The weary war against net scum continues, as Google's much-abused BlogSpot service finds its CAPTCHA tech hamstrung and malicious Web sites spread like stinkweed.

The October report from MessageLabs (PDF available here) confirms what blog aficionados had suspected for several weeks: Spammers have figured out a way to get around certain implementations of CAPTCHA (Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart) and thus abuse BlogSpot as well as CAPTCHA-guarded e-mail services such as MobileMe.

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The gamble Dan Hesse took when taking the helm of Sprint was to restore value to a brand whose public image had taken a serious pounding. He may be gaining headway in terms of public confidence, but it's at a cost.

The strategy of new Sprint CEO Dan Hesse has been to reconstruct the public image of his company, and to be transparent about the difficulties ahead. It's a commendable strategy, but this morning Hesse found himself paying the price for it anyway, explaining a $326 million net loss for the quarter on 12.2% lower revenue, as having partly derived from decisions he himself made.

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Blu-ray vendors will be forced to drop their prices so as to compete with standard DVD, unless they adopt differentiators such as Netflix movie downloads, new research suggests.

Holiday prices for Blu-ray drives could fall further into the $150-to-200 range, especially with new download alternatives available from Microsoft's Xbox 360 and the Roku Netflix player, according to a new report from ABI Research.

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At an event this week described as "the Woodstock of developers conferences," Salesforce.com announced the new Force.com Sites hosted cloud environment and accompanying integration tools for Amazon and Facebook.

After first inventing itself as a premier SaaS (software as a service) practioner, Salesforce.com is now reinventing itself as a "cloud computing" company. This week, it's introducing a "PaaS" (platform as a service) hosted environment called Force.com Sites, along with new developers tools for Facebook front-end and Amazon back-end integration.

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In discussing the new service, MySpace CEO Chris DeWolfe yesterday said that an MP3 player carrying the MySpace Music brand may be feasible in the future, leading to speculation he could license his brand similarly to Real with Rhapsody.

Because DeWolfe doesn't see iTunes and MySpace Music as competitors, he believes his service actually contributes to iPod sales. "If anything, we'll be accretive to iPod sales unless we develop a device." Reuters quoted DeWolfe as saying.

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As the world finally starts taking seriously the move to solar power, Sanyo has been implementing a plan to emerge victorious as the leader in that field. But with the global economic crisis upon us, it may not be able to do that alone.

The Chinese news agency Xinhua is confirming, and Reuters is also reporting this morning, that Panasonic and Sanyo Electric have struck an agreement which will enable Panasonic to acquire a 70% stake in Sanyo from three financial institutions which currently co-own the company, including Goldman Sachs.

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Businesses around the world now face "a very challenging environment," and the comeback from the financial crunch will start in the US, said the CEO of Cisco Systems, whose financial results included the bleak month of October.

"September was a bit bumpy, but had nothing that was a big surprise to us. October did slow, and we began to hear from customers on a global basis that their business was slowing as well," said Cisco CEO John Chambers, in delivering company financial results this week that he seemed to regard as somewhat of a litmus test for the world economy. (Our thanks to Seeking Alpha for the transcript.)

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At this point, there's a social network for everything, and Lifefitter is accepting beta invite requests for no less than nineteen (and counting) action sports-related networks going into private beta testing in December.

Lifefitter's brands include social networks for scuba diving, hunting, skateboarding, surfing, backpacking, motocross, and more. Each sub-site will be treated as a discrete property, but will all sport the same UI, as Lifefitter itself is more of a social network platform.

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"Panasonic is big on SMBs," quipped a Panasonic executive today at a New York City press conference. There, Panasonic introduced a network-savvy voice, data and video access solution which uses phones as a primary user interface.

NEW YORK, N.Y. -- With phones becoming increasingly popular for data and video access as well as voice, Panasonic today rolled out a phone-oriented but IP-capable communications platform for SMBs, geared to integration with products from Panasonic and other vendors for custom vertical solutions.

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One of the biggest tech projects ever undertaken by the Coast Guard continues its years-long free-fall, enduring another spanking for its mismanagement of the mammoth Deepwater security program, even as parts of the program report progress.

Last Friday, the US Department of Homeland Security took the remarkable step of stripping the Coast Guard of acquisition decision authority for expensive projects, including Deepwater. The decision was made on the basis of a Government Accountability Office recommendation back in June.

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After a series of critical out-of-band security patches were issued by Microsoft two weeks ago, most of the thunder has been squelched for next Tuesday's regular set: down to one critical and one important patch.

In keeping with Microsoft's current policy, the company no longer releases too detailed information in advance of patches' distribution. For example, if the company were to say too much about interim workarounds, it might give away clues that could make many more machines vulnerable prior to Tuesday.

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Even if Jerry Yang isn't sorry about not pursuing a job related to his electrical-engineering studies, he may regret not attending culinary school. Crow is one of those dishes that can use an expert's touch.

It's getting to be a regular menu item at Chez Yahoo. A day after Google turned tail on the joint advertising agreement, and a couple of hours after some joker sent around a fake resignation letter "from" the embattled CEO, a weary-sounding Yang told a crowd at Web 2.0 that "to this day, I believe the best thing for Microsoft to do is to buy Yahoo."

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The early choices to lead the transition team for President-Elect Obama not only indicate the diversity of background that he promised during his campaign, but also a continuing attention toward comprehending modern technology.

Not quite two days after his historic election as the nation's 44th president, Barack Obama's transition team already has an active Web site. Located at change.gov, it maintains many of the templates used by the Obama campaign, though very quickly tailored for the purposes of maintaining an open forum for citizens to comment on, and contribute to, the process of transition of power in the executive branch.

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Not a company frequently seen in the CE field, Blue made its reputation in the professional recording category. Today it has pulled away from its niche market, announcing an HD Webcam and a software-less microphone attachment for iPod.

Blue is widely known for its atypical mic designs, and has managed to maintain that reputation as it releases more products outside of the audio enthusiast category. Now, the company has added to its list of ultra-portable audio solutions which currently only includes its Snowflake USB podcasting mic.

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Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA) is considered a superior encryption protocol to the aged and inherently flawed WEP (Wired Equivalent Privacy), but it is not without its vulnerability, as one researcher is preparing to demonstrate.

Security researchers are now saying they have refined an existing WPA crack, making it more efficient that earlier reports.

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