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Thu, 31 Jul 08
Alien-Hunting UK Hacker Coming to America
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63998.html
The British House of Lords has decided to extradite Gary McKinnon, a British citizen who hacked his way into several U.S. military, defense and NASA computers, to the United States to stand trial. McKinnon has been fighting extradition since the discovery in 2002 that he was the one who broke into the U.S. government's most sensitive networks -- reportedly from a friend's aunt's house -- between 2001 and 2002. He allegedly caused $900,000 in damages to computers located in 14 states.

Thu, 31 Jul 08
Dell to Take Second Swing at iPod
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/64000.html
Two years after discontinuing sales of its DJ line of digital music players, Dell plans to launch a new effort to snag a piece of the digital music market from Apple with its own device this September, according to a Wednesday report. Citing details provided by several Dell executives, the report describes a company stung by past failures and intent on not repeating past mistakes. The player's design will include a small screen and simple buttons to allow users to flip through the music library.

Thu, 31 Jul 08
Does a Vista By Any Other Name Smell as Rank?
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63999.html
Microsoft launched another effort Tuesday to debunk the heavy criticism its Windows Vista operating system has received. But rather than sending out executives and evangelists to tout the benefits and new functionalities in Vista, Microsoft instead performed an experiment. The test, much like a Pepsi versus Coke blind taste test, was designed to prove that consumers' misconceptions about Vista, not the actual performance of the OS, are what have given the PC software a bad reputation.

Thu, 31 Jul 08
Rotor-Powered 'Jet Pack' May Propel Solo Fliers to New Heights
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63996.html
Flying isn't just for superheroes anymore. A personal aviation machine that made its debut at an air show in Wisconsin this week is raising the profile of solo flying devices. The machine -- named the "Martin Jet Pack" -- lets you soar into the skies for as long as 30 minutes and reach altitudes of 8,000 feet, its creators say. The Martin Jet Pack is far from the first personal flying apparatus to surface, and it'sprobably far from the last. Some say it's not actually even a jet pack because of its mechanics.

Thu, 31 Jul 08
Social Networking's Next Frontier: The Mobile Phone
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63970.html
Social networking tools aren't really new in the computing world. After all, AOL was the granddaddy of social networking environments back in the Internet's early days. But the extension of these environments to mobile devices is new. According to an Informa Telecoms report, about 50 million people, or about 2.3 percent of all mobile users, already use the mobile phone for social networking, from chat services to multimedia sharing. The company forecasts that the penetration rate will mushroom to at least 12.5 percent in five years.

Thu, 31 Jul 08
Yahoo, HP, Intel Give Ivory Towers a Stairway to the Cloud
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63995.html
Yahoo, HP and Intel are collaborating on an ambitious research endeavor called "Cloud Computing Test Bed" -- designed to support cloud computing research and education at universities. Users will be able to develop and test software, data center management, and hardware associated with cloud computing on this large-scale grid. The three companies are partnering with the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany on the project.

Thu, 31 Jul 08
BT's Ribbit Buy: Voice Applications Get Hopping
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63989.html
Ribbit announced that it had been purchased by British Telecom on Tuesday for $105 million in cash. As deals go, that might not seem like a lot, but given the fact that it's all cash and given the relatively slow market for "liquidity events" these days, it's worth pondering. Peeling the onion and trying to get beyond the cash, this is an important milestone. For background, you should know that Ribbit is a software and services company that provides on-demand phone service through VoIP and a developer toolkit for integrating voice as a data type into all manner of applications.

Thu, 31 Jul 08
PGP CEO Dunkelberger on Research, Learning and Carlos Castaneda
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63986.html
Heading the company with perhaps the most recognized acronym in the information security field and following in the footsteps of lightning-rod figure Phil Zimmerman must have both its charms and its challenges. PGP CEO Phil Dunkelberger, however, ranges far and wide in his reflections on how data -- and keeping it safe -- affects our lives and our thinking. I had the good fortune to talk with Dunkelberger on a summer morning as we both worked from our home offices.

Thu, 31 Jul 08
Portugal Rings Up Big Order for Intel's Classmate PCs
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63991.html
Intel's low-cost laptop initiative is set to get a boost Wednesday from Portugal's government, which is pledging to provide elementary school students with 500,000 computers based on the chipmaker's Classmate PC design. The announcement brings Intel's rivalry with the One Laptop Per Child organization into the spotlight once again. In May, the nonprofit OLPC group said its green-and-white XO laptop computers would work with Microsoft's Windows in addition to a homegrown Linux-based operating system.

Thu, 31 Jul 08
The Look, Sound and Feel of iPhone's Rivals
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63985.html
Apple has set the bar high for mobile phones -- finding a product as fun and versatile as its iPhone is difficult. But because some people may not want to use AT&T, the iPhone's exclusive U.S. carrier, I've been testing two new touch-screen competitors. Neither Sprint's Samsung Instinct nor Verizon's LG Dare has touch controls as intuitive as the iPhone's, but both have desirable features lacking in Apple's product. The Instinct, for example, can shoot videos; the iPhone cannot.

Thu, 31 Jul 08
Sharing Platforms, Sharing Flaws: Does Interoperable Mean Vulnerable?
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63980.html
Interoperability is fast becoming a key watchword in business computing circles. Open source products continue to gain enterprise acceptance. With that acceptance comes an increase in users who demand that data produced with one application to work with data produced for another application -- or even another operating system. Open source advocates want maximum interoperability, which allows them to use whatever software they choose. For instance, a company using an open source business application expects the files it creates and works with to be compatible with Microsoft's wares.

Wed, 30 Jul 08
Dell Debuts Diminutive Desktop
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63984.html
Dell rolled out its entry in the emerging ultra-small PC category Tuesday: the Dell Studio Hybrid. The desktop joins other systems in the category, including the Apple Mac mini and HP's Slimline series. The Studio Hybrid, roughly the size of a large hardbound novel, is about 80 percent smaller than the average desktop minitower and uses significantly less energy, according to Dell. The Texas-based computer company also announced two new Inspiron PCs.

Wed, 30 Jul 08
Rumor Mill Has Apple Slicing and Dicing Intel Chipsets
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63988.html
Is Apple's line of MacBook and MacBook Pro notebook computers due for a redesign -- or at least a refresh? The MacBook Air's relatively fresh form factor will likely remain the same for a while, but new aluminum cases for the other MacBooks in Apple's menagerie -- ones that will key off of the Air's thinner, slightly rounded design -- might be on the way. Plus, there are some rumors that the new MacBooks -- likely slated for a September rollout -- will sport a glass, multi-touch trackpad.

Wed, 30 Jul 08
Adobe Flips Switch on Lightroom 2
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63982.html
The promise of digital photography is that it can help any amateur develop into a backyard Ansel Adams, given the right camera, software and dedication. Imaging software company Adobe Systems has known this since 1990, when it rolled out version 1.0 of its trailblazing Photoshop software; it has followed that with a host of related products aimed at different segments of the digital imaging market. Tuesday's release of Photoshop Lightroom 2.0 is designed to narrow the gap between the serious amateur photographer and the professional.

Wed, 30 Jul 08
Virgin Galactic's Mothership Ready to Haul Tourist Rocket to Space
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63978.html
Don't book that cruise just yet -- the vacation to outer space is a step closer to becoming reality. Virgin Galactic unveiled its White Knight Two carrier this week, starting the countdown to the world's first airline to take tourists to the stars. White Knight Two -- designed by Burt Rutan and funded by British entrepreneur/adventurer Richard Branson -- is set to carry passengers to near zero-gravity reaches of the skies on Virgin's SpaceShipTwo rocket. The first launch is still months away, but the carrier's completion marks a significant milestone.

Wed, 30 Jul 08
Facebook Scrubs Scrabulous
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63981.html
Facebookers hoping to get in on a game of Scrabulous on Tuesday were left disappointed. Instead of linking to the game, designed by brothers Rajat and Jayant Argarwalla for play on the Facebook social networking platform, players found the following message: "Scrabulous is disabled for U.S. and Canadian users until further notice. If you would like to stay informed about developments in this matter, please click here." The message appears to indicate that that the reign of Scrabulous has come to an end.

Wed, 30 Jul 08
Computer Forensics: Beyond the Magnifying Glass
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63972.html
Computer forensics gave Michael Fiola his life back. Fiola is the former investigator with the Massachusetts Department of Industrial Accidents who found himself summarily dismissed after an IT check uncovered pornographic images of children on his laptop's hard drive. Criminal charges followed. It was only after a defense-sponsored forensic investigation that it became clear Fiola had been given a sloppily configured laptop and that malware was the probable source of the images.

Wed, 30 Jul 08
Developers' Delicate Dance With the iPhone App Store
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63962.html
Anyone can hand over $199 for the newest iPhone and see what the buzz is about. But if you really want attention, tell people you wrote a little game or other some other program that runs on the gadget. That's the part that makes the phone so darn fun to use. Several developers with Raleigh, N.C., ties have software programs available for the iPhone. They're for sale at the iTunes App Store, the only place to buy such applications. From a part-time developer who already has a day job to an entire company in Durham, N.C., they're are all attracted by the same thing.

Wed, 30 Jul 08
Virtualization for the African Enterprise
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63973.html
Modern computer software applications are vital for business enterprises and organizations in profit maximization and energy saving, experts have advised. The latest computer software applications -- such as Sun Microsystems' Sun Ray Thin Client and VMware Virtualization -- use low-cost and low-power devices that require no desktop administration, unlike Microsoft Windows. Ketan Girdharlal, the Sun Microsystems architect, observed that Sun Ray clients do not need to be upgraded when new applications are introduced or more computing power is required.

Wed, 30 Jul 08
Report: Hackers Getting Faster at Cooking Up New Attacks
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63975.html
The bad guys on the Internet are narrowing the time frame they need to unleash computer attacks that take advantage of publicly disclosed security holes, new research shows. More and more of these attacks are coming within 24 hours after a vulnerability is disclosed. That means security flaws are being exploited in Web browsers, computer operating systems and other programs before many people even have had time to learn there's a problem, according to IBM's latest Internet Security Systems X-Force report.

Wed, 30 Jul 08
Snappy iPhone Poker Game Surprisingly Addictive
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63976.html
"5 Card Touch" from Griffin Technology is a very simple game for iPhone and iPod touch that emulates the most basic poker slot machine game -- five-card draw. Here's how it works. You start with $1,000 in virtual funds and place your bet of between $1 and $5. You are dealt five cards, face up. For example, I bet the maximum and received a pair of nines, a pair of fours, and a three. After you receive five cards, you have the option of discarding up to five cards and drawing new cards to replace them.

Wed, 30 Jul 08
Can Qualcomm and Nokia Patch Up Their Differences?
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63974.html
Now that mobile tech titans Nokia and Qualcomm have ended a series of long-standing patent disputes, Qualcomm chief executive Paul Jacobs says he sees "opportunities across the board" for cooperation with his company's former foe. The settlement, announced July 23, put to rest the companies' disputes over intellectual property and royalties. The ink had barely dried when Jacobs told managers they were entering a new era. "What I said to my team is, 'Nokia is a potential customer,'" Jacobs said. "It's a change in posture."

Tue, 29 Jul 08
Cuil Trots Out Dark Horse Search Contender
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63968.html
A startup search engine launched Monday, Cuil, hopes to prove that its search technology is cooler than that of the reigning king of search, Google. Cuil's creators -- former Google search architect Anna Patterson; her husband Tom Costello, a former researcher and developer at Stanford University and IBM; and Russell Power, another former Google executive -- claim they have pioneered a new take on the search game, combining the largest index of Web pages -- 120 billion -- with a content-based relevance methodology.

Tue, 29 Jul 08
Microsoft Blasts Forrester's 'Sensational' Anti-Vista Report
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63965.html
Forrester Research has unleashed a bit of ire from Microsoft with an analyst report suggesting large corporations might do well to sit out the Vista era of Windows. Analyst Thomas Mendel's July 23 report on enterprise trends contained a brief mention of Vista, comparing it to "New Coke" -- Coca-Cola's disastrous reformulation of its namesake product in 1985. Public outcry forced the company to backtrack and reintroduce the old drink.

Tue, 29 Jul 08
Social Networking Gets Schooled
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63951.html
As a whole, the education industry is usually relatively slow to integrate technology into the classroom. In lots of schools nationwide, unbridled access to computers and the Internet is still the exception rather than the rule. Sure, school districts use computer networks, e-mail and teacher pages on school Web sites to more efficiently communicate with staff, students and other teachers. However, using technology to enhance learning is often a by-product rather than the thrust of technology in the classroom.

Tue, 29 Jul 08
Microsoft Feathers Apache's Nest
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63967.html
In a somewhat surprising move from a company that rattled sabers with what seemed like the entire open source software world last year, Microsoft has become a sponsor of the open source Apache Software Foundation and has opened up some of its protocols for use by OSS developers. Microsoft's Sam Ramji, director of the company's Open Source Software Lab, made the announcement at OSCON. While neither Microsoft nor Apache revealed the actual amount of Microsoft's sponsorship, the Redmond-based software giant's contribution will be at least $100,000 per year.

Tue, 29 Jul 08
FCC to Hammer Comcast on Throttling Shenanigans
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63966.html
Reports continue to circulate that the FCC has enough votes to rule that Comcast illegally blocked traffic between peer-to-peer Internet applications and that the government will soon set down guidelines for the Internet service provider that could serve as a precedent regarding the hotly debated topic of Net neutrality. The FCC could issue a ruling later this week, following reports in national media that Democratic commissioners Jonathan Adelstein and Michael Copps have joined Chairman Kevin Martin in deciding that Comcast should face some kind of action or sanction.

Tue, 29 Jul 08
The iPhone 3G and the Risk of Great Marketing
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63947.html
The iPhone 3G's battery life and problems with MobileMe have many favoring the older model, but lines are still forming for the 3G version. This showcases both the amazing capabilities of brilliant marketing and the risks associated with applying it to the wrong product. At the core of the iPhone's marketing is Steve Jobs. Someone with a very similar charisma skillset, Carly Fiorina, has popped back into the news as a spokesperson for John McCain. I think it's time to chat about the power and problems that come with excellent marketing and a charismatic personality.

Tue, 29 Jul 08
MediaForge: Finding the Way of the Widget
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63953.html
If you told Rhett Frandsen 10 years ago he'd end up being a professional widget-maker, he probably would have called you crazy. "Back then, widgets were only something you read about in your economics book," Frandsen laughed. "Until Apple coined the phrase, everybody had sort of agreed upon the fact that it wasn't anything." Webster's still agrees: Look up "widget" and you'll find "an unnamed article considered for purposes of hypothetical example." Within the Web-savvy world, of course, the word has taken on new meaning -- and that meaning has taken on a large role in Frandsen's life.

Tue, 29 Jul 08
Can Apple Break Through China's Great Wall of Counterfeits?
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63944.html
Apple may be making a lot of noise lately with its new iPhone 3G, but when it comes to fighting software pirates, Steve Jobs' company prefers to speak softly and carry a big stick -- the stick, of course, being legal action like its recent lawsuit against computer maker Psystar for producing machines that can run Apple software. Unlike other software companies that stage press conferences whenever they take on intellectual property theft, Apple prefers to swing that stick in a media vacuum.

Tue, 29 Jul 08
Does Linux Need a Little Tough Love?
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63940.html
Well, last week started out with a bang thanks to Monday's announcement of the new, Debian-powered CherryPal PC. That the low-power machine runs Linux is, of course, good news. The twist is that users won't even see it, because the entire user interface is presented through Firefox. Multiple forums immediately picked up the news, and most bloggers seemed to be skeptical. "The problem with this device is that it isn't that much cheaper than a full budget PC that will whack this into the ground," wrote bestinshow on Slashdot, where more than 350 comments had appeared by Friday.

Tue, 29 Jul 08
Martian Lander in Sticky Situation
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63957.html
A sample of icy soil collected by the robotic arm of NASA's Phoenix Mars lander is apparently stuck in its scoop, foiling efforts to analyze it. The arm picked up 3 cubic centimeters of material Friday night and lifted it over an oven designed to heat samples for analysis, mission officials said Saturday. The arm tilted its scoop, ran a tool motor to try to sprinkle the sample into the oven, and finally inverted the scoop directly over the oven's open doors. But the science instrument, called the "Thermal and Evolved-Gas Analyzer," detected that not enough material fell inside.

Tue, 29 Jul 08
China Eclipses US in Net Numbers
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63955.html
China's booming Internet population has surpassed the United States to become the world's biggest, with 253 million people online despite government controls on Web use, according to government data reported Friday. The latest figure on Web use at the end of June is a 56 percent increase from a year ago, the China Internet Network Information Center said. It said the share of the Chinese public using the Internet is still just 19.1 percent, leaving more room for rapid growth.

Tue, 29 Jul 08
Fitness, Med Apps Turn iPhone Into Health Monitor
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63958.html
Cell phones can't actually get hot enough to pop popcorn, regardless of what you may have seen on YouTube. But some do have other unexpected abilities that just might help improve your quality of life. Dozens of new health and fitness Web applications are now available for use with the Apple iPhone, which combines a mobile phone, a widescreen iPod and an Internet browser into one gadget. The apps, which likely will eventually be available on other phones that will run on a Google-based operating system, enable third-party software developers to create a new breed of health services.

Tue, 29 Jul 08
AOL's Makeover Moves: Priming Itself for a Sale?
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63956.html
AOL is shutting three data storage services, including one of the Internet's earliest photo-sharing sites, as it seeks to cut costs and focus resources on its advertising opportunities. AOL Pictures, the year-old media-sharing site BlueString and the online backup service Xdrive will likely shut down by year's end, though the company is looking to sell at least Xdrive, which AOL bought in 2005 for an undisclosed fee. Company officials denied speculation Friday that the closures were meant to prime AOL for a sale.

Mon, 28 Jul 08
Twitter and Twitterers: Running Full Speed Ahead to Keep Up
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63943.html
"What are you doing?" That question is the rocket fuel for Twitter -- a hot social network service that lets you tell people what you are up to at any given moment of the day -- via cell phone, instant messenger or the Web. Never heard of it, you say? "What are you doing?" is the question Twitter asks "Twitterers" to answer in a simple text message as they connect with friends, coworkers or the wider world. Twitterers "tweet" about everything from what they had for lunch to how much they enjoyed their latest Netflix DVD.

Mon, 28 Jul 08
Open Web Foundation to Play Freedom Cop for Net Specs
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63945.html
The Open Web Foundation introduced itself to the world last week at OSCON, the Open Source Convention, held in Portland, Ore. The consortium of individuals and Internet companies is an effort to build a home for community-driven specifications on the Web. The organization follows open source models already seen in the Apache Software Foundation. Its goal is to provide a lightweight framework that will help communities handle the legal requirements necessary to create successful and widely adopted specifications.

Mon, 28 Jul 08
Beware the Hype for Software as a Service
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63926.html
Time to dispel a few popular myths. SUVs are not cool. They never were. You Hummer guys were drawing snickers a few years ago. Now, with the price of gas nearing $5 a gallon, we're laughing out loud. And Microsoft's Vista is not a failure. To date, the software company has sold more than 150 million units. Vista has made Microsoft a ton of money. Yes, yes -- it's preloaded on every new computer. And yes, of course -- it stinks. But no, it's not a failure.

Mon, 28 Jul 08
Parsing the '3G' in iPhone 3G
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63924.html
Here's a question: Over the past couple of months, how many times have you heard the expression "3G?" You have probably heard it at least a thousand times, because every ad and every article for the new iPhone has called it the "3G iPhone." The obvious question: What is 3G? In order to understand 3G, it is helpful to get in a time machine and go back to 1983. There, we would be able to see the birth of the first commercial cell phone systems in the United States. It was the age of the big cells phones: the car phone, the bag phone and the brick phone.

Sun, 27 Jul 08
Web Video and the Net's Creaking Backbone
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63942.html
Two weeks ago, Apple and AT&T outlets opened their doors to massive lines of fans eager to buy the new iPhone 3G. The stores were stocked and ready to sell, but the network -- shouldered with the burden of activating so many new phones -- was quickly overwhelmed, and the process slowed to a crawl. Is this sort of pile-on some sort of preview of what hides around the corner with the surge of video downloads on the Internet at large? Is the Web's infrastructure inching toward collapse?

Sun, 27 Jul 08
Cloud Computing: When Computers Really Do Rule
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63954.html
In the nightmare scenario of Luddites everywhere, The Computers have been entrusted with mankind's accumulated knowledge. All is well until that fateful day when the machines band together, creating a mammoth, all-powerful, living network that thinks, grows and takes over the Earth. Think "The Terminator" or "Colossus: The Forbin Project." These days, the geek buzzword for this is "the Cloud" and the catchphrase is "Cloud computing." First, the bad news, at least for the Luddites: The Cloud is already here.

Sun, 27 Jul 08
Smash, Grab, Then Make a Killing Online
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63938.html
At first it seemed like ordinary shoplifting -- stuffing a few pairs of jeans into an oversize bag and walking out of the store. But the thieves got bolder. They began showing up in groups of five or six in the middle of the day, spraying store clerks with mace and knocking customers out of the way as they gathered armfuls of clothes. Sometimes they tossed a brick through the glass. Sometimes they drove a truck through the front door. The thieves aren't looking for just any kind of jeans. They're snatching high-end designer duds that sell for $150 to $350.

Sun, 27 Jul 08
Lightening the Load for the iPhone's Wimpy Battery
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63911.html
Question: In your recent review of the new iPhone 3G, you mentioned that it had weaker battery life between charges than the original iPhone, but that you learned various techniques to minimize this problem. Can you elaborate? Answer: The biggest battery drain is the fast, but power-hungry, 3G cellular network, which lessens battery life on all phones. So, when you are able to use WiFi instead for data, you can turn off 3G reception using a setting Apple provides. You will still be able to make and receive voice calls over older networks that won't drain the battery as fast.

Sat, 26 Jul 08
Leaked DNS Exploit Drives Admins Bonkers
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63950.html
A significant domain name system flaw first spotted by Dan Kaminsky, IOActive director of penetration testing, is now out in the wild, and unfortunately for Internet users, it's the kind of danger that isn't easily seen. Imagine you're heading home from work, and you arrive at what appears to be your home. So you use your keys, and you enter through the front door. You take off your shoes, stretch, grab a drink from the refrigerator, and start paying bills. In this analogy, there's no hacker lurking over your shoulder -- the hacker is the house, a replica of your home.

Sat, 26 Jul 08
eBay's Paul Strong on Building the Data Center of the Future
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63922.html
In this age when an Internet eon is roughly the equivalent of a calendar year and any given company titan can flicker out of existence in a flash, few companies, especially those solely Internet-based, are seen as enduring and solid and fated for perpetuity. Among these rarities, the world's largest online auction company, eBay, certainly holds it own. Even so, eBay too can be gobbled up by the times if it stands still even for a minute. Survival for eBay, like many companies, depends more on advances in science than it does on marketing trends of the day or P&Ls that speak of profits past.

Sat, 26 Jul 08
Microsoft's Quest for Search Cred Leads to Facebook
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63946.html
Microsoft is forging ahead with plan B, now that its proposed merger with Yahoo is all but dead. It is expanding its relationship with Facebook to broaden exposure of its Windows Live Search as well as increase its own search ad business. This latter goal, of course, had been the point behind the failed Yahoo acquisition. It is unclear, though, whether Microsoft can catch up with Google in this space without Yahoo -- and, if it can, whether this is the best strategy to do so.

Sat, 26 Jul 08
Scrabble-Scrabulous Fuss Lands in Court
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63941.html
Hasbro, maker of the word game Scrabble, has issued the ultimate double challenge to social network Facebook and its wildly popular Scrabble-like application Scrabulous: a lawsuit alleging copyright infringement. The suit, filed Thursday in a New York district court, claims the application violates the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Hasbro has asked Facebook to remove the game, but as of press time, the network was still allowing users to download the Scrabulous application.

Sat, 26 Jul 08
If You Can Get Past the Rocky Rollout, MobileMe's a Winner
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63939.html
I haven't experienced many of the problems that are reportedly plaguing Apple's new .Mac replacement, MobileMe. The new version of Apple's $99 online storage, e-mail, photo-sharing, calender and contacts service launched July 11 -- the same day the company released the iPhone 3G and the App Store. Shortly after launch, MobileMe promptly broke for many users, over and over again, leaving some without e-mail for days on end. Last week, Apple sent a message to MobileMe subscribers, noting that the transition from .Mac to MobileMe was "a lot rockier than we had hoped."

Sat, 26 Jul 08
Consoles Sell Like Hotcakes, Yahoo Cuts a Deal, Sysadmin Caves
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63936.html
As much as I love zombie movies, I really don't care to count how many times I've been invited to BECOME a zombie on Facebook. Yeah, you know the one I'm talking about. That's what you get when you open your platform to developers with all sorts of agendas -- you get a handful of good stuff, and you get oceans of crap -- spammy, garbagey applications -- the software equivalent of Cracker Jack prizes. So at Facebook's F8 developer's conference, the company announced what it calls the "Great App" program.

Sat, 26 Jul 08
Internet Habits and the Presidency
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63929.html
When it comes to the Internet, Republican presidential candidate John McCain recently said that he's "an illiterate who has to rely on his wife for any assistance he can get." In an era where the Internet is playing an ever greater role, does such an admission matter, and does it say anything important about the age gap between McCain and Democratic candidate Barack Obama? This is not the first time a politician has come under fire for sweeping claims about the Internet. Recall, for instance, Al Gore's comment that he "took the initiative in creating the Internet."

Sat, 26 Jul 08
Sony Turns the Page on E-Book Business Model
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63935.html
Sony announced Thursday that the new iteration of its Reader digital book will be able to read electronic books published in the .epub file format, a file type gaining acceptance among major trade book publishers, many of whom have committed to begin publishing forthcoming e-books in the format. Beginning in August, the new PRS-505 Reader model will support .epub files as well as Adobe eBooks with digital rights management technology and have the capability to reflow standard text-based Portable Document Format e-books, the company said.

Sat, 26 Jul 08
Internet Collaboration Drives Electric Car Conversion Crusade
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63934.html
A Finnish Internet community is seeking to apply the collective approach taken by online collaborators like the authors of Wikipedia to start a mass movement toward electric cars. The plan is to encourage the conversion of used gasoline-powered cars to run on electricity, with the first rollout due this year. The Finnish-language forum, eCars - Now! claims to be first of its kind in the world, and is working in the tradition of the open source projects used in information technology, like the Linux OS, which also came from a Finn.

Sat, 26 Jul 08
Mac Bloggers on Surprise Products, Snagging 3G iPhones and Squeezing Out Battery Life
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63930.html
While Apple's third quarter financial performance report kicked off the week's news, it was Apple's Chief Financial Officer Peter Oppenheimer's commentary about a possible mystery product that really had bloggers typing. The iPhone 3G remains a hot topic as well, but finding one is still posing a problem for many would-be owners, and for those who have an iPhone 3G in hand, the challenge is keeping it running throughout the day. Apple's third quarter financial report had all the expected raw numbers.

Sat, 26 Jul 08
The Spam World's Election Season Blast
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63925.html
With the political election season ramping up, spammers are again using news headlines about the candidates to saturate in-boxes. Researchers have uncovered two new spam clusters with subject lines relating to Barack Obama. At certain points, one of these spam runs accounted for up to 18 percent of all spam, according to MessageLabs. Overall, spam levels for the U.S. in June reached 86 percent of all received mail compared with spam levels at 81.5 percent in the rest of the world. Some U.S. states are more affected than others, according to a recent monthly spam trend report.

Fri, 25 Jul 08
Facebook Tags Best Apps, Springs User Data
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63933.html
Facebook on Wednesday announced several changes in the way applications and user information are handled. The social networking site's new measures include Facebook Connect, the Great Apps program and the Facebook Verification program, officials said at Facebook's F8 developer's conference. The company also announced a new developer's site. More than 400,000 developers have created applications for the Facebook platform; they're used by the site's 90 million-plus subscribers.

Fri, 25 Jul 08
Google's Knol: More Rules, More Accountability, More Money
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63928.html
While the beta testing seems never to end at Google -- Gmail is still in beta well past age 4 -- the world's largest search engine and advertising machine has released to the public a new knowledge base called "Knol." A "knol," according to Google, is a unit of knowledge. More specifically, Google says Knols are authoritative articles about specific topics, written by people who know about those subjects. The company first announced Knol late last year, and instead of populating its databases with articles from everyone, Google kept Knol an invitation-only party -- until now.

Fri, 25 Jul 08
Intel Unveils Atom-Powered System-on-Chip Plans
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63918.html
Intel announced on Thursday new processors built around its plans for a new category of highly integrated, purpose-built and Web-savvy system-on-chip designs. The company also unveiled its first eight products under its Intel EP80579 Integrated Processor family for security, storage, communications and industrial robotics. Intel is basing several of these SoC chip designs on the same blueprints as the company's existing processors that run much of the Internet, called "Intel architecture," according to company officials.

Fri, 25 Jul 08
UK ISPs to Fling Wide Net for Music Pirates
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63927.html
British parents who don't know what their kids are downloading on the family computer may want to start paying more attention, thanks to a new antipiracy agreement among the six largest Internet service providers in the United Kingdom. The U.S. music industry will no doubt track developments in the UK. That's because the effort, announced by BT, Virgin Media, BSkyB, Orange, Carphone Warehouse and Tiscali, will start with warning letters to suspected illegal downloaders but could eventually include penalties like online monitoring and reduced Internet speeds to households.

Fri, 25 Jul 08
Is Web 2.0 Security's Achilles Heel?
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63904.html
We're facing a Web security gap. The Web has become the primary source of infections in enterprises, surpassing e-mail. Although most enterprises do some form of URL filtering on their Web traffic, it's proven to not be an adequate security solution alone. Only 15 percent of organizations are performing the deeper inspection and blocking on Web traffic necessary to protect their employees, according to Gartner. And the problem is growing, with over 9,000 Web sites hosting malicious code being added each day.

Fri, 25 Jul 08
Court Nixes Law Aimed at Protecting Kids Online
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63917.html
Proponents of the beleaguered Child Online Protection Act suffered yet another blow Tuesday when a federal appeals court deemed the law unconstitutional once again. The 1998 law, known as "COPA," aims to keep children from viewing pornographic materials on the Internet by making it a crime for commercial Web site operators to let children access "harmful" material. Penalties for violators include fines of as much as $50,000 and up to six months' imprisonment.

Fri, 25 Jul 08
Mac Wares for the Jurisprudence Crowd
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63916.html
"The Jury Loved My iBook" is how Peter Zavaletta begins his testimonial on MacLaw Online. A personal injury and medical malpractice attorney in Brownsville, Texas, Zavaletta attributes his victory in an obstetrical negligence case in part to his array of Mac tools. He edited his video depositions in iMovie (for OS X) on his PowerMac G4 733, burned them onto DVDs with iDVD 2, and played them on his iBook 600, which was connected to the courtroom's built-in Epson projector.

Fri, 25 Jul 08
Prominent Cancer Doc Urges Curb of Cell Phone Use
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63923.html
The head of a prominent cancer research institute issued an unprecedented warning to his faculty and staff Wednesday: Limit cell phone use because of the possible risk of cancer. The warning from Ronald B. Herberman, M.D., director of the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute, is contrary to numerous studies that don't find a link between cancer and cell phone use, and a public lack of worry by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Herberman is basing his alarm on early unpublished data.

Fri, 25 Jul 08
MindTouch Sharpens Its Deki App Masher
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63910.html
MindTouch announced on Wednesday the latest version of its open source collaboration and collective intelligence platform, MindTouch Deki. Dubbed "Kilen Woods," it features new workflow capabilities, enterprise adapters and usability improvements. The release targets information workers, IT professionals, and developers looking to collaborate and connect enterprise systems and data sources. It builds on the wiki-based collaboration interface.

Fri, 25 Jul 08
Giving Your Site a Social Life
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63880.html
The world of online business communication has introduced two industry-changing elements for small business: more customers and more competitors. Circa 1999, you were ahead of the competition by simply having a Web site to preview your service or products. By 2004, Web transactions were the norm, and convenience was the king. Both those previous core competencies have become expected norms, with social interaction, immediate consumer feedback, and a live and evolving social network and Web presence the new differentiators for cutting-edge online small business best practices.

Thu, 24 Jul 08
CE Makers: What the World Needs Now Is Another Wireless HD Standard
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63915.html
Hitachi, Motorola, Samsung, Sharp and Sony have joined forces with Amimon, a developer of wireless home digital interface technology. The companies have pledged support for the creation of a new interoperable industry standard for audio, video and control that could connect multiple high-definition devices around a home without the use of wires. The group's goal is to enhance the current WHDI technology in order to enable wireless streaming of uncompressed HD video and audio between consumer electronic devices.

Thu, 24 Jul 08
Renegade Sysadmin Gives Up Secret Passwords to SF Mayor
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63912.html
Usually, it's a mayor who hands out the key to his or her city to residents deserving special recognition. In San Francisco's case, it was Mayor Gavin Newsom who took back the key to his city's computer network from the man who held it hostage for more than a week. The only positive recognition system administrator Terry Childs is likely to get from his escapade is credit for alerting other cities to take a second look at their information technology security practices.

Thu, 24 Jul 08
Microsoft Opens Xbox Dev Community to Gaming Masses
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63913.html
Microsoft announced several changes to its Games for Windows Live and Xbox Live services Tuesday. Chief Technology Officer Chris Satchell outlined the changes at the company's Gamefest 2008 Conference held in Seattle. The software maker has removed its fees for Games for Windows Live, so now multiplayer game play functionality is available at no extra cost at all membership levels. Microsoft will also roll out its Games for Windows Live Marketplace, adding a digital distribution component to the PC gaming service, as well as a revamped user interface.

Thu, 24 Jul 08
The Road to 4G: WiMax Leads the Way
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63903.html
Gathering momentum and now moving swiftly, a host of companies are progressing with efforts to develop and prove so-called fourth generation, or 4G, wireless technologies. Eagerly anticipated, what exactly constitutes 4G is yet to be determined. Though this process is driven in the main by international industry associations, no one group's efforts span all the evolving technology and international definitions and standards that will go into defining and applying it.

Thu, 24 Jul 08
JasperSoft Fires Up New OSS Forge
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63902.html
Open source business intelligence firm JasperSoft on Wednesday announced its next-generation community platform at the O'Reilly Open Source Conference. The new platform features tools to enhance community project developers as well as business users. The new JasperSoft Forge responds to the changing needs of both open source software developers and a new class of business users drawn to the forge JasperSoft created two years ago.

Thu, 24 Jul 08
MySpace Casts Lot With OpenID
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63905.html
The online hangout MySpace took another step Tuesday in cooperating with rival Internet services, joining a coalition that allows people to use the same accounts and passwords across the Web. The OpenID coalition now includes Time Warner's AOL, Google's Blogger, Yahoo and blogging services Vox, WordPress and LiveJournal. Users with a supported account can activate it for use at other sites accepting OpenID; this way they won't have to keep creating new accounts and remembering passwords.

Thu, 24 Jul 08
Backup Batteries Give Your iPhone Extra Juice
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63895.html
It's late in the day and again my iPhone 3G's battery is running low. Instead of giving this iPhone a name, as many people do with their gadgets, I'm using a mantra: "Another day, another charge." That makes this an apt time to take a fresh look at an increasingly important part of our gadget portfolio, those portable charging devices that provide a shot of juice in a pinch. Do you know someone seemingly at the edge of disaster because of a misplaced phone charger? Or maybe, after a nap with the music on during a lengthy plane ride, you find you don't have enough power to call the office?

Thu, 24 Jul 08
Riding the Digital Signage Wave the SaaS Way
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63893.html
Digital billboards and digital signage networks in retail are driving the rapid expansion of outdoor/out-of-home advertising, rivaling the Internet as the fastest-growing advertising medium. What's fueling this growth? The ability to reach the elusive consumers while they are out of home, and especially while they are shopping. And the ability to customize each message to audiences at any location and even at any area within a location is another unique value that it brings to marketers.

Wed, 23 Jul 08
Researcher Spills Beans on DNS Flaw Specs
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63901.html
Details about the massive Domain Name System flaw revealed less than two weeks ago were made public on the Internet Monday. Halvar Flake, a reverse engineering expert, posted a hypothetical theory about the vulnerability on his blog. A few hours later, a researcher at Matasano Security who knew the specifics about the bug posted a response to Flake's blog, confirming his hypothesis. Shortly afterwards, the Matasano post was removed, and company executive Thomas Ptacek apologized, admitting that the company had "dropped the ball."

Wed, 23 Jul 08
Esquire to Put Digital Moving Pix on Mag Cover
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63900.html
To celebrate the 75th anniversary of Esquire magazine, the publication's editors plan to release 100,000 copies of its October 2008 edition with a cover made of electronic paper. E Ink, an electronic paper developer, has taken the technology it used in devices such as the Amazon Kindle and Sony eReader to develop a version of the technology for use on the Esquire cover. The resulting cover, hitting newsstands in September, will feature words and images that scroll across the flexible electronic page.

Wed, 23 Jul 08
Facebook Repaints Wall in New Design
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63898.html
Facebook's new look is all about the Wall, the blank space on a profile page that the social network's users can fill in with stories, photos, links and the ever-popular Status Updates. In turn, Facebook executives hope a less-cluttered Web site will eventually fill in their bank accounts with more advertising revenue. The second-ranked social network is slowly introducing its users to its redesign, keeping in mind the public relations disaster that was Beacon, Facebook's controversial attempt to link customer data to advertisers.

Wed, 23 Jul 08
Web 2.0 the Enterprise Way
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63884.html
Web 2.0 technologies are empowering enterprises in ways we could only have imagined a few years ago. They have evolved beyond consumer-grade blogs and wikis into enterprise-class solutions driving collaboration, productivity, sales and cost savings. But despite the business value they deliver, are enterprises ready to fully embrace Web 2.0 technologies? Companies that don't are risking more than just their competitive edge, according to one analyst firm.

Wed, 23 Jul 08
TiVo, Amazon Put a Little 'Buy Buy' in the 'Boop Boop'
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63896.html
The company that pioneered the concept of skipping past television commercials is now introducing a new kind of TV-based advertising. TiVo has joined forces with Amazon to create an interactive system that will let viewers buy products featured on TV shows -- right from their remotes. TiVo Product Purchase will present options on the screen and give users the opportunity to order without interrupting the program. Think of it this way: If you're watching "Oprah" and her guest is an author, the book he wrote might pop up on-screen.

Wed, 23 Jul 08
Are VM Environments Open to Attack?
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63888.html
New adopters often see virtualization as the Holy Grail of enterprise computing. It enables consolidation of separate servers and databases to provide more economic operations. Running consolidated computers from one virtualized machine also eliminates the electrical waste spent to keep idling servers and data-processing machines running. However, a virtualized computing environment can also set up unexpected tripwires for security. For instance, virtualization can sometimes bypass network security standards that rely on hard connections to function.

Wed, 23 Jul 08
Wait! Don't Upgrade to iPhone 3G
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63881.html
In a move that will certainly win me no friends at Apple, I simply can't in good conscience recommend the iPhone 3G to existing iPhone customers. Don't get me wrong. I have an iPhone 3G myself, and I upgraded from my existing iPhone, and I love both. As I've mentioned before, once you go iPhone, you never go back. Still, there are only a few situations where it makes sense to upgrade from iPhone to iPhone 3G -- and what's more, there are several reasons why you shouldn't.

Wed, 23 Jul 08
Follow the Money: Do-It-Yourself Reality Check on Pols
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63878.html
Money talks. So it's important for voters to know how candidates get their money, who gives it to them, and what they do with it. This information used to be buried in obscure volumes and government reports, but digital databases have changed all that. Anyone with a Web connection and the desire to do a little research can quickly learn just about whatever they want to know about candidates, politicians and money. One comprehensive source of information is the Center for Responsive Politics.

Wed, 23 Jul 08
New Cell Service Lets Callers Make Beeline for Voice Mail
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63890.html
The old song had it right: Breaking up is hard to do. But a free new phone service called "Slydial" might make it easier to get through that and other awkward moments -- without actually having to talk to anyone. Slydial lets you connect directly with another person's cell phone voice mail, bypassing the traditional ringing process that often results -- sometimes disastrously -- with someone picking up on the other end. Users call (267) SLY-DIAL from either a cell phone or a landline, and are prompted to enter another person's cell phone number.

Wed, 23 Jul 08
The iPhone Wanders Outside Apple's Realm
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63892.html
In the Soviet days, Russians asked their American friends to bring blue jeans, rock records and other Western goods into the country. Today Russians can buy almost anything they want here -- but they are still begging for one item: Apple's slick iPhone. The new iPhone went on sale in 21 countries July 11 and will soon be released in 70 nations. Officially, Russia and China are still on hold -- neither last year's original iPhone nor the updated model have been launched in those countries because Apple is still negotiating with mobile service providers.

Wed, 23 Jul 08
Brocade Eyes Cisco Customers With $3B Foundry Buy
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63889.html
Brocade Communications System, dominant in an obscure corner of the data storage market, wants a piece of a bigger pie: Cisco Systems' cash cow business of networking equipment that shuttles Internet traffic. Brocade said Monday it has agreed to pay $3 billion to acquire one of Cisco's much-smaller competitors, Foundry Networks, to try and make that happen. The proposed acquisition would meld two companies with presence deep in the data center and pose a direct challenge to Cisco, which at $29 billion in annual sales is the world's leader in Internet networking equipment.

Tue, 22 Jul 08
Qik Lets Video Cell Phones Broadcast to the World
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63887.html
Streaming mobile video service Qik opened its doors to all comers Monday, moving from the invitation-only alpha it began late last year to an open beta program. The company also announced a bevy of new features, distribution partners and support for more mobile handsets. With Qik (pronounced "quick") software, members can stream video directly from their mobile handsets to the Web. They can stream videos to contacts on sites such as Facebook and Twitter or use a mobile phone as a camcorder to capture and post videos of events.

Tue, 22 Jul 08
CherryPal Mini PC Makes Firefox the OS
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63883.html
PC users seeking an environmentally friendly desktop system can add the new CherryPal C100 desktop to the list of contenders. The machine, announced Monday, was designed by green computer maker CherryPal and contains no moving parts. With 80 percent fewer components, the minimalist system uses a scant 2 watts of power. "The design goal was to build something [people were used to] with the same user experience, with the same performance metrics but in a very green, very efficient way," said Max Seybold, CherryPal CEO.

Tue, 22 Jul 08
VKernel: Seeking Simplicity in the Wild, Woolly World of Virtualization
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63873.html
VKernel is a young company with its finger on the pulse of the virtual server market, one of the hottest in the software world. Buzz over virtual servers is so high-pitched, in fact, that CEO Alex Bakman sees the potential for a steady stream of new hires that will swell his company's workforce to 5,000 people over the next five years. Why the positive outlook? As organizations rapidly virtualize their data centers, they are experiencing a whole new set of systems management challenges which cannot be solved with traditional vendor tools in an acceptable time frame.

Tue, 22 Jul 08
Analysts Puzzle Over iPhone 3G Shortage Mystery
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63882.html
Apple's new iPhone 3G is rapidly becoming the Nintendo Wii of the smartphone world: a must-have-but-can't-have-because-you-can't-find-it technology product. And that has some conspiracy theorists wondering if Steve Jobs' company is creating the shortage to keep demand as high as weekend temperatures in New York City. The summer heat was just one of the obstacles facing consumers who stood in long lines outside New York's Soho Apple Store to lock in their iPhone purchase before stocks ran out.

Tue, 22 Jul 08
Study: OSS Communities Are Often Slackers in Security
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63875.html
The most widely used open source software packages for the enterprise are exposing users to significant and unnecessary business risks, according to an open source security study from security firm Fortify Software. The study, released Monday, concludes that open source software development communities have yet to adopt a secure development process and often leave dangerous vulnerabilities unaddressed. Additionally, the study found that nearly all OSS communities fail to provide users access to security expertise to help fix these vulnerabilities and security risks.

Tue, 22 Jul 08
The Power of Balance
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63866.html
I like writing about conflict because it gives you more than one dimension to a story, and there were two interesting conflicts that I ran into last week. The first, more near-term, will likely define the direction of the notebook market, and it is important because it implies an ether/or decision when most of us want both. The other is the constant conflict inside Apple -- which, as was explained to me last week, results in regular and famous screaming matches that in turn help create products like the iPhone.

Tue, 22 Jul 08
The Importance of Purity on the Linux Desktop
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63869.html
Well, the dog days of summer have begun to set in, so it's not too surprising that the Linux blogs were relatively quiet last week. Linux geeks across the nation were no doubt seeking refuge wherever they could -- it's hard to withstand flames on the blogs when you feel like you're aflame yourself! One topic that did set off quite a discussion, however, was an article Matt Hartley posted last weekend on Datamation regarding the question of purity on the Linux desktop.

Tue, 22 Jul 08
Feckless MySpace Pix: A Prize for Prosecutors
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63877.html
Two weeks after Joshua Lipton was charged in a drunken driving crash that seriously injured a woman, the 20-year-old college junior attended a Halloween party dressed as a prisoner. Pictures from the party showed him in a black-and-white striped shirt and an orange jumpsuit labeled "Jail Bird." In the age of the Internet, it might not be hard to guess what happened to those pictures: Someone posted them on the social networking site Facebook. And that offered remarkable evidence for Jay Sullivan, the prosecutor handling Lipton's drunken-driving case.

Tue, 22 Jul 08
Bellying Up to the iPhone App Bar
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63863.html
Some are useful. Many frivolous. A bunch will waste your time. Not that there's anything wrong with that. My Seinfeldian statement has to do with the scores of programs available free or for sale at the App Store for iPhone and iPod touch. It is the killer app many of us expected, even if the same cannot be said for every program in the joint. Some programs address the iPhone's deficiencies -- there are several audio recorders, for example. However, I still haven't stumbled upon a program to let you shoot video via the iPhone's digital camera.

Tue, 22 Jul 08
The Prepaid Phone Trafficking Web of Crime
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63861.html
Cell phone trafficking operations siphon millions of dollars from the wireless industry and its customers every year. Until recently, little could be done to fight back, but a vigorous counter-attack that has yielded several victories in federal courts across the country is beginning to turn the tide and help the wireless industry put a stop to a spreading epidemic. Cell phone traffickers have created a complex network of individuals and companies in the U.S. and around the world that steal subsidies from wireless companies used to lower the cost of their phones for legitimate customers.

Mon, 21 Jul 08
A Webcast Odyssey
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63868.html
NASA has Houston. Benjamin Higginbotham has Eden Prairie. What, you've never heard of it? The southwest suburb of Minneapolis serves as ground control for his SpaceVidcast, a daily Internet show about space travel. An admitted tech-obsessed geek, Higginbotham, 30, gets excited when he boasts about the motorized satellite dish on his roof that he can control from anywhere in the world or the equipment upgrade that will allow him to go completely high-def. However, he becomes downright giddy when talking about sending people back to the moon, on to Mars and beyond.

Mon, 21 Jul 08
NComputing: Little Box, Big Aspirations
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63847.html
Stephen Dukker believes he has what the world is looking for: The People's PC. But it's not really a PC. The chairman and chief executive of NComputing in Redwood City, Calif., is pursuing a computer revolution with a small box that turns low-cost desktop computers into servers that feed dozens of work stations. In tech parlance, it's called "thin client" technology -- devices that have no processing power and store information on servers. NComputing's virtualization software taps into unused capacity in high-performance PCs and disperses that power to up to 30 other terminals.

Mon, 21 Jul 08
Mac Enterprise Security: Flawed in Fact, or Flawed Facts?
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63835.html
On Tuesday, Computerworld published a story about so-called security flaws in Mac OS X that affect the enterprise. The six arguments actually amount to a collection of shibboleths. Security Flaw #1: Apple Updates. The argument is that security updates pop up unannounced and insufficient information is provided to make a decision as to whether to roll out the update. Reality: Experienced IT administrators who maintain Macs have access to information that helps them better understand the updates.

Mon, 21 Jul 08
Online Peer Lending: Blazing an Easier Path to Cash
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63791.html
Some people are finding it tougher than ever to get a bank loan amid the nation's credit crisis, but many are getting a warmer welcome at the "teller window" on the Web. People are flocking to social network sites such as Prosper.com and Zopa.com, which connect lenders and borrowers at the grassroots level, using an eBay-style auction of loans and interest rates. Sites and players have multiplied in the nascent industry -- known as peer-to-peer online lending -- which is barely 2 years old.

Sun, 20 Jul 08
The Freewheeling Web's Privacy Noose
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63865.html
It's no secret that individual privacy has already suffered since the Internet era began, but privacy law expert Daniel Solove believes things are likely to get even worse -- much worse -- and he illustrates his vision in living color with a wealth of examples from the here and now. In The Future of Reputation: Gossip, Rumor, and Privacy on the Internet -- now available as a free download -- Solove begins his dark tale with the classic story of "dog poop girl," a young woman now famous for refusing to clean up after her dog on a South Korea subway train.

Sun, 20 Jul 08
Second Life: A Wide World for Med, Science Students
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63867.html
Judith Kung Fu may be just one of more than 14 million computer-generated characters in the 3-D virtual world Second Life. But with her help, her creator may one day save your life. In Second Life, Judith has walked through the walls of a human cell. She has, in a flash, conducted complicated science experiments that took the world's best minds years to complete. She has helped her creator, 21-year-old Jacqueline Rodriguez, a senior biology major at Texas Wesleyan University, take crucial steps toward becoming a doctor.

Sat, 19 Jul 08
Samsung, Sun Give NAND Devices 5 Lives
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63872.html
Samsung and Sun Microsystems have partnered to develop a single-level-cell NAND flash memory device for use in solid state drives with significantly high endurance levels, the two companies said Wednesday. The new device will provide much higher endurance levels than other flash memory devices currently available, according to the companies. Potential applications for the server-grade SLC flash technology include video streaming, high-transaction data processing, search engine operations and other high-speed server functions.

Sat, 19 Jul 08
The Part-Time CSO
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63850.html
Physicists tell us that time is not constant. Interesting as that may be for physicists, it's also a concept that the rest of us can get behind once we put a little bit of a different spin on it. I'm not suggesting that we should all get out our lab coats and play make-believe cosmologist. Instead, I'm suggesting that we put the scientific implications of the statement aside and look to what it might say about how we view time in the workplace. Many of us tend to assume that every hour we pour into our jobs -- or particular tasks within our jobs -- is equal.

Sat, 19 Jul 08
No Recession for Game Console Makers
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63864.html
Americans are tiring of $4.50-a-gallon gasoline, dire warnings from Iran and nasty political rhetoric. So they seem to be taking our their frustrations by blasting alien invaders and enemy soldiers and playing tennis with their TV sets. Video games seem to be providing consumers a better entertainment bang for their buck this summer, as a dour economy forces them to choose "staycations" over vacations. Year-to-year June sales of video-game consoles surged 54 percent, spurred by strong sales from Nintendo's Wii and Sony's PlayStation 3, according to an NPD Group industry report.

Sat, 19 Jul 08
Network Held Hostage, Cyberterror Battle Plan, Evil Genius Wannabe
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63862.html
A City of San Francisco systems administrator is a living testimonial to the importance of preventing any one person in an organization from having too much power. Terry Childs, who is now in jail, holds in his brain the passwords that will let city officials access San Francisco's Fiber Wide Area Network. Apparently, Childs was cheesed off that his supervisors tried to fire him for poor job performance, so he created an account that gave him exclusive access to the network, then refused to tell anyone the password.

Sat, 19 Jul 08
Mac Bloggers Size Up New Rivals, Break Down iPhone, Watch MobileMe Fall Flat
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63854.html
While iPhone 3G shortages still abound, Mac bloggers have still been hitting the new handset from all angles -- including from the inside out. Of course, there's more to Apple than the iPhone -- how about the company's rising PC market share, which now puts Apple in third place in the U.S. Also, Apple TV took a couple punches this week from Microsoft and Sony, and MobileMe is perhaps not so pushy after all. The release of the iPhone 3G spawned posts across the blogosphere.

Sat, 19 Jul 08
An Open Source Seeing Eye Dog for Web Surfers
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63849.html
Blind people generally use computers with the help of screen-reader software, but those products can cost more than $1,000, so they're not exactly common on public PCs at libraries or Internet cafes. Now a free new Web-based program for the blind aims to improve the situation. It's called "WebAnywhere," and it was developed by a computer science graduate student at the University of Washington. Unlike software that has to be installed on PCs, WebAnywhere is an Internet application that can make Web surfing accessible to the blind on most any computer.

Sat, 19 Jul 08
The Growing Threat of Job Site Scams, Part 2
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63845.html
A troubling up-tick in the frequency of Internet fraud attempts and the growing use of more sophisticated botnets and crimeware is leading a growing number of organizations to enlist the services of specialized Internet anti-fraud security services. Operating in a digital realm beyond the reach of law enforcement agencies, private companies and Internet security providers are increasingly joining in efforts that involve taking offensive action against Internet fraud in defense of themselves and their customers.

Sat, 19 Jul 08
SCO to Cough Up $2.5M for Novell's Unix Royalties
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63859.html
A federal judge ruled Wednesday that The SCO Group must pay more than $2.5 million in royalties to Novell for licensing the Unix computer operating system software to Sun Microsystems. The decision by U.S. District Judge Dale Kimball in Salt Lake City came in the long-running dispute between Novell of Provo, Utah, and SCO. In 2007, Kimball ruled Novell still owned pre-1995 copyrights to the Unix system that it sold that year to The Santa Cruz Operation. Lindon, Utah-based SCO bought the system in 2001 from Santa Cruz.

Sat, 19 Jul 08
Gore Pitches 10-Year Plan to Wean US Off Dirty Fuels
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63857.html
Former Vice President Al Gore called Thursday for a "man on the moon" effort to switch all of the nation's electricity production to wind, solar and other carbon-free sources within 10 years, a goal that he said would solve global warming as well as economic and natural security crises caused by dependence on fossil fuels. "The answer is to end our reliance on carbon-based fuels," Gore told a packed auditorium in Washington's historic Constitution Hall.

Fri, 18 Jul 08
Security Sleuths Sound Alarm on Asprox Flare-Up
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63846.html
Web security firm Finjan issued a warning Thursday about a new wave of mass Web attacks that it said has affected more than 1,000 Web site domains, including government, retail, healthcare and advertising sites. Security vendors have been aware of the attack toolkit, dubbed "Asprox," for several years. However, they have noticed an uptick in the popularity of the malware since 2007. In May, cyber-criminals began a new round of mass Web attacks that successfully targeted a large number of government and top business Web sites around to the world, the firm said.

Fri, 18 Jul 08
Obama Calls for Cyberterror Czar
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63842.html
The presidential campaign is turning a focus to cyberterrorism. Democrat Barack Obama has unveiled plans for a "national cyber advisor" position as well as updated standards for protecting computer-based infrastructures if he is elected. John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, has spoken of the need for increased cyber security in recent weeks as well. Already this year, the current administration has increased its efforts to protect America from Internet-based attacks, with plans for a $30 billion effort to expand federal network monitoring over the next seven years.

Fri, 18 Jul 08
Wireless Headphone System Lets Lots of Listeners Hear the Tune
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63830.html
The i2i Stream digital music broadcaster is the latest wireless music delivery innovation from Aerielle. It enables users to stream audio wirelessly from any device, including iPods, MP3 players, computers and home entertainment systems. The concept of wireless voice and music transmission over short distances from player device to listener is nothing new. Wireless FM modulators and wireless headsets predate Bluetooth devices and had a strong following among music listeners who don't like to deal with wire tangles.

Fri, 18 Jul 08
Analyst: Xbox 360 Best of Show at E3
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63839.html
This week's E3 Media and Business Summit in Los Angeles gave each major console maker -- Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo -- the chance to showcase the future of their platforms. Microsoft added social functions and new entertainment options to the Xbox 360, Sony trumpeted a video store and an upcoming price cut for the PlayStation 3, and Nintendo showed gamers glimpses of a new controller add-on and upcoming games like "Wii Sports Resort." However, if any of the Big 3 could be said to have "won" E3 this year, then Microsoft takes the top prize, according Yankee Group's Mike Goodman.

Fri, 18 Jul 08
Smart Appliances: Too Smart for Their Own Good?
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63829.html
In Internet time, it's been an eon since "smart appliances" were said to be stocked on the near horizon, but many sunsets later -- eight years, actually -- the futuristic devices are still, well, in the future. One would think the green movement, among other things, would have pushed this concept along. "During the tech boom and the push to Interent-ize everything, I expected to see an explosion of remote control/remote detection appliances before now," said John Ragsdale, vice president of research at the Service and Support Professionals Association.

Fri, 18 Jul 08
All Signs Point to Virtualization
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63820.html
Virtualization has evolved from a development tool running on the desktop to an essential component of IT infrastructure strategy. Companies use virtualization as a means to increase desktop, server and storage utilization, to consolidate data center operations and utility costs, and to reduce the data center's floor space. A recently published Aberdeen benchmark, Virtual Strategies: Managing Servers, Desktops and Storage for Infrastructure Efficiency, found that 92 percent of companies have implemented some type of server virtualization.

Fri, 18 Jul 08
Jumping Into the Software Application Lifecycle Cockpit
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63832.html
In an effort to shine more light on the traditional "dark art" of software development, Borland Software on Monday announced Borland Management Solutions. The three-pronged product leverages Borland's Open Application Lifecycle Management framework, and is designed to enable users to better orchestrate, measure, predict and improve software delivery. BMS, according to the Austin, Texas, company, plugs into a customer's existing ALM tooling infrastructure and provides what Borland calls a "cockpit" to give visibility and control over the entire application lifecycle.

Fri, 18 Jul 08
Early Martian Water World May Have Harbored Life
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63837.html
Nearly 4 billion years ago, much of the surface of Mars was like a soppy carpet. The planet was covered by a thick atmosphere, and it was warm but not exactly picturesque. Those conditions, an international team of three dozen scientists has concluded, could have supported primitive forms of life. However, over time -- some 800 million years -- Mars dried up and took on the rocky, desert-like appearance that exists today. The scientists' findings are based on mineralogy data collected by the Reconnaissance Orbiter, a U.S. spacecraft that has circled the Red Planet since March 2006.

Fri, 18 Jul 08
Lionsgate Secures Its Cut in YouTube Ad Deal
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63838.html
Google said Wednesday that it will partner with filmmaker Lionsgate Entertainment to share revenue from ads that Google places on YouTube clips from the studio's movies. The deal will put advertising on clips uploaded by users and by the studio itself from Lions Gate movies such as the "Saw" horror series and "Dirty Dancing." The deal would make Lions Gate the second major moviemaker to try to profit from the popularity of online movie clips.

Thu, 17 Jul 08
Microsoft Doubles Live Mesh Test Force
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63828.html
After unveiling its Live Mesh cloud computing service back in April, Microsoft on Wednesday opened up the software's preview version to a larger number of early users in the United States. "This week we did two things," wrote the Live Mesh Team on its official blog. "[We] doubled the maximum number of users we'll allow to access the Live Mesh Technology Preview," and "[we] simplified the Tech Preview sign-up process." Previously, Live Mesh was available only to a closed testing group.

Thu, 17 Jul 08
Gamers Get a Handle on the Wii's Future Features
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63825.html
When it first came out, the main thing that drew me to the Nintendo Wii was its potential for first-person shooter games. Finally, here was a console on which I could play a "Metroid Prime" game despite my infirmity. By my infirmity, I mean my inability to play an FPS game with any degree of skill or finesse without the aid of some sort of motion-sensitive device. Ever since the days of "Duke Nukem 3-D," I've always been tethered to a mouse to aim those tiny little crosshairs at a target.

Thu, 17 Jul 08
Whedon's 'Dr. Horrible' Triggers Downed Server Epidemic
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63823.html
During the recent Hollywood writers' strike, Joss Whedon found the cure for all his sudden downtime. The man who gave us "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and "Firefly" created a genre-busting musical about a mad doctor with a bad case of evil-mastermind-wannabe inferiority complex. And the only place to fill this prescription for cult horror-comedy? The Internet. Whedon, using his own money, called up some actor friends -- including "How I Met Your Mother's" Neil Patrick Harris -- and shot on unused Universal Studios lots.

Wed, 16 Jul 08
My Net Is Your Net: Providing Guest Access Without Blowing Security
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63796.html
The other day I was visiting a partner company and asked if they had wireless Internet access I could use. The IT guy said they had not installed a wireless network due to security concerns, so instead he let me plug into the network to get access to a Web site I needed for our discussion. I don't believe he saw the irony in that decision. It's amazing how many companies delay implementing key technologies like wireless due to perceived security risks but allow non-employees to plug directly into the corporate network without thinking about the incredible risk.

Wed, 16 Jul 08
AbiWord: A Scalpel, Not a Chain Saw
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63815.html
A master carpenter would neither drive a finishing nail with a sledgehammer nor trim a tabletop with a chain saw. Such a craftsperson needs tools that are small, versatile and cheap. One such tool -- for writers and anybody who needs to kick out anything from a short memo or letter to a full-length report -- is AbiWord. This free, open source word processor is available for Windows, Macintosh and Unix computers of just about every variety.

Wed, 16 Jul 08
iSCSI: The Perfect Storage Complement to OS X?
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63809.html
Mac OS X users who face growing storage requirements due to larger, more complex projects and ever-expanding file sizes often turn to storage area networks to help overcome their challenges. With benefits such as leveraging existing IT equipment and expertise, and a lower-cost of entry when compared to other storage networking protocols, many Mac users are turning to Internet SCSI SANs as an easy, low-cost way to reap the benefits of a SAN in an OS X environment.

Wed, 16 Jul 08
Mars Rover Technology Helps Earth Explorers
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63819.html
NASA has developed "toylike" autonomous robots to carry out scientific surveys of treacherous areas of the Arctic and Antarctic. The SnoMotes robots are designed to operate in terrain deemed too dangerous for scientists. The devices can record data including barometric pressure, temperature and relative humidity that will help scientists improve climate models. Ayanna Howard, an associate professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, worked with scientists at Pennsylvania State University to create the devices.

Wed, 16 Jul 08
Playtime for the iPhone
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63821.html
Well, I guess Apple does care about games. The flood of titles on the new online App Store for the iPhone and iPhone 3G is a good sign for gamers eager to see someone other than Nintendo or Sony in the portable-gaming space. Although the first crop of iPhone games is mostly of the sort that cell phone owners have been playing for a decade ("Tetris," sudoku, poker, etc.), there are some cool, high-end titles, such as the racing game "Cro-Mag Rally," that look as good as anything you'll get on the DS.

Wed, 16 Jul 08
Live From E3: PlayStation Gets Its Own Movie Store
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63817.html
At its E3 press event, Sony Computer Entertainment of America opened up a new platform for its PlayStation Store on the PlayStation Network -- a movie and TV show download service. It wasn't announced at the end of the event to create some big closer, and it wasn't accompanied by a bombastic demo like some of the upcoming games the company previewed ("Resistance 2" frightened me). Nope, the new PSN service had to settle for a few seconds of a trailer for "Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story."

Wed, 16 Jul 08
Jailed SF Sysadmin Holds Parts of City Net Hostage
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63813.html
Officials have arrested a city of San Francisco IT network administrator for locking up a multimillion-dollar city computer system, according to several reports stemming from a press conference with San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris. The employee, Terry Childs, 43, is accused of improperly tampering with computer systems and causing a denial of service, effectively locking out other top city administrators from the critical network. Police believe Childs set up his own secret password that grants him exclusive access to the city's new FiberWAN.

Wed, 16 Jul 08
Wii Shows Its Chatty, Sensitive Side With New Accessories
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63814.html
Nintendo made news at the E3 Media & Business Summit Tuesday with additions to its Wii video game console. The game maker debuted a new accessory for gamers to enhance the sensitivity of its Wii Remote as well as a bevy of games, some of which add new functionality to the Balance Board and another that offers a different community experience. "They really have pushed the technology differentiation forward relative to what their competitors are offering," said Michael Gartenberg, a JupiterResearch analyst.

Wed, 16 Jul 08
Intel's Health-Monitoring Tech May Face Rocky Road to Adoption
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63816.html
Intel has received the Food and Drug Administration's clearance to market Health Guide, an in-home device that lets healthcare providers monitor a patient's vital signs via the Internet. It also provides interactive tools such as video conferencing and e-mail to facilitate communication and education outreach. Health Guide can connect to specific models of wired and wireless medical devices, including blood pressure monitors, glucose meters, pulse oximeters, peak flow meters and weight scales.

Wed, 16 Jul 08
Netflix Takes Center Stage on Xbox
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63810.html
Microsoft added another capability to the Xbox 360's stable of entertainment functions Monday in a partnership with Netflix that will allow users to watch streaming movies and TV shows through the Internet-connected video game console. The feature, which will launch this fall, will be available to Xbox Live Gold members who are also Netflix subscribers. Gold membership costs $60 per year. Microsoft and Netflix promise to make a library of more than 10,000 movies and TV shows available to viewers.

Wed, 16 Jul 08
Sony, HP Build a Better Backup Tape
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63790.html
HP and Sony have collaborated on the creation of a next-generation digital audio tape format, the two companies announced Tuesday. Aimed at small and medium-sized businesses as well as enterprises with remote locations, the upcoming DAT 320 format provides improved performance and capacity over existing DAT drives, including the current generation DAT 160. While the two tech firms are jointly developing the new version, both companies will separately offer their own DAT 320 tape drives and cartridges. The storage hardware is expected to hit the market during the first half of 2009.

Wed, 16 Jul 08
Intel's Tardy Centrino 2 Makes Entrance
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63811.html
Intel marked the fifth anniversary of its Centrino line Tuesday with the launch of Centrino 2 platform for notebook PCs. The chipmaker will offer the platform with a range of five new Intel Core 2 Duo processors and later this quarter, the company will release a quad-core version of the platform. The processor, chipset and wireless combo offers users up to 50 percent faster performance when multitasking, greater range and better wireless performance, as well as increased battery life that will allow consumers to watch an entire Blu-ray movie without using up the battery.

Wed, 16 Jul 08
Once You Go iPhone, There's No Going Back
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63799.html
After selling 1 million iPhone 3G models in the opening weekend -- and taking in enough receipts to eclipse the theater box office takes of "Hancock," "WALL-E," and "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" -- Apple must be doing something right, and that something starts with the overall design. Even after a year, the basic design of Apple's iPhone holds up -- it's as hot and desirable as ever. The iPhone 3G is a tiny bit larger but feels noticeably lighter in your hand, and while some have bemoaned the plastic back casing, it still feels solid.

Tue, 15 Jul 08
Palm Greases New Treo With Faster Network Support
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63794.html
Palm on Monday launched the latest version of its Treo smartphone, the 800w, on the Sprint network. Aimed at business users, the digital assistant and mobile phone offers access to e-mail, voice calls and other forms of messaging. The 800w has a larger screen size -- 320 x 320 -- than the previous Treo model, the 750. With dimension of 2.2 by 4.41 by 0.73 inches and a weight of 5 ounces, the 800w is thinner and lighter than earlier versions running Windows Mobile. It includes hard buttons for e-mail and calendar as well as a five-way navigation button and on/off ringer switch.

Tue, 15 Jul 08
Free Laptop-Tracking System Hits the Streets
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63795.html
Adeona may have been the goddess of safe returns, but if a group of computer science professors and graduate students get their wish, they'll be viewed as the patron saints of secure laptop computer data, thanks to their new open source software service named after the Roman deity. Also, for those who worship at the altar of bargains, Adeona may indeed be a godsend: It's free. Adeona, the result of a yearlong joint research project at the University of Washington and the University of California, San Diego, allows users to track the location of lost or stolen laptop computers.

Tue, 15 Jul 08
Bigger Phishers to Fry, Part 2: The Phuture of Phishing
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63781.html
If one were to look for sure bets in the online world, phishing would be right up there on the growing list of security concerns. The art of phishing has been a remarkable study in technology innovation. It started as a simple means of luring unsuspecting consumers to visit bogus Web sites to capture basic credit card information. Now it's a highly sophisticated practice that's growing exponentially -- and attracting some very nasty, very organized players in the process. And it's only going to get worse.

Tue, 15 Jul 08
Apple Sells a Cool Million iPhone 3Gs Despite Opening Weekend Hitches
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63792.html
The weekend of July 11 was a good one for Apple: With the worldwide launch of the iPhone 3G on Friday, Apple sold a cool 1 million 3G models around the world and served up 10 million iTunes App Store downloads, according to the company. "iPhone 3G had a stunning opening weekend. It took 74 days to sell the first 1 million original iPhones, so the new iPhone 3G is clearly off to a great start around the world," noted Apple CEO Steve Jobs. iPhone 3G is now available in 20 countries as well as Hong Kong. It will go on sale in France on July 17.

Tue, 15 Jul 08
Australia's Illogical Withdrawal From Make-Believe Drugs
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63789.html
"Elder Scrolls: Oblivion" has its stuttering, jittery skooma addicts. "Haze" has its soldiers pumped up with nectar to enhance their combat abilities. "Grand Theft Auto 4" has Jacob, a Rastafarian who is constantly smoking weed. Even Mario had a taste for mushrooms that made him grow and flowers that let him throw fireballs! The hue and cry to eliminate the influence of drugs from video games has gotten louder, and the specter of censorship looms over the industry.

Tue, 15 Jul 08
The Fall of Google, the Rebirth of Microsoft and the Changing Face of Apple and Linux
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63776.html
Sometimes it's the little things that can cause you to step back and rethink how you look at a company. For much of this decade, Microsoft has been the "evil empire" with Apple, Linux and Google on the side of the Force. With Microsoft actually doing some positive creative things for once, Apple's decision to raise iPhone prices in the face of declining consumer income, Google's attack on single parents and Richard Stallman's attack on Bill Gates' philanthropy, it appears these entities' images may be changing.

Tue, 15 Jul 08
Set-Top Smackdown: Apple TV and iTunes vs. Roku and Netflix
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63780.html
Comparing the Apple TV to the Netflix Player by Roku is like comparing two wildly different kinds of automobiles -- like a Chevrolet Camaro vs. a Ford F-150 pickup. Sure, the Camaro and F-150 are both automobiles, and they can take you places you've never been before, but it's their differences that define them more than their similarities. So it is with the Apple TV and the Netflix Player by Roku. I've had several weeks to play around with the Netflix Player by Roku, and I've had an Apple TV for months.

Tue, 15 Jul 08
Heavy Bandwidth Users May Face Ticking Meter
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63786.html
For as long as consumers have had high-speed Internet at home, they have surfed the Web as much as they wanted, downloading any content while paying their service provider a flat monthly fee. Those days may be ending. Internet service providers, especially cable companies, are eying new pricing models to address the rapidly growing popularity of such applications as streaming online video and the sharing of large files. These programs can eat up bandwidth and cause bottlenecks, slowing service across networks.

Tue, 15 Jul 08
Squeezing the Internet for Political Cash, Part 2: The March to November
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63783.html
Much has been made of Barack Obama's public comments on whether or not he would choose to accept public financing for his general election campaign and Republican presidential nominee John McCain's reactions to those comments. However, the legal and political issues are far more complex than the general press is reporting, said Justin Buchler, assistant professor of political science at Case Western Reserve University. One thing, though, does appear clear: Obama's Internet fundraising success matters.

Tue, 15 Jul 08
Best Buy's $20 Ubuntu: Good or Bad for Linux?
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63777.html
Well, every once in a while something slips by the notice of even the best journalistic organization, and such appears to have been the case on a broad scale recently regarding the sale of a certain software package on the shelves of Best Buy. Fortunately, the Linux blogosphere is always on duty, which is how we recently learned of the $20 Ubuntu Hardy Heron Long Term Support package that's apparently been for sale at Best Buy since early May. "How did this development fly under the radar for over two months without anybody noticing?" charged SirLurksAlot on Slashdot.

Tue, 15 Jul 08
Apple's iPhone Launch: Long Lines, Crashed Systems, Empty Shelves
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63787.html
Most Apple stores were sold out of the new iPhone by Sunday afternoon even though consumers had to wait hours to buy and activate them. Friday, Apple introduced the new version of the iPhone. It saw huge customer lines, and its system crashed as thousands of people worldwide tried to activate their new phones. Mark Siegel, a spokesperson for Apple's wireless carrier partner AT&T, said Apple was "completely overwhelmed" by demand. Apple declined to comment. The iPhone sold out in New York, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Denver, Chicago, Boston and many other cities.

Tue, 15 Jul 08
New Tech Sharpens Video Games' Wits
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63785.html
In the upcoming video game "Star Wars: The Force Unleashed," the evil Stormtroopers are smart enough to keep players guessing. Throw something at the white-armored troopers, and they may toss a grenade back. Or they might just put their hands up. Or they could do something completely new, each time the game gets played. Video games used to come preprogrammed with canned movements that expert players eventually could anticipate and figure out. But recent advancements in video game design have endowed computer-controlled characters with a sense of self-preservation and unpredictability.

Mon, 14 Jul 08
The Digital Age and the Universal Access Challenge
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63704.html
Olivia Norman's fingers fly across her laptop keyboard, dexterously tapping out instant messages to friends and entering Google searches without committing a single typo. A minute later, she's listening intently to the voice cues that help her read e-mail and send text messages on her Motorola Q smartphone. Norman is blind, so the cues help her navigate the tiny keypad and understand the words on the screen. She can't order an on-demand movie from Comcast because she can't read the on-screen menus.

Mon, 14 Jul 08
The iPhone's Hand in the Touch Screen Industry's Fortunes
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63778.html
It's been a good year for touch screens. The launch of the first iPhone model a year ago boosted interest in the technology tremendously, and the updated model available Friday likely will stoke enthusiasm further. Now touch-screen manufacturers are going flat out, and more devices will soon be controlled by the tip of your finger. "After the iPhone came out, a lot of mobile-phone companies said 'Oh, I can make that kind of touch-screen mobile phone, too,'" said Jennifer Colegrove, analyst at iSuppli.

Mon, 14 Jul 08
Second Life Goes Hollywood
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63750.html
Ariella Furman took her first summer vacation as a college graduate to Walt Disney World, where reality hides behind princesses. When it was over, she returned to Ivyland, Bucks County, Pa., and her job making videos -- or more accurately, machinimas -- for the virtual world Second Life, where reality hides behind avatars. Furman, 21, is among a growing number of people who earn very real money in this real-time Web community. An increasing number of corporations, organizations, schools, even TV shows are hungry to have a presence on Second Life.

Mon, 14 Jul 08
Free Speech on the Web: Murky Rules, Personal Agendas
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63758.html
Rant all you want in a public park. A police officer generally won't eject you for your remarks alone, however unpopular or provocative. Say it on the Internet, and you'll find that free speech and other constitutional rights are anything but guaranteed. Companies in charge of seemingly public spaces online wipe out content that's controversial but otherwise legal. Service providers write their own rules for users worldwide and set foreign policy when they cooperate with regimes like China. They serve as prosecutor, judge and jury in handling disputes behind closed doors.

Sun, 13 Jul 08
Microblogs: No Tidbit Too Trivial, No Moment Too Mundane
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63754.html
In cyberspace, no status update is too small to share with friends, family and strangers, including this: In Franklin, Tenn., an office worker reports that he just shuffled over from his desk to the couch. A biker in Orange, Calif., is headed to Starbucks. Elsewhere in California, someone just got coffee up his nose. You might think no one would care -- but on the Internet someone might. Thanks to "microblogging," the slightest bits of detritus from people's lives are steadily flowing into the maw of the Internet.

Sun, 13 Jul 08
Squeezing the Internet for Political Cash, Part 1: Follow the Leader
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63779.html
As the heated Democratic primary race came to a conclusion last month, much discussion centered on presumptive nominee Barack Obama's superior fundraising. Hillary Clinton started the race with an edge among deep-pocket donors, but Obama roared to the nomination finish line with a substantial fundraising lead. Much of that money came in through the Internet, a trend that experts say will figure prominently in the general election to come.

Sun, 13 Jul 08
The iPhone and the Asian Underground
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63775.html
As Apple rolled out its newest iPhone on Friday, dealers and buyers were anticipating the popular device in Asia's thriving underground marketplace in as little as a few days. The iPhones are nothing new to Asia, where enthusiasts from Bangkok to Shanghai already sport fake and unlocked versions of last year's models -- unlocked so they can work with any carrier, not just the Apple-authorized ones. Now, electronics markets are preparing for an influx of iPhones capable of 3G, or third-generation, cell phone technology.

Sun, 13 Jul 08
The Do-Good Imperative
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63763.html
When I first read about the computer designed for the One Laptop Per Child project, I wanted one. Not because it was adorable, cheap or a means of doing good (to buy one you had to buy a second for a child in a poor country). I coveted its screen, designed for use in full daylight. Even my Apple MacBook Pro, with all its clever tricks, can't manage that. Add the LifeStraw water filtration system to the list of do-gooder objects I crave. This little wonder, a water filter outfitted with a straw, made the cover of the Design for the Other 90 percent show catalog at the Cooper-Hewitt Museum last year.

Sat, 12 Jul 08
Kmart Ad Trumpets Xbox Price Dip
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63784.html
A Kmart advertisement is a strong indication that the rumors about a possible price cut for the Xbox 360 might be right. The discount chain's sales ad for the week of July 13 lists a $299 price for the 20 GB Xbox 360. It represents a $50 decrease from the $349 Amazon.com lists as the price for the console. When asked to confirm the price drop, Microsoft spokesperson Katie Abrahamson declined to do so. However, Rob Enderle, principal analyst at the Enderle Group, said the $50 drop is not a surprise -- though it comes a bit earlier in the year than he had anticipated.

Sat, 12 Jul 08
Colorful Glass Delivers Massive Solar Energy Boost
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63770.html
The secret to affordable fuel-free energy may lie in some pretty-looking glass. Scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have found a way to use dye-colored glass to harness clean and renewable energy -- and to do it in a practical and cost-effective way. The research, published in Friday's Science journal, builds off ideas first tested in the '70s. The work back then, however, never found a way to effectively absorb the light without losing its energy. The MIT procedure uses something called a "solar concentrator."

Sat, 12 Jul 08
FCC May Curb Comcast's Internet Choke-Chain Antics
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63772.html
Advocates of Net neutrality are preparing to chalk up their first victory following press reports that Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin has recommended prohibiting cable giant Comcast from blocking Web traffic between peer-to-peer networks. The recommendation, which still requires action from the full commission, could be precedent-setting; all Internet service providers would be prohibited from prioritizing certain Web traffic in their efforts to manage the flow of Internet data.

Sat, 12 Jul 08
iPhone 3G Sold Out in Moscow, Idaho
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63771.html
Even though the sun is up at 5:30 a.m., it's darn cold when you're waiting for an iPhone 3G in the shade of the AT&T store in Moscow, Idaho. I should have worn pants, not cargo shorts. Still, I had the forethought to snag a chocolate chip cookie from the kitchen before I left the house, but by the time I started eating it, it was already hard from the early morning chill. The store was set to open at 8 a.m. and if early reports were true, it only had 40 iPhone 3Gs in stock. By the time I got there, I was 15th in line.

Sat, 12 Jul 08
Your Reputation Online, Part 2: Repairing the Damage
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63761.html
So, you've got an online image control crisis. Now what? In response to the growing threat of online image crises, businesses have sprung up that address exactly that problem. They work to repair your online image using a variety of tactics, including putting more positive information out there to show up high in search results, removing offending information, and building their client's personal or corporate brand. "It's really a new industry," said Tom Drugan, CEO of the reputation repair company Naymz.

Sat, 12 Jul 08
Internet Angst, Identity Crisis, Relationship Drama: Recapping a Neurotic Week
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63768.html
A vulnerability in the Internet's domain name system left essentially the entire Web open to widespread attack, but the technology community worked to patch the flaw before it could be exploited. Dan Kaminsky, a security researcher, noticed that the DNS was vulnerable to domain cache poisoning, and the discovery amounted to a red alert for the security community. Industry experts converged on Microsoft's Redmond, Wash., headquarters and began working feverishly to determine the exact nature of the flaw, what the best fix would be, and how they could safely deliver it to the public.

Sat, 12 Jul 08
Technology and the Aspiring Methuselahs
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63748.html
More than 200 scientists and longevity activists gathered at UCLA recently to discuss advancements in repairing humans. New technology is making it possible to imagine a world with ever greater life spans, but old world issues pervaded the discussions. The Methuselah Foundation's Aubrey de Grey organized the event and kicked it off with a theoretical explanation of how human aging might be reversed in the future. He argues that there are seven kinds of damage in human cells, and his mission is to get scientists all over the world involved in creating the fixes.

Sat, 12 Jul 08
Mac Bloggers Pay Attention to iPhone Reviews, Pay Visit to App Store, Pay Respects to Fake Steve
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63764.html
The Apple-focused blogosphere has been exploding with activity this week, roiling with the hotly anticipated 3G iPhone launch, the opening of the iPhone App Store, MobileMe's debut, and the iFixit team's flight to New Zealand -- all to disassemble one of the first 3G iPhones to hit the market. Meanwhile, The Fake Steve Jobs -- a.k.a. Dan Lyons -- announced that he's "sailing away." Basically, Lyons is closing up shop, presumably because he's switching jobs from Forbes to Newsweek and won't be able to take the blog with him.

Sat, 12 Jul 08
Study: Firefox Excels at Guarding the Henhouse
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63724.html
One way to evaluate the security of a Web browser is to determine what percentage of its users are using the latest version. In a study released on Tuesday by S. Frei et al, it was found that Firefox users are most likely to be up to date. Now that modern software and hardware firewalls have blocked incoming intrusions via TCP/IP ports, the most favored method of attack on computers connected to the Internet is via data returned to the Web browser that exploits browser code or plug-in vulnerabilities. As a result, keeping the browser updated to the latest version these days is paramount.

Sat, 12 Jul 08
Spacewalkers Gingerly Ease Explosive Bolt Out of Capsule
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63767.html
In a daring spacewalk, two space station astronauts cut into the insulation of their descent capsule Thursday and removed an explosive bolt that could have blown off their hands with firecracker force. Spacewalkers Sergei Volkov and Oleg Kononenko managed, in the end, to safely disconnect the bolt from the Soyuz capsule that will be their ride home this fall. They immediately slid it into a blast-proof container. "It is in," one of the Russian spacewalkers called out. "Good. Thank God," someone replied in Russian.

Fri, 11 Jul 08
Tech Firms Team Up to Spark Fuel Cell UMPCs
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63760.html
MTI Micro and NeoSolar, a portable device manufacturer, announced a deal Thursday to develop fuel cells for NeoSolar's portable devices including its ultra mobile personal computers. The two companies will use MTI Micro's Mobion fuel cell technology to ultimately build external Mobion power sources such as chargers and snap-on attachments as well as embedded Mobion power sources for integration into NeoSolar products. "Every day, consumers want more and more multimedia functions in their portable electronic devices," said James Y. Yu, president of NeoSolar.

Fri, 11 Jul 08
Bush Wins Warrantless Wiretapping War
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63765.html
President George Bush has signed into law a measure that overhauls wiretapping rules and grants immunity to telecom companies that cooperated with a secret warrantless wiretap program. The administration established the spying operation after Sept. 11 to gain greater flexibility in eavesdropping on suspected terrorists' conversations. The bill addresses a broad range of surveillance activities, limiting what the government can do in certain circumstances, but giving it more wiggle room in others -- including espionage activities against U.S. citizens.

Fri, 11 Jul 08
Yahoo Recruits Dev Army With Open Search Move
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63755.html
Its stock price is in free fall and it still faces a potential takeover led by rogue investor Carl Icahn. However, Yahoo can still fire shots across the digital bows of Google and Microsoft; it is inviting third-party developers to use its search technology so they can build their own search engines. Yahoo calls the new strategy "BOSS," which stands for Build your Own Search Service. Developers will be able to use Yahoo search formulas and architecture to create search engines for niche markets.

Fri, 11 Jul 08
Window-Shopping at Apple's App Emporium
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63762.html
Apple has officially launched its App Store, an online marketplace built into iTunes and integrated with Apple's forthcoming iPhone 3G and iPhone 2.0 software update. The store boasts 500 applications, 125 of which are free. While some iPhone users are already downloading applications, it's not yet easy to do. The reason: While the App Store is live, presumably to provide access to new 3G iPhone owners immediately following their purchases in whatever time zone they happen to be located, most of the world has not yet been able to buy a new 3G iPhone.

Fri, 11 Jul 08
Lunar Samples Reveal Watery Secret
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63753.html
A new analysis of some very old rocks is reshaping our understanding of the moon. Scientists used modern techniques to search for tiny traces of hydrogen in a set of lunar sand samples taken by Apollo astronauts in the '70s. The systems used in the study were able to break down the rocks 10 times more effectively than any past techniques. The find could lead to a deeper understanding of the moon's formation and early years. Scientists have tried for decades to find signs of water on the moon but have long concluded it is dry.

Fri, 11 Jul 08
P2P File-Sharing Sinks Ships
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63752.html
Earlier this year, a careless employee at an investment firm learned a painful lesson: Sharing files through peer-to-peer Web sites like LimeWire can easily expose internal data in a corporate network. In this case, the employee worked for Washington-based Wagner Resource Group, which counts several politically connected people, including U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, among its clients. The employee's actions revealed the personal data of Breyer and the firm's 2,000 or so other clients -- and the breach was not discovered for some six months.

Fri, 11 Jul 08
YouTube's Assault on Truthiness
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63747.html
Can you trust a YouTube video? No, of course you can't believe everything you see on YouTube. However, sometimes seemingly cheap, handheld videos have an apparent authenticity that's convincing. Lately, a number of clever videos on the site have played with reality with the ulterior -- and sinister! -- motive of selling you something. Say it ain't so! The effect of these videos is that those little 4-inch by 6-inch YouTube screens can feel like a world unto their own.

Fri, 11 Jul 08
iCrazed Fans Line Up for Japan's iPhone Debut
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63744.html
Gadget lovers worldwide are already camped out ahead of Friday's global rollout of the new model of Apple's iPhone, which is also the first iPhone to go on sale in many countries. Carrier SoftBank, which beat market leader NTT DoCoMo for the right to sell the iPhone in Japan, is planning a countdown ceremony at its flagship downtown Tokyo store. By late Thursday, a line of nearly 800 iPhone fans snaked around the block, with some sleeping on the streets to ensure they would be among the first customers.

Thu, 10 Jul 08
Your Reputation Online, Part 1: How Damage Is Done
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63740.html
Our reputation is one of our most valuable possessions, determining in large part where we work, how much money we make, whom we date or marry, and many other aspects of our lives. The Internet, however, has made protecting, maintaining and defending our reputations difficult. Photos from college parties, blog posts by ex-boyfriends or disgruntled employees, court records: they're all out there, free for the Googling. And unlike the days when our reputations were confined to a relatively small group of friends or acquaintances, our digital reputations spread instantly around the world.

Thu, 10 Jul 08
An iPhone With a Sense of Place
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63737.html
A faster, cheaper, smarter iPhone goes on sale Friday morning, promising to bring the latest technology to more of the masses while changing the way people find information, their friends and fun. Satellite navigation is one of the biggest additions to the music-playing, picture-taking, Web-surfing, e-mail-reading smart phone from Apple, which has sold about 6 million of the original device so far. So now the phone can know exactly where it is, and potentially how it can help its owner.

Thu, 10 Jul 08
Lotus Symphony: Big Blue Got It Right This Time
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63734.html
It's arguably the prettiest alternative to Microsoft Office, with a clean interface in a soothing IBM blue. Oddly, the once-biggest name in computing christened it "Lotus Symphony," after a spectacular and expensive failure that dates back to the days of DOS. But this new IBM Lotus Symphony seems poised for success. It is the latest open source freebie, with version 1.0 released at the end of May. It includes a word processing module, a spreadsheet, and a presentation graphics package. Its underlying coding draws on OpenOffice, with a radically different user interface by IBM.

Thu, 10 Jul 08
The Red Queen of E-Commerce
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63719.html
The Red Queen in Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking-Glass lives in a very curious world where, as she explains to Alice, "It takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place." That sentence sums up the world of e-commerce with uncanny accuracy: No matter how hard we work to knock items off the priority list, there are always new ones popping right up to take their place. In the first generation of e-commerce, the priorities were at least easy to define: Build a site in which most customers can make purchases without things crashing more than once or twice a week.

Thu, 10 Jul 08
Patched Flaw Could Have Broken Internet Backbone
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63738.html
This week, system administrators across the globe are rushing to fix an Internet-wide security flaw. The issue, discovered in the domain name system, would allow a hacker to gain access to domain name records and redirect traffic to an alternate location. That would mean trying to access something like your bank's Web site could take you instead to a malicious page designed to steal your information. Numerous major technology companies -- including Microsoft, Sun Microsystems and Red Hat -- released patches Tuesday.

Thu, 10 Jul 08
HealthMap Crawls the Web to Track Disease Outbreaks
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63741.html
A new health-mapping system crawls the Web's disparate news sources and aggregates the information it finds there into a unified view of the world's health. HealthMap, which was launched by a team of researchers from Children's Hospital Boston and Harvard Medical School, provides a comprehensive view of the current global state of infectious diseases and their effect on human and animal health by combing a variety of data sources across the Web. It is freely accessible to users around the world.

Thu, 10 Jul 08
Google Invites Avatar Banter in Lively Chat Rooms
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63735.html
If you already thought it was a Google world and we're all just living in it -- well, now you can with the introduction of Lively, Google's free 3-D virtual world application that brings game-like qualities to the concept of Internet chat. "The Lively team wants to help people experience another dimension of the Web," Niniane Wang, a Google engineering manager, wrote in a post on the Official Google Blog. "We hope you will use the product to express yourself with and without words, and to do this in the places you already visit on the Web."

Thu, 10 Jul 08
Data Brawn Meets Interface Brains
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63727.html
The larger the business or government agency is, the bigger the volume of data it deals with. That translates into massive efforts to manage that data to meet ever-increasing compliance regulations for adequately maintaining electronic records. Any software company that can figure out how to manage this process better than its competition can become king of the vendor hill. Humans created 161 exabytes of data in 2006 alone. This was about 3 million times the information in all the books ever written, according to research firm IDC.

Thu, 10 Jul 08
Summer Light Show Kicks Off With Jupiter at Its Brightest
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63703.html
The fireworks may be finished, but some elaborate light shows still await you in the July sky. Jupiter reaches what's called "opposition" -- meaning it and the sun are on opposite sides of the Earth -- on Wednesday night. Put simply, it'll be the biggest and brightest thing in the sky all night long. Then, a day later, Saturn and Mars will put on a spectacle of their own. Jupiter's prime position is an annual affair for astronomers. Compared to other sky-gazing events, though, this is one anyone can see -- no special expertise or equipment required, outside of eyes.

Thu, 10 Jul 08
MobileMe Takes Reins as .Mac Packs It In
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63730.html
With Apple's new MobileMe Internet service launching Wednesday evening -- and replacing its similar .Mac service -- there's a bit of trepidation in the air. What if MobileMe is as dorky as the name implies? What if Apple simply removes a .Mac feature and replaces it with ... nothing? What might happen to posted iWeb pages and sites? To data stored on iDisk? And what's this "Exchange for the rest of us" all about? Will it cost extra? Fortunately, MobileMe is more about increasing the functionality of the existing .Mac applications than it is about running roughshod over them.

Thu, 10 Jul 08
New iPhone? Been There, Lined Up for That
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63725.html
Some Apple fanatics are already camped out in front of the New York Apple store waiting for 8 a.m. Friday, when the new iPhone goes on sale. However, I'm seriously wondering why, even to the point of suspecting that they're Apple shills trying to create a buzz. Don't get me wrong. I intend to get a new iPhone. However, this year, I am not going to camp out, like I did last year, the night before. Last year, it was a brand-new story, with a brand-new phone unlike anything the mobile technology world had ever seen. It was an experience. A once-in-a-lifetime experience, thank you.

Wed, 9 Jul 08
ActiveX Bug Exposes Microsoft Access' Soft Underbelly
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63723.html
Microsoft issued a warning Monday about targeted attacks attempting to exploit a bug in the ActiveX control for the Snapshot Viewer in its Access database management application. The ActiveX control for the Snapshot Viewer for Microsoft Access enables users to view a snapshot of an Access report without having the standard or run-time versions of Microsoft Office Access, Microsoft said. The vulnerability only affects ActiveX control for the Snapshot Viewer in Microsoft Office Access 2000, Microsoft Office Access 2002 and Microsoft Office Access 2003.

Wed, 9 Jul 08
Microsoft Climbs Higher Into the Cloud
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63728.html
Microsoft is offering some of its most popular acquisitions via cloud computing with the rollout of Microsoft Online Services. Like many vendors adopting this delivery mode, Microsoft is seeking to exploit companies' eagerness to downsize their internal IT and computing infrastructures to the greatest extent possible. Of course, Microsoft is not the first vendor to hitch its fortunes to the concept of cloud computing. From Amazon to Google to smaller best-of-breed point solution providers, the space is rapidly becoming crowded with offerings.

Wed, 9 Jul 08
EA Heats Up Scrabulous Scrap With Sanctioned Scrabble
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63722.html
Electronic Arts and Hasbro have announced the release of a legit version of Scrabble for Facebook. The iconic word game will launch in mid-July for Facebook users in the U.S. and Canada. A version can currently be played through the gaming site Pogo.com. The release sets up a showdown between the Hasbro-sanctioned Scrabble and the unauthorized but popular Scrabulous, a Facebook game that closely resembles Scrabble. Created by brothers Jayant and Rajat Agarwalla two years ago, Scrabulous has amassed a legion of loyal fans with more than 518,000 daily active users on Facebook.

Wed, 9 Jul 08
Google Toughens Gmail Security With Remote Logout
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63717.html
If you use Google's Gmail and like to access your account from several locations -- work, office, your smartphone, Internet cafes, etc. -- you can now remotely check the status of that account from all your log-in locations. Google announced a new remote signout and monitoring feature designed to enhance security for those who use several computers or connected devices in the course of a day. "Your e-mail account can contain a lot of personal information, from bank alerts to love letters," wrote Erwin D'Souza, a Gmail engineer, on the Official Gmail Blog.

Wed, 9 Jul 08
Shrek's Law, 3-D Plans Drive DreamWorks Into Intel's Arms
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63718.html
DreamWorks Animation is teaming up with Intel to build a new kind of 3-D moviemaking technology. The two companies have formed a strategic alliance in which Intel will provide both hardware and software for the Hollywood giant. The move marks the end of DreamWorks' three-year deal with AMD and will result in all new systems for the studio's computers. Financial terms are not being disclosed. The transition comes just in time for DreamWorks' shift to a new 3-D format for its films. The Intel technology will power the resources needed to create those advanced effects.

Wed, 9 Jul 08
Social Networks at Work: If You Can't Beat 'Em, Join 'Em
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63708.html
We live in interesting times. According to Gartner Research VP Robert Anderson, if all the people on the MySpace virtual community banded together, they'd form the eighth largest country in the world. Never before in history could people create such large communities and communicate so readily as they can today, thanks to the social networking environment. New Web 2.0 technologies are changing the course of history and are certainly changing the way we work and play.

Wed, 9 Jul 08
The 3G iPhone Suits Up for Work
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63702.html
A year after becoming the stylish pocket PC for consumers, the iPhone is ready to go to work. The latest version of the mobile device, which goes on sale Friday, will take advantage of a faster wireless network -- dubbed 3G for third-generation -- making it more attractive for business use by improving what many consider to be the current version's key flaw -- its slow Web access. Equally important to companies are new e-mail and security capabilities that will give the iPhone a foot in the office.

Wed, 9 Jul 08
5 Ways to Build an Indestructible Customer Data Fortress
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63696.html
On June 30, data security standards set by the Payment Card Industry became mandatory for organizations that handle online credit card payments. This is a significant milestone in the ongoing push to strengthen online security as these important standards have moved from recommendations to hard and fast mandates. This new era of Web security will have a tangible impact on retailers who will quickly learn how failure to comply with PCI's standards can be costly -- from both a financial and operational perspective.

Wed, 9 Jul 08
Shoring Up Customer Communications With BCPs
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63706.html
Enterprises have long sought ways to add real-time communications to business applications to improve customer interactions, streamline workflows, more quickly respond to critical events and more efficiently execute time-sensitive transactions. Integrating interactive communications with software applications and business processes, however, has proven difficult, costly and time-consuming. Traditional computer telephony application programming interfaces, such as TAPI and JTAPI, feature low-level, vendor-specific interfaces that can make programming slow and expensive.

Wed, 9 Jul 08
Merriam-Webster Installs 'Bathroom on the Right'
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63710.html
Merriam-Webster has added more than 100 new entries to its new edition of the Collegiate Dictionary. Is it acceptable to serve edamame to a dinner guest who's a pescatarian? Should you pour prosecco or soju for the winner of the Texas Hold 'em game you're planning near the infinity pool? And what's that wing nut in the corner saying about dirty bombs and nasty Noroviruses? Before your next party, go ahead and consult the latest edition of Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, which now includes about 100 newly added words that have taken root in the American lexicon.

Wed, 9 Jul 08
Mobile Users Clueless About Recycling Devices
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63715.html
Only one in 10 people in the UK recycle their mobile phone, according to new research by Nokia. Two-thirds of respondents did not even think about recycling their devices, and nearly a fifth were unaware that it is even possible to do so, the mobile giant said. Despite these rather dismal figures, the UK fares much better than most other countries. Globally, just 3 percent of people recycle their unwanted devices, and nearly half are not even aware that a mobile phone could be recycled.

Wed, 9 Jul 08
Gloomy Take on Digital Downloads Rattles Entertainment Investors
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63711.html
A Lehman Brothers analyst downgraded the entertainment industry Monday and slashed forecasts for its five major companies, saying digital downloads of movies and TV shows posed a huge threat to profits from DVD sales that the companies rely on. The stocks of The Walt Disney Co., News Corp., CBS, Time Warner and Viacom fell slightly more than the broader market by the close, with CBS falling the most, by 4.7 percent, or 87 cents, to $17.73.

Tue, 8 Jul 08
The Big Squeeze: Pioneer Crams 400 GB Onto Single Blu-ray Disc
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63707.html
Pioneer unveiled a new optical disc Monday that could theoretically hold the entire contents of the average consumer's hard drive plus some -- if it were rewritable. The Japanese electronics manufacturer has created the world's first 16-layer disc that squeezes 25GB on each level. The disc, however, is read-only, meaning the information on it cannot be modified. Still, at 400 GB, the discs offer more than 16 times the storage space of a typical Blu-ray disc.

Tue, 8 Jul 08
Next-Gen Prius: What Will a Little Sunshine Get You?
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63700.html
Automaker Toyota will include solar panels on some of its new cars, according to reports. Toyota will add the energy-catching panels to the roof of its hybrid Prius as soon as Spring 2009. The panels would reportedly be used to power the Prius' electronics -- specifically the air conditioning system, which would need two to five kilowatts of energy to run. Details are few, but Toyota plans to deliver a third-generation redesigned Prius next year.

Tue, 8 Jul 08
Bigger Phishers to Fry, Part 1: Calling the Pros
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63692.html
It's been on the radar of USA Credit Union's IT department for three years. They all knew about it. They were watching it every day. They had also heard rumblings that more and more of their industry counterparts had fallen victim to the attackers, said Daniel Schneider, the credit union's senior manager of IT. Phishing was definitely moving downstream. Once a problem that was squarely targeted at the big banks of the world, phishing has slowly but surely been making its way down the food chain.

Tue, 8 Jul 08
Google Makes Room for Privacy
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63697.html
Google and privacy advocates will continue to fight a war over the search giant's use and retention of personal information, but it appears the two sides declared an end to hostilities over the July Fourth holiday weekend regarding the company's privacy policy. Google now will directly link to its privacy information and policy from its homepage. "Google values our users' privacy first and foremost," wrote Marisa Meyer, Google's vice president for search products and user experience, on the company's Official Google Blog.

Tue, 8 Jul 08
It's OK to Say No to the New iPhone
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63688.html
There are many things to admire about Apple, but like every company it has a dark side. One of the things I personally find more than annoying is the Apple fan base that will attack you if you honestly don't want to buy an Apple product and talk about your choice. But the thing to be concerned about, because Apple is a company that others now emulate, is its increasing habit of tricking you into paying more than you thought you paid for its products.

Tue, 8 Jul 08
New Microsoft Software Helps Macs and PCs Play Nice
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63686.html
After about a year, 750,000 downloads of various betas, 500 notes of feedback, and a redesigned user interface, Microsoft's Mac Business Unit has officially released Remote Desktop Connection Client for Mac 2. RDC 2 lets Mac users connect to remote Windows PCs to access files, applications, devices and networks -- all from within the Mac. It runs natively on both Intel-based and PowerPC-based Macs. In addition to the new, more "Mac-like" user interface, RDC 2 now supports multiple sessions for access to multiple Windows PCs at the same time.

Tue, 8 Jul 08
The Net Neutrality Debate: Still Sizzling
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63649.html
The Internet is the greatest technical development of the 20th century, and its open competition model has been the envy of other market sectors. Internet advances are being crushed by monopolistic carriers who are more concerned with censoring content than delivering services to customers. Those disparate statements sum up the positions of the two sides squaring off in an increasingly contentious debate about the Internet's future. On one side of the debate are ISPs, which are trying to build viable business models for delivering their services in a rapidly evolving marketplace.

Tue, 8 Jul 08
Linux Bloggers Wax Skeptical on the Post-Gates World
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63687.html
Well, July 4th may have come and gone, but another independence recently came to pass that could be almost as historic. That's Microsoft's independence from Bill Gates, of course, and it was a hot topic last week as bloggers at ZDNet and elsewhere wondered if the change might bring about a Redmond that's kinder and gentler to the open source world. "I feel like Microsoft has taken some important steps towards playing nice with open source and encouraging interoperability," wrote et764 on Slashdot, where more than 400 comments had appeared by Thursday.

Tue, 8 Jul 08
While You Watch the Olympics, NBC Will Be Watching You
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63694.html
NBC is using the Olympics as a "billion-dollar research lab" to get a sense of how people are using different media platforms to experience the Beijing Games that begin Aug. 8. Besides giving advertisers a clearer picture of how much consumers are paying attention to the games, NBC hopes its research provides a comprehensive picture of how people are supplementing TV viewership with tools such as video streaming, video on demand and mobile phones, said Alan Wurtzel, the company's research chief. "The billion-dollar lab is an extraordinary research opportunity," he said.

Tue, 8 Jul 08
The Upgrade Conundrum: iPhone or iPod?
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63698.html
Recently, at the World Wide Developer's Conference in San Francisco, Apple took what turned out to be very leaky wraps off the second iteration of the iPhone: The iPhone 3G. The new version of the game-changing iPod/Internet tablet/cell phone now offers a built-in GPS receiver, better reception, business-friendly upgrades, and the promise of more applications than you can shake a dead cow at. But the real news is the price of the new device. Apple says that it will go fore a mere $199 for the 8 GB model here in the U.S., and $299 for the 16 GB device.

Mon, 7 Jul 08
Meet Motorola's In-House Tech Anthropologist
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63666.html
Crysta Metcalf has eavesdropped on the conversations of strangers, pored over their personal photographs and grilled them on their closest relationships. Such nosiness is all part of her job of studying people and how they communicate. Metcalf is the principal staff anthropologist at Motorola. Her responsibility is to spot long-term trends in how people socialize and interact, then help translate those findings to engineers and designers for use in inventions from three to 10 years into the future.

Mon, 7 Jul 08
What's Holding OpenOffice Back?
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63684.html
Why doesn't free trump expensive? Every Microsoft product has a free, open source counterpart created by dedicated programmers who loathe everything the company stands for. The free stuff is darn good. Yet companies and individuals continue to buy billions of dollars worth of Microsoft products. To be fair, Microsoft software is sometimes better than the competition's. But quality isn't the only factor: The company has spent years digging moats around its castle, building digital walls to keep other vendors out and users in.

Mon, 7 Jul 08
What I Did at VC Camp
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63671.html
In the spring of 2007, Michael Sullivan was trying to figure out how to add some mojo to his startup, Affine Systems. As a graduate student in applied mathematics at Harvard University, Sullivan had cofounded the company in the fall of 2006 with classmate Bobby Impollonia. Working out of their homes, the two computer whizzes had whipped up a software program to let media companies know if their copyrighted videos show up on the Internet. However, like many engineers, they didn't know much about business, and they hadn't yet put together a business plan.

Sun, 6 Jul 08
Former Intel Chair Andy Grove: Energizing the Rollout of Plug-In Cars
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63660.html
Former Intel Chairman Andy Grove has a knack for sensing when circumstances should force changes at a company or an industry -- and how to respond. He even has coined a term for it: the "strategic inflection point." Now the retired chairman of the world's largest computer chip maker thinks the term applies to energy and transportation, where record-high gasoline and oil prices have spurred interest in alternative energy sources and next-generation vehicles. During the past year and a half, Grove has created his own crash course in electric power and plug-in hybrid vehicles.

Sun, 6 Jul 08
Virtual Personal Assistants: Not Just for the Filthy Rich
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63670.html
Think only celebrities, high-ranking professionals and the wealthy can enjoy having personal assistants at their beck and call? Not necessarily. A growing number of Web sites are making it easier to outsource virtual errands overseas, making it cheaper to indulge in the luxury of never having to write another thank-you card or sit on hold with the department of motor vehicles. Those who use the sites, for everything from ordering takeout to managing online dating, say the cost is affordable and a small price to free up their time -- even in the face of a sputtering economy.

Fri, 4 Jul 08
Sony Pulls Update Following PS3 Firmware Fiasco
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63690.html
Sony's 2.40 firmware update for the PlayStation 3 video game console ran into problems less than an hour after the company made it available for download Wednesday. Owners began reporting problems as a result of the download on the PS3 Forum, leading Sony to pull the update from availability. "A limited number of PS3 users have reported that the XMB is not displayed after updating to the PS3 system software ver. 2.40. We have temporarily taken the 2.40 update offline and are currently conducting tests to determine the cause of this problem," said Al de Leon, a Sony spokesperson.

Fri, 4 Jul 08
Pew Study Shows Sizable Chunk of US Still Not Online
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63685.html
A new study shows the majority of Americans still on dial-up Internet access are keeping the slow connection by choice. The Pew Internet and American Life Project's "Home Broadband Adoption 2008" report finds only 55 percent of Americans are now using high-speed broadband connections -- up 8 percent from this time last year. Those with dial-up connections -- about 10 percent of the total polled -- largely say they're content and have no desire to upgrade. A whopping 62 percent of dial-up users reported no interest in switching over to broadband.

Fri, 4 Jul 08
Court Gives Viacom Window on YouTube User Activities
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63689.html
A new ruling in Viacom's $1 billion lawsuit against Google has privacy advocates fretting that the case may further erode privacy online, even if it's eventually settled. Judge Louis Stanton of the U.S. District Court for Southern New York ruled that Google must provide Viacom with information from its database, including users' YouTube login IDs, the videos they watched, and the time they watched them. Viacom wants the data in order to rebut Google's claim that user traffic to copyrighted content on YouTube is just a small part of the site's overall traffic.

Fri, 4 Jul 08
Network Simulation and Emulation: Try It Before You Deploy It
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63626.html
Best-in-Class organizations are three times more likely to leverage solutions for network simulation and emulation than Laggards, according to data from Aberdeen Group's February benchmark report, "The Roadmap to the Next-Generation Branch Office Networks." Deployment of these solutions resulted in Best-in-Class companies being twice as likely to report improvements in their ability to accurately estimate the impact of new technology rollouts on network performance.

Fri, 4 Jul 08
Mac Bloggers Gnash Teeth Over iPhone Pricing Numbers
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63678.html
For Mac-focused bloggers this week, the biggest news by far has been the upcoming 3G iPhone, the old iPhone and AT&T's iPhone pricing plans. Bloggers and readers have been poring over the details -- AT&T launched a mini site complete with FAQs -- and most everyone seems to think the $199 entry point will generate millions in new sales around the world. AT&T will start selling the new 3G iPhone bright and early July 11, and the company is recommending that brand new prospective iPhone customers come prepared with a photo ID and Social Security number for a credit check.

Fri, 4 Jul 08
Eclipse Release Is Great but Doesn't Reach the Cloud
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63659.html
Not all trains run on time, but the Eclipse Foundation has kept to its schedule with its annual release train, this year named "Ganymede." For the third year in a row, the Eclipse community has delivered, on the same day as in previous years, numerous software updates across a wide range of projects. This year's iteration includes software that spans 23 projects and represents over 18 million lines of code. Highlights of the release include the new p2 provisioning platform, new Equinox security features, new Ecore modeling tools, and support for SOA.

Fri, 4 Jul 08
NASA Probe: Our Solar System Is Smooshed
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63679.html
When viewed from the rest of the galaxy, the edge of our solar system appears slightly dented as if a giant hand is pushing one edge of it inward, far-traveling NASA probes reveal. Information from Earth's first space probes to hit the thick edge of the solar system -- called the "heliosheath" where the solar wind slows abruptly -- paint a picture that is not the simple circle that astronomers long thought, according to several studies published Thursday in the journal Nature.

Fri, 4 Jul 08
UK Entrepreneurs Eye iPod Users With New miShake Player
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63681.html
Two Birmingham, UK, businessmen are taking on the might of the iPod with a new audio and video player they hope will take the world by storm. The "miShake" was launched by 24-year-old Birmingham entrepreneurs Steve Beckford and Alex Sylvester who, after running their own online gadget shop Electro Box, saw a market opportunity. Their company has exclusive rights to the miShake in the UK and is aiming to work with other overseas distributors. Beckford launched Electro Box just over a year ago after spending time traveling.

Thu, 3 Jul 08
Are the Feds Stalking Your Cell Phone? Lawsuit Seeks Answers
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63668.html
Two legal groups have filed a lawsuit to get more information on whether the U.S. government may be using Americans' cell phones to pinpoint their locations -- sometimes without any warrant or court oversight. The American Civil Liberties Union and the Electronic Frontier Foundation filed their suit on Tuesday urging a federal court to order the Department of Justice to turn over records related to the government's use of people's cell phones as tracking devices.

Thu, 3 Jul 08
Study: 40 Percent of Web Surfers Using Leaky, Vintage Browsers
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63664.html
If the food industry ran its business like the Internet browsing software industry, then consumers would be hurling lawsuits like bad tomatoes at the companies that give us Internet Explorer, Firefox and Safari. The comparison is existent in a wide-ranging new study showing that approximately 40 percent of the Internet surfing public -- 576 million users -- browsed the Web using outdated and/or unpatched software, putting themselves and the computing public at risk.

Thu, 3 Jul 08
Microsoft to Release Office as a Service in Mid-July
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63665.html
Microsoft on Wednesday took the wrapper off its new subscription service, formerly code-named "Albany." The company had previously been operating a beta version of the service. The service, Microsoft Equipt, combines applications from the software maker's Office productivity suite and its Live OneCare, an all-in-one security and PC management service, as well as several applications from Windows Live. Priced at $69.99 for a one-year, renewable subscription, the service will be available at Circuit City, the first of several possible retail outlets, starting in mid-July.

Thu, 3 Jul 08
Motion-Based Gaming on Phones: The Ticket to Public Humiliation
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63633.html
I am an unrepentant gaming enthusiast, and there are lengths I will go for my hobby that might puzzle normal people with normal lives. I'll stand in the rain outside a Best Buy for a Nintendo Wii on launch day; I'll surf the Web at all hours for the latest gaming reviews or demos; I'll scream creative obscenities -- if I do say so myself -- at hordes of Covenant aliens and grotesque Flood monsters who keep me from advancing to the next level of "Halo 3." I tend to draw the line at bizarre behavior in public for my gaming.

Thu, 3 Jul 08
The Domain Blast
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63654.html
Now you can buy any domain with any suffix. If a dot-com is gone, so what? For a cost, you can create your own suffix using any letters and any name. Domain names are made of three parts. The www, the "name" and the suffix like .com. With ICANN's latest decision, you now have full creative control over the last two parts. This is a revolutionary new concept creating a global-scale boom in new names, massive potential confusion from duplication and global copycatting, all compounded with cyber-squatting, where piles of popular names will be turned into pyramids of shared stupidity.

Thu, 3 Jul 08
How Nokia's Symbian Move Helps Google
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63651.html
Nokia rocked the wireless industry June 24 with news it would purchase the portion of Symbian, a maker of mobile-phone software, that it didn't already own -- and then give away the software for nothing. The prospect of free software would surely lure users away from competing cell phone software makers including Google, which in the past year threw its hat into the cell phone software ring by spearheading the creation of Android, an operating system for wireless devices. Or so the argument runs.

Thu, 3 Jul 08
Surge of New Software for the iPhone
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63623.html
Mark Cain felt like a rock star. The chief technology officer of medical imaging software company MIMvista got that sensation as he stepped onto the stage at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference on June 9 to demonstrate a new program that delivers medical scans to an iPhone. Suddenly he was in front of an auditorium packed with thousands of Apple faithful, reporters and bloggers, all eager for news of the latest iteration of Apple's music-playing cell phone and the software applications designed to run on it.

Thu, 3 Jul 08
Swindle Exposes Flaws in Citibank ATM Security
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63658.html
Hackers broke into Citibank's network of ATMs inside 7-Eleven stores and stole customers' PIN codes, according to recent court filings that revealed a disturbing security hole in the most sensitive part of a banking record. The scam netted the alleged identity thieves millions of dollars. However, more importantly for consumers, it indicates criminals were able to access PINs -- the numeric passwords that theoretically are among the most closely guarded elements of banking transactions -- by attacking the back-end computers responsible for approving the cash withdrawals.

Thu, 3 Jul 08
EU Gives Nod to Nokia's Navteq Buy
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63656.html
European regulators cleared Nokia's takeover of U.S. digital mapmaker Navteq on Wednesday, saying the deal would be unlikely to shut off rivals' access to digital maps. Navteq is one of only two international producers of digital maps. The other one, Tele Atlas, was recently bought by navigation device producer TomTom. The European Commission said there were concerns that the strong position held by Nokia as a supplier of mobile phones might allow the combined company to block rivals' access to maps they need to offer navigation services.

Wed, 2 Jul 08
Google, Yahoo Shine Searchlight on Adobe Flash
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63645.html
Adobe, Google and Yahoo have joined forces to add dynamic Web content and rich Internet applications to search results. The two search companies will use an optimized version of Adobe's Flash Player technology to improve their engines' abilities to index the Flash file format and scan information contained within the files. This, according to Adobe, will provide more relevant automatic search rankings of the millions of RIAs and other dynamic content powered by Adobe Flash Player and which would otherwise remain outside the scope of traditional Web searches.

Wed, 2 Jul 08
Law to Fine Kid Buyers of 'Mature' Games Costs Minnesota
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63652.html
Following its failed effort to curb youngsters' access to video games with "Mature" or "Adults Only" ratings by fining kids for obtaining them, the state of Minnesota on Monday was the one paying. The state paid the Entertainment Software Association $65,000, reimbursing the organization for attorney fees and expenses that resulted from the group's successful challenge to Minnesota's video game law. The payout followed a July 2006 ruling in the ESA's favor by Judge James M. Rosenbaum, who issued a permanent injunction of the controversial law.

Wed, 2 Jul 08
Headed for an E-Commerce Upgrade? Take the 2.0 Track
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63622.html
With the advent of new personalization technologies and the integration of user-generated content, social networking, RSS feeds, multichannel interaction and Ajax-based user interfaces, online retailers are rushing to upgrade their e-commerce sites to provide better user experiences and increase customer acquisition, retention and loyalty. These upgrade projects can be large and often involve deploying a new e-commerce platform. The success of an upgrade project begins with a good project plan. However, unexpected events can happen, especially in large projects.

Wed, 2 Jul 08
All Hands on the Wheel, Not the Phone, in Calif., Wash.
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63640.html
To Celeste Tyler and her teenage friends, text-messaging is as effortless as tying their shoes. The high school senior can text without looking, sending messages on her red Samsung "slider" while it's behind her back, in her purse or under her desk at school, where cell phones are banned. So why not do it while driving? Well, now the law. A state rule now in effect prohibits 16- and 17-year-olds from using any device to talk or text while driving, except in an emergency. A companion law allows adults to continue chatting away, but says they must use a hands-free device while driving.

Wed, 2 Jul 08
Google Media Server: A Giant Toe in the Door?
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63636.html
It already dominates the Internet -- why not the TV? Probably Google wasn't thinking exactly in those terms when it conceived the idea for Google Media Server, its latest addition to a ballooning product line. But planting a foothold in a medium in which it so far only dabbles is clearly the driver behind this release. Google Media Server is the company's latest enhancement to its Google Desktop suite. Basically, it is software that allows users to view content from the Internet on a television.

Wed, 2 Jul 08
Sprint Showing Signs of Resurgence
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63646.html
Sprint may be seeing a resurgence in the mobile market. The company's stock climbed 13 percent last week following reports of a Verizon exec telling investors Sprint had started "doing better." The industry has since seen intense speculation that fewer Sprint subscribers are defecting to the top two carriers, Verizon and AT&T -- a notion on which neither company will comment. Sprint has been struggling for some time. The nation's No. 3 carrier lost more than a million customers in the first quarter of 2008, following scores of defections in 2007 and 2006.

Wed, 2 Jul 08
Virtual Worlds: And the Children Shall Lead
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63616.html
Virtual worlds, despite all the press attention of late, are still in the early stages of development. Virtual worlds came into existence several years before YouTube, MySpace and Facebook, but their adoption rates pale in comparison to these services. Only 7 percent of Internet gamers ages 13 and older visit a virtual world on a weekly basis, compared with 37 percent who visit social networking sites and 41 percent who watch short videos online with the same frequency, according to a recent Parks Associates survey.

Wed, 2 Jul 08
iTunes U Graduates Across the Atlantic
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63642.html
The Open University is making course material available on Apple's download site. Apple's iTunes Store has built its reputation on music downloads, but it could be about to usher in a new era of learning on the move. In the not-too-distant future, when you see someone transfixed to their iPod, they may be enjoying a quick burst of environmental studies or English literature. It's all thanks to an educational download service called "iTunes U." Launched by Apple in May 2007, it was originally restricted to American universities.

Wed, 2 Jul 08
Pentagon Builds Collection of Sky Spies
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63638.html
The Pentagon will buy and operate one or two commercial imagery satellites and plans to design and build another with more sophisticated spying capabilities, according to government and private industry officials. The satellites could spy on enemy troop movements, spot construction at suspected nuclear sites and alert commanders to new militant training camps. The Broad Area Surveillance Intelligence Capability (BASIC) satellite system will cost between $2 billion and $4 billion.

Wed, 2 Jul 08
Swedish Eavesdropping Law Ignites Uproar
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63637.html
Swedes have bombarded lawmakers with more than 1 million e-mails protesting the country's new eavesdropping law, adding to the growing public outcry over the measure, an official said Monday. The contentious bill allows officials to eavesdrop on all cross-border e-mail and telephone traffic. The government plans to implement it in January. The bill was passed June 18 in a 142-138 vote despite nationwide protests that are still continuing. Critics say the law will encroach on privacy and jeopardize civil liberties. Supporters claim it is needed to fight international crime and terrorism.

Tue, 1 Jul 08
Fresh Firmware Lets PS3 Gamers Get More Social
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63629.html
Sony announced a crop of new features and functionalities for the PlayStation 3 Monday. Additions in the 2.40 firmware update include in-game XrossMediaBar access that will enable players to communicate with other gamers on their PlayStation Network friends list -- now doubled in size to hold 100 contacts -- as well as access other features without leaving the game they're playing. Other additions include a new virtual ranking system called "Trophies" and a Google-based Internet search feature added to the XMB. The latest add-ons will be available for download on July 2.

Tue, 1 Jul 08
'Family Guy' Guy Inks Toon Deal to Hook Google Ad Viewers
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63631.html
What seems to have started as a simple play to create new cartoon content for the Web -- and make money from it -- may in effect usher in a new media distribution model. A Web search engine giant, a highly paid cartoon creator, and a production company are all working together to deliver 50 two-minute episodes of edgy cartoons that will launch in September, according to a published report. Seth MacFarlane, the creator of TV's "Family Guy," will work with Google and use AdSense to syndicate a new project called "Seth MacFarlane's Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy," according to the report.

Tue, 1 Jul 08
Software Firms Ally to Bridge Mac Enterprise Gap
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63630.html
A group of five enterprise software companies on Monday announced the creation of the Enterprise Desktop Alliance to facilitate the acceptance of Macintosh computers in organizational environments managed with Microsoft Windows. The alliance -- created by Atempo, Centrify, Group Logic, LANrev and Parallels -- will validate and promote the availability of solutions that make it easier to deploy, integrate and manage Macs in the enterprise using Microsoft Windows-based solutions.

Tue, 1 Jul 08
OS Implementations: A Guide for SMBs
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63624.html
Though their IT needs are fundamentally the same as larger organizations, small and medium-sized business owners may feel particularly challenged when it comes to rolling out a new operating system. The increasing complexity of IT system architectures combined with a relative shortfall of resources -- capital, IT expertise, etc. -- can make implementing a new or upgraded OS an anxiety-ridden experience. "SMBs have many of the same challenges as enterprises," said Jeff Carlat, director of ESS software at HP.

Tue, 1 Jul 08
Scientists Allay Fears of Hadron-Triggered Planetary Meltdown
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63621.html
Rest at ease: Physicists say fears over a powerful atom smasher leading to the end of the Earth are completely unfounded. A group of critics of the Large Hadron Collider -- a machine built 330 feet underground in Europe -- filed a lawsuit to try to stop its initialization. They worried the collider's operation could create black holes that would swallow up the planet. These worries, scientists say, border on absurdity. The government agrees, too: Just last week, the U.S. Justice Department filed a motion to stop the lawsuit.

Tue, 1 Jul 08
DHS and the Digital Strip-Search Dilemma
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63611.html
IT consultant Amir Khan, a U.S. citizen, has been subjected to U.S. Customs questioning for a total of more than 20 hours after returning from a number of trips abroad. Customs officials have searched Khan's laptop computer, books, personal notebooks and cell phone. He has never received an explanation for why he has repeatedly been singled out. "People keep their lives on these devices," said Lee Tien, senior staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation. "The government should not be able to read this information."

Tue, 1 Jul 08
PC Tools Offers Sentry for Mac Security
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63614.html
Security software vendor PC Tools has watched the rise of two cause-and-effect security factors in the Mac OS X world -- first, the growing popularity of Macs along with increasing market share, and second, the accompanying attention of malware that's targeted directly at Mac users. Consequently, PC Tools has launched a beta edition of iAntiVirus, a new antivirus and antispyware tool designed specifically for Mac OS X. While the Mac maintains an industry-leading reputation for being generally healthy, some troubling Mac-focused security vulnerabilities have recently come to light.

Tue, 1 Jul 08
Post-Gates: How Apple and OSS Are Making For a Better Microsoft
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63604.html
A lot of us are focused on Microsoft and Bill Gates this month as Bill's last day at the company he founded and ran to dominance passed last Friday. I've met Bill several times but only really once spoken to him. From a personal aspect, he has mostly been cordial, and he once personally came to my rescue back when my career as an independent analyst first started, something I'll never forget. Something else I'll never forget was the Windows 95 launch, which in my mind and evidently his, was the high point for Microsoft.

Tue, 1 Jul 08
Linuxy Declarations of Independence
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63612.html
Well, the Fourth of July is just a few days away, and all good citizens of the nation we call America must naturally be thinking of the birth of this great land. Not content to be just great, our founding fathers wanted independence as well, and that value is still held dear today. Indeed, one might argue that there are few areas of society today in which that's more true than the open source community. After all, what is Linux if not a technology that enables independence -- from Microsoft or any other proprietary technological world?

Tue, 1 Jul 08
How Drunk Are You? Just Ask Your iPod
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63605.html
Since the release of the iPod, the market has flooded with accessories ranging from the mundane to the radical. All are meant to further incorporate the tiny device into another aspect of daily life. Many of these add-ons are innovative solutions for common problems. Others are just gimmicks targeting consumers with a taste for silly novelty items. The iBreath, for example, is an accessory for the iPod that allows you to transmit your music on an FM radio frequency as well as test yourself or others for intoxication.

Tue, 1 Jul 08
Salty Martian Dirt Shares Traits With Earth's Veggie Gardens
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63615.html
The Phoenix lander's first taste test of soil near Mars' north pole reveals a briny environment similar to what can be found in backyards on Earth, scientists said Thursday. The finding raises hope that the Martian arctic plains could have conditions favorable for primitive life. Phoenix landed a month ago to study the habitability of Mars' northern latitudes. "There's nothing about it that would preclude life. In fact, it seems very friendly," mission scientist Samuel Kounaves of Tufts University said of the soil. "There's nothing about it that's toxic."

Tue, 1 Jul 08
Cyber-Security Lessons From the 15th Century
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63562.html
Put down the vendor white papers and turn down the volume on that webinar. If you want to secure your data and pass a PCI audit, take a look at the past -- the long-ago past. Between the ninth and 15th centuries, the castle was the Western world's emblem of strength and security. It enabled small villages and towns to repel larger forces and defend what was important to them. That's the same thing e-commerce companies must do today. Every computer system has to be ready to defend itself.