Latest Technology News

In an effort to scale middleware from its $420 million JBoss buyout upward to the enterprise, Red Hat this week released its JBoss Operations Network (JBoss ON) 2.0 management platform for applications running on Linux and other clients.

First announced earlier this year as part of Red Hat's Enterprise Acceleration initiative, JBoss ON 2.0 is being enthusiastically embraced by some developers.

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As shipments of notebook PCs are expected to eclipse those of desktops sometime in the second half of 2009, manufacturers are becoming more concerned about making up for the capacity and performance gaps in their hard drives.

To that end, Hitachi Global Storage Technologies today introduced the Travelstar 7K320, a fourth-generation 2.5-inch notebook drive that pushes the boundaries with several key distinguishing features.

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Grand Theft Auto IV, Take-Two Interactive's crown jewel of the sandbox game series, reportedly sold over 6 million copies of the game for Xbox 360 and PS3, earning the company over $500 million dollars in the first week alone.

Sales of the Grand Theft Auto games have historically been very swift, with composite NPD and VGcharts sales data ranking GTA: San Andreas and GTA: Vice City for PlayStation 2 the #3 and #5 all-time fastest selling games, falling only behind Microsoft's Halo series and Nintendo's recent Super Smash Brothers: Brawl.

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Sprint today renewed its WiMAX relationship with Clearwire in a very commanding way, raising the distinct possibility that they could surprise the rest of the industry by leapfrogging over AT&T and Verizon in the 4G wireless space.

Under a deal unveiled this morning, Sprint and Clearwire will combine their WiMAX holdings in a new wireless broadband company to be dubbed Clearwire, funded by $3.2 billion in investments from Google, Intel Capital, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, and Bright House Networks.

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You actually need a reliable database to keep track of the multitude of permutations deriving from MySQL executives' recent comments defending their company's right to make money off of its product.

The perennial problem among corporations that do business using an open source business model has been spelling out for its customers whether they mean "free as in 'speech,"' or "free as in, 'The global economy has collapsed, anarchy is rampant, and looting is widespread."' Since its absorption into the realm of Sun Microsystems, MySQL has had more and more difficulty appeasing a growing number of open source community proponents who worry that its commercial endeavors will divert the division's attention from adhering to the tenets of the General Public License.

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In addition to Google investing in the Clearwire joint venture upon which the future of Sprint's communications plans may rest, today Sprint says Google will be its valued partner for mobile services as well.

Sprint and Google today announced the two companies will share their properties with one another, mentioning numerous times the value of openness. The Mountain View search company becomes Sprint's default mobile search provider, and new Sprint handsets will offer Google's local search (for GPS-enabled devices), Google Maps Mobile, and YouTube accessibility.

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While touring Asian countries this week, Gates gave reporters a bone to chew on: a suggestion that Microsoft will now pursue an "independent" strategy in the wake of the Yahoo deal's failure. But independent of what, exactly?

There may not be many opportunities left in history to draw extrapolated conclusions on something Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates says about the future of his company, or of anything else related to technology. So a single phrase containing a key word uttered by Gates during a press conference in Tokyo yesterday has once again drawn the wolves into a feeding frenzy.

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Microsoft on Monday delivered its Zune 2.5 software, including several playback enhancements and better syncing and organizational capabilities.

Among the changes that affect the device directly is the option to select gapless playback. This eliminates the gaps that occur between electronic music tracks, and is especially useful for fans of live and electronic music.

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Two of the single most begged for features for PowerShell, the devastatingly useful scripting tool now made an integral part of Windows Server 2008 and Exchange Server 2007, are being addressed in the Community Technology Preview for version 2.0.

As Microsoft now confirms, there will be a unique graphical front end for editing scripts and running commands and cmdlets (compiled PowerShell keywords). And yes, Virginia, there will be a newly supported remote link to servers running Server Core, the new minimal Windows installation introduced in WS2K8.

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As companies continue to look for more ways to monetize their video content, video search engine Blinkx has launched a new system to help companies manage their videos before and after they are published online.

The Blinkx Advanced Media Platform (AMP) is a technology that was developed over twelve years' time specifically to deal with video -- specifically utilizing what the company calls Conceptual Recognition Engine (CoRE) technology. With the ability to identify and extract video assets either online or offline, CoRE makes it efficient for video sharers to search and organize the videos for online sharing, while users are able to search for the content on different platforms' languages.

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From today until May 20, anyone with a trademark is eligible to apply for a name with the suffix .me, the assigned top-level domain for the Southern European nation Montenegro.

The country has made the .me domain available to interested parties worldwide, hoping to capitalize upon the myriad of uses the extension holds in the English language while keeping its own "visit.me," "explore.me," and "invest.me."

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Nokia used the JavaOne Conference as the launch pad for the SDK 2.0 of its Scalable Network Application Package (SNAP) Mobile end-to-end Java gaming SDK, which offers development tools, support, service hosting, and community management.

SNAP Mobile SDK 2.0 (available through registration from Nokia) lets developers build mobile Java-based games on the Java Micro Edition (ME) platform, using technologies such as the SNAP Mobile Client API libraries, Emulation Environment software, and sample applications and various documentation.

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The new flagship phone takes some design cues from the Apple iPhone while at the same time beating the Cupertino company to the punch on high speed data.

HTC's newest phone was shown off at a press event in London on Tuesday, where the company also displayed its new TouchFLO 3D interface. Like Apple, the company is also focusing on making the mobile Internet more useful.

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After delaying the availability of Windows XP Service Pack 3 through its Download Center for one week after an incompatibility problem was discovered, Microsoft has now opened it up to automatic distribution.

Download Windows XP Service Pack 3 from FileForum now (316 MB).

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Incensed shareholders used Motorola's annual meeting yesterday to blast the company's board and management with complaints, with some questioning whether it should proceed with splitting off consumer products as a separate division.

"You're not doing the job that you're paid for. Either put up or get out," growled one disgruntled Motorola shareholder, venting his wrath over Motorola's financial losses and sliding stock prices.

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