|
We started the week with Microsoft calling off the Yahoo deal (or maybe not). Then Grand Theft Auto stole the spotlight with its record-breaking sales. Along the way, we have the Webby Awards, big settlements for movie piracy, and candidates seeking to save us from the evils of Second Life. We cover it all in this week's quiz. Give yourself 10 points for each correct answer. Ready to test your news know-how? Then begin. 
1. Microsoft decided it would rather switch than fight Yahoo for control of, well, Yahoo. Which of the following is NOT one of the reasons it gave for dropping its bid? a.
Link Email item
Recent comments from AMD about controlling manufacturing costs have led to speculation that the company may divest its chip fabrication plants, but some analysts say that wouldn't make sense for AMD.
The comments led to speculation that AMD would either sell its fabs or spin off its manufacturing unit to improve profitability and reduce expenses related to chip manufacturing. Fabs require massive capital investment that requires a lot of ongoing cash, while AMD is not in a cash-flush position. By spinning off fabrication plants, AMD would be at the mercy of third-party manufacturing facilities that could affect the production and supply of chips, analysts said. AMD...
Link Email item
Security researchers have developed a new type of malicious rootkit software that hides itself in an obscure part of a computer's microprocessor, hidden from current antivirus products.
Called an SSM (System Management Mode) rootkit, the software runs in a protected part of a computer's memory that can be locked and rendered invisible to the operating system but which can give attackers a picture of what's happening in a computer's memory. The SMM rootkit comes with keylogging and communications software and could be used to steal sensitive information from a victim's computer. It was built by Shawn Embleton and Sherri Sparks, who run an Oviedo, Florida, security...
Link Email item
News from and about Microsoft dominated this week from start to finish. But the dire situation caused by Cyclone Nargis in Myanmar, where the ruling junta cares more about oppression and domination than early warning systems or getting aid to people, tended to put everything else into perspective.
[ Video: Catch up on the week in tech news with the World Tech Update ] 1. Microsoft abandons Yahoo acquisition and Microsoft and Yahoo: Now what?: We ended last week with speculation that Microsoft was about to launch a hostile takeover attempt on Yahoo, only to get word over the weekend that Microsoft was instead bailing...
Link Email item
Virtual servers may make the utilization of physical servers more efficient, but that efficiency comes with a price. The physical servers that support VMs (virtual machines) have to be more powerful. Less obviously, they also need better I/O capability than standalone machines, which means more cabling to connect the virtual machines to the network switch and more switch ports to accommodate the increased number of virtual machines contending for the network's resources.
"Virtualization is about consolidation and concentration," says Bernd Herzog, an analyst at research firm Application Performance Management Experts. "It takes many disparate and distributed systems and concentrates them together onto a relatively few...
Link Email item
Ian Murdock is vice president of developer and community marketing at Sun Microsystems. Prior to that, he was the founder of the Debian Linux distribution and CTO at the Linux Foundation. InfoWorld Editor at Large Paul Krill met with Murdock at the JavaOne conference in San Francisco this week to talk about open source and how Sun, with its OpenSolaris version of the Solaris Unix platform, will fare in the open-source arena versus Linux.
InfoWorld: What exactly is Debian? Murdock: Debian is a Linux distribution. It's the basis of Ubuntu Linux. I suppose the basic innovation of Debian was that it was developed by...
Link Email item
Microsoft is appealing the $1.3 billion (€899 million) fine imposed on it by the European Union for failing to honor a 2004 antitrust agreement, the company said Friday.
Microsoft spokesman Jack Evans said via e-mail Friday that the company has filed an application with the Court of First Instance in Luxembourg to annul the European Commission decision of Feb. 27, which imposed the fine against Microsoft. "We are filing this appeal in a constructive effort to seek clarity from the Court," the company said in an e-mailed statement. Microsoft is not commenting further. (More to follow.)
Link Email item
Executive compensation has been a hot-button issue for several years, and the final crop of fiscal year 2007 proxy statements filed in March and April did little to quell the cry for reform from industry watchdogs, activist shareholders, and the general public.
In the high-tech industry alone, dozens of CEOs came away with multimillion dollar compensation packages, pumped up by huge stock and option awards. [ Curious to see what other people in IT are earning? Check out InfoWorld's Compensation Survey. ] "Half of these companies had horrible years for their stockholders, yet the CEOs still walk away with sinful amounts of money," voiced...
Link Email item
In the not-too-distant future, people could use computer printers to make simple medicines as part of a do-it-yourself model of health care, a top Microsoft executive said Friday.
Printers are already liquid delivery systems, but instead of ink, people might someday put the ingredients of different medications into printer cartridges, said Craig Mundie, chief research and strategy officer at Microsoft, in a speech in Jakarta, Indonesia on Friday. The drugstore-in-a-box, as he called it, would be part of several devices that could increasingly use information technology for health diagnosis and treatment. In an example, he envisioned a mobile phone that also contained breath analysis technology...
Link Email item
Google has begun scanning the streets of Paris, gathering data for its Street View service, which adds street-level photography to the satellite views offered by Google Maps. The search company will gather a wealth of data from the project but, thanks to France's strict privacy laws, it may also pick up a few lawsuits on the way if it chooses to publish the photos unedited.
Two Google employees were spotted on the Western outskirts of Paris on Friday as they mounted a sophisticated array of cameras and laser scanners on the roof rack of their black Opel Astra. The equipment was connected to a Dell computer...
Link Email item
Installing Windows XP Service Pack 3 sends some PCs into an endless series of reboots, according to posts to a Microsoft support forum.
Jesper Johansson, a former program manager for security policy at Microsoft and a prominent Windows blogger, has worked with users to tentatively identify the problem as involving only machines using processors from Advanced Micro Devices. Messages from frustrated users began accumulating on the XP SP3 support newsgroup Wednesday, just a day after Microsoft released the update to the general public. "I just installed Windows XP SP3 and after completing the processes and when the...
Link Email item
Apple is once again being pilloried on the strength of its green credentials, taking last place among computer firms rated within a recent ClimateCounts survey on climate friendliness.
Apple achieved just 11 points in the survey, far behind other computer companies rated in the annual list. IBM, Canon and Toshiba took first, second and third place with scores of 77, 74 and 70, respectively. The maximum score was 100 points. Scores were assessed on the basis of what targets each company had declared for its emissions reductions efforts, climate impact and energy use policies. Scores were also given for "transparency" in reporting emissions and other environmental...
Link Email item
Good news for users of Windows Vista. According to figures compiled by PC Tools, the OS has experienced only slightly more vulnerabilities than Windows 2000, which appeared eight years ago when malware was far less common.
Or is that the bad news? Despite having a reputation as the least vulnerable of Microsoft's operating systems, Vista still managed to record 639 unique vulnerabilities over roughly the last half year, which puts it in a worse position than the aging Windows 2000, which experienced 586 over the same period. Windows XP, which still accounts for the overwhelming volume of the Windows user base, had 1,021, with Windows 2003...
Link Email item
Spray them with water, subject them to extreme temperatures or drop them on the ground, NEC's rugged ShieldPro laptops are made to survive rough treatment. The biggest challenge, however, is about to come: battling more established competitors in the harsh international market.
It was in January of last year that NEC entered Japan's market for rugged PCs, a segment that was at the time monopolized by Panasonic. Since then it has grabbed a 10 percent share of that market, and the company is now heading overseas to conquer other markets. Despite a larger number of competitors in the international arena, NEC is determined it establish itself internationally...
Link Email item
Responding to the momentum around data portability, MySpace has launched its own "Data Availability" effort with big-name partners Yahoo, eBay, Twitter, and fellow News Corp. unit Photobucket.
The initiative's goal is to let MySpace members share their public profile data outside of the walls of the social-networking site. "Today, MySpace no longer operates as an autonomous island on the Internet, by allowing the data that creates the engaging and collaborative experience that is MySpace to now be shared across all the sites our users visit," said Chris DeWolfe, CEO and cofounder of MySpace, during a press conference. As the popularity of social networks keeps rising...
Link Email item
Website
| 
