Intel to bring next -generation wired connections closer to reality
Intel this morning made available the updated Extended Host Controller Interface (xHCI) specification that will allow manufacturers to start work on USB 3.0 devices.
The xHCI spec describes the register-level host controller interface for USB 2.0 and above. As you may know, the host controller connects the computer with external peripherals, and the host controller interface allows the operating system to communicate with the controller. Intel is making the xHCI spec available under RAND-Z (Reasonable and Non-discriminatory licensing with zero royalties) terms today to companies that have signed the xHCI contributor agreement.
California legislature moves on cyber-bullying measures
If a bill now being considered by the California State Senate and Assembly becomes law, schoolyard bullies who use the Internet and text messaging to intimidate others may be expelled from school.
California Democratic Assemblyman Ted Lieu of Torrance, a Los Angeles suburb, introduced a measure to the Legislature in January 2007 in an effort to combat cyber-bullying, which he says has become an increasingly large problem with the pervasiveness of social networking.
Attacks continue on Russian and Georgian Web sites, but who's to blame?
Armed conflict between Russia and Georgia has been paralleled by what many in the media have classed a "cyberwar," where Georgian Web sites have been crippled by DDoS attacks and defacements.
As Georgian government sites were rendered inaccessible this week, Poland, Estonia, and the United States hosted mirrors to provide supplementary outlets for information. Polish president Lech Kaczynski's official site says, "Along with military aggression, the Russian Federation is blocking Georgian Internet portals."
Sprint to discontinue its PCS Mail service
In another apparent effort to streamline its services to focus on revenue, wireless carrier Sprint will stop providing the servers for e-mail service for its PCS phone customers, although it will let customers pick their own providers.
As a notice on its Web site indicates, Sprint will stop providing PCS Mail service on December 31. Giving customers plenty of time to make the transition, it's set up instructions and support for moving e-mail accounts, contacts, and even existing messages to Google's Gmail, AOL Mail, Yahoo Mail, or Windows Live Hotmail.
Twitter cuts off tweets by SMS in the UK over costs
It appears as if Twitter was unable to reach agreements with UK carriers to keep costs of its SMS tweets down. While users will still be able to send updates to a phone number, they will no longer be able to receive them on phones.
With Twitter's text option, a user's blog update could turn into dozens of text messages depending on who is following that particular user, which the Twitterer was not paying any additional fee for.
Appeals court upholds validity of open source licenses
When a developer distributes a modified version of open source code as his own without attribution to the original author, is that a copyright violation? Earlier, a district court said no. Yesterday, an appeals court strongly disagreed.
A typical copyright violation is the variety where someone makes money from the sale of a product or service whose idea or whose content belonged to someone else. The usual reason someone would license an idea or content to anyone else is in order to share in the proceeds. In the open source community, the motivation is different: The author seeks only credit, some measure of validation, and for others not to claim his work as their own.
Both houses of Congress to debate nationwide free broadband
While the FCC continues to stall and postpone its debate over holding yet another auction for free broadband service spectrum, two bills certain to be debated in both houses of Congress may just get its attention.
After the US Federal Communications Commission's tremendous 700 MHz auction concluded earlier this year, some congresspeople were disappointed that it had not achieved one of its originally promised outcomes: the creation of a free, nationwide broadband service for public safety providers, and even for everyday consumers.
Alcatel-Lucent extends its offer to Motive Inc. shareholders
Telecommunications company Alcatel-Lucent has extended the tender offer it made in June to buy Texas automation software company Motive.
The previous offer to buy all issued and outstanding stock in Motive was set to expire at midnight on August 12. Today, the company announced that it will extend the offer until September 10. As of last night, approximately 27 million shares had been tendered.
Licensing bug brings down VMware ESX data clusters
Could everyone's VMware licenses really have expired on August 12? That's the question hundreds of major data centers found themselves asking, right after midnight when they realized they weren't rebooting or resuming.
In what appears to be a fault with its license validation, virtualized data clusters worldwide running on VMware's ESX hypervisor found themselves unable to boot yesterday. Admins received messages saying their licenses had expired, whether or not they actually had.
MobileMe users targeted by new phishing scam
While the service may have fixed its downtime issues for the most part, it now appears that phishers are attempting to trick subscribers into divulging personal information.
Some subscribers are receiving an e-mail that looks like a legitimate e-mail from Apple. Towards the end, its text reads, "We were unable to process your most recent payment. Did you recently change your bank, phone number or credit card?"
Alltel lurches toward its acquisition by Verizon
The United States' fifth largest wireless carrier, with the largest network by area looks to be simply holding on until Verizon takes over, leaving open questions as to where its new customers will go.
Alltel has not gone into great detail about how the acquisition will affect its customers, since the
In-car wireless Internet to become a reality with Chrysler
An EV-DO-enabled hotspot will be installed as an option in 2009 models of Chrysler, Jeep, and Dodge vehicles, as well as some earlier models, the auto maker announced yesterday.
Chrysler itself will not install the Mopar-produced devices direct from the factory, instead it would be made available at the dealership. The new router will be mounted in the trunk much like CD changers and satellite radio receivers already are, and hardwired into the car's electrical system. Users will be able to use Wi-Fi at distances from the car comparable to current home-based wireless routers.
Eleven major soft spots addressed by latest Patch Tuesday
The full effect of yesterday's round of patches from Microsoft is just now being felt. This time, it's not the worldwide DNS flaw that's the big issue, but the typical stuff that afflicts Microsoft products, including and especially Office.
One of the "critical" vulnerabilities addressed yesterday affects older versions of Microsoft Word, and was acknowledged by the company last month. It involves intentionally malformed documents that, when parsed by Word, cause it to crash but also leave memory corrupted. Within that corrupt memory can lurk remnant code that could then be executed to give a remote, malicious user unauthorized privileges.
Yahoo's Fire Eagle has landed, offering open mobile services
In March, Yahoo opened the beta of Fire Eagle, its location-based middleware that allows developers to build services tailored to the user's geographic area. Fire Eagle is now open to the public with 22 launch partners providing their services.
Fire Eagle begins by asking users for location data, which can be entered as vaguely as the country or as specifically as the global coordinates. From that point, Fire Eagle's job is done as far as the user is concerned, most of a user's interaction will take place through applications built upon the service.
Two key Icahn 'dream team' members may join Yahoo's board
If the door is going to be left open for a possible future merger of Yahoo and Microsoft, someone's going to have to volunteer to plant their feet there. Today, it appears a Microsoft favorite and Viacom's former CEO may do the honors.
Early reports this morning from multiple sources, including The Wall Street Journal, indicate that the two individuals Yahoo agreed with Icahn Partners to allow for nomination to its Board of Directors, will be former Universal Studios and former Viacom CEO Frank Biondi and former Nextel chief and founder John Chapple. Carl Icahn himself would not be nominated.
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