IT Giants Hook Up To Fight Patent Litigation

Some of the largest technology companies in the world are banding together in a attempt to stop legal action over patent infringement.

Google, Cisco, Ericsson, HP and Verizon are among the companies that have formed the Allied Security Trust (AST).

Each company will pay a $250,000 membership fee and make $5m available to buy patents that could be used against AST members for infringement.

News Source: vnunet.com
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Microsoft Updates Messenger For Mac, Still No VoIP And Videoconferencing

Microsoft’s Mac Business Unit posted a minor update for its Messenger for Mac that features a series of bug fixes and promises to deliver improved support for enterprise environments. Unfortunately, the application still can’t make audio or video calls to users who are running the popular Windows Live Messenger on a PC.

Microsoft’s Mac Business Unit released its Messenger 7.0.1 for Mac as a free download from the company’s Mac site. The application is available for both Intel and PowerPC-based Macs and offers a few tweaks for the Messenger’s enterprise capabilities. Messenger 7.0.1 for Mac delivers enhanced compatibility with the Office Communications Server 2007 and a number of bug fixes - most importantly, fixes relating to European user interface issues. Also included is support for OS X’s Voice Over feature that provides audio feedback on interface options for people with hearing problems.

News Source: TG Daily
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Once Nearly Invisible To Search Engines, Flash Files Can Now Be Found And Indexed

For most people on the Web, if Google or Yahoo cannot find something, it doesn’t exist. That has been one of the biggest drawbacks to creating a Website or application that displays itself as a Flash (SWF) file. Search engines could see the file, but they could not see what was in it. Until now.

Adobe has come up with a way for the search engines to read SWF files and index all of the information they contain. That means any text or links in a Flash application can now be indexed. This is a huge step forward for Adobe and anyone who develops in Flash/Flex. Michele Turner, Adobe’s VP of marketing for its platform business, explains:

We are releasing technology to Google and Yahoo that enables them to crawl and index SWF files. They are now searchable. This will open up millions of Flash files to search.

News Source: TechCrunch
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It’s Not Vista: Windows Server 2008 Gets Nod From IT

It may look like Windows Vista. It shares the same code base as Vista. It even rolls in Vista’s first Service Pack. But in terms of customer adoption plans, Windows Server 2008 is no Vista.

A new Computerworld survey shows that 63 percent of the 403 respondents plan to adopt Microsoft’s new server operating system. (You can read more extensive survey results here.) This contrasts with the intention of some IT organizations to skip Vista entirely and move directly to Windows 7 on the desktop. According to an online survey of 372 IT professionals conducted by Sanford C. Bernstein in May, companies expect just 26 percent of their PCs to be running Vista by the beginning of 2011, down from an estimate of nearly 68 percent of computers based on a similar survey a year ago.

News Source: InfoWorld
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OCZ to Crash SSD Party With $259 64GB, $479 128GB Models

NAND flash manufacturers have been promising lower prices for solid state drives (SSDs) for quite some time now. We’ve only just recently seen some serious price erosion on modern, SATA-II flash drives.

Super Talent turned quite a few heads when it announced its MasterDrive MX series of SSDs in early May. The 30GB, 60GB, and 128GB drives have an MSRP of $299, $449, and $649 respectively (although online retailers like Newegg currently stock the drives for a bit less money). The MLC-based drives feature a rather impressive read speed of 120MB/sec, but the write speeds lag far behind at just 40MB/sec.

News Source: DailyTech
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U.K. Scientists Demo Graphic Passwords

Think it’s tough coming up with memorable yet secure letter/number combo passwords? Wait until you have to think of something to draw.

A system devised by computer scientists at Newcastle University in the U.K. uses human-scribbled doodles in lieu of traditional passwords.

Don’t worry. One need not be the next Picasso for the graphic passcode system to work.

News Source: C|Net News
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Microsoft Hyper-V: The Day After

Obviously, when a market leader like Microsoft releases a new key product like a hypervisor in an exploding industry like virtualization, and re-focuses every department on it, there are some repercussions.

It doesn’t really matter if the product is long overdue, if it comes with a limited feature-set, or if it the market is already crowded. The fact that Microsoft is (finally) fully committed on virtualization has repercussions on the landscape, at strategical and financial levels.

What follows is a summary of the first reactions from the market players with some additional analysis from us.

News Source: Bink.nu
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EA, Microsoft Protest Proposed UK Game Rating System As Too Expensive

A report from a well-known TV psychologist in the UK is having an impact on the way that country’s regulators rate video games there, and Microsoft and EA are now leading a counter-offensive.

The British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) has been the target of heavy criticism lately from game publishers, about proposed changes to one of two game ratings classification systems for the United Kingdom. That proposal is being backed by popular support due to the popularity of its author, a well-known presenter there.

But a report written by TV psychologist Dr. Tanya Byron for the UK government has caused a mini-uproar among game developers and gamers there. The Byron Report released in March, entitled “Safer Children in a Digital World,” recommends the BBFC handle game classifications for all titles designed for gamers 12 years old and above; it currently only handles games that have an 18+ classification.

News Source: BetaNews
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New AMD Phenoms Up Power Efficiency, Performance

AMD hasn’t launched a new Phenom X4 processor since late last March, when the B3-based 2.5GHz Phenom 9850 hit the market. Today, the company is making up for lost time, debuting two new 65W energy-efficient Phenom X4s at 1.8GHz and 2GHz, while simultaneously releasing a new higher-end chip at 2.6GHz. This triple play is aimed at boosting the attractiveness of the company’s quad-core products in the eyes of both consumers seeking energy-efficient parts and enthusiasts who want top performance from an AMD solution.

Of the three chips launching today, we’ll focus the majority of our attention on the new 2GHz Phenom, the 9350e. At $199, AMD’s new 2GHz part isn’t the company’s cheapest quad-core, but the chip’s 65W rated TDP is considerably lower than the X3 and X4 processors positioned at similar frequencies. The Phenom X3 8450 (2.1GHz), and Phenom X4 9550 (2.2GHz) are both 95W parts, which implies that we should see some excellent power consumption figures from the new CPU. The 2.6GHz Phenom X4 9950 does deserve a mention of its own; we’ll discuss the processor briefly before moving on.

News Source: Ars Technica
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Mac OS X 10.5.4 Update

The Mac OS X 10.5.4 Update is recommended for Mac OS X 10.5, 10.5.1, 10.5.2, and 10.5.3 Leopard. It includes general operating system improvements that enhance the stability, compatibility, and security of your Mac.

News Source: Apple Support
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