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Microsoft is making greater portions of its Sender ID framework, a security standard designed to ensure that e-mails come from legitimate sources, available under its Open Specification Promise (OSP) program At one time, the standard -- which is used alone or in combination with others by most of the major ISP providers -- was seen as a viable tool...

Oracle and IBM are leveraging the multi-million dollar investments they have made in their Linux product lines by joining forces to collaborate on the sales and marketing of Oracle applications for Linux on System z This collaborative effort has been driven in large part by customer demand, Frank Monez, the Linux System z Initiative Manager, told C...

The Mozilla Foundation this week made available its Firefox 2.0 browser, adding enhanced search and security features to its open source alternative to Microsoft's Internet Explorer. That program was updated itself last week, with Redmond's release of IE7 New Firefox features include an updated user interface with more visible toolbar buttons, buil...

Hoping to start the long process of moving past the massive recall of notebookcomputer batteries,Sony on Monday apologized for the uproar it caused but said it had no plans to exit the PC battery business To date, some 9.6 million batteries have been recalled around the world, the bulk of them forDell andApple laptops. Sony has been forced to spend...

The American Civil Liberties Union on Monday presented opening arguments in federal district court in its longstanding challenge to an Internet censorship law that was signed by President Clinton in 1998 but has never been enforced At issue in the case known as "ACLU v. Gonzales" is the Child Online Protection Act (COPA), which would impose crimina...

A long-simmering dispute among major wireless carriers took a nasty turn Tuesday when Vivendi announced it had filed a racketeering lawsuit against rival T-Mobile Vivendi's suit claims T-Mobile "illegally appropriated" US$2.5 billion that Vivendi invested inPolska Telefonia Cyfrowa, or PTC, a Polish wireless carrier. The suit claims T-Mobile and pa...

Google on Monday launched a new service that lets users customize its search engine The Google Custom Search Engine is aimed at bringing tailored search to Web sites and blogs. The new tool allows users to use the Google search platform to create a search engine focused on any content they like, from movies to sports to personal hobbies -- or anyth...

In the go-go eighties, Bret Easton Ellis's novel Less Than Zero was a cult classic, but today another "Less Than Zero" is attracting another kind of cult -- one bent on computer mischief or worse "The security industry and trade press have directed a lot of attention toward the 'Zero Day' attack, promoting it as the threat to guard against," Alan S...

Online advertising, like many novelties that play on the Internet, at first grabbed a great deal of attention from businesses. Online advertising was the new fad, and many people predicted it would overtake traditional advertising forms. Now that the newness of Internet advertising is wearing off, some early adopters argue that advertising on search engines such as Google and Yahoo is not working. They cite recent stories of click fraud and other problems with online advertising...

Despite the multiple millions of dollars being poured into its development, Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) is still not an eminent threat to old fashioned cable -- but it is edging closer to "prime-time" status Microsoft is billing its TV IPTV Edition as "better TV, not 'me too' TV." Nortel, Cisco and their various competitors are peddling IPT...

A survey of online banking illustrates how banks can cement brand loyalty and even increase market share through a thoughtful redesign of their online channel The survey was one of three extensive research studies released by Keynote Competitive Research, measuring the performance and competitive positioning of 29 banking Web sites. It rated and ev...

The once-controversialBitTorrent has inked deals with several hardware manufacturers to embed its software in consumer products BitTorrent makes a peer-to-peer digital content delivery platform known by the same name. The platform, along with others like it, has come under fire in the past for hosting pirated files. However, while some of its compe...

Election technology vendorDiebold suffered a leak of the original software code used to run older versions of its controversial e-voting machines late last week. The incident fueled doubts about thesecurity of e-voting machines in general and raised concerns over voter confidence in the technology as U.S. elections loom just two weeks from now The ...

IBM said Monday it has sued Amazon.com, alleging the e-commerce retail giant has infringed on a number of its patents IBM is seeking unspecific damages and said the suits were filed only after some four years' worth of attempts to negotiate licensing deals between the two companies....

Hoping to build on its reputation as the maker of network backbones, Cisco said Monday it would launch a video conferencing solution the company believes will help spark a new era of long-distance collaboration for its customers Cisco said its Cisco TelePresence solution would "redefine" the experience users of teleconferencing systems have when ho...

Google on Monday stepped into the political arena with its latest offering, the Google Earth Election Guide. The application mixes the company's Google Earth program with information about the U.S. congressional races coming up in November Google Earth combines satellite imagery, maps and the power of Google Search to allow searchers to access the ...

Internet start-ups seeking venture capital support may be in luck, as a second coming of sorts seems to be in full swing for Web-based technology firms, which enjoyed a seemingly endless supply of cash during the dot-com boom of the late 1990s In September alone, General Catalyst Partners invested US$12 million in QuickPlay Media, Benchmark Capital...

What should companies do -- and what should they refrain from doing -- when reacting to blog postings about their products or services? Robert Cox, president of the New York-based Media BloggersAssociation and a consultant to consumer packaged goods companies, has veryspecific ideas on the subject What they shouldn't do: Ignore the situation, or wo...

Linux leader Red Hat has unveiled an aggressive effort to expand its reach in the telecommunications industry, leveraging its acquired JBoss middleware and open source technology in the space and joining a European community project aimed at fostering an open service telecom infrastructure Red Hat said its participation in the European Community Op...

As we approach the end of the year, thoughts traditionally turn to the future. I thought I'd get an early start. Near term we have the widely rumored launch of the new Apple Newton, uh, I mean iPhone. A little further out we have the emergence of true telepresence -- which brings the possibility that companies will no longer reimburse business travel for most of us...