Ed Oswald

Norway said Friday that it plans to wean itself from dependence on large corporations like Microsoft by increasing the use of open source software within government agencies. The Norwegian government also plans to organize a panel of experts to set standards for access to public information and how operating systems can interoperate.

The northern European country is not the first to move towards open source; Brazil, China, France, Germany, Japan, and South Korea already have plans in place to do the same. The allure of open source to governments is great -- a lack of licensing fees means much lower IT costs, and greater flexibility to adapt programs to their specific needs.

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While nearly every current PC will be able to run Windows Vista, only half will be able to take full advantage of all of it's features, a recent study by research firm Gartner suggests. In turn, the firm is urging IT managers to take caution when ordering new PCs.

Today's average processor and hard drive should be sufficient to install and use Vista, Gartner says. However, a newer graphics card is likely required if the user wishes to take advantage of the Aero user interface, and the computer should have at least 1GB of memory installed for the operating system to run smoothly.

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Court filings show that a former technician with AT&T testified that the company cooperated with the National Security Agency in 2003 to install surveillance equipment. The equipment, located in a separate room in AT&T's San Francisco hub, was capable of performing large-scale surveillance of the company's customers.

The former employee's statement, as well as several documents saved by him after he left the company in 2004, shows further evidence of domestic spying initiatives by the federal government. News that the NSA was working with major telecommunications companies first surfaced shortly before Christmas.

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Microsoft said Thursday that it plans to release five security patches as part of its monthly Patch Tuesday program next week. With this month's advanced notice, the Redmond company disclosed the nature of at least one of the fixes, a break from its normal policies.

Microsoft normally does not provide details of specific fixes to prevent hackers from taking advantage of flaws before it has a chance to address them. However, with the "CreateTextRange" vulnerability, exploit code is already available, and third parties have even gone as far to create their own patches for the flaw.

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Discovery Communications said Thursday that video content from its library would be included in Google Earth through a deal signed with the search engine. Initially, video would be available for ten American National Parks.

Some of the parks in the initial release include Yellowstone, The Everglades, Mt. Rushmore, Alaska National Parks and Dinosaur National Park among others.

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While Apple has given its users an option to choose between Windows or Mac OS X at startup, other companies are working to give Mac users the ability to run Windows from directly within Apple's operating system using virtual machine technology.

Herdon, Va.-based Parallels said Thursday that it would begin a beta test of its Workstation product for Intel based Macs that would not only allow users to run Windows, but also Linux, FreeBSD, OS/2 or just about any other operating system with the Mac OS X environment.

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Lucent sued Microsoft on Wednesday over technologies within the Xbox 360 that allegedly infringe on patents held by the company. The suit was filed with the U.S. District Court in Sand Diego, Calif., on March 28, asking for an injunction and monetary damages.

The patent in question is titled "Adaptive Coding and Decoding of Frames and Fields of Video," and revolves around MPEG-2 video technology. Microsoft acknowledged that it had received a copy of the lawsuit, but declined further comment.

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EarthLink said Thursday that its joint proposal with Google to build a Wi-Fi network in San Francisco had been approved by the city's TechConnect Committee Wednesday night. The two companies submitted a joint proposal in February.

In the proposal, EarthLink and Google proposed a two-tier solution: a slower, open network operated by the search giant and a faster fee-based service to be run by the ISP. Previously, the two companies had submitted separate proposals during a six-week period in August and September 2005.

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Microsoft told reporters in Tokyo Thursday that it planned to triple the number of games it will offer in Japan by the end of this year. The console has struggled in the country, largely out of a lack of Japanese-centric games and consumers' wishes to wait for Sony's PlayStation 3.

Role-playing games like Final Fantasy are popular in Japan, much different from stateside gamers' preference for first person shooters. Also, Japanese gamers seem to prefer consoles made by companies based in the country, accounting for Sony and Nintendo's success.

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Like many things these days in Washington, a rift between Democrats and Republicans over the concept of net neutrality seems to be growing. The Republican controlled House Energy and Commerce subcommittee struck down a Democratic proposal that would have prevented broadband providers from charging a premium to companies for delivery of content.

Several Internet firms including Google, Microsoft and Yahoo among others sided with Democrats. They claimed such an amendment was critical in order to ensure a two-tier Internet would not form as a result. The amendment failed 23 to 8.

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Netflix is attempting to have rival Blockbuster Online shut down by suing Blockbuster in a federal court in Northern California on Tuesday. The company claims its biggest competitor is committing patent infringement and is asking for an injunction to bar Blockbuster from allowing online rentals.

Two patents surrounding online DVD rental are held by Netflix. The first was awarded in 2003 and covers the concept of the automatic queue, which customers add to from the company's library and then receive movies in a customizable order of preference.

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AT CTIA WIRELESS Microsoft said Wednesday at the CTIA Wireless tradeshow in Las Vegas that it planned to make "significant investments" in digital rights management for mobile devices such as cell phones. The company also disclosed it was in discussions with several wireless firms to enable new mobile entertainment options for consumers.

The more than 800 million handsets worldwide represent an "untapped market" for entertainment, Microsoft argued.

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AT CTIA WIRELESS MSNBC is expected to announce Wednesday a new application for Windows Mobile devices that would allow users of the Web site to access news and video content from PDAs and smartphones. Using technology from mobile application firm Action Engine, the service breaks new ground in the mobile delivery of news content.

The service will be provided free of charge through an innovative advertising model developed by both MSNBC and Action Engine. The two companies researched extensively on how to best deliver ads in a way that wouldn't scare off the consumer, and have settled on banner and video ads within the application

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Hoping to improve its online security offerings, McAfee on Wednesday announced that it had acquired SiteAdvisor. The Boston, Mass. based company maintains a database of Web sites that it tests for spyware, adware, spam, browser attacks, and online scams.

Each site is rated by a green, yellow or red icon based on those tests. McAfee says the acquisition would give an unprecedented level of security for those surfing the Internet when combined with the company's other products.

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In a stunning move, Apple on Wednesday officially sanctioned the running of the Windows XP operating system on Intel-based Macs through the release of a software package. Called Boot Camp, the 86MB beta product provides a dual-boot sequence and the drivers necessary to run Windows.

"Apple has no desire or plan to sell or support Windows, but many customers have expressed their interest to run Windows on Apple's superior hardware now that we use Intel processors," said Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing.

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