You may think the 802.11n Wi-Fi networking standard is already here. The fact is, equipment manufacturers have been relying on drafts. At last, the final draft is on its way, and an Interop panel discussed its implications Wednesday.

NEW YORK, NY (BetaNews) - The now emerging IEEE 802.11n Wi-Fi standard will add some major new twists to Wi-Fi, or in many cases, finalize some of the twists manufacturers have already begun implementing while waiting for the finalized draft. Some of the most important of these changes will include three modes of operation and two frequency ranges, speakers said at the Interop conference here Wednesday.

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The latest suite of Windows Live "Wave 3" betas is now available for download, which includes the beta of Windows Live Movie Maker. Can you really use it to edit a motion picture? Yeah...in a sense, as we found out first-hand.

Microsoft's new Live Movie Maker -- the latest beta in "Wave 3" of its Windows Live services -- leaves quite a bit to be desired at this point, as it lacks the ability to do anything except arrange clips and photos with the option to include background music.

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Plastic Logic, flexible e-paper display company, cut the ribbon today on its own factory in Dresden, Germany. This will be the factory that manufactures its e-reader device which will compete with Sony's Reader and Amazon's Kindle.

Just as the company announced at the debut of its own e-book reader at DEMO in San Diego last week, the Plastic Logic facility opened today.

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Although computer companies were among its earliest adopters, "green computing" is quickly spreading roots into a range of other industries, judging from comments raised today by CIOs at the Interop trade show in New York City.

NEW YORK CITY (BetaNews) - At the Interop conference today, a panel of CIOs from Liberty Mutual, KPMG International, and the UMB Group all said that some sort of "green computing" initiative is already underway at their organizations, even though other aspects of IT management -- such as degrees of standardization and centralized control -- vary greatly across their environments.

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A costly technique for using two masks to produce one semiconductor wafer etching at the 22 nm level may be minimized, thanks to a process that IBM announced today, though for obvious reasons has not completely explained.

The need for devices to reduce power consumption is the chief motivator behind the drive to shrink the size of components. It's not like we need more space anymore; smaller components are simply, by design, more efficient. But it takes a tremendous array of new efficiencies along the way to yield that power efficiency at the end, and one of the problems facing chip manufacturers has been, how to implement these new processes without completely overhauling factories.

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While Yahoo's deal with Google directly affects only the US and Canada, the European Commission is currently investigating the potentially pond-hopping impact on the availability of advertising resources worldwide.

The European Commission's zealous consideration for a fair and competitive market has brought many, if not all, of technology's biggest companies before the judicious eyes of Commissioner for Competitiveness Neelie Kroes. Now, Reuters reports the deal between Google and Yahoo -- which is slated to only affect Yahoo search pages for North American Web users -- has been brought to Kroes' attention.

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Japanese gamer mag Famitsu today published Japan's weekly game console sales tallies, and Microsoft's Xbox 360 has secured the top position, thanks to compelling software releases and the console's refreshed pricing.

The Japanese market was initially lukewarm toward Microsoft's game console. Even after price reductions, the console's uptake only saw a brief surge over Sony's PlayStation 3.

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During a conference call with analysts late yesterday, executives from Adobe confirmed that the company is sticking to its schedule of launching its final editions of Creative Suite 4 next week.

Final builds of Adobe CS4 beta components were being discussed on its testers' forums as late as last weekend, and one problem that may not yet be completely resolved even on the launch date -- now expected to be next Tuesday -- concerns the compatibility of extensions made for CS3 with CS4. On testers' forums this week, Adobe claims its development partners have been given plenty of time to make the changeover, though at least one such partner claims it hasn't been given the help it needs from Adobe.

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11:00 am EST September 17, 2008 - At a meeting with analysts on Monday, HP officials said that a total of 1,500 employees have been working on a strategy to cut 24,600 jobs and produce other cost efficiencies in integrating HP with its newly acquired EDS.

About 500 staffers are working on this task full-time, while 1,000 are doing so on a part-time basis, said Shane Robison, HP's executive VP and chief strategy and technology officer.

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As US-based employees of Hewlett-Packard and EDS grab their golden parachutes, many of their jobs seem set to fly away to other countries, based on the remarks of HP execs at an analysts' meeting.

About half of the 24,600 job cuts that Hewlett-Packard has scheduled for the next three years will happen by the close of 2009, noted Cathie Lesjak, HP's executive VP and CFO, during a meeting with analysts late Monday. During that process, Lesjak added, HP will also create new customer-facing positions better suited to "optimizing" the company's "global footprint."

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Often, organizations don't really know how much open software is installed in their organizations, or what security and licensing problems might lurk within. The latest edition of Palamida's software addresses this looming issue.

At the Interop conference in New York City this week, Palamida Software is launching the latest edition of its product for locating open source code in organizations and identifying associated licensing issues and security vulnerabilities.

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Following recent discussions between the two companies that caused speculation regarding a merger, Samsung has made a public cash bid for SanDisk shares.

On September 4, shares in storage company SanDisk quadrupled in value after a Samsung spokesman noted that there were yet unresolved talks between the two companies. Spokesman James Chung said, "We are considering various opportunities regarding SanDisk, but nothing has been decided."

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It's no secret Microsoft's Zune player has Wi-Fi built-in, but besides a feature that the company had originally intended to call "dee-jaying," there hasn't been much else you could do with it. Zune owners, you deserve a break today.

With the latest firmware update to Microsoft's Zune music players, the company disclosed last week, listeners will be able to stream music directly from the Zune Marketplace Store without having to download and purchase it first. Today, we learned more about how that streaming capability will be put to use: Wi-Fi services provider Wayport will be working with long-time partner McDonald's Restaurants to implement streaming capacity directly with customers' Zunes over 802.11.

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The Internet Movie Database, known in the vernacular as imdb, has launched a beta update of its site featuring full-length movies and television episodes, in a move that may draw attention to its Withoutabox video monetization service.

Amazon's IMDb, the premier resource for information on actors' movie and television appearances, is now making full-length movies and television episodes available on its Videos site.

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An independent Android developers' blog reports having received an official invitation from carrier T-Mobile to cover a press conference in New York City Tuesday morning, where the first Android-powered phone will be unveiled.

A screenshot of the invitation appears on Android Authority this afternoon.

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