Tuesday, June 10, 2008

EU competition chief advocates open standards - NetworkWorld.com

Europe's competition commissioner Neelie Kroes delivered a thinly veiled warning to Microsoft Tuesday that the software system giant's
behind-the-scenes maneuverings to procure industrywide criterion position for its written document format, Office Open XML earlier this
twelvemonth "risk falling disgusting of the competition rules."

She also appeared to back unfastened software system criteria in a address given during a conference on standardisation hosted by the
IT industry grouping Open Forum Europe. Don't Miss!

"Choosing unfastened criteria is a very smart concern determination indeed," she told attendees.

She didn't advert Microsoft by name once in her speech, but the 25 minute-long delivery was littered with mentions to the
software system system giant's former pattern of withholding interoperability information about its close omnipresent software merchandises and
its year-long campaign to procure ISO (International Organization for Standardization) criterion position for OOXML. Related Content

Standards are "the foundation of interoperability," she said, acknowledging that they can be both proprietorship and non-proprietary.

After pointing out the of import function proprietorship criteria played in developing Europe's 2nd and third-generation mobile
telephone technologies, she went on to warn that criteria developed and desired by one marketplace participant only can be "problematic,
having none of the precautions of revelation that criteria organic structures typically require."

In a jabbing at the ISO determination to allow OOXML criterion status, Kroes said "I neglect to see the involvement of consumers in including
proprietary engineering in criteria when there are no clear and demonstrable benefits over non-proprietary alternatives."

"If vote in the standard-setting linguistic context is influenced less by the technical virtues of the technology, but rather by side
agreements, inducements, bundle deals, inverse agreements, or commercial pressure level then these hazard falling disgusting of the
competition rules," Kroes said.

Other talkers at the conference were more than direct in their unfavorable judgment of Microsoft's behaviour and ISO's determination to approve
OOXML.

Christian Ude, the metropolis manager of Munich, a city in southern Federal Republic Of Germany that have embraced open-source software system throughout its operations,
said that by granting OOXML criterion position "it would look this doesn't advance competition, it might even blockade it." 1

The IDG News Service is a Network World affiliate.

Wireless Internet offered to Turkmens, long blocked from private access

: A Russian company is offering radio Internet services in Turkmenistan.

Public Internet entree had been banned until recently. But last year, President Gurbanguli Berdymukhamedov allowed the country's first Internet cafe.

Until then, Internet usage had been restricted to authorities employees, diplomatic stations and business offices for major international companies.

Russian operator Mobile River TeleSystems said Tuesday that radio entree in Turkomen will be expensive: US$3.50 (€2.20) per MB on GPRS. The norm monthly wage in Turkomen is US$200 (€127).

Turkmenistan's lone fixed-line Internet supplier announced last hebdomad that it began connecting private citizens to the Internet. Today in Business with Reuters

Monday, June 9, 2008

June Patch Tuesday Addresses Bluetooth, Kill Bit

plans to publish seven sets of spots on June 10 in a Spot Tuesday that volition include critical holes for Internet Explorer, DirectX and Bluetooth radio software system for Windows.


Beyond the critical fixes, Microsoft bes after to let go of spots rated important. Important holes are owed for Active Directory, the Windows Internet Name Service (WINS), and the Matter-Of-Fact General Multicast (PGM) protocol, which Windows utilizes to watercourse mass media to multiple recipients.


The 7th update is rated moderate. This security update computer addresses "kill bit" for Windows. The spot disables codification that have a known security bug.

The Bluetooth Bug


The Bluetooth critical update impacts the up-to-the-minute versions of Windows, including Windows XP SP2 and SP3 and Windows View SP1. The exposure could let aggressors to take control of a computing machine from a distant location.


Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer can observe whether your computing machine system necessitates this update. The update may necessitate a restart.


Tyler Reguly, a security research worker at nCircle, said that by his records, this is the first clip Microsoft have issued a Bluetooth patch. "I'm curious to see what it affects," he said, "especially given the rather little effectual scope of Bluetooth." Bluetooth have a scope of about 30 feet.

Yet Another Kill Bit


The killing spot is a characteristic Microsoft invented to work out the job of unexpected ActiveX executing in Internet Explorer. This is a flag that lets a user to forestall executing of some ActiveX points while running Internet Explorer.


"Microsoft is setting another killing bit," Regulay said. "I'll be interested to see what merchandise it is this time. It was First4Internet XCP (Sony Rootkit incident) in 2005, and Yokel Jukebox a few calendar months ago."


This calendar month Microsoft is acknowledging two denial-of-service vulnerabilities. Regulay said it's interesting that Microsoft is once again wavering on its DOS stance. Microsoft can't look to do up its head 1 manner or another about whether or not DOS is a vulnerability, he said.

Exploiting User Privileges


Amol Sarwate, director of the exposure research laboratory at Qualys, pointed to a critical update that impacts the DirectX constituent of Windows. "The critical exposures let distant users to run a malicious codification of their pick on the victim's machine, allowing them to steal sensitive information," he said.


Three of import spots are planned for constituents of the Windows operating system, including Active Directory, wins and PGM. These exposures let an aggressor to do a denial of service by crashing or rebooting the machine or the affected service, Sarwate explained.


"The wins exposure lets authenticated users to acquire higher privileges, allowing them to see or modify sensitive information that they should not have got entree to," Sarwate said.

Platform Computing Announces GemFire for Platform Symphony

Offering Combines Benefits of Data Power System and Calculate Power System into a Single
Powerful Solution TORONTO, June 9 /PRNewswire/ -- Platform Computing, the planetary leader
in High Performance Computer Science (HPC) direction software system system and GemStone
Systems, the prima supplier of in-memory distributed information management
software, have got announced an drawn-out partnership to offer GemFire(R) for
Platform Symphony. GemFire for Platform Symphony compounds data-on-demand
capabilities with fast real-time low rotational latency response in a single solution. This combination presents vastly improved consequences for accelerating compute
and data-intensive applications. Financial Services organisations are under
increasing pressure level to present faster, better, and more than cost effective
infrastructure to suit growing calculate needs. GemFire for Platform
Symphony lets enterprise-class resiliency and scalability to dramatically
improve public presentation of data-intensive applications, leading to improved
computational velocity and less sum cost of ownership. Optimizing substructure is critical to effectively take the
technology constrictions that via media efficiency. GemFire for Platform
Symphony supplies clients with rapid entree to the information they necessitate where
they necessitate it, along with the last available rotational latency in a real-time
workload direction system. GemFire is an in-memory distributed information store
that sit downs between an application and the implicit in information source. It
delivers a single, extensible enterprise-wide distributed information power system that
enables any procedure to reliably share, store, replicate, transform, route,
and synchronise big volumes of information across the power system in real-time. As part
of this partnership, GemFire will be packaged with Platform Symphony. "The combination of GemFire and Platform Symphony volition offer customers
a best-of-breed solution that will be able to scale to pull off the
exponential growing of endeavor data. By eliminating constrictions commonly
associated with extra information in a grid, users will undergo optimal
performance with zero information loss," said Juan Menendez, Senior Frailty President
of Business Development and Alliances, gem Systems. "Data powerfulness systems are a
natural development of calculate power systems and by teaming with Platform Computing,
we offer HPC clients the ability to leverage the power of information power systems and
therefore recognize additions in velocity when accessing their data." The Financial Services Industry utilizes HPC direction software system to allow
them to develop and tally missionary post critical calculate and information intense
applications across a grid. Platform Symphony is a powerful solution to
easily develop and deploy service-oriented HPC applications that tin run
five to 10 modern times faster than other solutions currently available. This
environment back ups the demanding demands of cardinal concern processes
such as intraday hazard calculations, pre-trade pricing and end-of-day value
at hazard calculations. "Optimal usage of power system trusts on two critical factors: providing
sufficient calculate power-the calculate grid-and somes reliable, low-latency
access to data-the data grid," said Jingwen Wang, Frailty President, Products,
Platform Computer Science "With GemFire for Platform Symphony, Platform and
GemStone are able to ran into these demands and let clients to concentrate on
growing their business." About Platform Computing Platform Computer Science is a innovator and the planetary leader in High
Performance Computer Science (HPC) direction software. The company delivers
integrated software system solutions that enable organisations to improve
time-to-results and cut down computer science costs. Many of the world's largest
companies trust on Platform to speed up calculate and information intensive
applications and pull off bunch and power system systems. Platform have over 2,000
global clients and strategical human relationships with Dell, HP, IBM, Intel,
Microsoft, Red Hat and SAS, along with the industry's broadest support for
HPC applications. Building on 15 old age of marketplace leadership, Platform
continues to define the HPC market. Visit . About gem Systems gem Systems is the prima supplier of the Enterprise Data Fabric
(EDF), delivering a pervasive, distributed information layer for highly available
data-on-demand astatine memory speeds. The GemFire EDF runs seamlessly on
multiple chopine in diverse operating environments with universal
language support, enabling information virtualization and transparence of data
sources to consuming applications. GemFire links to databases,
application stores, analytical tools, messaging systems, and mainframes,
enabling the deployment of high-performance service-oriented architectures
(SOAs) at significantly less costs. Visit .

Sunday, June 8, 2008

Is Google good for your health records? By PATRICK O'DONNELL AND JOHN HORTON

People have got heard about the benefits of putting their medical records online:

• They can be accessed wherever you go ill.

• They let you to break path your health.

• They may stop the fuss of filling out a doctor's clipboard full of questions.

But people worry about the drawbacks — especially if a security breach unleashes your most private inside information into the public domain?

Internet giant Google's recent leap into the concern with its Google Health land site () brought the argument to the desktops of billions of people, who suddenly wonder: What should I do?

Though the service is still developing, experts offering a small advice and some inquiries for you to consider.

Q: Make I have got another choice?

A: Your physician or coverage company may already hive away your records electronically. Experts state this is the manner of the future.

Q: So what's different about Google Health?

A: Google Health and respective others, including HealthVault, started by Microsoft last year, take the thought to another level.

These systems allow you garner your records from all your docs — old ones, new ones, from close and far — in one online warehouse. That salvages you from keeping a heap of document in the house, allows you see them with a few keystrokes and gives you a manner to share them with your current doctors.

Q: Bashes that really help?

A: Experts listing respective ways it can be valuable: if you have got docs in different metropolises or wellness systems that demand to share your records, if you necessitate aid keeping path your prescriptions or if you necessitate aid trailing things like immunisations or the days of the month of certain diagnostic tests or treatments.

Q: What enters travel on Google Health?

A: Whatever you make up one's mind to set there. Now, online systems can take only textual matter data files — electronic versions of prescriptions, doctors' short letters and laboratory reports.

Q: How make my records acquire on there?

A: You tin come in information yourself, though this can take a long clip if you have got a batch of information to enter. For a fee, a company workings with Google will garner the records and set them on. Walgreens and curriculum vitaes apothecary's shops are also partners. Their records can travel on Google Health easily.

Q: Can't my physician just set my records on there?

A: Not now. Many docs don't have got electronic records. Those that have got records on the computing machine don't fit Google's format. The conception of online wellness records is so new that no criterion exists.

Q: Who can see your records?

A: Anyone you give your watchword to.

Q: Bashes it cost?

A: Google Health is free. So is HealthVault.

Q: Make docs urge using a service like this?

A: They have got mixed feelings.

Even though the Cleveland Clinic is a partner, its head information military officer and president of the Information Technology Division , Dr. St Martin Harris, makes not utilize Google Health. But that's because all his wellness attention is within the clinic and he's already in the clinic's computing machine system. But St Martin advised his father, who have docs in two cities, to utilize it.

University Hospital's head medical information officer, Dr. Holly Miller, said she's not ready to take that step. "Would I set my personal wellness information in the custody of a third-party vendor?" she said.

Q: Why not?

A: Caution must steer the process, Glenn Miller said. While she believes online records will be common someday, the thought is sorting itself out.

Q: Is Google Health secure?

A: Google states it is. Privacy experts, however, warn that no system is impervious. A security breach could let go of personal information — mental wellness records, perhaps, or human immunodeficiency virus diagnostic test consequences — and scintilla reputations, said Linda Ackerman, staff advocate for Privacy Activism, a San Francisco-based consumer advocacy group.

Q: Bashes HIPAA apply?

A: Because Google's a nonmedical provider, it doesn't fall under the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA, which takes to protect patient privacy.

In Money Race, Obama Has The Advantage

2008-06-07 03:35:38 (22 hours ago)
Posted By: Intellpuke
(Read 134 modern times || 0 comments)

Sen. Barack Obama will head into the general election with the ability to raise
significantly more than money than his Republican opponent, an extremely
rare place for a Democrat and one that could give him a huge
advantage in mobilizing supporters, reaching electors and competing
across the country.

Party leadership state they anticipate Obama to
surpass the more than than than quarter-billion dollars he amassed during the
primaries, buoyed by a fundraising listing with more than 1.5 million
names, an uncommon bent for attracting money online and the expected
addition of tons of constituted bundlers who helped bankroll Sen. Edmund Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign.

Obama's advantage, which could stretch along into the 10s of billions over Republican Sen. Toilet McCain, would allow the senator from Prairie State to construct a far more than robust field
operation and let him drench radiocommunication and telecasting airs in a much
broader array of states, including those where Democrats make not
traditionally compete. He would also have got adequate money to bask the
luxury of making mistakes, whereas any mediocre picks McCain do would
be felt much more than acutely.

"From my vantage point, the enthusiasm
is there, and for the first clip we're seeing the [Internet]
fundraising and the traditional fundraising both pulling the rope the
same way," said R. J. Mitchell Berger, a Sunshine State lawyer who helped oversee
fundraising for President Bill Bill Clinton in 1996 and for Frailty President Aluminum Al Gore in 2000, and who is raising money for Obama. "More than any clip in my memory, Democrats are ready to go."

While
not all of McCain's Pluto and protagonists hold that Obama will
substantially outraise him this fall, they said the senator from
Arizona is uniquely positioned to pay a lean, underdog effort, much as
he did in the Republican primaries. They said his bent for parlaying
late-night television visual aspects and free-wheeling bus circuits into free
media attending have got proved that money is not the lone manner to win.

"Senator
McCain have demonstrated he can run a competitory political campaign without
spending as much as his opponents," said senior advisor Prince Charles R. Black, Jr. "He just finished demonstrating it."

McCain also looks confident that his fundraising will go on to accelerate. Friday, political campaign director Crick Davys announced that McCain will air out advertisements in 10 swing states, including costly
markets such as as Buckeye State and Pennsylvania, from now until November. Davis
called it "the single most important advertisement bargain since this election cycle
began two old age ago."

McCain political campaign functionaries told newsmen Friday that their fundraising will be bolstered by the Republican National Committee, which had more than than $53 million in the depository financial institution at the start of the month; in comparison, the Democratic National Committee had less than $5 million on hand.

Republicans
have enjoyed a fundraising advantage in the modern epoch of presidential
politics, and only Democrats backed by the powerfulness of incumbency, such as as
President Bill Bill Clinton in 1996, have got got been in a place to compete.

In 2000, for instance, Saint George W. Shrub raised $95.5 million during the primaries, almost dual Gore's $48
million. During the general election, when both campaigners accepted
an equal share of federal funds, the RNC outraised its Democratic
counterpart by almost $120 million, according to Federal Soldier Election Committee records. The form continued in 2004.

This
year, that form have flipped. Obama have raised $265 million over 15
months, and he had $46 million on manus at the end of April. McCain
finished the same time period having raised $96 million. He raised another
$21.5 million in May and finished the calendar month with $31.5 million in the
bank. Obama have not released May figures.

While McCain appears
poised to accept $85 million in federal money for the general election
- support that volition boot in after he formally accepts the nomination
in September - Obama have not indicated whether he will honour an
earlier pledge to make the same. His top fundraisers state they anticipate him
to waive the finances in favour of raising money with no upper limits.

Their
confidence in Obama's ability to far transcend the federal amount stems in
part from treatments with top Bill Clinton fundraisers, who helped convey in
$214 million for her bid. "I was talking to them all twenty-four hours yesterday and
today," said Berger. "They're not hard conversations."

Several
veteran political campaign strategians from both political parties said Obama's potential
financial border could emerge as a important barrier for McCain,
particularly as the two campaigners begin to form attempts in key
battleground states.

McCain will have got to see the expensive
advertising costs in topographic points such as as New Jersey and Golden State when
deciding whether to seek to vie there, said Evan Tracey, of the Political Campaign Media Analysis Group.

"If
I'm McCain, I've got to be a small intimidated by the sort of money
Obama can raise," said Tracey. "I mean, McCain basically have got to
outmaneuver Obama. He's got to think right on issues, timing and
markets pretty much every clip between now and November."

Mike
Stratton, a Colorado-based Democratic political consultant, said money
could turn out more than than of import in 2008, because both Obama and McCain
intend to do strong entreaties to independent electors and in more states
than in former elections.

"I believe they'll both happen they have
lots of states that are not locked in, states where both encampments have got got got the
ability to play, and they'll have to make up one's mind how to distribute out their
resources," said Stratton.

Scott Reed, a American Capital political strategian who managed Sen. Henry Martin Robert J. Dole's presidential political campaign in 1996 and is close to McCain, said the
candidate is no uncertainty aware of the fiscal hindrances he faces.

"This
will not be a traditional button-down campaign; McCain cannot afford
that," said Reed. "I believe you can anticipate to see the old playbook
thrown out the window."

Reed suggested that an early illustration of
this is McCain's offering to throw a drawn-out series of town-hall-style
discussions with Obama. "Bringing the circus to town conveys you a week
of free media," he said.

He also predicted that McCain would name
his frailty presidential choice early, in portion to bring forth mass media attention
during a normally quiet time period during the summer.

Meanwhile, the
RNC have begun preparing for the enhanced function it will play if McCain
takes public support after the party's convention. RNC functionaries said
they have got been investment heavily in the elector information files and commercial data
that let them to narrowly aim their entreaties to assorted groupings of
voters. The political party have also moved quickly to set up a Victory Fund
program that enables it to raise money in bicycle-built-for-two with the campaigner and
with state committees.

Democrats have got got launched a similar program,
though the DNC's fundraising attempts have lagged. Officials there say
that have been largely a consequence of the drawn-out primary. This week,
the political party also invoked regulations matching Obama's self-imposed restrictions
on not taking money from federal lobbyists and political action
committees.

RNC President Microphone Isadora Duncan said that while McCain
probably will not have got got as much money as Obama, he will have adequate to
be competitive. "A twelvemonth ago, people were writing him off," said Duncan. "He proved that the individual with the most amount of money doesn't always
win."
Intellpuke: You can read this article by Saint Matthew Mosk, reporting
from Washington, D.C., inch linguistic context here:

Saturday, June 7, 2008

Google's experimental Gmail toys - BBC News

The new developments, which are only available in the United Kingdom and the US, show up
as a reddish check at the top of the page.


Gmail merchandise director Keith Coleman says: "This Marks a large alteration in the manner the company makes merchandise development."


Generally speaking merchandises are tested internally on Google staff for hebdomads if not for calendar months and then refined before being released to the public.


Never before have the house opened up the testing procedure and brought in foreigners on such as a big scale. Smaller scaled usability diagnostic tests have got been done with invited visitors.


Mr Coleman says: "We desire to take the adjacent measure and allow Gmail users aid us make that refinement."


Old Snakey


The new scenes include things like 'Pictures in Chat' which sets portraits in confabulate sessions, 'Superstars' which allows you set different icons on mail, 'Old Snakey' allows you play the classic game in Gmail, and 'Email Addict' military units you to take a silver screen interruption by locking you out of the Gmail for 15 minutes.

"We are looking for small nuggets of innovation"

Mister Coleman states the characteristics are "Really unsmooth and have got gone through no filtering in footing of merchandise analysis or designing analysis. They have got got just gone through a general codification reappraisal procedure to do certain they are safe to run."


"They have also gone through less testing than a typical characteristic would. But what this is is a manner to take our thoughts and acquire them out to the public."


After testing, users will acquire the opportunity to directly state the developers what they believe of them. The most popular are likely to go a regular portion of the Gmail product.


20% time


The service was unveiled to a little grouping of journalists, including the BBC, who had been invited in to Building 47 at the Googleplex for a rare position of the squad at work.

Every thought is treated as having value


Normally such as spaces are off-limits to people outside of the company.


As well as being shown the new service ahead of release, we were also walked through the business offices where applied scientists take 20% of their clip to come up up with thoughts and work on them. The 20% clip is portion of Google's core ethos.


"The thought behind Labs is that any applied scientist can travel to lunch, come up up with a cool idea, codification it up, and ship it as a Labs characteristic to 10s of billions of users," explicates Mister Coleman.


Staff compose suggestions on a achromatic board to maintain path of everything being played around with and who is working on what.


Another show shows how many bugs an approaching application necessitates to acquire fixed and which applied scientist is working on it.


Spam Tsar


The whole workspace is divided into countries covering assorted facets of Gmail from the calendar to written documents and from the reader to spam.

The 'Spam Tsar' who maintains Gmail free from offerings you don't want


The cats fighting to maintain Spam out of the Gmail inbox are tucked away in a dark corner of the office. Brad Deems Taylor is known as the 'Spam Tsar', a statute title he quite enjoys.


He have been working on Gmail since its public launch back in 2004 and states he have seen a existent growing in the amount of unsought electronic mail implosion therapy into the system.


"Originally when we launched 25% of electronic mail was spam. We caught a batch of that. Over clip its adult and grown and currently around 75% of all electronic mail is Spam and so our occupation have got a batch harder."


Top secret


In the bosom of this unfastened space is the so called 'war room'.


Here around a one-half a twelve applied scientists are huddled into a cramped business office to work on top secret projects. Everyone there was tight lipped about what the adjacent large thing coming out of the room would be but helpfully quipped that it was a new colour.

Dreaming up the hereafter of Gmail and some new colours!

Sir Alexander Robertus Todd Jackson, another Gmail merchandise manager, was more than serious when he said that what travels on here is kept under wrap ups and that the applied scientists don't come up out until they have got either solved a peculiar job or fully developed a new feature.


Situated next to the business office coffeehouse is the Usability Lab where Gmail asks for little groupings of six to eight people to prove new applications to see how they will do with the general public.


Nika Smith, who assists run the Lab, states instead of having a two-way mirror to watch participants and how they interact with a product, they are a small more than high tech.


"We have got this small concealed photographic camera next to some flowers and one in the corner of the room. We just desire to cognize how they utilize Gmail and see from the users position what their experience is like."


"Then we just watch how they interact with the merchandise and work out what improvements are needed."


A-Team


Perhaps one of the coolest countries in the Gmail Lab is the land site dependability room, which is just past a mark that states "Hippies Use Backdoor".

Making certain the land site remains unafraid tin be 'tough work'


Decked out with a batch of monitoring devices and computers, there is also a choice of intoxicating drinks, a beat kit and a couple of guitars. On the wall hangs a whiteboard with a wish-list of things like "surround sound, a Wii Fit machine and a larger TV".


Mr Coleman states even though the topographic point was empty during our tour, everyone is on a beeper and acquires an qui vive when something travels awry with the site.


The overall Lab space is like any other characterless office, albeit with a few merriment oddities here and there such as as naming every pressman and duplicator after television shows of the 80's like The A-Team and All in the Family.


And one of the ways the Gmail Labs Fosters a household ambiance is by simply restful in the sunlight every so often with a barbeque, a regular happening here at Building 47 and the remainder of the Google empire.

Thursday, June 5, 2008

Bluetooth, IE to get critical Microsoft patches - NetworkWorld.com

Microsoft bes after to publish seven sets of security spots next week, including critical holes for DirectX, Internet Explorer
and Bluetooth radio software system for Windows.

The updates are owed Tuesday, the twenty-four hours Microsoft had previously scheduled to let go of its security patches. Fixes are also slated
for Active Directory, the Windows Internet Name Service (WINS) and the Matter-Of-Fact General Multicast (PGM) protocol, used by
Windows to watercourse mass media to many recipients. These updates are all rated "important." Don't Miss!

A 7th update, rated "moderate," is listed as a "Kill Bit" update for Windows. This type of spot will disable codification that
is known to have got a security bug.

"The Kill Spot will more than likely be for a third-party application," said Saint Andrew Storms, manager of security operations
with security seller nCircle. Related Content

Lately, Microsoft's security grouping have got had to pay more than attending to software system that tallies on top of Windows, as aggressors have
increasingly looked to merchandises like QuickTime, Adobe's Flash and other mass media participants when devising their attacks.

Last Friday, Microsoft warned that a widely publicized flaw in Apple's Campaign browser could be combined with another Microsoft
bug to allow aggressors run unauthorised software system on a victim's PC.

It's not clear whether Microsoft bes after to piece that bug. The IE update could include a fix, although it's unlikely that Microsoft
have had enough clip to run this software system through its testing process, Storms said.

It is unusual for Microsoft to piece Bluetooth, a communications protocol used to link devices like headsets to Windows, but added that
"the more than interesting inquiry is will this spot and/or the bug widen into Windows mobile where it will more than likely
have got a greater impact?"

Microsoft announced the planned spots in a posted to its Web land site on Thursday.

The IDG News Service is a Network World affiliate.

Enterprise 2.0 Conference Preview: Sony Gets Wiki With It - InformationWeek




Companies cognize they necessitate to join forces more than effectively. They just don't cognize how to make it. The issue will be discussed in depth at the approaching in Hub Of The Universe June 9 - 12, where a assortment of talkers will turn to how to accommodate the demand to share information with the demand to protect it.


Among those describing how they made Web 2.0 engineerings work in an endeavor scene will be Ned Lerner, manager of tools and engineering for Sony Computer Entertainment's Worldwide Studios. Alan Jay Lerner bes after to share some of that thought at the in back-to-back sessions on the . He'll be participating in "Real Enterprise 2.0 @ Sony Computer Entertainment's World Wide Studios" (10:10 am"10:30 am ) and "Enterprise 2.0 World Check" (10:45 am"11:25 am).

More Internet Insights
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Enterprise 2.0 Conference Resources


• • • • • •


Of all the companies that demand to work together more than than effectively, perhaps none necessitates to make so more than Sony. Just inquire Sony's boss.


At a recent company meeting in Tokyo, as the states it, Sony chief executive officer Leslie Howard Stringer called for corporate directors to acquire mad, to be bolder, more than than energetic, and more ingenious in how they run the company's assorted businesses.


Stringer is three old age into an attempt to reconstruct Sony's leading as a shaper of high technical school merchandises and to do the company's assorted units of measurement work more efficiently together. His attempts are showing marks of success.


Beyond the close tripling of net income reported in the company's most recent quarter, it's unclutter that some Sony directors are already comfy devising the bold, ingenious moves that Stringer demanded.


Ned Alan Jay Lerner is one of them. He pulls off the technology squads that manage Web 2.0 coaction technologies, coding, and content tools used by the company's game developers.


Lerner have been with the company for about four and one-half years. When he arrived, he said, there wasn't an substructure for cooperation and collaboration. He said that Sony direction wanted to do the procedure more than efficient and more easily able to share software system resources.


So Alan Jay Lerner drove the development of SHIP, which stand ups for Sharing Information Portal. It's not a big endeavor coaction suite. It's a aggregation of mostly unfastened beginning endeavor coaction applications. It includes Atlassian Jira and Confluence, Swing Forms and Swing Wildfire, SourceForge Enterprise Edition, Subversion, and the Perforce Software Configuration Management System.


This is not your father's endeavor software. It's quick, dirty, DIY, Web 2.0 stuff.


Developers, said Alan Jay Lerner "don't desire individual from the IT section involved because by the clip they acquire the IT resources dedicated, they have got the meetings, the IT person figs out what's going on and makes the customization work, who cognizes how long that's going to take? If you have got to convey in the IT expert every clip you seek to do a change, you're going to be given not to do any. So a batch of these [applications] are basically self-service."

Wednesday, June 4, 2008

McAfee Names The Most Dangerous Domains - InformationWeek




Web land land sites registered in top-level spheres tied to Hong Kong (.hk), People'S Republic Of China (.cn), and the Republic Of The Philippines (.ph) are the most likely to present a security menace to visitors, according to a released on Wednesday by .


McAfee's distills information from 9.9 million Web sites in 265 top-level Internet domains -- generic 1s and national ones. From that information, a listing of 74 spheres containing at least 2,000 land sites was compiled and rated for hazard based on the prevalence of malware.

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The study happens that 19.2% of all .hk Web land sites present a security menace to Internet users. For .cn Web sites, 11% present a security threat. For .ph, Web sites, 7.7% present a danger. For the .ph domain, it was a 270% addition in overall hazard from 2007, substantially higher than other domains.


The fact that a top degree Internet have a peculiar geographical association makes not intend that the at that or people responsible for the are located in that region.


Last year, spheres associated with the South Pacific Ocean island Tokelau (.tk) ranked as the riskiest Internet existent estate.


Jeff Green, SVP of merchandise development and McAfee Debar Labs, said in A statement that last year's study prompted sphere decision maker for .tk, a Dutch company, to re-examine its policies. This year, .tk is notably safer, commanding 28 out of 74.


The policy re-examined was the determination to offer limitless free anonymous enrollment of .tk domains, according to McAfee's report.


Among generic top degree domains, .info is the riskiest, with 11.73% of land sites flagged by McAfee. For the .com domain, that figure is 5.26%. The safest generic sphere is .gov (0.05%).


The overall prevalence of codification on Web land sites -- one factor of respective used to cipher overall risk-- stays relatively low at 0.07%. Thus, in 10,000 visits, seven land sites on norm would expose the visitant to a possible computing machine infection. Whether or not the visitor's computing machine became infected would depend on the virulency of the and on the security software, settings, and features of the machine in question.


Web land sites in certain domains, however, transport a far higher hazard than average. For example, McAfee establish malware on 1.1% of all Web land sites in the .ro (Romania) domain, a per centum 15 modern times higher than average.


The top five spheres ranked in footing of the prevalence of unsafe downloads are .info (21.95%); .ro (14.18%), .ws (12.5%); .biz (11.64%); .cn (10.75%).


"Vast parts of the Web are quite safe to visit, but many vicinities -- large 1s and little 1s -- set every visitant at hazard of an online mugging," McAfee's study concludes. "Whether that onslaught come ups in the relatively mild word form of a pop-up trap or something extremely serious like an unintentional experience with a keystroke logger, the Web is dangerous."


To extenuate that danger, McAfee, which sells security software, humbly proposes investing in "an up-to-date security suite."

IVT Announces Launch of Its New BlueSoleil Linux Version for Ultra Mobile PCs

TAIPEI, Taiwan, June 2 /Xinhua-PRNewswire/ -- IVT, the human race leading Bluetooth engineering specialist, denotes it have ported its popular Bluetooth application software, BlueSoleil 5.0 on Windows XP/Vista onto the Linux Operating System (kernel 2.6 or above), providing Linux users with the same expression and experience graphical user interface and functionalities. IVT will show it at Capital Of Taiwan Computex, June 3-7 in Bluetooth Pavilion.

Tuesday, June 3, 2008

Yahoo annual meeting to weigh Icahn's bid

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Yahoo Inc. said Tuesday that it bes after to throw its yearly meeting on Aug. 1, starting the countdown to an epic poem conflict with billionaire investor Carl Icahn.

Shareholders will make up one's mind who will command the Sunnyvale Web giant, which is facing intense examination in the aftermath of a failing coup d'etat command by competing Microsoft Corp.

Icahn is hoping to replace Yahoo's board, which he impeaches of bungling the negotiations, and restart amalgamation talks. Yahoo's managers are touting a three-year corporate makeover program in hopes of holding onto their seats.

The result of the fight, known as a placeholder contest, will largely find Yahoo's fate. Although still profitable, the Internet innovator have stumbled lately in the human face of stiff competition from industry leader Google Inc. of Mountain View.

In a taste sensation of the bare-knuckle tactics to come up in the placeholder campaign, Icahn told the Wall Street Diary in an interview published online Tuesday that he bes after to take Yokel chief executive officer Kraut Yang if he is successful in gaining control of the company. Icahn accused Yang and his chap board members of trying to undermine Microsoft's $47.5 billion coup d'etat bid, which he believes Yokel should have got accepted.

Icahn's remarks were spurred in portion by the release of tribunal written documents detailing a Yokel employee rupture program that would have got significantly increased the cost of an acquisition. The package, outlined in an investor suit, was set into topographic point shortly after Microsoft's amalgamation proposal and despite some concerns about the cost from Yokel employees and outside advisers.

Microsoft abruptly withdrew its amalgamation proposal May 3 after a three-month standoff when the two sides couldn't hold on a price.

Yahoo responded to Icahn's onslaught on Tuesday by saying in a statement: "Yahoo's board of directors, including Kraut Yang, have been crystal clear that it would see any proposal by Microsoft that was in the best involvements of its shareholders," while adding that "Mr. Icahn's averments disregard this clear factual record."

Initially, Yokel put its stockholder meeting for July 3, but then postponed it last month, saying regulators needed more than clip to reexamine the paperwork related to the placeholder contest. The hold bought Yokel some time, although it's unclear whether the other calendar month will assist the company addition stockholder support for the meeting, to be held at the Fairmont hotel in San Jose.

Several hedgerow funds, including one controlled by legendary billionaire investor T. Daniel Boone Pickens, have got recently bought billions of Yokel shares and program to vote in support of Icahn's slate of directors. Others on Icahn's slate include Dallas Mavericks proprietor Mark Cuban, former Viacom chief executive officer Frank Biondi and New Line Film co-CEO Henry Martin Robert Shaye.

In regulating filings, Yokel have urged its investors to back up the current nine-member board. In a regulating filing Tuesday, Yokel said two stockholders other than Icahn also had notified the company that they intended to put up themselves to the board. A 3rd stockholder said that he planned to put up a slate of nine directors, not including himself.

But Yahoo, which did not name the shareholders, said that they had failed to follow with the company's bylaws and therefore their campaigners might not be included in the approaching election. The deadline for nominations was May 15.

In related to news, Yokel have restarted negotiation with Microsoft about assorted advertisement partnerships, but not a full takeover.

E-mail Jules Verne Kopytoff at .

Zayed University launches 3 new graduate programs

Dr. Sulaiman Aluminum Jassim Frailty President of Zayed University said:

'Capitalizing on ambitious academic programmes and an exceeding international faculty, the College of Information Technology and its esteemed international spouse Saint George American Capital University in American Capital , District of Columbia offering the Maestro of Science in Information Technology with a specialisation in Cyber Security, the Alumnus Certificate in Information Security, and the Alumnus Certificate in High Technology Crime Investigation.' He added: 'Admissions to the 3 alumnus programmes is unfastened to males and females of all nationalities, and appliers will be evaluated by completion of an undergraduate grade in IT, MIS, Business or any related to field from an accredited university, in improver to have got English proficiency to pull off a challenging, fast-paced program.' On his portion Dr. Leon Jololian Acting Dean of College of Information Technology announced: ' The Maestro of Science (M.S.) inch Information Technology (Specialization in Cyber Security) focuses on the development of concepts, cognition and accomplishments that volition enable successful participants to go experts in the country of information security, cyberspace law-breaking prevention, and digital law-breaking investigation. The end of this programme is to develop highly qualified technical experts to ran into the demands of the national, regional and international workplace for information and web security.' He added: 'The Alumnus Certificate in Information Security takes to set up IT people to develop and pull off the physical and technical substructure necessary to procure critical information assets at all degrees within an organization. In order for the U.A.E. to keep its IT leading in the region, this type of expertness will be indispensable for the enlargement of e-commerce and e-government services in the region. Graduates of the programme will be prepared to detect, forestall and extenuate menaces to systems and information in order to protect the critical information substructure of the U.A.E.' 'While the acquisition results of the 1 twelvemonth portion clip programme of the Alumnus Certificate in High Technology Crime Probe will alumnus pupils with the wide and in-depth knowledge that set ups IT people to execute computing machine forensic investigations.' Dr. Leon explained : 'The addition of high engineering law-breaking have generated an pressing demand for a new type of research worker who can compound the scientific discipline of information engineering and forensic scientific discipline with the fine art of probes and critical thinking. Today, any law-breaking that affects a computing machine as a portion of the crime, as the law-breaking itself or as the storage topographic point for evidence, may be portion of an investigation.' He added: 'This is a critical demand for the U.A.E. and the Gulf region. Graduates of the programme will be prepared to work in local, state, national and international organisations in the public and corporate sectors. They will have got the accomplishments to look into a assortment of lawsuits that include personal identity theft, fraud, kid exploitation, money laundering and violent crimes.'

Monday, June 2, 2008

Google Diplomats Bend Free Expression to Preserve Global Power

When Kingdom Of Thailand blocked 's
YouTube Web land site last year, the company dispatched deputy
general advocate to assist reconstruct access. In Bangkok,
a sea of yellowish shirts stunned her.

It was a Monday, when Thais wear yellowness to honour King. Seeing their reverence, Wong states she
grasped why functionaries reacted so strongly to a mental image blending a
picture of Bhumibol with graffito -- an image that ran afoul of
a law against abusive the 80-year-old monarch. Google agreed
to barricade the cartridge holder in Kingdom Of Thailand while leaving it available
elsewhere, and YouTube returned to Tai computers.

Welcome to the civilization clangs that Google and other U.S.
Internet companies are navigating from Kingdom Of Thailand to Turkey and
China to Pakistan. The proprietor of the world's most popular online
search and picture land sites is learning to dwell with states that
''don't share the same baseline'' about the Web, Wong, 39, says
in an interview at Google's Mountain View, California,
headquarters. These authorities prohibition obnoxious material
because they ''don't cognize how else to command it.''

The Internet superpower's corporate diplomatic negotiations is
establishing far-reaching practices to maintain online content, and
advertising dollars, flowing across borders. 's
ambassadors, a aggregation of lobbyists and lawyers, are
traveling the Earth to estimate what authorities will endure --
and showing a preparedness to flex America's precious belief in
free expression.

'Multinational Environment'

''The impression that companies chartered in the United States
do things in other states they would never daydream of doing in
the United States is discomforting, obviously,'' states John
Palfrey, executive manager director of the at Harvard University University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. ''I think, though, this is the world of doing concern in a
multinational environment, joined by a common technological
network, which is the Internet.''

China, with an estimated 230 million people online, has
been at the centre of the Web freedom controversy, especially
since , Google's rival, turned over e-mails and
other information to the Chinese authorities in 2006, leading to
the imprisonment of journalist Shi Taoist and author Wang
Xiaoning.

''While technologically and financially you are giants,
morally you are pygmies,'' then-House Foreign Personal Business Committee
Chairman told Yokel executives, including founder
and main executive director military officer , during a 2007 hearing.

Financial Support

Yahoo, based in Sunnyvale, California, apologized,
provided fiscal support to the prisoners' households and asked
the U.S. to discourse their predicament with China.

In response to the Yokel fiasco, Google decided not to
offer Gmail, its popular e-mail service, in People'S Republic Of China to avoid
government demands for messages. To forestall breaks to its
Chinese operations, the company keeps regular contact with
officials through its business office in Beijing.

Those neckties are too cosy for some. Two old age ago Google
created a version of its hunt engine -- -- that
produces Chinese government-sanctioned stuff when people
inside People'S Republic Of China seek anything on Tibet, China or Tiananmen
Square.

''Even though Google and other companies now supply a
disclaimer to advise users that censoring occurs, they still
decide what to ban and whether they will even dispute the
government's actions,'' of New York-based Human
Rights Watch told a U.S. Senate panel on May 20.

Communication Scheme

Robert Boorstin, A former New House Of York Times newsman who
shapes communicating scheme for Google from Washington, says
the company was ''given a pick to open up a public library in
the word form of Google.cn'' Oregon be close out of the country.

''We knew that users of the Google Chinese service would
not be able to see a small, of import portion of the library,'' he
says. ''But the option was no library card game for anyone.''

Customers in People'S Republic Of China and other states are increasingly
important for U.S. Internet companies: 48 percentage of Google's
came from outside the U.S. last year, up from 39
percent in 2005.

''Our end is to maximise free expression,'' Boorstin
says. ''But you confront these states of affairs where authorities come up to
you and say, 'you are violating our laws.'''

Google have blocked pictures in Turkey that depicted the
founding father of the republic, , arsenic gay. Republic Of Indonesia briefly close down entree to YouTube because of a
short movie by a Dutch lawmaker that provoked Moslem protests.

Endorsement

David Gross, the U.S. government's coordinator for
international communication theory and information policy, endorses
Google's approach.

''We believe, of course, that companies necessitate to respect
domestic laws,'' Gross states in his State Department office. ''Having said that, finding technical solutions that don't
disadvantage those who dwell outside those states is very
important.''

Some say Google is in a alone place to take a tougher
line in its Web diplomacy.

''Google May be the first physical thing world have ever known
with the planetary economical powerfulness and societal influence to take the
ethical high route and to handle free and unfastened look like a
moral absolute,'' states , a Brooklyn Law School
professor and lawyer for Internet and telecommunications
clients.

''If Google doesn't have got got the wherewithal to exercise its
influence for the good of humanity, I don't cognize who will have
the courageousness going forward,'' he says.

To reach the newsman on this story:
in Mountain View, California, at