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Microsoft issued a critical software update Tuesday, plugging three vulnerabilities in all versions of its Windows operating system. The three flaws, two of which were reported privately and the third of which was publicly disclosed, deal with a hole in the Microsoft Server Message Block (SMB) Protocol The vulnerabilities could enable an attacker ...

Struggling Internet portal Yahoo has tapped former AutoDesk CEO Carol Bartz as its new CEO Bartz, 60, will face a monumental task in attempting to turn around Yahoo, which was the No. 1 destination on the Internet before being supplanted by search engine powerhouse Google a few years ago....

Google is launching a reseller recruitment drive that could herald a shift in the way the company markets its products. Google has used resellers in the past -- the partners it inherited along with the Postini acquisition, for example. Now, though, it is hoping to recruit "a very large number" of resellers of all sizes for its Google Apps Premier ...

Like every chief executive before him, President-elect Barack Obama will be making personal sacrifices as he assumes the role of U.S. president. He won't be able to stroll down a beach without the world watching. He will likely worry over how his daughters will adjust to living in a fishbowl. He may end his term, or terms, with a lot more gray in his hair than he would have picked up as a senator. He will almost certainly have to give up his beloved BlackBerry. Past presidents probably can't relate to the pain that's going to cause...

Merrill Lynch once forecast that the cloud computing market would reach an eye-popping US$160 billion by 2011, a prediction that mostly drew skepticism. While sizing up the expectations for a nascent tech market is equal parts art and science, there are growing indications that $160 billion may indeed prove to be accurate. In increasing numbers, e...

I have been writing about communities for many years, and it seems like a particularly good topic for the interesting times we live in, to borrow a Chinese phrase. A couple of weeks ago I wrote that this is a perfect time to engage in community building, but there is a lot of ambiguity built into that statement, so today I will attempt to clarify ...

Last spring, Sony appeared to score a decisive blow in the high-definition video sweepstakes when its Blu-ray video format won the endorsement of Hollywood studios and major retailers, claiming victory over Toshiba's rival HD-DVD format It seemed it would only be a matter of time before the buying public would line up to buy Blu-ray players, which ...

President-elect Barack Obama has selected former Internet executive and venture capitalist Julius Genachowski to be the next head of the Federal Communications Commission Genachowski, who was classmates with Obama at Harvard Law School, is expected to receive an easy confirmation from the U.S. Senate. Genachowski was chief counsel for Reed Hundt, a...

Scientists at IBM Research, along with researchers the Center for Probing the Nanoscale at Stanford University, say they have developed and demonstrated magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technology with volume resolution 100 million times finer than conventional MRI Results of the demonstration were published in the Proceedings of the National Acade...

So far, the vast majority of press reports and blog posts coming out of the Consumer Electronics Show last week rave about Palm's new Pre smartphone and webOS, the operating system that drives it. It's a 3G phone that runs on Sprint's network, has WiFi, GPS, 8 GB of memory, and all the standard stuff most expect from a smartphone these days. Repor...

Two giants of Japan's consumer electronics industry are expected to announce annual losses for the first time in many years Sony, maker of the industry-changing Walkman music player and the PlayStation series of video game consoles, is expected to announce a US$1.1 billion loss for the 2009 fiscal year that ends March 31. If expectation becomes rea...

The National Safety Council (NSC) has called on drivers to stop using cell phones and other communication devices while driving. The organization has also encouraged businesses to institute policies prohibiting their employees from driving and using a mobile phone. In addition, the NSC called on the governors and legislators of all 50 states as well as the District of Columbia to pass laws banning the use of cell phones while driving...

Cloud computing may still be in its infancy, but Google, Amazon and IBM -- as well as other large vendors -- have rolled out cloud services at almost breathtaking speed. Indeed, it might appear these tier one vendors already have the multibillion dollar industry sewn up. That is not true, of course. Any new industry undergoes shifts before it offi...

Imeem for Android is a music application from Imeem.com available for free at the Android Market.This application caught my eye as one of the early front-runners in popularity at the Android Market. I've been using it for about a month, and I listen just about daily....

The winter holidays are over, and brittle Christmas trees and empty champagne bottles aren't alone in many consumers' trash heaps. There are also used computers, televisions, cell phones and other gizmos that have been replaced with fancier models Those piles may be somewhat larger than in recent years, thanks to the imminent U.S. government-mandat...

Microsoft is making Windows 7 available as a public beta on an unlimited basis following a surge in demand that crashed the site after it first posted the code Microsoft had originally planned to roll out the Windows 7 public beta on a limited basis; initially, it was to have become available to the first 2.5 million users for a period beginning la...

A story in the Sunday Times of London sent Google's public relations machine into an advanced search for answers. The Times reporters wrote about a new Harvard study that examines the energy impact of Web searches. The story's lead paragraph: "Performing two Google searches from a desktop computer can generate about the same amount of carbon dioxide as boiling a kettle for a cup of tea, according to new research."

A report issued Monday purports to detail the 25 most dangerous programming errors committed by software writers that result in security bugs and enable cyber espionage and cybercrime. The list was compiled by more than 30 experts from cyber security organizations in the U.S. and other countries Experts from the Computer Emergency Response Team (CE...

As the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas continued on Friday and through the weekend, it became clear that the official attendance count at this year's gadget fest will likely reflect significant shrinkage. In addition, runaway hits -- things that really managed to shake the ground everyone was walking on -- seemed few and far between. Thin T...

One Laptop Per Child, a Boston-based nonprofit dedicated to providing cheap laptop computers to children in underdeveloped countries, has laid off 50 percent of its staff That leaves the organization with 32 employees, all of whom have taken salary cuts in an attempt to cut costs, said Matt Keller, OLPC's director of Europe, the Middle East and Afr...