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Sat, 31 May 08
Aggressive Antipiracy Firm Snags Dolphin in Tuna Net
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63221.html
Revision3, an entertainment network for the Web, had planned to release its two most popular shows last Friday evening in time for the Memorial Day weekend. Instead, chaos struck, and the Web 2.0 company found itself unable distribute videos or advertising or respond to clients' requests. Even its internal e-mail servers were brought down. The source of the IT meltdown, Revision3 eventually discovered, was a denial of service attack launched by MediaDefender, a company commissioned by the entertainment industry to stop illegal trading of copyrighted content on the Internet.

Sat, 31 May 08
Via Targets Intel's Atom With Power-Sipping Nano Chip
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63217.html
Taiwanese chipmaker Via Technologies announced its new line of low-powered Nano processors, formerly codenamed "Isaiah," Thursday. The new processor family offers up to four times the performance of Via's C7 processor line while featuring the same power requirements, the company said. Aimed primarily at the low-cost PC and ultra mobile PC markets, the Nano will vie with Intel's Atom chip for business from original device manufacturers and original equipment manufacturers such as HP and Asus.

Sat, 31 May 08
Better Tech Support in 3 Easy Steps, Part 1
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63176.html
I have been managing the technical support team at Journyx, a timesheet software company, for about 7 years. When I began, we were hemorrhaging angry customers, but now we haven't received a legitimate customer complaint in years. Since my experience was in sales and retail management, the first thing I did was ask the CEO and VP of sales what they wanted from the tech support team. One of them said, "I'm tired of getting yelled at by customers," and the other said, "I'm tired of seeing the salespeople doing technical support instead of selling."

Sat, 31 May 08
Apple Gives Leopard a Good Brushing
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63214.html
Apple has completed a major security overhaul of its Leopard operating system. The fix addresses more than 40 crucial security flaws, including one in iCal that allows hackers to attack the computer remotely. Plugging the iCal hole was the most immediate need Apple had to address. Besides the iCal flaw, the patch addresses collaborative functions that could be used as vectors for attack. Security Update 2008-003 also has a non-security function: It enables iPhone users to sync Mac address book contacts with Google contacts.

Sat, 31 May 08
Next Wireless Spectrum Sale Likely to Come With a Catch
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63218.html
Fresh off an ambitious wireless spectrum auction that could help create a new marketplace for high-speed wireless services, the Federal Communications Commission will soon consider another auction with a significant twist that could help close the digital divide. The new spectrum sale would come with the requirement that the winning bidder offer free wireless high-speed Internet access nationwide on the frequency. The FCC will take up the proposal at its upcoming meeting on June 12, according to spokesperson Chelsea Fallon.

Sat, 31 May 08
The Secret Belgian News, Android Talent Show, Giving Away Money
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63209.html
The Belgian newspaper group Copiepresse, which won a court ruling last year against Google for linking to its stories without permission, is now asking a court to award it up to $77 million in damages. It is also asking the court to force Google to publish the ruling against its linking practice in a conspicuous place on one of its Web sites for at least 20 days. Google has already stopped linking to the newspapers' content through its Google News site and reached an agreement last year that would allow some content to be accessible through the main search engine.

Sat, 31 May 08
Genetic Info Law: A Civil Rights Victory?
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63175.html
Last week, President Bush signed into law the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act, or GINA, which will protect individuals from employer and insurance discrimination based on the results of high-tech gene tests. Fighting discrimination is a good idea, but the lack of opposition to GINA points to some potentially serious problems. GINA passed the Senate unanimously and the House by a margin of 414-to-1, with Ron Paul, a Texas Republican, the lone dissenter.

Sat, 31 May 08
Mac Bloggers Investigate iPhone Design, Talk Trade-Ins, Sew Up Security
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63204.html
In Apple news this week, the iPhone frenzy continues ... or perhaps it's just getting started. The company continues to snag partners left and right all over the globe ahead of the next-generation 3G iPhone, which a lot of Apple watchers predict will be announced June 9 at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco. Predictions, tidbit news and iPhone sleuthing are all over the blogosphere. Meanwhile, Apple is still a computer company, too -- the Mac maker released OS X 10.5.3, the latest update to its Leopard operating system.

Sat, 31 May 08
Sony Rolly: Big Price for a Little Amusement
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63206.html
For years, Sony has been scrambling to regain its position at the leading edge of music players. Now, that scrambling has produced an egg -- a $399 dancing egg that flashes, rolls and flaps its plastic flippers to the beat. Before you think the Walkman pioneer has finally cracked, it's worth noting that the Rolly is an amusing and somewhat educational robot whose moves can be programed using a PC. And the gadget certainly is a conversation-starter if your dancing hamster has run off. Even if you need a robotic egg to be the life of a party, though, it's hard to justify shelling out $400.

Sat, 31 May 08
Voting 2.0, Part 2: The Open Source Proposition
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63202.html
Even as the presidential elections draw ever nearer, debate rages about the technologies used to enable the voting process. It's too late for any large systematic changes to be implemented for this year, said Matthew Zimmerman, senior staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation. However, what should we use down the road? "Security is only as good as its weakest link," said David Dill, founder of the Verified Voting Foundation. "There is no way you can take an all-electronic machine and make sure it's all trustworthy."

Fri, 30 May 08
Qualcomm Tosses Adobe Flash Into the BREW
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63203.html
Qualcomm and Adobe Systems are bringing Flash-based applications to Qualcomm's BREW mobile platform. The two companies jointly announced their plans at Qualcomm's BREW conference in San Diego on Thursday. Flash support will make it much easier for Flash developers to deliver rich Internet applications and content to mass market handset devices. Adobe's Open Screen Project is aimed at delivering rich Internet experiences across any device that has a screen -- including mobile phones, of course.

Fri, 30 May 08
Google Sets Its Sights on Web App Domination
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63200.html
In a demonstration of its efforts to bridge the chasm between Web-based applications and client, or native, applications, Google announced changes to its Google Earth 3-D mapping software as well as Google Gears Wednesday at its annual I/O software developer's conference in San Francisco. For webmasters, Google launched its new Google Earth Browser Plug-In, which can be embedded within a Web site. The Internet search provider also unveiled a name change, among other things -- from "Google Gears" to simply "Gears" -- for its set of offline software development tools.

Fri, 30 May 08
Zuckerberg Won't Be Microsoft's Monkey Boy
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63196.html
Selling Facebook to Microsoft would not be the best way to fulfill its mission of enabling people to connect with one another, said Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of the social network. During the D6: All Things Digital conference in Carlsbad, Calif., Zuckerberg was asked whether he would consider selling if Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer offered $15 billion for the network. That is roughly the price that the entire network would be valued at based on the $240 million Microsoft paid last year for an ownership stake of less than 2 percent.

Fri, 30 May 08
Google Marches Android Onstage for Show and Tell
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63198.html
Google reportedly took a moment to show off a prototype mobile phone based on its Android operating system at the Google I/O conference in San Francisco Wednesday. Android is Google's open source, Linux-based mobile phone OS, middleware stack and software development platform. Android has the backing of the Open Handset Alliance, a consortium of hardware, software and telecom companies. If the Open Handset Alliance is the car, Google is essentially the driver.

Fri, 30 May 08
Scientists Cook Up Nano Noodles
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63197.html
Japanese scientists say they have used cutting-edge technology to create a noodle bowl so small it can be seen only through a microscope. Mechanical engineering professor Masayuki Nakao said Thursday he and his students at the University of Tokyo used a carbon-based material to produce a noodle bowl with a diameter 1/25,000 of an inch in a project aimed at developing nanotube-processing technology. The Japanese-style ramen bowl was carved out of microscopic nanotubes, Nakao said.

Fri, 30 May 08
Phoenix Gets Down to Business on Martian Soil
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63191.html
Scientists began releasing the robotic arm on NASA's new Mars spacecraft on Wednesday, one day late because of a radio problem. The Phoenix lander, which arrived on Mars on Sunday, is in excellent shape, said project manager Barry Goldstein. He said the communications glitch was only a blip in the robot's three-month exploration of the planet's northern arctic region. The outage occurred Tuesday in one of two NASA satellites circling Mars when a radio shut off before it could relay commands to the lander to get the 8-foot arm moving, Goldstein said.

Fri, 30 May 08
South Africa Bristles at OOXML Standard
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63190.html
South Africa is appealing a decision to make Microsoft's Office Open XML format an internationally recognized standard for electronic documents, officials said Wednesday. The South African Bureau of Standards sent a letter of protest to two Geneva-based organizations that held a worldwide ballot on Microsoft's application last month, complaining that the process was poorly conducted and rushed. "We challenge the validity of a process that, from beginning to end, required all parties to analyze far too much information in far too little time," SABS Chief Executive Martin Kuscus said.

Thu, 29 May 08
Is Blu-ray Worth It?
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63156.html
When HD-DVD maker Toshiba conceded the high-definition DVD format war in February, Blu-ray's backers may have hoped that sales of the Sony-championed format would see a big boost. However, while Blu-ray may have triumphed over HD-DVD, sales for the device have not exactly skyrocketed. An April 30 report from The NPD Group, a U.S. sales tracking firm, found that standalone Blu-ray players sales dropped 40 percent from January to February and grew a minuscule 2 percent from February to March.

Thu, 29 May 08
Blog-Watching: The Latest Customer Service Craze
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63184.html
What's the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the words "customer service"? Probably not something suitable for a family newspaper. However, thanks to the immediacy and interactivity of the Internet, things are starting to change. Consider Chad Youngblut, a 27-year-old Web administrator from Mount Dora, Fla. A few months ago, Youngblut was fed up with his Comcast Internet service because he could only get online on one computer at a time. After calls to customer service and visits from technicians he decided to take his frustration out on his blog with a post, "Comcast is the devil."

Thu, 29 May 08
It Takes Community to Save the Planet
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63181.html
The power of community is grossly underestimated in this country. Current collaborative trends on the Internet, from Web 2.0 to Wikipedia models, are seen as merely social or arguably informative in nature. That's a bit like saying the U.S. Constitution, another collaborative work, is a fetching flight of fancy thoroughly detached from real world application. Such a claim may be attempted, but it doesn't make a dent in the enduring truth of a multigenerational community commitment. In effect, community works on the Web soar past geographic boundaries and political restraints.

Thu, 29 May 08
Hear Is a Feast for Hungry Ears
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63177.html
Last year I wrote a five-star review of an iTunes plug-in called "SRS iWow," saying that it: "magically processes music you play in iTunes so it sounds much better regardless of the speakers or earphones you use. It makes crummy speakers or earphones sound significantly better and makes good speakers or earphones sound fantastic." After I wrote that review I started to wonder why I could only enjoy the SRS iWow magic in iTunes. Why couldn't I experience all of its sound-enhancing goodness in, say, DVD Player, Safari or my favorite games?

Thu, 29 May 08
Keeping Your Disaster Recovery Plan Well-Oiled
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63154.html
Companies in the SMB market segment often don't have the expertise or financial resources to formulate and then implement formal business continuity and disaster recovery plans like larger enterprises. In a recent Aberdeen Benchmark Report, Business Continuity: Implementing Disaster Recovery Strategies and Technologies, it was reported that more than 44 percent of companies with 100 to 1,000 employees did not have a BCDR strategy in place. These organizations are truly vulnerable and risking much.

Thu, 29 May 08
Microsoft Flashes Brief Glimpse of Windows 7
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63183.html
Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates and CEO Steve Ballmer revealed on Tuesday a few details on the software company's next operating system, Windows 7, at the D: All Things Digital conference in San Diego. The company has maintained a disciplined silence about the upcoming OS -- a marked contrast to the constantly changing plethora of information released during the five years it took Microsoft to develop and launch Windows Vista. During their keynote address, Gates and Ballmer presented a demonstration of the multitouch user interface the software maker plans to add to the OS.

Thu, 29 May 08
Cisco Tackles Enterprise IT's Wireless Tangle
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63188.html
Cisco on Wednesday unveiled a new hardware platform and four applications it said will help enterprise IT departments effectively manage their mobility services across a broad spectrum of mobile networks. The core component of Cisco Motion is the Cisco 3300 Series Mobility Services Engine, a single appliance-based platform with an open application programming interface for consolidating and supporting mobility services across wireless and wired networks, according to Cisco.

Thu, 29 May 08
Viacom v. Google Wends Its Way Through Legal Fog
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63187.html
The patchwork system of digital commerce laws adopted in recent years is showing signs of wear as Viacom's $1 billion suit against Google moves forward. Last year, Viacom filed its complaint in a U.S. District Court, alleging that Google owed it damages for purloined content that had made its way onto the popular video-sharing Web site. By insisting on a content-sharing crackdown, Viacom "threatens the way hundreds of millions of people legitimately exchange information, news, entertainment and political and artistic expression," Google maintains.

Thu, 29 May 08
Sony Teams With Cable Firms on Box-Free TV
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63182.html
Sony Electronics and the six largest U.S. cable companies have signed an agreement that paves the way toward allowing consumers to view interactive digital and high-definition video services on "two-way" devices without a set-top box, the companies announced Tuesday. The agreement lays the groundwork for a competitive retail market for two-way digital cable-ready devices and addresses how such products will be brought to market with interactive services like video-on-demand, digital video recording and interactive programming guides.

Thu, 29 May 08
IBM's Steve Sams: Taking a Swipe at Data Center Energy Consumption
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63162.html
Steve Sams, IBM vice president for site and facilities services worldwide, is waging a war against energy-hogging data centers worldwide. He will carry his assault to the Computer Measurement Group's international conference later this year. CMG is a not-for-profit, worldwide organization of IT professionals. Its members share information and practices focused on ensuring the efficiency and scalability of IT service delivery to the enterprise through measurement, quantitative analysis and forecasting.

Thu, 29 May 08
The Skinny on Linux for Thin Client Computing
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63167.html
Technology moves at a lightning-fast pace. A brand new desktop computer has an average lifespan of two to five years, after which both its hardware and its software have become obsolete. For businesses and other organizations, this poses a significant challenge as they attempt to keep their IT purchasing budgets down while simultaneously trying to keep their infrastructures up to date. Enter the thin client -- either a repurposed desktop computer or a brand-new terminal device.

Thu, 29 May 08
Via Open Sources Blueprints for Mini Notebook
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63169.html
Chipmaker Via Technologies took the wrapper of its OpenBook Mini-Note reference design Tuesday, making the blueprint for its latest ultra mobile PC available to anyone who wants to manufacture low-cost computers based on Via's line of low-power processors. The open source, computer-assisted design files are available for free under the Creative Commons Share Alike Attribution license. They're intended to give manufacturers a template from which they can create a UMPC using Via chips.

Wed, 28 May 08
Adobe Offers Sneak Peek at CS4
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63161.html
Adobe's next generation of Creative Suite graphic design, Web development and video editing applications are edging closer to official release. The company's Adobe Labs site has posted publicly available betas of Dreamweaver, Fireworks and Soundbooth. Dreamweaver is Adobe's application for Web design and development. Fireworks is for prototyping, and Soundbooth is for audio creation and editing. Anyone can download and launch the betas, but they will be only active for 48 hours.

Wed, 28 May 08
Samsung Crams 256 GB Into Slim SSD
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63158.html
Samsung unveiled a new, high-capacity solid state drive Monday at the fifth annual Samsung Mobile Solution Forum in Taipei. The 2.5-inch, 256 gigabyte, multi-level cell-based SSD uses a SATA II interface, and it's the world's fastest SSD, according to the company. In addition, Samsung said its new SSD is the thinnest drive with the largest capacity offering a SATA II interface. Samsung expects to begin production of the 2.5-inch SSD by the end of 2008 but will make customer samples available in September.

Wed, 28 May 08
Microsoft: Global Smartphone Adoption Could Push Windows Mobile Sales 50 Percent
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63160.html
Microsoft believes it can grow the market for its Windows Mobile operating system by at least 50 percent in each of the next two years as the market for smartphones explodes globally. The software giant could sell as many as 20 million copies of Windows Mobile during the soon-to-end fiscal year, almost double the 11 million it shipped last year, Eddie Wu, Microsoft's managing director of OEM embedded devices in Asia, reportedly said. The optimistic outlook for Windows Mobile comes just days after Microsoft promised to make major advances in mobile advertising.

Wed, 28 May 08
ESET's Randy Abrams: Don't Let Phishers Hook Your Stimulus Rebate
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63118.html
Botnet operators intent on duping Internet users out of their savings have proved adept at social engineering, taking advantage of breaking news events and direct marketing -- as well as audio and video files and PDF attachments -- to lure people into downloading a variety of malware and visiting spoofed Web sites aimed at capturing personally identifiable information. The government's economic stimulus tax rebate program is giving them another excellent opportunity.

Wed, 28 May 08
Is Facebook Ready to Show Us What's Under the Hood?
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63148.html
Facebook has come up with a new plan to fight off its competitors: open sourcing its application platform. Citing multiple sources, TechCrunch reports that Facebook is planning to form an open source community around its API, which it launched just a year ago. We can expect that the four pillars of Facebook's platform -- Facebook markup language, Facebook query language, the Facebook JavaScript library and the Facebook API -- will be made available to the developer community at large, according to TechCrunch.

Wed, 28 May 08
iPhone Gains a Little Nordic Exposure
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63159.html
Cell carrier TeliaSonera announced on Tuesday that it landed a deal with Apple to bring the iPhone to the Nordic and Baltic markets. The agreement means that customers in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia can officially get their hands on Apple's combination iPod and smartphone before the end of 2008. TeliaSonera's announcement follows in the footsteps of other cell carriers from around the world. Orange, Vodafone, Rogers, American Movil and Swisscom have all announced similar deals.

Wed, 28 May 08
Entertaining the Kids for Free - With Linux
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63138.html
Well it's the last week of May, and millions of schoolchildren across the country and around the world are counting down their last days of captivity. Ah, summer. It's a time of freedom for kids and a time of dread and downright terror for parents -- at least for some. How to keep the kids entertained? Never fear -- Linux is always on duty. First, the sharp team over at Fanatic Attack has put together an excellent list of the best Linux programs for kids, which was noted by Scott Ruecker on LXer.

Wed, 28 May 08
NASA Goes Wild as Phoenix Mars Rover Scores Touchdown
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63152.html
After pulling off a long-shot landing on Mars on Sunday night, the team behind the Phoenix mission will spend the next few days making sure its equipment is ready to begin searching for the raw ingredients necessary to support life on the planet. The landing of NASA's Phoenix spacecraft marked the first time in 32 years that the space agency has delivered a probe on the Red Planet using retrorockets. The rover vehicles Spirit and Opportunity landed with the help of air bags. The Phoenix lander then began transmitting images of the barren surface of Mars' northern latitudes.

Wed, 28 May 08
Microsoft Concedes Book-Scanning Race to Google
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63151.html
Microsoft is abandoning its effort to scan whole libraries and make their contents searchable, a sign it may be getting choosier about the fights it will pick with Google. The world's largest software maker is under pressure to show it has a coherent strategy for turning around its unprofitable online business after its bid for Yahoo, last valued at $47.5 billion, collapsed this month. Digitizing books no longer fits with the company's plan for its search operation, wrote Satya Nadella, senior vice president of Microsoft's search and advertising group, in a blog post Friday.

Wed, 28 May 08
Japanese Government Urges Cell Phone Cooldown for Kids
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63145.html
Japanese youngsters are getting so addicted to Internet-linking cell phones that the government is starting a program warning parents and schools to limit their use among children. The government is worried about how elementary and junior high school students are getting sucked into cyberspace crimes, spending long hours exchanging mobile e-mail and suffering other negative effects of cell phone overuse, Masaharu Kuba, a government official overseeing the initiative, said Tuesday.

Wed, 28 May 08
The iCar: Fantasy or Reality?
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63135.html
Months ago, stories about Apple talking to Volkswagen about a joint project fueled speculation about the possibilities of something that could only be called an "iCar." Apple officials, however, were and remain tight-lipped about any motor vehicle branded with their company's logo. However, the speculation has led to lots of rumors, and MacNewWorld couldn't help but wonder how much of it was based on real possibilities that an iCar design could be in the works.

Wed, 28 May 08
Google: Viacom Suit Could Have Chilling Effect on Net Freedom
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63144.html
A $1 billion copyright infringement lawsuit challenging YouTube's ability to keep copyrighted material off its popular video-sharing site threatens how hundreds of millions of people exchange all kinds of information on the Internet, YouTube owner Google said. Google's lawyers made the claim in papers filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan as the company responded to Viacom's latest lawsuit alleging that the Internet has led to "an explosion of copyright infringement" by YouTube and others.

Tue, 27 May 08
Breakthroughs in Analytics, Part 2
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63117.html
Business "intuition," popular in the days of pen, ink and paper, was the first "BI" -- keen and quick insight rooted in trading experience and utilizing heightened observation with direct perception of commercial reality, all aided by strong inferences and at least some minimal amount of basic information. In the 1970s, information technology changed business intuition into the management information system. In the 1980s, it became the decision support system and the executive information system.

Tue, 27 May 08
What Do EMC and Apple Have in Common? Quality
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63122.html
OK, this may seem like a huge stretch because I doubt there are any tech companies more different than EMC and Apple. However, I just spent several days at EMC World and I actually found one similarity: Both companies are focused like lasers on customer loyalty. This goes beyond customer satisfaction and speaks to a process that ties their respective customer to the firm like magnets. Given both companies have dramatically different customers and therefore have dramatically different approaches, I thought it would be interesting to contrast them.

Mon, 26 May 08
Bye Bye, WiFi? Local Governments Abandoning Network Plans
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63099.html
Dreams of highly subsidized municipal wireless Internet access aren't dead, but a string of failed initiatives is forcing local governments to rethink the scale and cost of rolling out WiFi access to their residents. Several years ago, government officials and executives from private companies hailed municipal WiFi as a solution for improved public safety infrastructure, cheaper broadband service and access for areas with slow or no Internet access. The assumption was that private service providers could set up networks with minimal financial burden on governments.

Mon, 26 May 08
Kicking Cuba's Free Software Switch Into a Higher Gear
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63101.html
After years of deliberation, the University of Havana has finally decided to switch over to free software on its network of computers, virtually all of which currently use Windows operating systems. The plan, which was approved by the University Council, envisages the intensive training of professors and computer personnel this year, followed in 2009 by the broad installation of the GNU/Linux operating system, which uses the Linux kernel created by Linus Torvalds of Finland in 1991.

Sun, 25 May 08
Dating and the Social Networker: Too Much Information?
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63070.html
Oliver Pangborn hates Dave Matthews Band. If you looooove Dave Matthews Band, Pangborn probably doesn't want to date you. If you share his loathing, eh, drop him a line. Gone are the days when it took a date, maybe two, to find out a person's resume of likes and dislikes -- favorite movie, favorite quotes, special causes. Online matchmaking sites rendered that notion quaint years ago, and now social networking sites are doing their part to obliterate it. "Facebook and MySpace are kind of robbing the mysteries out of dating," said Pangborn, 30, who lives in Chicago's Gold Coast neighborhood.

Sun, 25 May 08
HIPAA Revisited, Part 1: Privacy vs. Portability
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63119.html
Responding to heightened concerns about the privacy of individuals' medical and healthcare information, the federal government in 1996 introduced HIPAA, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. It empowered the Department of Health and Human Services to develop and manage the methods governing the collection and sharing of personal health information and the mechanisms with which all U.S. healthcare organizations covered under the Act must comply.

Sun, 25 May 08
Google's Firefox Add-Ons for the Organizationally Challenged
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63064.html
This column focuses on several third-party applications that have been built to make a user's experience with the calendar easier and more productive. Like other Gmail applications, Lifehacker has a many-in-one download featuring more than 20 extensions for Google Calendar. These extensions include a text-wrap option that will not allow text to move across the view of calendar entries, an option that enables users to display the week number in the calendar, and an option where users can colorize weekends. I consider this download a must for all Google Calendar users.

Sat, 24 May 08
Hop-On Hawks 10-Buck Bare-Bones Backup Handset
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63139.html
Hop-On, a small cell phone company based in Irvine, Calif., has released what it says is the antithesis of Apple's iPhone -- the HOP1800, a $10 bare-bones GSM cell that doesn't take pictures, doesn't play music, movies or podcasts, doesn't surf the Web, and doesn't even do text messaging. In fact, it doesn't even have a screen of any kind. So what does it have? A standard keypad, plus a green button for placing or answering calls and a red button for ending them.

Sat, 24 May 08
Extreme Makeover Napster, AOL and OLPC Edition
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63130.html
Sure, there's "Weeds" and "The Office," but the studios sure didn't throw open the vaults and let Netflix have its way with their film libraries. Still, Netflix has scored a coup with the launch of its $99 Netflix Player by Roku, a set-top box meant to do battle with Apple TV for dominance atop your TV set. And let me take a minute to propose a new term to replace "set-top box," since you really can't put anything on top of most television sets these days. But I digress.

Sat, 24 May 08
Hunting Botnets With Randal Vaughn
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63123.html
You might call Randal Vaughn the Botnet Slayer. After all, he spends much of his time researching the intricacies of cyber-crime carried out through malware marauders perpetrating their evil deeds with robotized computers around the globe. When Vaughn is not peering through sinuous Internet traffic reports looking for botnet trails, he is lecturing to his students at Baylor University, where he is a popular management information systems professor. Think of him as a sort of Indiana Jones of cyber-crime.

Sat, 24 May 08
Mac Bloggers Watch Netflix and Napster Rock Apple's Boat
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63125.html
Apple is sailing in the calm eye of the hurricane these days, cruising serenely with rapidly rising Mac, iPhone and iTunes sales. This week in the Apple-focused blogosphere, however, Mac bloggers are showing how Apple can sometimes have smooth water on one side of the Cupertino boat and nasty waves on the other. First, the rough stuff. Mail-order DVD rental powerhouse Netflix announced a new streaming media set-top television box that competes with Apple TV and Apple's iTunes business model.

Sat, 24 May 08
Voting 2.0, Part 1: The Trouble With Closed Systems
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63106.html
As the 2008 elections approach, political mudslinging on the campaign trail has become an all-too-familiar sight. No less muddy, however -- and no less central to the democratic process -- is the battle that's currently being waged over the ballot box. How Americans cast their votes has become a subject of hot debate ever since the Florida debacle in the 2000 presidential election. Controversy has fired up afresh each time new analyses are released, such as those in recent months from Princeton University's Ed Felten.

Sat, 24 May 08
Netflix Player: Small Box, Small Price, Big Value
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63132.html
It's the big horse race in the gadget market this year: Who's going to win consumers' hearts with a box that brings Internet movie downloads to the TV set? Now, we have a tiny box that deserves to be a winner. Roku, a small maker of Internet-connected media devices, this week introduced a black box that grabs movies and TV shows from Netflix, the DVD rental-by-mail pioneer. You attach the Netflix Player to your TV and connect it to your home broadband connection over WiFi or a cable. Pick a movie using the included remote, wait a minute for the download to start, and then watch on your TV.

Sat, 24 May 08
Google's Page Warns Against Microhoo Monopoly
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63131.html
In a wide-ranging talk on communications and the Internet, Google cofounder Larry Page said Thursday that his company and Yahoo could structure a long-term advertising deal that does not raise antitrust concerns and protects Yahoo's autonomy. Page was also explicit about why Google opposes any deal between Microsoft and Yahoo, saying it would curb innovation in areas such as instant messaging and create a near-monopoly in communications.

Sat, 24 May 08
B2B in a Web 2.0 World, Part 3: TV Media Relations
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63095.html
Broadcast, cablecast, simulcast, webcast, podcast, vodcast, mobilecast -- the melding of the realms of "lean back" and "lean in" technology can mean coming attractions for business-to-business marketing communications and video news generation -- if done straight-up, i.e., correctly and transparently. Narrowcast B2B Web video programming has completely changed the old TV newsroom paradigm, and in doing so has affected the role of the Web as a business news forum along with the way that companies relate to online media in telling their stories and selling their products and services.

Fri, 23 May 08
Facebookers Sneak a Peek at Profile Page Makeover Specs
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63121.html
Facebook is introducing a tabbed interface as part of its ongoing effort to keep its profile page fresh-looking and streamlined, in contrast with many other social networking sites. This latest change, which is currently in beta, will introduce separate tabs for a personal news feed, photos, applications and information. The company designed these sub-pages to make adding content easier for users, it said. Facebook has been tweaking its application for some time.

Fri, 23 May 08
Security Firm to Apple: Ready or Not, Here's That Exploit
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63129.html
Core Security has published three Mac OS X iCal-based vulnerabilities -- two that can crash the iCal program and one that could conceivably allow a hacker to take control of another person's computer. The newly publicized exploits have gained attention recently in part because of the way in which they've been presented. Core Security, perhaps attempting to spur Apple into action, posted the flaws on the Web for all to see after attempting to work with Apple for several months to work out a patch. The severity of the flaws is somewhat debatable, yet they certainly exist.

Fri, 23 May 08
New EMC Enterprise Backup Systems Zap Redundant Data
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63110.html
EMC announced a new line of deduplicating backup storage products this week at its annual EMC World conference held in Las Vegas. In addition to deduplication, the new offerings include disk drive spin down and low-power disk drive technologies, all of which are meant to lower the cost for businesses to use disk-based backups rather than tape. "The announcement is pretty significant because data in companies of all sizes is growing unabated," said Lauren Whitehouse, an analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group.

Fri, 23 May 08
Microsoft's ODF Policy Gets Skeptical Reception From EU
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63120.html
It didn't take long for the European Union to react to Microsoft's Wednesday announcement that it would provide support for additional document formats in its market-dominating Microsoft Office productivity suite. Shortly after Microsoft announced that it would support the Open Document Format v1.1 with the future release of Microsoft Office 2007 Service Pack 2, the EU released a short statement noting that its European Commission is aware of Microsoft's promise. Still, the short memo posted online by the EC belied a bit of skepticism.

Fri, 23 May 08
HP's New Eco-Friendly Printer Push
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63082.html
HP kicked off a new effort Thursday to expand its green computing influence with the release of a series of products, tools, services and initiatives to help customers reduce their environmental impact when imaging and printing. The product releases target the differing needs of enterprise, small and medium-sized businesses, consumers, and graphic arts customers. These needs range from fleet management solutions to help enterprises save power and paper to printer management solutions to help consumers save energy, paper and supplies.

Fri, 23 May 08
iPod My Ride
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63105.html
Not to point out the obvious -- but the iPod has revolutionized the way we consume music. We buy music a la carte and play songs in the order we want -- not the order dictated by some record producer. We also listen to our music anywhere we please now thanks to a world of new products that range from ear buds that are customized to the shape of our ears to the most sophisticated home entertainment systems. Then when it's time to hit the road, we snap our devices into place inside our cars and zoom off, music blaring. Well, not quite.

Fri, 23 May 08
Funambol Pounds Out New Mobile OSS Forge
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63100.html
Open source mobile messaging software developer Funambol has created a new open source software forge as a central collaboration site for mobile OSS developers around the world. The Web site pulls together some 50,000 global developers to a combination of wikis, blogs and forums in addition to discussions and code for 30 open source mobile projects. At the new Funambol Forge, developers and other community members can work on mobile projects, share technical tips, and download software and documentation.

Fri, 23 May 08
Commercial Linux on the Rise in China
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63112.html
The commercial Linux market in China has seen sales value increase 22.6 percent over the past year, according to new research. However, the market remains small in revenue terms, with sales of just $5.42 million in the first three months of 2008, China-based CCID Consulting reported. "Servers are still the major application for the Linux market," CCID analysts noted in a recent report. "The depth and width of application network servers, high performance computing servers and database servers keeps expanding."

Fri, 23 May 08
Closing the Loop on Marketing Strategies
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63083.html
A recent report from the Aberdeen Group explores the critical role closed-loop marketing plays in today's Best-in-Class organizations, and the dynamic shift in the tools, technologies, and processes that support today's top-performing closed-loop marketing initiatives. Significantly, 88 percent of top-performing organizations indicated they leverage closed-loop marketing. The term "closed-loop marketing" has been around for decades. However, the complexity of optimizing and leveraging closed-loop marketing has increased dramatically over the past five to seven years.

Fri, 23 May 08
SOA: Full Speed Ahead - but Watch for Potholes
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63052.html
SOA is replacing Web services, which took the spot of object-oriented programming, which usurped the client/server computer, which supplanted mainframe computing as the primary way that companies design their applications. As the latest transition takes place, SOA is encountering some of the problems that the other initiatives had to overcome: a dramatic corporate retooling, which is needed in order to reap the advantage of the new programming capabilities. At the moment, most corporations are just beginning this migration.

Fri, 23 May 08
New Effects Tech Puts Swing Into 27-Year-Old 'Indy' Franchise
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63111.html
In these hallowed halls, Indiana Jones almost seems out of place. A banner with a two-dimensional cutout of the swashbuckling archaeologist swings through the lobby of Industrial Light and Magic, where life-size replicas of Darth Vader and Boba Fett from "Star Wars" stand guard. The home of George Lucas' visual effects company is a high-tech temple to everything from the dinosaurs in "Jurassic Park" to the talking robots in "Transformers."

Thu, 22 May 08
Researchers Sound Nanotube Cancer Alarm
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63103.html
Nanotechnology may be considered one of the most promising new technologies emerging today, but it's also the source of considerable concern about potential risks to the environment and human health. A new study published Tuesday in Nature Nanotechnology, adds further evidence that there's good reason for that concern.

Thu, 22 May 08
OLPC Dreams of Power-Skimping, Touchscreen Notebook for 75 Bucks
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63104.html
One Laptop Per Child, the organization focused on bringing low-cost laptops to children in developing nations, announced it intends to release a newly redesigned version of the XO notebook, the XO-2, in 2010. The second generation of the XO will include new technology to meet OLPC's goal of advancing new concepts of learning, lowering power consumption and decreasing the laptop's footprint, the organization said.

Thu, 22 May 08
Nobody Likes a Liar
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63085.html
Nobody likes it when people renege on a promise. You don't have to look very far to see how we as a society view people who lie, break promises or misrepresent themselves. In movies, the bad guy is always dishonest. In books, liars invariably get clobbered: Iago gets tortured, Claggart gets walloped, and Dante puts the liars all the way at the bottom of hell.

Thu, 22 May 08
Beyond 3G, Part 1: What the iPhone Needs
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63077.html
In June 2007, Apple shipped what may well be the most coveted and successful phone in the world. As June 2008 inches closer, anticipation is turning into expectation, and the tech world is buzzing with the latest machinations of Apple and what it might or might not be doing with its next-generation iPhone.

Thu, 22 May 08
Google's Search-Within-a-Site Feature: Let the E-Tailer Beware
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63081.html
It all used to be so simple -- at least for retailers. Back in the day, it was enough to have your catalog online; then interactivity and rich media came along. Now, we're in an age of personalization, where buyer patterns are predicted and mapped to up-sell and cross-sell options. The Internet has indelibly changed the way retailers engage with prospects, and how products are sold.

Thu, 22 May 08
That Insidious Cell Phone
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63093.html
A year ago, Philadelphia Mayor John Street took heat for skipping out of the office to wait in line for an iPhone on the day the gadget debuted. I was one of the people who piled on. Having just procured an iPhone myself, I owe the former mayor an apology: He could have waited in line for a week -- for a month -- and nothing he missed at City Hall would have been as valuable and worthwhile.

Thu, 22 May 08
Manufacturers Aim for Interoperability
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63094.html
Similar to ISA's wireless and security compliance institutes, a new institute is in the making for industrial interoperability, focusing on communication between systems -- production scheduling, processing, material information, and equipment information -- in industries such as food, pharmaceutical and automotive.

Wed, 21 May 08
Greenpeace Calls Out Eco-Hazardous Game Consoles
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63089.html
Greenpeace has taken video game console makers to task for using hazardous materials in the devices, releasing a detailed report Tuesday. Test results in the "Playing Dirty" report indicated that Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony have moved away from or limited their usage of individual toxic compounds in certain materials in the consoles.

Wed, 21 May 08
Netflix Pushes Select Flicks Through Set-Top Box
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63088.html
Netflix has launched a new set-top TV box that may usher in a new generation for the company's movie distribution model -- online streaming downloads directly to a consumer's television. To get the job done, Netflix has teamed with Roku to build the new box, called "The Netflix Player by Roku." The player is about the size of a paperback novel, comes with a remote control, and costs $99.99.

Wed, 21 May 08
Google Offers Virtual Filing Cabinet for Health Records
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63084.html
Google launched the beta version of its Google Health personal health records aggregator Monday. The service, according to Google, will put users in control of their own medical records, giving them 24-hour-a-day access to their health records from a variety of sources. With the introduction of Google Health, the search giant joins other Internet companies in the business of storing personal health records.

Wed, 21 May 08
The H-1B Visa Dilemma, Part 2: What to Do?
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63069.html
Part 1 of this two-part series enumerates the ways in which the guest-worker visa program fails to meet the needs of American workers and the high-tech industry. Part 2 digs further into the arguments for and against the H-1B visa program, as well as the trends and motivations underlying them.

Wed, 21 May 08
YouTube to Lieberman: Censor This
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63076.html
I remember being at the 2000 Democratic National Convention and watching Joe Lieberman give his speech accepting the nomination as Al Gore's running mate. Contrasted with the opposing lines of bandana-faced protesters and riot-geared officers, his speech left me hopeful and uplifted. I've got a whole different view of Joe Lieberman these days.

Wed, 21 May 08
iPhone's Rivals Just Don't Stack Up
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63063.html
It has been nearly a year since Apple launched the elegant and easy-to-use iPhone. Since then, our perceptions on how we can use a mobile phone have changed. However, the essential lesson of the iPhone has yet to be learned: The magic is in the simplicity of using Apple's software. That became abundantly clear as I wrestled with two new touch-based phones.

Wed, 21 May 08
Cartfly: Giving E-Commerce Widgets a Social Spin
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63028.html
When an e-commerce startup talks about upending the business model on which Amazon and eBay and other e-tail giants have built billion-dollar businesses, it's clear it doesn't lack for ambition. Still, the founders of Cartfly believe the new face of the Web will eventually create a new way to sell and buy goods online, one as broadly distributed and spread out as social networking itself.

Wed, 21 May 08
Gadgets Abound for Hands-Free Cell Phone Use While Driving
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63074.html
If you haven't already, it's time to go hands-free. California's new law barring drivers from talking on cell phones unless they use some kind of hands-free device takes effect July 1. Hands-free options range from Bluetooth headsets to old-fashioned corded headsets to speakerphone systems that are built into the latest cars.

Wed, 21 May 08
PanTouch Photo Frame: Plenty to Pan
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63072.html
You know how early cars needed to be hand-cranked to start up? That's the image that came to mind as I played around with Pandigital's new 8-inch digital photo frame. The PanTouch PAN8002W02T, priced at $170, is chock-full of cool capabilities. So, what's my problem? Well, nearly every cool feature this gadget offers requires a bit of hand-cranking to work.

Tue, 20 May 08
Wii Wants to Make Gamers Sweat
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63061.html
Nintendo's Wii Fit came to the U.S. on Monday. Wii Fit is a game and accompanying controller for the popular Wii video game system that enables the user to play games focused on exercise and use their feet to control it. The new offering is an extension of what has made the Wii so popular among mainstream gamers -- getting folks up and moving.

Tue, 20 May 08
Global Warming May Result in Fewer - but Nastier - Hurricanes
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63066.html
Atlantic hurricanes will be fewer in number but more intense as a result of global warming, a new study predicts. In the study, researchers performed hurricane simulations using a new model that they say improves upon previous ones with both higher resolution and an improved ability to simulate past observed changes in Atlantic hurricane activity.

Tue, 20 May 08
Here's Why Facebook Has Trouble Making Friends
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63060.html
It's heartening to see that Mark Zuckerberg is following my advice and seeking a sit-down with Google to hammer out their differences over this Friend Connect thing. It would be heartening as well to see Facebook coming to the defense of my private data as forcefully as it has been -- if only it actually were about my private data.

Tue, 20 May 08
Firefox Inches Closer to V3 With First Release Candidate
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63059.html
Mozilla is creeping ever closer to dropping the final version of the much-anticipated Firefox 3 Web browser. The latest build is the first Release Candidate for Firefox 3, which means it's gone beyond the beta stage and is picking up a couple of last-minute polishes before it's offered up live to the whole world as a completed browser.

Tue, 20 May 08
AMD to Slap Stickers on Gaming-Class PCs
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63058.html
Chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices has announced an initiative designed to give gamers a clearer picture of what systems will and will not match their needs when buying a PC. Nearly 66 percent of PCs sold in 2007 included only the bare minimum of functionality, according to findings from Jon Peddie Research. These systems did not have the ability to provide users with a satisfactory gaming experience.

Tue, 20 May 08
Breakthroughs in Analytics, Part 1
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63042.html
Oh customer, so mysterious ... what have you done ... what will you do ... and what decisions should a business make to keep you or get rid of you? Seeking answers to these key questions, the commercial world has turned in a big way to analytics -- the science of logical analysis. Analytics involves the extensive use of data, statistical and quantitative analysis and explanatory and predictive modeling.

Tue, 20 May 08
Will Every Linux Distro Soon Look the Same?
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63048.html
Last week was one of those weeks on the Linux blogs where every thread seems to boil down to the same message, as if coordinated by invisible cosmic forces. Fedora 9 was unleashed, of course, bringing joy to the hearts of many. Perhaps more notable than the details of the release itself, however, was its timing.

Tue, 20 May 08
AOL Seals Bebo Deal, Plans Social Networking Push
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63057.html
AOL has closed its $850 million acquisition of Bebo, and the portal will use the social network as the basis for a new People Networks business unit. Bebo Chief Executive Officer Joanna Shields will serve as executive vice president of AOL and president of the People Networks division, which will combine Bebo and AOL's two chat platforms -- AIM and ICQ.

Tue, 20 May 08
The New E-Marketing Must-Haves: Video and Rich Media
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/62961.html
For decades, both manufacturers and retailers have practiced and refined the art of merchandising products. From simple steps like packaging to sales rep training days, retailers and their vendors have traditionally worked together because they recognized consumer shopping dynamics and shared a common motivation to drive sales by presenting shoppers with a compelling story of features, benefits and value.

Tue, 20 May 08
Chinese Government Eases Net Censorship Following Quake
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63054.html
Almost nonstop, the uncensored opinions of Chinese citizens are popping up online, sent by text and instant message across a country shaken by its worst earthquake in three decades. "Why were most of those killed in the earthquake children?" one post asked Thursday on FanFou, a microblogging site. "How many donations will really reach the disaster area? This is doubtful," read another.

Tue, 20 May 08
EA Willing to Give Take-Two More Time, Not More Money
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63051.html
Video game publisher Electronic Arts has for a third time extended the deadline for its $2 billion tender offer to buy smaller rival Take-Two Interactive Software, but it did not raise the price as many analysts had expected. Take-Two, meanwhile, confirmed it is in formal talks with an interested party -- most likely EA -- even as it again spurned the offer price as too low.

Mon, 19 May 08
Avoiding Death by Merger
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63044.html
I used to run a post-merger clean-up team for IBM years ago, and have since spent a great deal of time thinking about and dealing with major mergers that clients have undertaken. In a market like this, consolidation and acquisition are inevitable, and knowing how to play in what will likely be the kind of massive change that occurs after a merger can be a critical personal survival skill.

Mon, 19 May 08
Mac Primer: Six Basic Rules for Newbies
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/62985.html
As I've noted here and in my blog, more and more Windows users are expressing an interest in switching to Apple's Macintosh platform, and many of them are taking the plunge. Indeed, the number of people using Macs is growing at a rapid rate. NPD Research reports Apple's share of the retail market is now 14 percent, and IDC and Gartner say the Mac's overall market share is now 6.6 percent.

Sun, 18 May 08
Tech Tools to Amp Up the Office Social Life
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/62976.html
Once upon a time, people bonded with their coworkers on office softball teams and traded gossip at the watercooler. OK, so those days aren't gone yet. But as big companies parcel Information Age work to people in widely dispersed locations, it's getting harder for colleagues to develop the camaraderie that comes from being in the same place.

Sun, 18 May 08
Bringing High-Def Into Focus
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63013.html
It seems as if everywhere I look these days, HD is there. An increasing number of TV programs come with an "available in HD" logo at the bottom of the screen, and it looks as though every consumer store that sells any form of electronics has photos of widescreen televisions plastered all over the advertisements they jam into the Sunday newspaper.

Sat, 17 May 08
Who Is Facebook Trying to Protect?
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63043.html
Google and Facebook have been at each other's throats in recent days over Friend Connect, Google's platform for mirroring your social networking data around the Web. Apparently, Facebook doesn't like the fact that Friend Connect does exactly what it's designed to do.

Sat, 17 May 08
XO Goes XP
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63045.html
The One Laptop Per Child project and Microsoft have come together to make the software company's Windows XP operating system available on the OLPC's low-cost laptops, the XO. Sugar, a Linux-based user interface, will also be offered on XO computers. Although OLPC had hoped to ship millions of the low-cost computers to schoolchildren in developing countries by now, to date it has shipped 600,000.

Sat, 17 May 08
Cox Throttles, AT&T Flip-Flops, MacBook Finds Itself
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63037.html
If you're tired of picking on Comcast for the way it throttles back peer-to-peer traffic, you can now direct your angry gaze to Cox Communications. Cox does the same thing, according to researchers at the Max Planck institute. In fact, it's one of three ISPs they caught engaging in P2P management.

Sat, 17 May 08
RIAA's Legal Steamroller May Grind to Halt
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63049.html
Last year, in the first file-sharing lawsuit ever to go to trial, Jammie Thomas was found liable for sharing two dozen songs -- and the judge ordered her to pay $222,000 to Capitol Records. Now, that judge has admitted that he made a "manifest error" during the trial, and Thomas may get another day in court.

Sat, 17 May 08
Power Suit: Real-Life 'Iron Man' Rig for Peace and War
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63035.html
Rex Jameson bikes and swims regularly and plays tennis and skis when time allows. However, the 5-foot-11, 180-pound software engineer is lucky if he presses 200 pounds -- that is, until he steps into an "exoskeleton" of aluminum and electronics that multiplies his strength and endurance as many as 20 times.

Sat, 17 May 08
Switching to Mac Without Looking Back
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63038.html
In last year's June/July issue, I wrote an article in which I contemplated switching to a Mac given my general unease with Vista, the latest version of Windows. It didn't take me long to go for it: I bought a MacBook Pro laptop the month after and haven't looked back. And I'm about to order a high-end Mac Pro to replace my main desktop machine, which runs Windows XP.

Fri, 16 May 08
Winners of New Video Game Could Score Nobel Prize
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63026.html
Fighting the animated powers of evil may be a reward unto itself for some gamers, but it can't hold a candle to finding a cure for cancer. A new game from scientists at the University of Washington, however, aims to tap gamers' brain power to make medical discoveries, with the potential even to win the Nobel Prize.

Fri, 16 May 08
How Net Neutrality Could Sabotage Healthcare Tech
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63009.html
At last week's UCLA Technology & Aging Conference, representatives from Intel, Microsoft, Qualcomm, Toyota and other big-name firms discussed how technology is reshaping lifestyles for older individuals. However, important policy implications directly connected to these new tools went unspoken.

Fri, 16 May 08
Virtualization: Savings Are Not Guaranteed
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63030.html
Virtualization is one of the most significant hot-button topics in enterprise today. Linux server virtualization has allowed enterprises to leverage resources more efficiently. It also is giving CIOs and IT managers a tool to address growing corporate concerns over environmental issues and rising energy costs.

Fri, 16 May 08
Mac Bloggers Talk Tablets, Natter Over Network Speed, Herald HBO
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63024.html
As is almost always the case, the Apple-focused blog world is humming with activity. This week, some of the most interesting topics include the revelation that HBO has somehow managed to break Apple's longstanding $1.99 price lock on TV shows sold via iTunes. Also making waves are the sales figures for Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac.

Fri, 16 May 08
B2B in a Web 2.0 World, Part 2: Social Media Marketing
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/62988.html
Corporate social networking ... channel communities ... enterprise social software applications -- the business of business has entered the Web 2.0 world, and there's no going back. Business-to-consumer e-commerce has been fully engaged by Marketing 2.0/SMM, and now it's business-to-business' turn.

Fri, 16 May 08
Lotus Connects BlackBerry Users to Social Enterprise
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63025.html
IBM has released additional Lotus software for Research In Motion's popular BlackBerry platform, taking the set of applications further beyond the realm of simple e-mail and into the wild world of Web 2.0 social networking applications. Yes, that's social networking for the enterprise.

Fri, 16 May 08
Passwords Aren't Enough: 3 Ways to Bolster User Authentication
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/62977.html
Many organizations are decreasing their reliance on user names and passwords for user authentication. They are also learning more about the benefits of deploying strong user authentication to increase the level of assurance for online identities as part of an overall approach to securing access to information and managing risk.

Fri, 16 May 08
MySpace's $230M Victory in Spam Case May Be Hollow
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63012.html
A federal court has awarded MySpace nearly $230 million in its suit against Sanford Wallace and his partner Walter Rines -- aka the "Spam King." The judgment -- especially given the size of the award -- represents a decided victory for e-commerce sites in their costly battle against spam. This is the largest award since the enactment of the CAN-SPAM Act in 2003.

Fri, 16 May 08
HP and EDS: A Match Made in the Cloud
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63008.html
HP's now officially pending EDS buy for just shy of $14 billion positions the combined companies to organize and manage the hosted/on-premises mix to maximum efficiency and lowest total cost of ownership. It's a great goal to shoot for because all they have to do is beat IBM. With this merger, the IT/business transformation second-source in the global market is alive and well.

Fri, 16 May 08
Feds Indict Meddling Mom in MySpace Suicide Case
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63031.html
A federal grand jury in Los Angeles on Thursday indicted a Missouri woman for her alleged role in perpetrating a hoax on the online social network MySpace against a 13-year-old neighbor who committed suicide. Lori Drew of suburban St. Louis allegedly helped create a false-identity MySpace account to contact Megan Meier, who thought she was chatting with a 16-year-old boy named Josh Evans.

Fri, 16 May 08
A Fertile Field for Digital Television in Europe
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/62989.html
The European broadband, communications and television landscape is not just characterized by intense competition among telephone providers. The cable operators, telcos and satellite providers not only need to keep a close eye on each other, but also players delivering digital terrestrial television services.

Fri, 16 May 08
Podcasts: A Commuter's Salvation
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63007.html
I used to think commuting without an iPod was dangerous. You know, you'd be distracted fiddling with the radio, or changing CDs, or just listening to the voices in your head. Bad idea. Then the cassette deck in my car died, which is what I use to listen to my iPod. Now I know that commuting without an iPod is dangerous. What makes the iPod so critical? Podcasts. Obviously.

Thu, 15 May 08
It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Hyperconnected World
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63015.html
Perhaps you know at least one person who totes around one or more devices to ensure an almost constant connection to the office and friends. They answer their phones during dinner at a restaurant or turn away from a movie to read their latest text. Perhaps you are that person. Those individuals are part of a growing population, according to IDC and Nortel.

Thu, 15 May 08
More Americans Cutting the Cord
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63011.html
A growing number of households in the U.S. are hanging up their landline phones, opting instead to use cell phones exclusively, according to a Wednesday report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The six-month survey, conducted from July 2007 to December 2007, found that 22.3 percent of households with both landline and mobile phones use their traditional wired phone lines rarely or not at all.

Thu, 15 May 08
Verizon Embraces LiMo Foundation's Brand of Openness
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63010.html
The Open Handset Alliance may have the power of Google behind it, but a surge of new members has just swelled the ranks of the competing LiMo Foundation to 40, the group announced Wednesday. Verizon Wireless, Mozilla, Infineon Technologies, Kvaleberg, Red Bend Software, Sagem Mobiles, SFR and SK Telecom are the newest members of LiMo, which six companies founded in January 2007.

Thu, 15 May 08
EarthLink Gives Up Philly WiFi Stake, Officials Cheesed Off
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63001.html
EarthLink is pulling the plug on its troubled wireless high-speed Internet network in Philadelphia, once touted as a national model. EarthLink, which pinned its future on municipal WiFi networks following rapid declines in its dial-up Internet access business, said Tuesday that it could not find a buyer for the $17 million network.

Thu, 15 May 08
Larousse: A Wikipedia Where Everyone Knows Your Name
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63004.html
France has long battled against the Anglophone cultural invasion, and now it has thrown down a virtual gauntlet. Larousse, the French encyclopedia created more than 150 years ago, is launching its own -- it would say improved -- version of Wikipedia. Its first, free-access, online encyclopedia will have the same contributor function, but Larousse has introduced some constraints.

Thu, 15 May 08
What's Next for the Touch?
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63005.html
Rumors are flying that Apple will release a small tablet-like device. Some see it as a MID, mobile Internet device, and some see it as a handheld gaming device. It could be both. In the past, Apple has put a lot of emphasis on its iPod touch as the next generation device, without a phone, to carry on the iPod tradition.

Wed, 14 May 08
The H-1B Visa Dilemma, Part 1: A Broken System
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/62994.html
The disconnect has never been more pronounced between the supply and demand of H-1B visas, the visa program that allows guest workers in the United States. The technology industry has been at the forefront of the H-1B visa debate, lobbying for the government to allow more foreign workers into the U.S. each year.

Wed, 14 May 08
Wikis: The Crown Jewels of Collaboration
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/62991.html
Increasingly, managers find themselves leading teams that are scattered in different cities or even continents, working on projects which have to be flexible enough to rapidly evolve to meet changing business needs. In this environment, business managers are starting to learn what software developers have known for years: Wikis provide a simple but powerful boost to collaboration.

Wed, 14 May 08
Desperately Seeking Better iPhone Accessories
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/62986.html
At the end of this column, you'll find my opinions on two relatively new iPhone-compatible headsets from Etymotic Research. But I intend to take the scenic route to get there, a route that takes us by some relevant and more general background information.

Wed, 14 May 08
The SaaS Approach to Web Site Vulnerability Management
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/62984.html
Securing Web applications is the No. 1 problem facing security professionals today. With 162 million Web sites in existence and millions more popping up each month, the sheer size of the problem is staggering -- not to mention the fact that nine out of 10 Web sites have serious vulnerabilities that can put critical customer data at risk.

Wed, 14 May 08
Microsoft Eyes the Night Skies With Virtual Telescope App
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/62992.html
Star gazers and astronomers now have a powerful new tool that will allow them to surf the skies from their desktop. Microsoft unveiled the public beta of its WorldWide Telescope Web application Monday. The software creates an experience that users of all ages will find captivating, said Frank Reddy, a senior editor at Astronomy Magazine.

Wed, 14 May 08
Dell to Downplay XPS to Give Alienware Breathing Room
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/62996.html
Dell has reportedly decided to scrub several models in its high-end line of XPS PCs. The computer maker is turning away from the XPS machines to limit competition with its Alienware systems, according to a Tuesday report. Dell acquired Alienware back in March 2006 but allowed the gaming PC maker to continue to operate independently and sell its brand of high-end computers.

Wed, 14 May 08
Mac Gains Pay Off for Redmond as Office Flies Off Shelves
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/62995.html
In an effort to fix the most pressing issues found by customers of Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac, Microsoft's Macintosh business unit has released the applications' first service pack. At the same time, it's touting the its Apple-friendly office suite's high sales figures. Office 2008 for Mac launched at the Macworld Expo 2008 in January.

Tue, 13 May 08
Immersive Underworld Makes 'GTA IV' a Great, Gritty Ride
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/62971.html
With the long-anticipated arrival of the next installment in the "Grand Theft Auto" series, Liberty City does little to disappoint. Car chases, assassinations and shady drug dealers still litter the landscape of Liberty City, yet this game adds an in-depth view from the perspective of the main character. The player's own choices and actions are more evident in "Grand Theft Auto IV" than in previous titles.

Tue, 13 May 08
Mobile Applications With a Sense of Place
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/62968.html
What do you want your cell phone to be able to do? Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Hal Abelson put that question to about 20 computer science students this semester when he gave them one assignment: Design a software program for cell phones that use Google's upcoming Android mobile operating system.

Tue, 13 May 08
Video Links: The Best Lures in the SEO Tackle Box?
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/62962.html
Video is changing the way we use the Internet for entertainment, education, blogging, product promotion and so many other forms of content. Services like YouTube, Metacafe, Google Video, AOL Video and a host of others have created an enormous online viewing audience by making it easy for anyone to upload, search and share videos.

Tue, 13 May 08
iPhone Supplies Dry Up as World Waits for 3G
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/62981.html
Apple said Monday its online stores in the U.S. and UK are sold out of the iPhone, a sign supplies are being winnowed ahead of the launch of the device's next generation featuring faster Internet surfing speeds. The Cupertino, Calif.-based company confirmed that the iPhone is out of stock online.

Tue, 13 May 08
Microsoft Opens Windows to BlackBerry
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/62979.html
Web-based e-mail and instant messaging services from Microsoft are set to arrive on BlackBerry mobile devices later this summer. The new BlackBerry Bold, along with phones in the BlackBerry 7000 and 8000 ranges, will be the first to ship with Windows Live services, which include Hotmail and Windows Live Messenger.

Tue, 13 May 08
RIM Polishes Svelte Smartphone for a Face-Off With Apple
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/62969.html
BlackBerry maker Research In Motion introduced its new high-end handset Monday, the BlackBerry 9000, a.k.a. "Bold." Aimed at business pros and power users, Bold updates the product line with a device aimed at taking on Apple's iPhone. It's the first new model from RIM in over a year. "They're really just trying to take the BlackBerry franchise to a higher level," said Carl Howe, a Forrester Research analyst.

Tue, 13 May 08
Stolen MacBook Owner Logs On, Takes a Photo, Busts Thieves
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/62972.html
When Apple created the Back to My Mac feature on its .Mac service, it probably never envisioned it as a crime-solving tool. Yet that's just what it became last week, when the service helped the owner of a stolen MacBook recover her lost computer. Kait Duplaga, a young Apple store employee from White Plains, N.Y., lost her MacBook to thieves in late April, when her apartment was robbed.

Tue, 13 May 08
Social Net Data Portability: Too Much Information?
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/62967.html
It seems as though everyone wants to be both social and portable these days. Google, Yahoo, Facebook and MySpace all have recently trumpeted their latest efforts at openness. Are they really the same? In some cases -- Yahoo and Google, primarily -- the OpenSocial framework is providing a set of standards to ensure interoperability among the applications themselves.

Tue, 13 May 08
New Powerset Search Tech Gets Your Drift
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/62966.html
Powerset, a new Internet search engine company, has launched a proof-of-concept salvo in the search engine war -- a natural language processing engine that attempts to understand the meaning behind a search phrase and the text it's searching against. Instead of returning a long list of results that simply contain the key words a user enters, Powerset attempts to unlock the meaning encoded in ordinary human language.

Tue, 13 May 08
XP Update Ushers In Fresh Round of Bugaboos
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/62958.html
Shortly following Microsoft's release of the third service pack for its Windows XP operating system, reports of problems regarding the SP's installation began appearing on blogs and the Windows XP Newsgroup. XP users have experienced an assortment of issues both with the installation itself and after the installation.

Tue, 13 May 08
Gaming's Play for Social Networks
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/62953.html
Long before social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook set up shop online, there was a social element to playing video games. Gamers have always congregated together, extolling or deriding the merits of one game over another, participating in tournaments and broadcasting their gaming exploits and accomplishments.

Tue, 13 May 08
Can a Windows PC Really Be Cheaper Than a Linux Box?
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/62952.html
It must have been a chilly week in hell last week, because the unthinkable appears to have happened: A Windows PC has been announced that will be cheaper than a Linux one. That's right, folks: The Windows XP version of the Asus Eee PC 900 will sell for $599 in Australia, while the Linux version will cost $649, according to APC Magazine.

Mon, 12 May 08
User Names and Passwords: How to Manage the Keys to the Kingdom
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/62916.html
Creating and remembering strong passwords -- like backing up our computers' contents -- is something many of us know we should do, but don't. And can you blame us? Having to come up with user names and passwords for virtually everything we do on a computer is enough to make anyone use "Magic123" over and over. I've even heard of people who keep lists of passwords taped to their computer screens.

Mon, 12 May 08
Google Speaks in Tongues
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/62949.html
Teaching a computer to understand languages isn't rocket science -- it's not nearly that easy, said Peter Norvig, director of research at Google. It takes a limited number of calculations to send a spacecraft to the moon, Mars or other planets. And while the calculations aren't so simple, they are fairly easily managed by a computer, he said.

Mon, 12 May 08
Environmental Group Puts More Heat on Apple
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/62947.html
Apple has been given a failing grade by Climate Counts, and was placed at the bottom of a list of 12 electronics companies also ranked by the organization. Climate Counts ranks companies on their practices to reduce global warming on a scale of zero to 100, and Apple was given a score of 11, some 66 points behind sector leader IBM, which scored a 77.

Sun, 11 May 08
Yahtzee for iPod: No Fun Without Friends
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/62918.html
There are some games that play well when you are alone, and there are some that beg for another player before any fun can be had. EA Mobile's "Scrabble" nicely falls into the former category, while its version of "Yahtzee" for the iPod is smack in the middle of the latter. In "Yahtzee," you roll five dice up to three times and attempt to match one of 13 scoring categories.

Sun, 11 May 08
E-Commerce Web Services: Better, Faster, Cheaper
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/62882.html
Typically, new technologies tend to promise more than they deliver. That has not been the case with Web services, which are being integrated into just about every new e-commerce application. "Support for Web services has come from application vendors, application development tool suppliers and middleware vendors," said Jason Bloomberg, a managing partner with market research firm ZapThink.

Sat, 10 May 08
Pet Tech: To Chip or Not to Chip?
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/62889.html
It was 1986 when John Snyder, then managing a Florida animal-control facility, saw his first microchip. He thought it was The Solution when it came to lost pets. "We thought it was 'Star Wars,' really cool," said Snyder, now vice president, companion animals, for the Humane Society of the United States.

Sat, 10 May 08
MySpace Walls Come Tumbling Down
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/62950.html
MySpace has forged agreements with other popular Internet sites -- Yahoo, eBay, Photobucket and Twitter -- to permit MySpace users to migrate their data. Profiles, videos and friend networks are among the content that can be ported. They can then access the partner sites using their MySpace user names and passwords.

Sat, 10 May 08
Trojan-Infected MP3s Have PC Users Singing the Blues
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/62936.html
A new type of Trojan horse malware application is hiding inside fake MP3 media files, infecting approximately 500,000 consumer PCs, McAfee Avert Labs reported. The nefarious files have been delivered primarily on peer-to-peer networks during the last several days. The trojan, known as "Downloader-UA.h," was added to McAfee's DAT files about a week ago.

Sat, 10 May 08
'GTA' Sells, Yahoo Doesn't
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/62943.html
Gas prices are setting record highs, homeowners are facing foreclosure, the dollar's slipping further down a black hole, and the credit industry is collapsing. These are frustrating times -- and perhaps that's partly why "Grand Theft Auto IV" just set some new records for video game sales.

Sat, 10 May 08
AT&T's WiFi Fake-Outs Leave iPhone Users Nonplussed
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/62945.html
Late last month and early this month, Starbucks customers who were packing iPhones reportedly discovered free AT&T WiFi Internet access at some of the coffee shops. All iPhone users had to do was enter in their valid AT&T iPhone phone number, and boom, free WiFi access to the world. Then AT&T mysteriously cut off the access.

Sat, 10 May 08
Will Microsoft Ask Facebook to Dance?
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/62939.html
The long list of companies Microsoft might acquire post-Microhoo includes such outrÃ© possibilities as Netflix, Cisco and Salesforce.com. Facebook is also on that list -- but its potential as a Microsoft acquisition target is beginning to look less unlikely. In fact, it's looking downright plausible. Rumor has it Microsoft has already approached the social networking site about a possible sale.

Sat, 10 May 08
B2B in a Web 2.0 World, Part 1: Digital Media Relations
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/62935.html
Attention! We're listening! Seeking competitive advantage and profitability through good relations with the social media, the B2B world has energetically embraced the grand online colloquy known as the two-way talk-back "conversation." Online social media platforms are now in play in the B2B relationships that organizations have with their vendors, suppliers, partners and contractors.

Sat, 10 May 08
Mac Bloggers Size Up Support, Elbow Into Enterprise, Muse on AT&T Memo
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/62932.html
Three interesting topics were kicked around in Apple-minded blogs this week. Entirely unsurprisingly, survey results show that Apple tech support kicks butt in the PC industry at large. Also, AT&T is forbidding vacation time to hapless iPhone salespeople, and it appears Macs have gotten a foot in the door at work.

Sat, 10 May 08
Sun's JavaFX: Smart Move or Too Much Caffeine?
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/62930.html
Taking on the likes of Adobe and Microsoft, Sun Microsystems on Tuesday unveiled its new JavaFX family of products for building rich Internet applications. Based on Sun's longstanding Java platform, JavaFX includes a runtime and a tools suite that Web scripters, designers and developers can use to quickly build and deliver rich interactive applications for desktop, mobile devices, TV and other platforms.

Sat, 10 May 08
Collaboration to Drive Innovation at HP Labs
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/62948.html
HP has unveiled an initiative allowing academic institutions to collaborate with HP Labs in joint research through an open and competitive process. The HP Labs Innovation Research Program invites colleges, universities and research institutions around the world to submit proposals related to current research.

Sat, 10 May 08
Facebook Fences Off Bullies, Predators
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/62938.html
Facebook, the world's second-largest social networking Web site, is adding more than 40 new safeguards to protect young users from sexual predators and cyber-bullies under an agreement with officials nationwide that was announced Thursday. The measures include banning convicted sex offenders from the site and limiting older users' ability to contact subscribers under 18.

Sat, 10 May 08
Climate Researchers Dream Up iPod-Based Supercomputer
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/62942.html
Researchers from the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have suggested building a supercomputer based on low-power embedded microprocessors to improve global climate change predictions. Using the embedded microprocessor technology used in mobile phones, iPods and other consumer electronic devices, the boffins propose a cost-effective machine for running complex computational models.

Fri, 9 May 08
Samsung Glydes Into iPhone Territory
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/62933.html
Verizon announced the latest addition to its line of touch-screen mobile phones Thursday. The Glyde from Samsung, available Friday, offers many features that have gained popularity following the introduction of Apple's iPhone. The Glyde joins the LG Voyager and Venus and the Samsung Instinct in a growing list of handsets with more user-friendly touch-screen interfaces.

Fri, 9 May 08
Will Zunes Zap Unauthorized Content?
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/62928.html
Microsoft's Zune and NBC's downloadable television shows stand at the center of the latest digital rights management dustup. On Wednesday, New York Times blogger Saul Hansell reported that Microsoft might build a copyright manager into every Zune player, ostensibly in response to an NBC demand for copyright protections of its downloadable content.

Fri, 9 May 08
Dell Gets Real With Virtualization Strategy
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/62920.html
Dell unveiled an array of virtualization solutions Wednesday. The hardware maker's new lineup includes more than a dozen servers, tools and services designed to make the deployment and management of virtual environments as simple as possible for enterprises regardless of size, the company said. Four new virtualization-optimized servers stand at the center of the hardware manufacturer's latest offering.

Fri, 9 May 08
Kids in Second Life: Does Danger Lurk?
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/62917.html
Second Life is no place for kids, a Republican congressman declared Monday. U.S. Representative Mark Kirk has sent a letter to the Federal Trade Commission requesting a consumer alert warning about the dangers of Second Life, which he charges could expose kids to child predators and registered sex offenders.

Fri, 9 May 08
Azul Systems: Jazzing Up Java
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/62912.html
In early 2002, the founders of Azul Systems wagered that Java was going to become a prominent enterprise platform. If that happened, they suspected enterprise customers of Java would soon need relief from the pain points caused by poor scaling and disappointing deployment costs.

Fri, 9 May 08
Hackers Bombard Epilepsy Site With Seizure-Inducing Images
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/62923.html
Computer attacks typically don't inflict physical pain on their victims. However, in a rare example of an attack apparently motivated by malice rather than money, hackers recently bombarded the Epilepsy Foundation's Web site with hundreds of pictures and links to pages with rapidly flashing images. The breach triggered severe migraines and near-seizure reactions in some site visitors who viewed the images.

Fri, 9 May 08
America Movil to Hawk iPhone in Latin America
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/62921.html
In another step in the worldwide march of Apple's iPhone, the top mobile phone operator in Latin America said Wednesday that it has inked a deal to bring the multimedia gadget to more than a dozen countries starting later this year. America Movil said it plans to bring the iPhone to all of its Latin American operations but didn't offer more details about the arrangement.

Thu, 8 May 08
HP Targets Web 2.0 Firms With Heavy-Duty NAS System
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/62919.html
HP announced on Tuesday a new, highly scalable storage system meant to address the needs of online and digital media businesses. The HP StorageWorks 9100 Extreme Data Storage System is designed to simplify the management of multiple petabytes of data with an eye to affordability.

Wed, 7 May 08
P2P and P4P: The Tangled Web We Weave
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/62900.html
It was Monday morning, and Haiyong Xie was running late. His flight to Los Angeles had been delayed, and then he had to face LA's beastly morning traffic. Xie, of Yale University, was on his way to the P2P Media Summit at the Hollywood Renaissance Hotel to take part in a panel discussion about the P4P Working Group.

Wed, 7 May 08
'Grand Theft Auto' Gets Away With Half a Billion Dollars
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/62911.html
Take-Two Interactive Software is reporting record-setting sales of $500 million for "Grand Theft Auto IV," with more than 6 million units sold in just one week. "We knew 'Grand Theft Auto IV' would break new ground in terms of the player's experience. ... Now, it has broken sales and rating records as well," said Strauss Zelnick, Take-Two's chairman.

Wed, 7 May 08
Gates: We Don't Need No Stinking Yahoo
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/62914.html
A few days after the seeming culmination of its failed bid to acquire Yahoo for $47.5 billion, Microsoft appears to be contemplating an entirely new Web 2.0 strategy: a partner-free, organic approach to besting Google. The news was delivered by none other than Chairman Bill Gates: "Now at this point, Microsoft is focused on its independent strategy."

Wed, 7 May 08
Sprint, Clearwire Forge Ahead With Ambitious WiMax Venture
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/62910.html
Sprint will merge its broadband wireless operations with WiMax firm Clearwire in a multifaceted deal that will create a US$14.5 billion venture to expand high-speed wireless connectivity across the U.S. The joint venture will seek to bring WiMax-based high-speed Internet access to 140 million people across the United States by the end of 2010.

Wed, 7 May 08
Goldsmith Jewelry: Tapping Into the Blogosphere Treasure Trove
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/62881.html
As a small brick-and-mortar jeweler with retail stores in Central Florida, Goldsmith Jewelry may seem like an unlikely potential e-tail star. Goldsmith, however, has had early success by using blogging to drive traffic to its Web site and gain exposure for its fledging Internet store. The company is committed to continuing and refining those efforts, said Don Lair, the online arm's cofounder.

Wed, 7 May 08
SAP Pushes Business Model Innovation With New BPM Tools
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/62906.html
SAP will offer new business process and rules management capabilities for its NetWeaver service-oriented architecture platform. NetWeaver Business Process Management and NetWeaver Business Rules Management will allow companies to build or change business processes and rules without coding.

Wed, 7 May 08
Slacker Portable No Slouch at Music Delivery
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/62899.html
One drawback to our portable-music revolution is space. At some point, even with a 160 gigabyte iPod, you run out. So, if you listen to a lot of music through headphones, as I do, there are times when you want fresh tunes. Now there's a new approach -- one I find appealing because it is customized to your musical tastes, and songs can be constantly refreshed.

Wed, 7 May 08
IBM Fuels New Blue Biz Initiative With Linux
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/62901.html
IBM plans to launch an initiative that centers on a Linux-based platform and a Web-based marketplace tailored for small and medium-sized businesses. Set for later this year, the rollout will provide users with a range of products and services from independent software vendors. It will also allow them to tap into IBM's computing horsepower.

Wed, 7 May 08
Microsoft to Sync Speech Software in Kias, Hyundais
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/62904.html
Microsoft has signed a worldwide deal with automakers Hyundai and Kia to use its in-car software that allows people to use voice commands to control personal music players and telephones. Microsoft's exclusive, one-year agreement with Ford Motor for offering Microsoft Auto in the U.S. expires in November.

Wed, 7 May 08
Into the Blu: Neil Young Touts High-Def Format at Sun Conference
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/62909.html
Rebellious rocker Neil Young hates the sound of compact discs. So he waited 15 years for a different technology, which he says will allow him to share his life's work the way he wants his fans to enjoy it. Starting this fall, Young plans to release a comprehensive archive of music, videos and other material dating back to 1963 on a series of interactive Blu-ray discs.

Wed, 7 May 08
Bush Beats Britney in Easter Egg Hunt
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/62908.html
Software developers are known to hide all sorts of "Easter eggs" in their code, but code search engine Krugle has revealed just what might be found among the billions of lines of open source code available on the Web. Krugle searches across code repositories and development resources, using contextual search to provide insights to developers.

Wed, 7 May 08
Truthiness Challenge, Google Bombing Earn Colbert Top Webby Accolade
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/62898.html
The winners of the 12th Annual Webby Awards were announced Tuesday. Taking home top honors is comedian Stephen Colbert as the Internet's "Person of the Year." Other big name honorees include Will.i.am for "Artist of the Year" and Michael Gondry, who won "Film & Video Person of the Year." Colbert received the award for his innovative use of the Internet to interact with fans of "The Colbert Report."

Tue, 6 May 08
Xobni Spins Relationship Webs in Microsoft Outlook
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/62874.html
For all those Outlook users who have ever thought there has to be a better way to organize and search e-mail content, Xobni, a startup out of San Francisco, has launched its attempt at a solution. A free add-on, Xobni -- "in-box" spelled backwards -- is designed to help users of Microsoft's Outlook e-mail program get a better handle on what's in their in-box.

Tue, 6 May 08
T-Mobile's 3G Network Touches Down in NYC
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/62876.html
T-Mobile customers in New York City are the first to be able to enjoy its long-awaited third-generation wireless service, the company announced Monday. T-Mobile officially launched its 3G network in New York on Monday, with plans to continue the 3G rollout across major metropolitan markets over the course of the year.

Tue, 6 May 08
Think Before You Ban: A Handheld Is a Powerful Learning Tool
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/62820.html
It's official: In New York City public schools there is now a ban on cell phone use. We can all understand how that might happen. As with any communication device, abuse does occur. But simultaneously, there is a wave of interest in education in 1:1 learning initiatives, meaning that educators believe in the learning benefits of one laptop for each student. Does this leave the technology world scratching its head?

Tue, 6 May 08
Sun's OpenSolaris to Shine Through Amazon's Cloud
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/62873.html
Sun Microsystems and the OpenSolaris community it created a few years ago have officially released the Unix-based OpenSolaris operating system into the wild. The two organizations shared the news at the CommunityOne Developer Conference Monday in San Francisco. OpenSolaris is based on Sun's Solaris kernel, but it has since been transformed into a more open and developer-friendly OS.

Tue, 6 May 08
Microsoft Ditches Yahoo, Google Picks Up Marbles
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/62872.html
The stock market is making its after-the-fact adjustment to the end of the Microsoft-Yahoo saga, which culminated this weekend. After last minute negotiations failed, Microsoft walked away from its bid to acquire Yahoo for slightly more than its original offer of $33 per share.

Tue, 6 May 08
'Mario Kart Wii' a Disappointing Ride
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/62867.html
I may finally be feeling some Wii fatigue. The Wii, Nintendo's super-popular and notably innovative game console, is far from perfect -- but it's also easily forgiven when the flaws are weighed against the extraordinary fun it offers. That has been my attitude until now, anyway. It's the recent release of "Mario Kart Wii" that is giving me pause.

Tue, 6 May 08
Robotic Wildlife Aid Study of Real-Life Critters
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/62870.html
One gray squirrel, its bushy tail twitching, barked a warning as another scrounged for food nearby. It was an ordinary spring day, except that the rodent issuing the warning was powered by amps, not acorns. Dubbed "Rocky" after the cartoon character, the robo-squirrel was working its way into a live-squirrel clique, controlled by researchers with a laptop computer and binoculars.

Mon, 5 May 08
A Tale of Two Steves
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/62857.html
I'm writing this from the Microsoft Management Summit at Interop with 5,000 of my closest friends in Las Vegas, and I'm still thinking about the book I brought up recently, titled Inside Steve's Brain. The result is, I think I've had an epiphany -- and no, I didn't call a doctor.

Mon, 5 May 08
The FCC Wireless Spectrum Auction: Looking Back
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/62814.html
The Federal Communications Commission had a very good first quarter: The government agency raised close to $20 billion by selling off slices of wireless bandwidth to a variety of companies. As the auction process fades into history, a few questions remain: What impact will the sale have on the wireless market? What might the FCC's next step be?

Mon, 5 May 08
Medical Advances - Through Your iPhone?
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/62813.html
Bioengineering professor Boris Rubinsky has what he hopes is the perfect antidote to bulky, expensive, hard-to-use medical machines: the mobile phone. The University of California professor says that by reducing a complex electromagnetic imaging machine to a portable electromagnetic scanner, he has essentially replicated a $10,000 piece of equipment for just hundreds of dollars.

Mon, 5 May 08
Sezmi: A Set-Top Mash-Up
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/62863.html
A startup is betting that people are tired enough of their cable and satellite bills to take a look at an alternative pay TV system that combines a number of different technologies to deliver programming. Silicon Valley-based Sezmi revealed a system Thursday that amounts to a way for phone companies and local TV broadcasters to team up for an end run around satellite and cable.

Mon, 5 May 08
The Social Side of Fund-Raising Online
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/62859.html
Online social networks used to be just gathering places for friends and long-lost acquaintances. Then the marketers arrived, followed by politicians and job recruiters -- all looking to tap into a growing mass of young people who are spending much of their time on the Web.

Mon, 5 May 08
Testing Out New Concepts to Refurbish the Online Store
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/62845.html
Most e-commerce sites are approaching their 10th birthday. The standard approach -- with left-hand navigation and search, a product catalog and product detail, cart and checkout -- is a tired format. Just like brick-and-mortar stores, Web stores need refurbishing, and retail is the new darling of Web innovation.

Sun, 4 May 08
Ready for the Robot Revolution
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/62856.html
Despite some impressive showings in robotics lately, the accolades are slow to come from industry outsiders. We, the general public, watch Honda's Asimo slowly make its way down a few steps, for example, and unfairly compare it to the glib and golden C-3PO of science fiction, and thus blind ourselves to the miracle before us.

Sun, 4 May 08
Geeks Making the World Better
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/62846.html
"Geeks making the world better one bit at a time." That's the playful slogan for the University of North Carolina's "Maze Day," during which scores of blind and visually impaired children from across the state came out Wednesday morning to test drive computer programs especially designed for them.

Sun, 4 May 08
Revving Up the Rumor Mill for the Next iPhone
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/62832.html
As the tech world gets ready for a new version of the iPhone this summer, the rumor mill is in full swing with a list of reported new features and programs that Apple -- if not secretly seeding -- has to be delighted about. It's like last year all over again, when the iPhone release was so hyped that lines across the country formed 24 hours in advance of its debut.

Sun, 4 May 08
The Real Threat to Google
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/62791.html
Google's biggest threat may not be Microsoft or Yahoo. No, one of the most formidable challenges facing Google is likely sitting in your pocket or purse. It's your cell phone, and it will put added pressure on Google and other Internet companies to revamp the way they handle online marketing.

Sat, 3 May 08
AT&T Wireless Delivers a Little Bit of TV
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/62862.html
AT&T announced the launch of its new AT&T Mobile TV service Thursday. Beginning May 4, subscribers to the service with a handset designed for mobile viewing will have access to as many as 150 simulcast or time-shifted programs, including live sporting events. The service will finally roll out in 58 markets including Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas and others, roughly five months behind schedule.

Sat, 3 May 08
Retain IT Talent by Instilling a Sense of Ownership
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/62798.html
How can smaller employers contend in today's competitive hiring market? By offering employees what large organizations often can't: a say in how the business is run and the freedom to explore and take risks. The key is getting employees invested in the organization's success at a deep level -- creating a sense of ownership that isn't quickly forfeited when other offers come. This message couldn't be timelier.

Sat, 3 May 08
Mac Bloggers Snoop Psystar, Sniff at AT&T Subsidy, Scrutinize iMac Speed Surge
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/62837.html
It's been a busy week for hot topics in the Apple world. Bloggers have been debating the likelihood of AT&T offering a $200 price break on the iPhone, bickering over whether the first shipping Psystar "Hackintosh" is a good deal, nodding at speed-bumped iMacs, and sharing the joy for Canadians who will finally -- sometime this year -- get official iPhones.

Sat, 3 May 08
Google's Schmidt Joins IBM's Palmisano for Some Cloud Seeding
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/62858.html
Two technology industry heavyweight CEOs -- Google's Eric Schmidt and IBM's Sam Palmisano -- took the stage together at IBM's PartnerWorld conference in Los Angeles Thursday to talk up their companies' cloud computing efforts, first publicly introduced last fall, which they say are still going strong.

Sat, 3 May 08
eBay, Craigslist Soap Opera Unfolds
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/62852.html
eBay's strange legal dispute with Craigslist just got weirder. The auction giant has disclosed the details of its lawsuit against the king of online classifieds, and here's what the dispute boils down to: eBay took a stake in Craigslist, agreeing to certain conditions regarding competitive behavior.

Sat, 3 May 08
Helping Addicts Cope Through Virtual Immersion
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/62824.html
Scientists believe that virtual worlds can help patients in therapy to overcome addictions. A new study by University of Houston associate professor Patrick Bordnick reveals that a virtual reality environment can provide a safe haven in which patients can practice how to say "no" when offered drugs or alcohol.

Sat, 3 May 08
Digging Into Google Earth Takes Some Heavy Lifting
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/62849.html
Online photo albums I had prepared for family and friends weren't capturing the essence of my travels to the southern reaches of the world. Then a light bulb clicked as I was exploring Google Earth: Why not use that? Google Earth is a mapping product much more powerful than the typical Web-based map service.

Fri, 2 May 08
Longevity as a Commodity
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/62838.html
Last week, GlaxoSmithKline announced it will buy Sirtris Pharmaceuticals for $720 million, giving weight to the claim that antiaging biotech firms can be a good bet. This is good news for Americans, given that a recent Harvard-affiliated study showed that some parts of the country have seen declines in expected longevity.

Fri, 2 May 08
Data Centers May Spew More Carbon Than Airlines by 2020
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/62840.html
A new study by McKinsey & Company, a global management consultancy, has found that data centers are one of the fastest growing and largest sources of greenhouse gas emissions. Sponsored by the Uptime Institute and released Wednesday at the Institute Symposium: Green Enterprise Computing, the study attributes the increase to the growing demand for digital processing as Internet users conduct business daily online.

Fri, 2 May 08
HP Breakthrough Could Spawn Computers That Don't Forget
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/62834.html
Researchers at HP Labs have proven the existence of the "memristor," a component of electrical circuits that could lead to computer systems with memories that never forget, the company announced Wednesday. The memristor -- short for "memory resistor" -- was previously only theorized to be the fourth fundamental circuit element in electrical engineering.

Fri, 2 May 08
Adobe Opens Formats to Shine Flash on More Screens
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/62842.html
Adobe Systems has assembled a group of industry leaders in an effort to put its Flash-based rich Internet solutions and content on most every screen -- PCs, mobile phones, MP3 players, televisions and any other consumer electronic device that might have a screen worthy of delivering content. The effort is called the "Open Screen Project," and it's supported by a who's-who of players.

Fri, 2 May 08
Data Centers and the Push to Power Down
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/62817.html
The next five years or so will spell big trouble for data centers. About 46 percent of more than 150 IT professionals and executives surveyed earlier this year by the Business Performance Management Forum said they're running out of space, power and cooling infrastructure for their data centers.

Fri, 2 May 08
MozyHome Opens the Door for Online Mac Backups
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/62826.html
While Apple's Time Machine and Time Capsule present a made-for-Mac backup solution designed and built by the company itself, it lacks one critical feature -- offsite backups. If a home is robbed, flooded or, worse yet, burned, some of a computer's most precious data can be lost with it. While the family budget is important enough, the real gold is family photos and movies that can never be recreated.

Fri, 2 May 08
Sun Leads Developers Down the Open Storage Path
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/62821.html
Sun Microsystems on Tuesday brought new how-to guides and services to the community of more than 3,000 developers using its OpenSolaris-based open storage platform. Two how-to recipes aim to help developers build solid storage systems quickly and efficiently, while the new service capabilities are designed to speed open storage application development.

Fri, 2 May 08
Court Hits AOL, Yahoo, Real With Staggering Music Royalties Tab
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/62833.html
A federal judge has established a framework that determines the licensing fee amounts three online services -- Yahoo, AOL and RealNetworks -- should pay to the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers. The fees could amount to $100 million, according to ASCAP, and will be paid to members whose music users have streamed over a seven-year period.

Fri, 2 May 08
'GTA IV' Draws Criticism for Simulated Drunk Driving
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/62827.html
Mothers Against Drunk Driving wants a stricter rating on "Grand Theft Auto IV." The organization is calling on the Entertainment Software Ratings Board, the independent organization that assigns video game ratings, to reclassify "GTA IV" as an Adults Only game. The action-driving game, which includes the ability to drive while intoxicated, is currently rated Mature.

Fri, 2 May 08
Malware Writers: Steal Someone's SSN, Not My Code
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/62828.html
Even criminal hackers want to protect their intellectual property, and they've come up with a method akin to copyrighting -- with an appropriate dash of Internet thuggery thrown in. Professional virus writers are now selling a suite of software on the Internet with an unusual attachment: a detailed licensing agreement that promises penalties for redistributing the malicious code without permission.

Fri, 2 May 08
Russia's Black Market Flush With iPhones
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/62830.html
Status symbols in Russia never stay the same for very long. During the Soviet era, the holy grail was a pair of blue jeans. When runaway capitalism took hold in the post-Soviet 1990s, a BMW served as ample proof to fellow Muscovites that you had rocketed out of the days of government-decreed uniformity like a cosmonaut.

Thu, 1 May 08
Retail App Flap Stalls XP Service Pack
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/62818.html
Instead of releasing the third service pack to its Windows XP operating system on Tuesday, Microsoft said it will delay the launch due to the discovery of certain compatibility problems. Microsoft attributed the delay to a compatibility issue between Microsoft Dynamics Retail Management System and XP's Service Pack 3 as well as Vista Service Pack 1.

Thu, 1 May 08
Microsoft Hands Cops a Crowbar for BitLocker
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/62825.html
Microsoft has given law enforcement officials a new tool known as "Computer Online Forensic Evidence Extractor," or COFEE, to aid in the pursuit of crimes involving computers. COFEE is a framework of customizable and common forensic tools for law enforcement. Microsoft made the announcement at this year's Law Enforcement Technology conference.

Thu, 1 May 08
Federal Court Dents RIAA Strategy Against File-Sharers
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/62822.html
A federal judge's ruling against the Recording Industry Association of America not only represents a setback for the litigious trade group in one particular lawsuit, but also opens a Pandora's box of technicalities that could mean a few speed bumps ahead for its legal steamroller.

Thu, 1 May 08
Will a $199 Price Tag Debase the iPhone?
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/62823.html
Rumors are swirling that Apple may release an unlocked iPhone by the end of summer, while AT&T offers users a subsidy on its iPhone. Scott Moritz of Fortune magazine reported that when Apple releases its 3G iPhone this summer, AT&T will slash $200 from the price tag with a two-year contract.

Thu, 1 May 08
The Fall of Reiser
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/62816.html
It is unusual, but not unheard of, for a murder case to go forward if a body has not been found. It is even rarer for the charge to be first-degree murder -- and less common still for the defendant to be found guilty. Those were the exact circumstances, though, under which Hans Reiser was convicted Tuesday of the murder of his estranged wife, Nina.

Thu, 1 May 08
New Biometric Technique a Boon for CSIs
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/62810.html
Federal researchers say they've developed a human identification test that's faster and possibly cheaper than DNA testing. It would be a handy new weapon in the arsenal for detectives, forensic experts and the military, though no one expects it to replace DNA analysis -- and its promoters say it is not intended to. The new method analyzes antibodies.

Thu, 1 May 08
MS Messenger for Mac 7 Says Bonjour
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/62812.html
The Microsoft Mac Business Unit announced on Tuesday that it has released Microsoft Messenger for Mac 7 for both personal and corporate use. The corporate version includes multi-party audio and video use. The personal edition features new support for Mac OS X Bonjour instant networking technology, a new contact list search tool and the ability to give contacts a nickname for easy recognition, even when their screen name changes.