Apple CEO Steve Jobs began his keynote at WWDC at Moscone Center in San Fransisco, with a discussion on the new firmware for iPhones, complete with enterprise support, the final release of the SDK, and new end-user features.
To a packed hall, Jobs said that the iPhone 2.0 beta program has been a huge success: In the 95 days since the SDK was first released, it has been downloaded some 250,000 times. About 25,000 applied for the beta, however Apple only accepted 4,000 of them.
Engaged in patent-infringement lawsuits in three federal courts, and under two US International Trade Commission investigations for well over a year, HP and Acer summarily ended their battle on Sunday.
HP threw the first punch in March 2007 in the US District court of the Eastern District of Texas, calling for monetary compensation for- and an injunction upon Acer's computers which supposedly infringed on five patents (referred to in the original suit as "the '721, '697, '211, '933, and '759 patents") held by HP, three of which it obtained when it acquired Compaq.
In a wave of apparently unrelated PC thefts, workers at Stanford University, the University of South Carolina (USC), and AT&T have been warned by their respective employers that their personal data might have been compromised.
A laptop stolen from Stanford contained the personnel records of 72,000 current and past employees, all hired before September of 2007, according to information posted on Stanford's Web site.
CBS-owned social Internet radio service Last.fm once had content from all four major labels, but now Warner Music Group, which had been licensing to Last.fm on a month-to-month basis, has pulled its catalog from the service.
As first noticed by Silicon Alley Insider on Friday, it appears the main impetus for WMG's withdrawal from Last.fm's streams is, of course, money. The major label simply wanted more money from CBS, and was reportedly "disappointed" that a Last.fm premium subscription service was not opened as was anticipated.
A new round of petitioning by movie studios to the FCC has triggered a renewed debate over whether studios and content providers have the right to send signals to consumers' DVRs, disabling their ability to record certain programs.
As a result of public debate that took place in early 2004, the US Federal Communications Commission under then-Chairman Michael Powell adopted a set of rules that prohibited the carriers of digital TV programming from adopting any kind of control over viewers' rights to record those programs, or to reduce the quality of programs they might happen to have the ability or means to record. Now those regulations are under review as the result of a petition from the Motion Picture Association of America, which argues that such controls would be vitally necessary to the existence of the successor service to "premium cable."
Data protection company PGP says that increased usage of the Mac platform has prompted it to deliver a port of its pre-boot authentication scheme for those users.
PGP cited analyst data that shows a marked increase in enterprise adoption of Apple systems. Long a sector where the Cupertino company has struggled, support from a software maker like PGP certainly goes a long way.
Part of the plan for rediscovering profitability for the troubled Tribune Co. of Chicago involves fishing for revenue -- somehow -- from a thus-far-undeveloped social networking platform, according to a memo to employees from their new CEO.
The dismally performing US economy is but one of many factors threatening the future of this country's print media industry, which nearly everyone directly involved believes must transform its business model if it is to survive unscathed.
On its next "Patch Tuesday," slated for June 10, Microsoft plans to release seven security fixes, including three critical updates.
According to Microsoft's Security Bulletin Advance Notification for June, the fixes will also include three important updates and one classified by Microsoft as moderate.
Some time over the next five to ten years, IBM expects to replace a new water cooling method for its Hydro-Cluster supercomputer -- just unveiled in April -- with an emerging approach based on 3D chip stacks.
Right now, IBM's new Hydro-Cluster model removes heat from processors by means of water-cooled cooper plates instead of traditional heat sinks. For instance, the Power 575 system rolled out two months ago is billed as tripling energy efficiency while also operating five times faster than IBM's earlier supercomputers.
Spurred by support from legions of developers -- as well as from two currently warring industry groups -- Linux will constitute 23 percent of the world smartphone market by 2013, according to analysts at ABI Research.
In an interview with BetaNews Friday, Stuart Carlaw, API Research's VP and research director, noted that, despite their differences, the Open Handset Alliance (OHA) and the LiMo Foundation are both playing key roles in the rise of Linux on handheld devices.
While numerically-named sites such as 123.net and 1337.com already exist, on June 10 the landrush will begin for the .NU domain which is being marketed in the US as the "number domain."
Belonging to the small island nation Niue which is located between New Zealand, Tonga, Samoa, and the Cook Islands, the internationalized domain name has been popular for several years in Scandinavian countries where "nu" translates to "now." Roughly 80% of the registered .nu domains are Swedish.
A feature that enabled Google users watch videos hosted on either YouTube or Google Video without leaving the search results page, has been quietly removed from the search site.
The Google Video Plus box originally launched in May 2007 with support only for Google's YouTube and Google Video brands. Users interested in previewing a video would click a blue box next to its title, to open up a console that plays the video directly in the screen.
With Verizon's fiber-based FiOS product becoming more of a threat, cable provider Comcast said that by early 2010 much of its coverage area will be able to access the net at speeds of 100 Mbps.
At those speeds, a high definition movie can be downloaded within minutes (provided it's not in torrent form). The rollout for the technologies required to make 100 megabit-per-second cable internet has already begun, and will be in a fifth of Comcast households by the end of the year.
Speaking during a music conference in Hong Kong, the manager of U2 did not hold back, going on a public tirade against large Internet service providers, alleging they're profiting from illegal file sharing.
"The recorded music industry is in a crisis, and there is crucial help available but not being provided by companies who should be providing that help -- not just because it is morally right, but because it is in their commercial interest," U2 manager Paul McGuinness said during the Music Matters conference in Hong Kong on Wednesday.
Gamers who liked the original Crysis now can look forward to Crysis Warhead, currently in development by Crytek and Electronic Arts.
Building off the success of Crysis, Crytek and Electronic Arts publicly announced the development of Crysis Warhead, the second installment of the groundbreaking graphics-packed juggernaut launched in 2007. It's not an add-on but an entirely new game, with an expected release date for the 2008 holiday shopping season.