NEWS, ETC.
August 2003

Friday, 29 August 2003

IBM Regains Edge in Server Rivalry. IBM took back its lead in overall server sales from rival Hewlett-Packard. In the second quarter, sales of x86 machines surged 21 percent year-over-year.

Fearing 'Spam' Label, Advertisers Wary of E-Mail. Even as they boost their budgets for online advertising, major U.S. companies will be wary of e-mail marketing campaigns until the menace of unsolicited "spam" e-mail has been tamed.

Next SoBig Worm May Trigger Torrent of Spam. Half of all computers sending spam have been infected with a computer virus, leading experts to warn of further trouble ahead.

FBI Nabs Teen Suspect In MSBlaster Variant Worm. The FBI arrested a teenager Friday suspected of writing a variant of the original MSBlaster worm, according to published reports.

IBM Squashes Worms. IBM researchers in Zurich, Switzerland, have developed novel worm-squashing software the company says it wants to turn into a product to help guard against computer-network attacks such as those that slowed Internet traffic earlier this month.

Turn Back the Spam of Time. Another spammer bites the dust (and pays $5,000).

New Intel Roadmap: Clockspeed Increase Slowing Down? Very surprising is that Intel's roadmap indicates only a 3.8 GHz Prescott in Q3 2004.

Seagate Ships AT/7 Consumer Electronics Hard disk Drives. Seagate's new CE hard drives are built from the ground up to be compatible with the new ATA/7 streaming commands standards.

Suit Spurs MS to Change IE. Microsoft will alter IE as a result of a $521 million patent verdict against it.

IBM Expands Monitor Recall. The computing giant says more monitors may have a flaw--which originally surfaced in March--that could pose a fire hazard.

Silkworm's Secret Unraveled

Thursday, 28 August 2003

ST, Sanyo Develop SoCs for Display TVs. "The TV market today is transitioning to LCD TVs and digital TVs simultaneously."

Economy Grows at 3.1 Percent Rate in 2Q. The U.S. economy emerged from the doldrums in the second quarter of this year and grew at a solid 3.1 percent annual rate, a better performance than the government thought just a month ago.

Why Do Ink Cartridges Cost So Much? Consumers revolt over the cost of inkjet cartridges, even as printer prices plummet.

These New Handhelds May Draw You In. There are a few recent additions to the family of personal digital assistants.

SCO Backlash Grows. As the tide turns...

Microsoft Bundles up for Small Businesses. Microsoft plans to start selling its Windows Server 2003 and its Exchange Server 2003 together for $599.

Wednesday, 27 August 2003

Power Mac G5 Not as Open to Windows. Apple Computer's new Power Mac G5 may be the fastest Macintosh around, but it is less able than its predecessors to run Microsoft Windows software.

Mars Picture Gallery. Wow! Hold on to your seats! Hubble Images of Mars Released. Close Encounter with Mars Excites Stargazers. The last time Mars came this close to Earth, our ancestors were living in caves and struggling to make basic tools out of rocks.

FBI Joins Hunt for Worm Writers. Agency is "confident" it will catch those responsible. Also: Viruses batter networks.

Tuesday, 26 August 2003

Amazon Goes After the Flim-Flam Man. The e-commerce giant files 11 lawsuits in the U.S. and Canada against spammers who engage in e-mail spoofing.

A Legal Fix for Software Flaws? Industry critics step up calls for new software liability laws after recent worm infestations.

Panel Faults NASA Culture for Disaster. A sharply critical report on the space shuttle Columbia tragedy blames the accident on foam that hit the shuttle's wing, but said the NASA culture made possible the catastrophe that killed seven crew members.

Philips' Reference Design Converts CRTs to LCD TVs. By rolling out the new reference design — consisting of the company's existing one-chip TV solution called PNX300x and SAA6713 scaler chip, Philips is hoping to capitalize on an explosive demand for flat panel-based TV sets.

Build a small form factor Pentium M PC. A lunch box for the cognoscenti.

Monday, 25 August 2003

Hitachi Ships 4GB Microdrive. The one-inch diameter, removable drive features a data transfer rate that represents a 70 percent increase from the previous-generation Microdrive.

Athlon 64 High Tech Treasure Hunt. Grand prize winner will receive a desktop system based on the upcoming AMD Athlon(tm) 64 processor and $6,400 cash.

Near-Photo Quality from a Laser. Minolta has found a way to get welcome, unexpected photo performance from a color laser printer.

Macromedia Courts Mainstream Developers Update. The software maker unveils the first major update of its MX line of Web development and design tools, including a version of Flash for developers who prefer traditional interfaces.

Magnesium Alloy Hitting a Cord With Notebook OEMs. The number of notebooks adopting magnesium alloy chassis is expected to double from the six million to 7.5 million units of last year.

Silent Pump for Water-cooled PCs Developed. The system, developed by a Californian start-up company, aims to silently solve the problem that the faster chips get, the hotter they become.

Microsoft Cuts Windows Price to $40 in Thailand. In a move that could lead to lower prices for Microsoft's software in other countries, the software company has cut the price of its Windows operating system and Office application suite in Thailand.

Can the Tech-Job Drain Be Stopped? Why pay a programmer US$40,000 to $70,000 per year, goes the argument, when the same work can be had for $5,000 per year from a highly skilled coder in India? But cost-benefit analyses often leave out important factors...

Intel CEO: Too Early to Declare a Recovery. Despite the chip maker's surprise announcement boosting its Q3 revenue forecast, company hasn't seen a "total turnaround" in tech spending, CEO Craig Barrett says.

Net Giants Battle for Targeted Ad Market. Google soared to fame after Netizens fell in love with its simple, efficient search engine. But that's only half the story. Google has since stumbled on a huge pile of cash flowing from search-related advertising. And that has ignited an all-out war from other Internet giants -- Yahoo, Microsoft and even eBay -- to capture the lucrative new market.

Symantec Bottles New Virus Remedy. Symantec takes the wraps off its upcoming Norton Antivirus 2004, pitching the updated security software as an antidote to complex viruses such as the MSBlast worm.

Sobig.F Virus Slows, Second Attempt Fizzles. The fast-spreading Sobig.F e-mail virus slowed on Sunday and failed for a second time to launch a remote data attack using thousands of infected personal computers, computer security experts said.

Friday, 22 August 2003

SoBig To Launch Mystery Attack. Those who think they have seen the worst from this week's SoBig.F e-mail virus may be in for a bigger, and nastier, surprise today if a "mystery attack" is launched by the virus author as expected. SoBig.F arrives in e-mails with subject lines such as "Re: Details," "Your Details," "Thank You!" or "Wicked Screensaver." I'm seeing lots of them, hundreds. More info.

Internet Retail Sales on the Rise. U.S. retail sales over the Web grow by 4.6 percent in the second quarter over the previous quarter to $12.5 billion, the Commerce Department says.

Intel Raises 3Q Estimates. Chip giant Intel has raised its revenue and profit margin estimates for the current quarter, saying its Intel Architecture business was "generally trending higher across all geographies and channels." Intel Sees Demand, Spot Shortages, for Chips.

Robust Growth Seen for Structured ASIC Market. The market for structured ASICs is forecast to grow 145% CAGR, reaching $460.3 million in revenue by 2007, according to a new report...

2003 Flash Revs to Beat 2000 Flash Revs, Semico Reports. Flash revenues in 2003 will outdo those of the year 2000, despite continued volatility in pricing, according to Semico Research.

AMD Athlon XP to Migrate to Socket 754. According to the most-recent "top-secret" roadmaps/rumors, cost-effective versions of AMD Athlon 64 processors known under code-names “Paris” and “Victoria” will be called Athlon XP, made in Socket 754 form-factors, and will not have a 64-bit mode.

DRAM Module Makers Pushed to OEMs. The shrinking DRAM spot market has pushed Taiwanese DRAM module makers to explore business in the OEM market, where they face stiffer quality requirements.

Long-Awaited Telephone Rules Issued. Long-awaited details of controversial U.S. regulations aimed at spurring high-speed Internet service while requiring dominant local telephone companies to keep sharing voice networks with rivals, have been released.

SCO Could Face Uphill Battle in Drawing New Customers. The Unix vendor recharged its customers with updated future products, but some noncustomers say the company's recent legal tactics have turned them off to considering SCO products. "I have no intentions of ever doing business with SCO."

Boiling Seas Linked to Mass Extinction

Thursday, 21 August 2003

Sobig.F breaks Speed Records. The latest of version of the Sobig Internet virus, Sobig.F, is spreading faster than any virus seen before, according to U.K. e-mail security firm MessageLabs Ltd. SoBig Worm Aims to Turn PCs Into Spam Machines.

Microsoft Warns of Critical IE Flaws. As the MSBlast worm continues exploiting a Windows vulnerability to spread across the Net, Microsoft issues an alert on three critical security flaws in Internet Explorer.

Fasten Your Seatbelts. The next upturn is revving its engine, and starting this fall things should look radically different than in the past few years.

Pricing for Athlon 64 Leaks. Too pricey for my taste.

AMD Officially Confirms Duron’s Return. The AMD Duron “Applebred” Model 8 CPUs will have 128KB of L1 and only 64KB of L2 cache, like their predecessors...

Dell Cuts Prices on Most Products. Reductions range from 3% to more than 20%, with PowerEdge 6600 server prices slashed 22%. After HP's jugular?

Corel Shareholders Vote in Favor of Vector Buyout. Shareholders overwhelmingly approved Corel's plan to be taken over by Vector Capital, a San Francisco-based venture capital firm.

www.microsoft.com Runs Linux? Up to a Point ... On Friday Microsoft changed its DNS so that requests for www.microsoft.com no longer resolve to machines on Microsoft’s own network, but instead are handled by the Akamai caching system, which runs on Linux.

Linux Community Scoffs at SCO's Evidence. More on the same stuff reported yesterday.

Pop-Ups Under Siege. As pop-up-weary Internet users get access to handy blocking technologies, the slow decline of the oft-criticized ad format may be beginning. Dux does not run pop-ads.

NASA's final Great Observatory Set for Launch. The telescope, known as SIRTF, has infrared eyes that will seek out newborn stars in galaxies near the edge of the visible Universe.

Brazil's Tropical Space Base Ready for Blastoff. Brazil is poised to become the first Latin American nation to send its own rockets into space, blasting them off from a jungle launch pad first envisioned a generation ago by its former military rulers.

Popcorn Fork

Wednesday, 20 August 2003

FTC Chief Says Anti-Spam Bills Won't Work. The chairman of the U.S. Federal Trade Commission said on Tuesday that new anti-spam legislation being considered by Congress won't work, and pointed instead to improved technology as the best hope for eliminating unwanted e-mail.

SCO's Proof Bogus, Linux Advocate Says. The first publicly released sample that SCO claims was improperly added to the Linux source code has every right to be in Linux, according to open-source advocate Bruce Perens.

Samba Slams SCO 'Hypocrisy'. Open software developer Samba has accused the SCO Group of 'hypocrisy' for attacking the GNU General Purpose Licence (GPL) while incorporating software released under the licence into its products.

SCO Users Divided Over GPL. SCO developers at the company's annual user conference this week expressed dissatisfaction with SCO's public disparagement of the GNU General Public Licence.

SEMI Book-to-Bill Hits 0.97 in July. North American-based equipment manufacturers post $763 million in July orders and a book-to-bill ratio of 0.97, according to the trade group.

Contract Prices for DRAMs Rise Again. Contract prices for mainstream DRAMs rose for the fifth consecutive period for these products in Asia, according to a report from Dow Jones.

HP Misses Mark in Earnings, Revenue. A mismatch between HP's forecasts for PC prices and component prices, especially in the consumer market, leads to earnings woes.

Microsoft Releases Tool To Accelerate XP Deployment. Microsoft unveiled a new tool for solution providers designed to accelerate the deployment of Windows XP, Office XP and Office 2003.

Office 2003 Pricing Remains Same as Office XP. The suite will formally launch at the end of October, with prices unchanged from the current retail prices of Office XP, Microsoft said.

Rockin' on Without Microsoft. Ball told his IT department he wanted Microsoft products out of his business within six months. "I said, 'I don't care if we have to buy 10,000 abacuses,'" recalled Ball, who recently addressed the LinuxWorld trade show. "We won't do business with someone who treats us poorly."

Undersea Sponge Has Fiber Optic Cables Beat. Fiber optic cables -- an amazing invention showing how clever people can be, right? Maybe so, but nature got there first...

Hubble To Snap Mars In Best Bi Annual Photo Op In 60,000 Years. High-resolution files for downloading will available on HubbleSite News Center beginning at 6am EDT August 27.

CD Player Finds New Use as Molecular Detective

Tuesday, 19 August 2003

Gartner Expects 38% DRAM Growth. After more than two years of recession and huge losses, the DRAM market is on the verge of recovery, Gartner reports, forecasting a 37.8 percent year-over-year Q3 increase.

Ballard Unveils New Fuel Cell Emergency Generator. Ballard Power Systems Inc. unveiled a new fuel cell power generator on Monday, designed for emergency backup applications, following the worst power outage in North America.

SCO Displays Disputed Code. Executives use conference to stump for support of SCO's legal actions against Linux.

SoBig Virus Returns. Yet another version of the virus began spreading rapidly on the Net Today. I've seen two of them so far today. Navy's Intranet Crippled by Worm Outbreak

AMD Appalbred to Come This Month? The Return of Duron?

AOL Claims Speed Advantage. The Web portal touts the results of a research study claiming that its upcoming AOL 9.0 Optimized service will load Web pages faster than the competition can. AOL Scrambles to Plug in Subscribers. About two-thirds of AOL members in areas hit by Thursday's blackout were unable to log onto the Internet service...

Hard-up PC Makers Start Playing Games. Gateway plans to release this week customized versions of its midrange and high-end desktops, which it aims specifically at gamers.

Nanowire Approach to Supercomputing Touted at Hot Chips. Developers mapped out four routes to supercomputing—including one based on experimental work in nanotechnology—in the opening sessions of the annual Hot Chips conference.

Microsoft Won't Release XP SP2 Until '04. Microsoft let the information slip out by posting a Windows Service Pack Road Map on its Windows Lifecycle Web site that specified a third quarter, 2004, release for the Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2).

'Lousy' Study Shows Clothing 70,000 Years Old. Adam and Eve may have put on fig leaves while still in the Garden of Eden but a study that looked at the most intimate of pests -- body lice -- suggests that humans started wearing clothes 70,000 years ago. Why Humans and Their Fur Parted Ways.

Russia Plans Mars Nuclear Station

Monday, 18 August 2003

Gartner Ups Semiconductor Forecast. On what Gartner calls a healthy Q2, the firm raises its 2003 growth forecast to 11 percent and says the worldwide semiconductor market appears to be continuing its recovery.

New Worm Installs Patches. A new worm takes a different twist by trying to repair systems infected by Blaster and patch the vulnerability it exploits.

Apple Ships New Power Mac G5. Apple said that it started to ship two models of its Power Mac G5, with a dual-processor version of the desktop computer set to ship sometime this month.

SCO Turns Up the Heat on Linux Users. The SCO Group on Sunday said that it has compiled a list of all the large companies with numerous servers running Linux and warned that it would not hesitate to drag them into court if they refused to pay for UnixWare licenses.

Investors Cheer AMD on Hopes for New Chips. AMD shares shot up over 10 percent following comments from an influential technology strategist that AMD's new line of microchips poses the biggest-ever threat to industry leader Intel.

Intel to Delay New Centrino CPU Debut; Introduce 1.7GHz Dothan in 1Q. Sources at Taiwanese notebook makers have confirmed reports that Intel will postpone the debut of its next-generation Pentium M processors, codenamed Dothan, to the first quarter of 2004 from year-end.

IBM Cuts 600 Jobs in Chip Unit. In a cost-cutting move, Big Blue eliminates jobs in its Microelectronics unit, with most of the losses affecting at a plant in Vermont.

Deal Clears the Way for Fuel Cell Cars in California. California and the automotive industry settled their legal differences last week, setting the stage for the emergence of fuel cell cars and likely writing off any broad acceptance of battery-powered vehicles.

Citibank Warns Customers of Phishing Scam. Citibank on Monday warned customers not to fall for an e-mail scam that threatened to shut down their checking accounts if they failed to provide their Social Security numbers.

Blaster Worm Attack a Bust. A scheduled denial of service attack against Microsoft's main software update Web site did not materialize Saturday, as computers infected with the W32.Blaster worm failed to find their target.

Companies Switching To Web Phones

Scientists Work to Use DNA as Computer Brain

Smallpox Immunity May Last a Lifetime

Friday, 15 August 2003

Dell Hits the Number on Record Sales. Dell reported net earnings for the second quarter of $621 million, after record sales of $9.8 billion, meeting analyst expectations.

Linux Customers, Partners Can Ignore SCO-IBM-Red Hat Linux Battle, OSDL Says. "Assume the very worst--that SCO wins its case against IBM... Assume SCO proves that some portion of Linux is a copy or derivative work of its trade secret software... Long before that happens, there will be a new open-source version of Linux omitting any SCO code..."

The Great Power Blackout of 2003 Effects 50 Million People. The Great Power Blackout of 2003 Effects 50 Million People. Huge power outage hits at least eight states in the northeast and midwest United States, and parts of Canada, including New York, Albany, Erie, Toronto, Detroit, Cleveland, Ottawa, and Toronto. Power Failure Socks Northeast. Lights Begin To Return. Power stayed on in Maine. Larry

Los Alamos National Laboratory Selects the AMD Opteron Processor. Los Alamos National Laboratory has selected the AMD Opteron processor for two separate large-scale Linux clusters. Combined, the two clusters are planned to include more than 3,300 processors and will be used for numerous computing activities in support of medical, environmental and national defense modeling and simulation.

Microbe Makes Hell Its Home

Thursday, 14 August 2003

Sun promotes new OS as secure alternative to Microsoft. Seizing the opportunity to criticize a competitor and promote its own operating system, Sun Microsystems on Wednesday opened up early registration for its Project Mad Hatter. Press release.

Server Breach Raises Linux Code Worries. The GNU Project, which develops many of the components in the Linux operating system, said this week that the system housing its primary download servers has been compromised by an attacker. The project urged those who have downloaded software from the server since March to check that the source code has not been tampered with.

Gartner Upgrades PC Shipments Forecast. The market research firm today forecasted worldwide PC shipments to reach 39.8 million units in the current quarter of 2003, a 9.6 percent increase over Q3 2002.

Giant Laser Transmutes Nuclear Waste. A giant laser has cut the lifetime of a speck of radioactive waste from millions of years to just minutes. The feat raises hopes that a solution to nuclear power's biggest drawback - its waste - might one day be possible.

Nvidia's Future as Xbox Supplier Uncertain, as Microsoft Taps ATI as New Partner.

SCO to Argue General Public Licence Invalid. SCO WILL attempt to win its $3 billion case against IBM by arguing that the General Public Licence (GPL) is invalid. That's what a pleader at legal practice Boies Schiller and Flexner is telling the Wall Street Journal today.

'LovSan' Infection Spreading Through TCP Binding. Initial patches from Microsoft for Windows XP proved inadequate, as the infection appeared to be able to override a variety of firewalls and Virtual Private Networks and crash client systems at will. Blaster Worm Confounds Home Users, Variant Emerges. Worm Pushes Microsoft to Change Default Windows Security. Microsoft said it would begin shipping the consumer and business versions of Windows XP with the firewall completely activated.

The Art Of Acoustics. New smaller, flatter audio speakers look as good as they sound.

Genetic Study Shows Plankton's Efficiency. ...collecting sunlight and turning it into food -- with just a few genes. Understanding how they do this could help humanity one day better harness sunlight as a power source...

Segway Slowly Glides Into NY Culture

Tuesday, 12 August 2003

Microsoft Worm Goes Global. Virus-like infection, dubbed LovSan, that was the subject of urgent U.S. government and industry warnings spread rapidly across the Internet this week, causing computers to mysteriously restart and launching a coordinated electronic attack against Microsoft Corp. Also known as MSBlast, etc, etc... 'MSBlast' Echoes Across the Net. Worm hits at least 100,000 computers worldwide despite its poor programming. W32.Blaster.Worm Removal Tool.

Microsoft Slapped with $521M IE Patent Infringement. A Chicago jury has ordered software giant Microsoft to pay $521 million to the University of California and Eolas Technology for using patented technology in its flagship Internet Explorer browser.

Honeywell, Airbus Build Anti-Crash System. The system would link crash-warning devices, already common on airliners, with cockpit computers that could automate flying to prevent collisions.

Monday, 11 August 2003

HP Launches Wave of New Products. Get ready for Big Bang Two. At a press conference scheduled for today in New York, Hewlett-Packard Chief Executive Carly Fiorina is going to unveil the first of more than 100 new consumer printing and imaging products.

Low-Cost Linux Gaining on Microsoft in India. Vijay Shekhar, who runs a team of 60 people sending scores to cricket-crazy fans through India's booming cell phone networks, feared that using cheap Linux software for his business could cause problems.

The Next PC Chip Blowout. Intel and AMD are lined up for another battle in the fall. The rival microprocessor companies have competing desktop chips coming to market: Intel's Prescott and AMD's Athlon64. Internet bulletin boards are already ablaze with debates over which chip will have the better performance, but the truth is that comparing the two is like comparing apples to oranges.

Hynix Releases 1Gbit DDR2. Hynix will sample the technology in early Q4 and plans to begin its full-scale volume production by early 2004 to coincide with the release of Intel's DDR2 chipset.

Hynix and Others to Raise SDRAM Prices by 10-15%: Sources. Seeing a potential SDRAM supply shortage, Taiwan-based IC design houses and South Korea-based Hynix Semiconductor this week will start increasing the prices they offer to the spot market for 16, 64 and 128Mbit SDRAM die by 10-15%.

Top 10 DVD Drives

Private Spacecraft Performs Crucial Test Flight

Friday, 8 August 2003

Display is All Smoke and Mirrors. As display technologies become smaller and more sophisticated, a research team from Finland have demonstrated a prototype that is not really there at all.

Distributors Not Happy as Intel Cuts Delivery of Hot CPUs. Intel, in an effort to promote wide acceptance of the 800MHz FSB (front-side bus) standard, is cutting back deliveries of its 533MHz FSB CPUs to distributors, according sources.

SCO Battle Rooted In Unix History. The SCO Group's attempts to squeeze a revenue stream out of Linux is rooted in the long and tangled history of computer operating systems.

Thursday, 7 August 2003

IBM Files Countersuit Against SCO, SCO Shares Drop. IBM said it filed a countersuit charging that SCO violated license agreements on the Linux operating system, sending SCO shares down over 10 percent. Big Blue files Counterclaims Against SCO. IBM argues that because SCO distributed a version of Linux under the open-source General Public License (GPL), it can't claim that Linux software is proprietary.

Analyst: Linux Kernel Code Seems to be Copied. One analyst sees evidence of copying from the Unix System V kernel to the Linux kernel.

SCO Wants $32 for Each Embedded Linux Device. The $32 fee applies to any embedded system regardless of whether it is a Tivo set-top box which uses embedded Linux or some models of the Sharp Zaurus which also use that kernel.

Windows, Games Brace for AMD Power. The Athlon 64 chip from Advanced Micro Devices is coming out toward the end of September, and software that takes full advantage of the chip won’t be that far behind.

SBC Plans 6,000 Wi-Fi Sites by '06. SBC's move is yet another sign that big telecom companies aim to take control of the emerging technology, which has largely been dominated by small companies, universities and public networks.

VIA Announces Enhanced Digital TV Encoder. The VIA VT1622A digital TV encoder enables the display of digital information on analog television sets as well as the new generation of standard definition digital televisions (SDTV).

Sun Demonstrats Mad Hatter Desktop Client Project -- an open source desktop stack -- at LinuxWorld... Looking Glass looks uncannily like Apple's OS X.

Secret of Walking on Water Uncovered

Wednesday, 6 August 2003

AMD Scoops-up National Semi Unit. Advanced Micro Devices is purchasing National Semiconductor's information appliance chip business, which primarily covers the Geode family.

MySQL Puts Linux Database in a Box. The DataWare 2600 database appliance unveiled at LinuxWorld was designed by Pogo Linux and optimized by MySQL AB. The partners claim that it can start serving Web sites and databases in under an hour.

Sun Links with AMD on Opteron. Sun Microsystems has hooked up with AMD to offer Java support for its 64-bit Opteron processor. In supporting the Linux and Windows platforms on the high-performance Opteron chip, Sun's objective is to help businesses move their existing Java applications from a 32-bit to 64-bit computing platform with minimal changes to the programming code.

Microsoft Faces EU Fines, Software Curbs. Microsoft faces a European Commission fine over charges it abused the dominance of its Windows operating system and may be ordered to share vital software with competitors.

Microsoft Puts a Tilt on the Mouse Wheel. Microsoft is reinventing the mouse wheel, adding tilt wheel technology for horizontal scrolling and smoothing the vertical scroll motion, the company said.

Loathing for the U.S. Cable Industry Has Not Abated. Digital subscriber line, service beats cable-modem access when Americans have a choice of broadband Internet services.

Jelly Lenses Could Fix Ageing Eyes

World's First Cloned Horse Born to Its Genetic Twin

Riding the Sun: Maiden Flight Looms for Solar Sail Satellite

Tuesday, 5 August 2003

Sony's New plasma TV Adds Home Smarts. The consumer electronics maker unveils a plasma TV with built-in broadband networking that's linked to a Web pad-like remote control by wireless LAN technology.

IBM, SuSE Gain Security Certification. The certification is seen a big step in expanding the use of Linux for mission-critical applications in government and corporate environments.

Storage At LinuxWorld: New Hardware, Software Offerings On Tap. Several storage vendors are touting their latest wares in conjunction with the LinuxWorld Conference & Expo being held this week in San Francisco.

SCO Rips Red Hat, Sets License Prices. The software maker responds to a new lawsuit by Linux leader Red Hat and reveals steep license prices for businesses that want to use Linux with SCO's blessing.

Red Hat Files Suit Against SCO. "We filed this complaint to stop SCO from making unsubstantiated and untrue public statements attacking Red Hat Linux and the integrity of the Open Source software development process."

Mars Ready for Close-Up, Best View in 60,000 Years

Galactic Dust Storm Enters Solar System

Monday, 4 August 2003

Q2 Global Chip Sales Up 3.2 Percent. Sales of semiconductors were up in June and during the entire second quarter, fueled in large part by growing demand for computers, the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) said Monday.

The End of Enterprise-Application Upgrades? AMR Research warns that in response to companies' growing reluctance to shell out for an upgraded version of an application, "vendor are going to try to play the support card to move customers to their newest releases."

Linux Use Undeterred by SCO Suit. New research indicates that SCO Group's lawsuit over the use of Unix source code in the Linux operating system has not discouraged developers from implementing Linux-oriented software.

Microsoft.com Forced Offline by DOS Attack. Microsoft's main website was unreachable for almost two hours last Friday as the web server on which it is hosted failed following a denial-of-service attack.

Microsoft Warns Internet Explorer Users About Worm. Microsoft Corp. is warning its customers about a computer worm that exploits a flaw in its Internet Explorer browser.

Worm Masquerades as Note From IT Staff. A new mass-mailing virus, which disguises itself as a file sent by a computer user's network administrator, begins infecting systems.

Genes Begin to Reveal Secret of Longer Life. Some scientists predict biblical life spans.

Friday, 1 August 2003

Government Issues Second Warning on Microsoft Security Flaw. The U.S. government is particularly worried about the flaw because it could potentially affect so many users. As many as 75 percent of all computers connected to the Internet rely on the flawed versions of Microsoft's software.

End of the road for SMTP? The pioneering e-mail protocol is under fire as the battle against spam rages.

MCI Banned From Bidding On Government Contracts. The General Services Administration (GSA) Thursday temporarily banned MCI from bidding on new federal contracts.

China's PC Alley Swept Into History's Dustbin. Once described as a “frenetic hub that epitomizes the uniquely Chinese OEM business model of on-the-spot manufacturing," PC Alley has been leveled to make way for the next wave of progress: the widening of Zhong Guan Cun Road.

Sun Micro, SuSE Link Up on Linux. Sun Microsystems has agreed to resell and support closely held German software firm SuSE's version of the Linux operating system, the leading variant in Europe.

SCO v. IBM Remains Murky. As Linux aficionados descend upon San Francisco, legal experts are divided over whether enterprise Linux users are protected from copyright lawsuits by SCO; and only one thing remains clear: IBM's original Unix licensing terms with AT&T are complicated at best.

IBM Expands Lotus Linux Support. IBM's Lotus Notes and Domino 6.5 upgrade will include expanded Linux support.

Teen Turns High-tech on Stranger Trying to Lure Him Into Car. A 15-year-old boy foiled an apparent abduction attempt when he pulled out his cell phone camera and snapped photos of a man trying to lure him into a car.

The Wi-Fi Bubble. Wireless ‘hot spots’ were hyped as the Next Big Thing. Maybe someday.

Marriott to Give Free Broadband at Mid-Price Hotels

Index