courts online viewers with iPlayer media player

Software that lets users search for and download BBC programs will be offered in the U.S. and Australia as well as the U.K.

P-to-P users expose U.S. government secrets

Contractors and government employees are sharing hundreds of secret documents on peer-to-peer networks

Poor memory chip sales widen Infineon Q3 losses

Poor performance by Infineon's memory chip spin-off Qimonda contributes to $144 million Q2 loss

Cisco to buy equity stake in VMware

Cisco's acquisition of a stake in virtualization software player VMware mirrors Intel's investment earlier this month

Take a byte out of ID crime

Update: Intel accused of breaching European antitrust rules

Intel has 10 weeks to reply to the EC's accusation that it abused its position in the microprocessor market to exclude rival AMD

Nothing sure but death and the Internet tax debate

Facing a November expiration of existing law, Congress contemplates a permanent ban on taxing Internet access

SourceForge unveils winners of ‘open source Oscars’

File archiver 7-Zip wins award as all-over best project; Firebird relational database is voted best project for the enterprise

China’s SMIC reports yet another loss

China's largest chip maker has reported a loss for five of the last eight quarters

AMD offers more details on quad-core Opteron processors

Making sense of AMD's processor road map, including its plans for a family of server chips with 16 cores

Bic Camera to sell Dell PCs in Japan

Dell partners with a Japanese retailer to sell Inspiron notebooks and desktops throughout Japan starting in August

Black Hat spurs Apple to patch iPhone

Apple has fewer than seven days to patch the iPhone, since an exploit hack is to be demoed at the Black Hat conference

Slow 65nm ramp drags down Chartered Semiconductor

Chartered expects to break even in third quarter despite weak demand for 90nm chips and slower than expected ramp of 65nm designs

SunRocket buys time for former VoIP customers

Update: SunRocket customers given 10 days to sign up with another carrier. 'Too early' to say if customers will be refunded

Microsoft describes software plus services

Microsoft's 'software-plus-services' strategy became less nebulous as the company described some of the technology behind the business model

AMD unveils strategy to ‘Bulldoze’ the competition

AMD will beef up its business and expand its reach by combining CPUs and graphics processors into one unit for wireless phones, PCs, and more

Earnings, M&A, IPOs stir IT market

Rising profits and confidence in merger and IPO activity point to a healthy and vital tech market

Microsoft releases rich media app betas

The release candidate of Sliverlight plus new betas of Visual Studio 2008 and the .Net Framework are all ready for developers to download

Retailers gang up against bands of thieves

Merchants pool resources and information in LERPnet, a national retail crime database, to foil thieves and protect goods

Microsoft acquires ad exchange company

Software giant furthers goal of growing digital ad services with purchase of AdECN, an auction-based exchange for online advertising

Aruba, Alcatel-Lucent deepen mobility partnership

The companies plan to launch a venture based on both wired and wireless network security and featuring fixed-mobile convergence

Microsoft’s Ballmer asks investors for patience

At Microsoft's annual analyst meeting, CEO emphasized the importance of attracting new talent and reminded investors that IT successes don't happen overnight

Microsoft to discuss milestones, goals at meeting

At Microsoft's annual financial analyst meeting, the company will disclose Vista shipment and SharePoint revenue numbers and announce the SIlverlight release candidate

Using 802.11n bridging for fast wireless speeds

802.11n fast Wi-Fi has plenty of speed to offer enterprises but limited range; using 'prosumer' products, you can set up Wi-FI bridging to extend 802.11n coverage farther

Is 802.11n ready for the enterprise?

The latest draft of the 802.11n wireless LAN standard looks to be enterprise-ready, but many businesses are wary about buying pre-standard equipment

EU, US move closer to GPS, Galileo interoperability

Two sides agree to an improved design for their respective satellite navigation system signals to make Galileo and GPS interoperable

Search company Baidu expects growth rate to slow

China's most popular Internet search engine report that second-quarter revenue and profit more than doubled

Google, Sprint team on WiMax mobile services

Non-exclusive deal will bring Google services to customers of Sprint's WiMax network when it launches in early 2008

Insecure about security questions?

Google Earth Enterprise data now in browsers

Google also tweaks Google Maps API so it can be used to mash up Google Earth Enterprise browser views with Web apps

Mozilla may separate from Thunderbird to focus on Firefox

Mozilla ponders creating a separate organization to take control of its e-mail app, freeing the company to concentrate on its Web browser

Lenovo opens plants in Mexico and India

Lenovo is also scouting locations in central and eastern Europe for other manufacturing plants to beef up its presence in 'economically vital' markets

DOJ charges former Safenet exec with stock backdating

Former CFO is charged with eight counts of securities fraud and conspiracy to conceal the practice from Safenet's board of directors

Nasscom wants Indian outsourcers to innovate

Trade organization proposes funneling funding to Indian startups that focus on creating intellectual property

TSMC hints at processor deal with AMD

CEO says a deal to manufacture processors for an unnamed customer will make a 'meaningful contribution' to TSMC's revenue

SF power outage: A lesson in backup power

Web hosting company 365 Main learned the importance of backup power to keeping Web sites up and running

Google adds 2-D capabilities, browser client to corporate mapping tools

ConnectU suit against Facebook continues

ConnectU has been given two weeks to amend its lawsuit against Facebook and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who is accused of stealing ideas and source code