8 February 2006 Technology News

last SG · 2006-02-09T09:55:45+00:00

Lost an IPod or Wallet? Look for It Online BOSTON - Maureen Silliman felt her empty pocket and gulped: Her new $300 iPod must have bounced out as she ran t...

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Suit against Craigslist claims discriminatory ads

A Chicago-based public interest legal group has sued Craigslist over hundreds of housing posts that have included race, gender or other discriminatory restrictions.

The Chicago Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law filed suit in federal court Monday, charging that the posts on the popular Internet site violate federal fair-housing rules, which forbid excluding possible tenants on the basis of race, gender, family status, religion or other protected categories.

Attorney Stephen Libowsky, who's handling the case for the civil rights group, said that Craigslist provided a good service but should be held to the same standards that newspapers and other publications have met over the past few decades.

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Google offers management tool for AdWords

Search giant Google is offering customers of AdWords, the keyword advertising program, a new way to manage their accounts.

On Tuesday, Google notified AdWords customers in an e-mail that they could help test a new beta application, called AdWords Editor, which is designed to make handling ads easier. Made for users with large accounts, AdWords Editor aims to simplify locating and editing keywords, finding specific campaigns, and cutting and pasting text ads, according to Google's e-mail.

"As part of our ongoing effort to improve your AdWords experience, we'd like to invite you to try AdWords," Google said in its e-mail. "We're currently offering this beta program only to a select number of AdWords advertisers."

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Bill would force Web sites to delete personal info

A bill just announced in Congress would require every Web site operator to delete information about visitors, including e-mail addresses, if the data is no longer required for a "legitimate" business purpose.

The proposal, introduced Wednesday by Rep. Ed Markey, seeks to import European-style privacy regulations by imposing a broad data-deletion requirement. It would apply to every U.S. Web site, even ones run by individuals, bloggers or nonprofit groups and charities.

Markey said the measure would help stop identity theft. "This warehoused personal information about consumers' Internet use should not be needlessly stored to await compromise by data thieves or fraudsters, or disclosure through judicial fishing expeditions," the Massachusetts Democrat said in a statement.

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Danish Web sites hacked over Mohammad cartoons

Hackers have broken into about 600 Danish Web sites to post threats and protest against satirical cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad, an Internet monitoring group said Wednesday.

If pages outside Denmark, where the cartoons first appeared, are included, then the hack attacks numbered about 1,000, the Zone-H Web site, www.zone-h.org, said. Zone-H tracks attacks on Web sites and listed the sites which had been hacked.

"Danish, you'r D3ad," one page said.

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Million Dollar Homepage founder eyes next venture

British student Alex Tew has said he intends to take the innovation behind his phenomenally successful Million Dollar Homepage and replicate the success with a more credible, sustainable business model.

The Million Dollar Homepage started as gamble on the public's fascination with quirky Web sites and turned into a global phenomenon, making an unlikely celebrity of its founder.

Now Tew is turning his attention to creating something more long-term.

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Cable programming heads to iTunes

TV viewers who don't subscribe to Showtime Networks will be able to enjoy its premium cable content on demand, thanks to a deal that makes nonbroadcast television available on iTunes for the first time.
"Sleeper Cell," "Weeds" and "Fat Actress" are the initial programs included in the deal, which was announced Tuesday by Apple Computer and the CBS-owned channel. Viewers will be able to choose any or all episodes starting with the first episode in each series.

There was no magic formula behind selecting those current and previous-season programs, Showtime Networks chairman Matthew Blank said. "We decided based on rights issues, a mix of programming types and things we thought people would be interested in," he said. "This is the grand experiment, really."

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Oracle outlines layoffs

Oracle outlined its integration plans for Siebel Systems on Thursday, with 2,000 job cuts among the most notable tasks at hand.

Oracle, which closed its $5.85 billion merger with Siebel last week, plans to cut 2,000 jobs across the Siebel and Oracle work forces, Oracle Chief Financial Officer Safra Catz said during a conference call with analysts.

"We will retain...Siebel's product development and product sales and marketing teams," said Catz.

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Without Inouye, Gateway searches for new direction

Gateway Chief Executive Officer Wayne Inouye did everything he could, short of reintroducing the cow, to bring the company back from years of quarterly losses. As a reward for his efforts, he's now looking for work.

Gateway announced that Inouye resigned Thursday, days after the company reported a decline in fourth-quarter sales through its direct and professional channels. Inouye was brought into Gateway along with the purchase of eMachines to instill operating discipline and bolster the company's retail strategy following years of shotgun strategic decisions.

But as a public company, Gateway needed to find room to grow, and the board of directors appears to have decided that Inouye was not the man for that job, analysts said Thursday.

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Korean antitrust regulators visit Intel

The Korean Fair Trade Commission popped into Intel unannounced this week to seek more documents on an antitrust claim in South Korea.

The KTFC is looking into whether Intel has used marketing programs, product discounts or sales quotas in a manner that violated Korean antitrust law. Last year, the Japanese FTC asserted that Intel signed contracts with Japanese PC makers that effectively required these companies to limit the amount of processors they buy from Advanced Micro Devices.

Intel disputed the JFTC's finding of facts and law, but it agreed to send relevant employees to mandatory training classes and to give up some business practices. Intel did not pay fines.

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A plug for the unplugged $100 laptop

One of the more interesting technology sessions at Davos, Switzerland, this year was Nicholas Negroponte's presentation of a $100 laptop computer intended for developing countries.

Negroponte, the founder of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Laboratory, announced that Quanta Computer would be manufacturing the device, based on a chip from Advanced Micro Devices and the Linux operating system. Quanta, a Taiwan company, makes about 30 percent of the world's laptops, so its involvement lends considerable credibility to the project.

The mock-up that Negroponte demonstrated had a spill-resistant keyboard and a carrying handle. The final version will have a screen that can be read in direct sunlight, wireless networking capabilities and a hand crank to generate power.

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Open-source firm SourceLabs partners with Oracle

Start-up SourceLabs announced a partnership on Thursday with Oracle to stress-test popular open-source infrastructure software components on Oracle's Java application server.

Launched in 2004, SourceLabs provides support and testing services to large corporations that use open-source software.

The Seattle-based company has done certification tests for the so-called AMP stack, which includes the Apache Web server, MySQL database and PHP scripting language. It has also tested and certified what it calls the SASH stack--Apache Struts, Apache Axis, the Spring Framework and Hibernate, which are tools regularly used in Java software development.

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Gateway CEO Inouye resigns

Wayne Inouye, CEO of Gateway since its merger with eMachines two years ago, has resigned as the company focuses on building up its direct sales to consumers and to professional markets.

Rick Snyder, Gateway's board chairman and a former company president, will serve as CEO until a permanent replacement is found, the company announced Thursday.

The sudden resignation of Inouye, to pursue other interests, comes in the midst of a rebound for the company. In 2005, Gateway saw its market share in the U.S. rise to 6.1 percent, making the company the third-biggest PC maker in the country. Shipments in 2005 grew by 33 percent, one of the fastest rates in the United States (where Gateway sells the vast majority of its PCs).

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Electronic Data Systems profit rises

Computer services company Electronic Data Systems on Wednesday reported a higher quarterly net profit and revenue.

The world's No. 2 technology-services provider, EDS posted fourth-quarter net income of $112 million, or 21 cents a share, compared with year-earlier net income of $53 million, or 10 cents a share.

Revenue rose to $5.15 billion from $5.09 billion a year earlier.

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Microsoft plan averts U.S. antitrust conflict

Microsoft has averted a looming conflict with U.S. officials by agreeing to disclose more information about its Windows Server operating system, according to documents filed in federal court Wednesday.

Lawyers at the U.S. Department of Justice's antitrust division who are overseeing the landmark 2002 antitrust settlement said in the filing that Microsoft had assuaged most of their concerns about whether the company was doing enough to comply with the settlement.

Microsoft is required to license key information about its computer operating system to other companies under terms of the antitrust settlement.

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Ellison's strategy: More acquisitions

Oracle Chief Executive Larry Ellison said on Wednesday his company was targeting business intelligence software and middleware companies as part of its aggressive acquisition strategy.

Ellison told a Credit Suisse investor conference that the business intelligence and middleware market--which he considered as one--represented an area where Oracle was clearly not the leader and needed to make deals to gain a leading position.

"We are clearly not No. 1 in middleware," said Ellison, whose remarks were Webcast. "You will see us do a number of things in that space, including acquisitions."

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Microsoft to expand indemnification

Microsoft said on Thursday that it will expand the legal protections it offers device makers that create products using its Windows Mobile and Window Embedded operating systems. Under the new program, the indemnification for those products will more closely match that offered by Microsoft for other of its products, including the protections afforded to PC makers.

Under the revamped plan, Microsoft will protect distributors and device makers in all countries in which it distributes software and will remove a monetary cap on defense costs. "This program enables our OEM and distributor partners to select Windows Embedded and Windows Mobile with even more confidence than ever," said Suzan DelBene, a VP in Microsoft's mobile and embedded unit.

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Bank of America cancels numerous debit cards

A security breach involving an undisclosed company has prompted Bank of America to cancel the debit cards of numerous customers, a spokesman for the country's largest bank said Tuesday.

Bank of America refused to release the name of the company involved, the exact number of customers affected or whether the company in question was online or a traditional brick-and-mortar establishment.

The case is unusual in that debit cards appeared to be at risk. Credit cards are typically involved in security breaches at financial institutions because they are used more often than debit cards for retail transactions.

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Critical patch coming for Windows Media Player

Microsoft said it will send out seven security bulletins on Tuesday as part of its regular monthly patching cycle.

Four of the alerts are for problems with the Windows operating system, and another covers both Windows and Microsoft Office. The last two relate to Office and Windows Media Player respectively.

At least two of the alerts received Microsoft's highest risk rating of "critical," according to an advanced notification posted Thursday on Microsoft's Web site. The notice is designed to give companies a chance to prepare for coming updates.

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New pledges for Liberty Alliance

The Liberty Alliance, an industry organization dedicated to developing standards for online identity verification, has added 15 members. The sign-ups broaden the group's worldwide reach in the telecommunications, government and authentication sectors, the Liberty Alliance said Wednesday.

Among those joining Liberty for the 2006 calendar year are data broker ChoicePoint, international technology consultancy LogicaCMG and Italian telecommunications provider Telecom Italia. The others are Purdue University, the Fraunhofer Institute for Secure Information Technology, Falkin Systems, CallingID, Phase2 Technology, Finland's National Board of Taxes, New Zealand's State Services Commission, Diamelle Technologies, Livo Technologies, MedCommons, The OmniBranch, and Terena.

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Vulnerabilities found in Sony Ericsson phones

Several cell phones produced by Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications are vulnerable to denial-of-service attacks, two security companies reported this week.

The flaw is found in four models of Sony Ericsson phones and comes from an error in their Bluetooth service, according to the French Security Incident Response Team, or FrSIRT.

The Bluetooth "fails to properly handle malformed L2CAP (Logical Link Control and Adaptation Layer Protocol)," FrSIRT, a France-based security company, said in an advisory posted on its Web site.

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