Latest Technology News

The newly reorganized Motorola phone manufacturing company, soon to be spun off, will undergo a radical realignment that eliminates the bureaucratic barrier between software and hardware divisions, according to a company memo.

To get Motorola ready for a planned spinoff of its mobile phone business, Motorola CEO Greg Brown issued a memo to employees outlining a reorganization into new product and "Go to Market" (GTM) teams, also announcing the names of execs in new roles, including those of leaders of the new "Mass Market" and "Mid and High Tier" product groups.

Continue reading →

Yesterday, a supplier of Linux for driving time critical applications -- such as intercepting ballistic missiles -- released RedHawk Linux 5.1, its latest "real-time" operating system distribution.

Concurrent is a Linux distributor specializing in real-time technologies that can be utilized by some very serious businesses. For example, Concurrent is the key supplier of RedHawk Linux for the US Navy's Aegis cruisers, which are equipped with anti-air, anti-surface, and anti-submarine weapons systems.

Continue reading →

The mess surrounding Facebook's Beacon service is still claiming victims: a Texas woman has sued Blockbuster over its involvement.

Cathryn Harris sued the movie rental chain on April 9 in US District Court for the Eastern District of Texas. Harris claims that by sharing her rental information with Facebook, the company ran afoul of the Video Privacy Protection Act of 1988. Even after Facebook users opt out, she contends, their information is still being sent on to the Web site.

Continue reading →

A provision to a tax reform bill offered by Rep. Sam Johnson (R - Texas) aims to remove the requirement that employees keep track of their cellular phone usage for tax purposes.

In an earlier day, when cellular phones were lugged in briefcases, their use was recorded by the minute. It was also more expensive, so businesses didn't really use cell phones all that often; and as a result, tracking cell phone usage was considerably easier. Thus the IRS compelled businesses to track usage of these devices in order that they may calculate deductions.

Continue reading →

In the never ending video console war, Microsoft's Xbox 360 has now stepped back ahead of Sony's PlayStation 3 in terms of unit sales, says a new study by the leading industry analyst group on the subject.

But both platforms got outperformed by Nintendo's Wii and the portable Nintendo DS and Sony PlayStation Portable, within a total US video game market that reached a $1.7 billion milestone in March.

Continue reading →

Computer maker Dell and the US Environmental Protection Agency have a computer recycling event tentatively scheduled for this weekend in the metropolitan Washington, DC area.

Recycling service TechTurn and the National Recycling Coalition also are involved in the event, which will take place for five hours at Freedom Plaza on Sunday, April 20.

Continue reading →

After having exited the travel business once before by spinning off Expedia, the Redmond company appears to stepping back in by scooping up a Washington-based startup.

Farecast is not exactly like Expedia, or other travel sites for that matter. Instead it essentially provides forecasts of whether fares would rise or fall on a specific route. From there, it provides a recommendation of whether to buy the ticket now or wait.

Continue reading →

The long road to writing with black ink again may at last be coming to an end, said AMD's chief executives yesterday. But that depends on more than a handful of factors boding well, including Opteron CPUs suddenly giving it no more trouble.

There may yet be light at the end of AMD's dark tunnel, its chief executives tried to reassure analysts during its quarterly conference call yesterday afternoon. That light will start to shine in the second quarter, and could be pretty bright by the third quarter.

Continue reading →

With $5.9 billion in first quarter 2008 revenues -- a whopping 42 percent gain over the same period in 2007 -- Google is enjoying a wave of success at a time when a lot of other stocks are tanking.

"It's clear to us that we're well positioned for 2008 and beyond, regardless of the business environment we're in," acknowledged Google CEO Eric Schmidt, in a conference call with financial analysts yesterday. "It's also interesting to note that paid clicks growth is much higher than has been speculated by third parties."

Continue reading →

Electronic Arts said Friday that it would extend the expiration date of its $2 billion takeover offer of Take-Two buy about one month. The deal was originally scheduled to expire on Friday.

However, the Federal Trade Commission said Thursday that it was opening up a second line of inquiry on the merger, and so far Take-Two has rebuffed EA's offer. Now, the deal will expire on May 16.

Continue reading →

Mixing technical concerns with a truckload of business issues, Red Hat has stealthily acknowledged slipping its deadline for Red Hat Global Desktop (RHGD), which might have given it an edge against Novell's competing SuSE Linux.

Unlike the existing Red Hat Enterprise Desktop (RHED), the planned RHGD is aimed exclusively at small, reseller supplied implementations in emerging geographic areas such as Brazil, China, and India. Red Hat also sponsors a community project called Fedora, which develops and maintains a free desktop product.

Continue reading →

Microsoft is just another contributor to the OXML (formerly OOXML) community now, and today the work it has been doing to build developer tools for what's now an international standard, has been changed to reflect that new status.

Work at Microsoft on the system developer's kit for the OXML format suite continues mostly on schedule, with a Community Technology Preview released today in advance of a final 1.0 release now moved back a few weeks to June. But it's no longer the Microsoft SDK for Office Open XML Formats. Instead, it's just another effort (assuming there could be others) to build programmable access to Open XML formats, as Microsoft is now referring to it as just the Open XML Format SDK.

Continue reading →

An IBM spokesperson today denied published reports of what he termed "mass migration" to Apple Macs at his company, claiming the only point of the test is to try to make IBM software products run well on Mac OS.

Although an IBM spokesperson did confirm to BetaNews this afternoon that Macs are now being piloted at IBM Research, he added, "A lot of the blogs out there are suggesting that we're planning some sort of internal mass migration to Macintoshes. But that simply isn't true."

Continue reading →

If an AOL + Yahoo deal were to be effectively brokered, then Google would be perceived as the ultimate victor. But is that really part of the company's plan, to replace Microsoft in the public conscience...and does it really want that role?

It is Yahoo that has skillfully advanced the name of Google as the possible spoiler for Microsoft's takeover bid, without Google ever having to lift a finger. It need not even be the alternative corporate parent: AOL is now being seen as the speculative alternative, in a deal that Google would presumably facilitate.

Continue reading →

Although IBM's PC servers fell flat last quarter, its software business soared, especially in "branded middleware." IBM's Cognos BI tools, WebSphere middleware, and Lotus collaboration software all displayed double-digit increases.

IBM's latest quarterly financial results, announced yesterday, showed revenue growth of 11% to $24.5 million for the first quarter of 2008, with gains across most categories, including software, services, vertical markets and most of IBM hardware systems, but weak spots in IBM's System x PC hardware and System i midrange servers.

Continue reading →