IBM today filled a hole in its storage product line-up by buying FilesX, a rising star in the category of continuous data protection (CDP) and data recovery software for Windows.

The Armonk company plans to use the enterprise-oriented FilesX technology as a complement to an existing product called IBM Tivoli Continous Data Protection for Files, IBM officials said in a statement. CDP for Files is geared to individual PC users and small and mid-sized business (SMBs).

The online video provider from Fox Interactive Media is looking to take its Web-based shows to TV screens internationally with a newly announced deal with Shine.

Quarterlife, a short-form program featured prominently on MySpaceTV, made an attempt at breaking into the US broadcast television schedule last February on NBC. To say it was a catastrophic failure would be generous; the series not only ranked last among other shows in its 10 pm time slot, but received the lowest ratings NBC has seen in that slot for 17 years.

According to information and photos obtained by Engadget, new iPhone features are found in the Enterprise version of the new firmware.

The new functionality came as part of an update to the 2.0 beta firmware, which was pushed to registered beta testers on Tuesday.

The FCC has begun the process of establishing a nationwide emergency SMS alert system, laying down the foundations yesterday of technical standards that participating cell phone carriers must observe.

While participation is purely voluntary, AT&T, Verizon, Alltel, Sprint Nextel, and T-Mobile have reportedly all contributed favorably to discussions toward the formation of a system similar to the US' current Emergency Alert System for broadcasters, though which would relay national emergency warnings to cell phone users.

The way the game of mergers and acquisitions is typically played involves the carefully measured use of speculation seeding -- the fine art of making the other side wonder what you're going to do, without having to actually amass the real tools to do it.

ANALYSIS Yesterday, Yahoo revealed it can play this game quite masterfully. In an almost effortless stroke of gamesmanship, the Web portal leader announced it would test giving Google an extra outlet for its AdSense for Search, and then in the same statement pronounced quite sternly that by no means should anyone take this to mean anything permanent is taking place...because after all, Yahoo maintains the right to explore all its alternatives.

AOL will aggregate its tech-oriented sites through a single portal, attempting to cash in on an already broad user base accessing those blogs.

Switched will now become the hub for the company's efforts, and draw in content from various blogs already under AOL's tech umbrella. Additionally, the site will lose prominent AOL branding.

Struggling consumer electronics giant Circuit City pulled a big surprise Wednesday by posting a profitable first quarter, which is amazing considering its sales margins are still sounding alarm bells with investors.

Circuit City's overall sales numbers were down for the fourth quarter of its fiscal year just ended, but it also opened or relocated 22 US superstores and enjoyed gains across Web sales, international sales, and revenues from LCD TVs, video gaming products, GPS, and PC Firedog and home theater services.

The return of AMD to any kind of dominant position in the CPU market depends on its ability to be perceived by systems analysis personnel as the performance leader. Today, the company obtained some much-needed ammunition in that battle.

The question prospective customers have been asking recently about AMD is whether its reticence to produce a 3.0 GHz+ quad-core CPU will hurt it, not only in head-to-head matchups against Intel Xeon but with respect to its perception as a potential performance champion. Today, AMD claimed leading scores among turned in by three separate x86-based servers, all of them HP ProLiant models.

Microsoft has released its first preview of Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio 2008, a re-named and re-designed version of its 2006 robotics studio software.

Microsoft Robotics Studio 06, according to the company, had over 200,000 copies downloaded and over 50 companies in the partner program. Today's update was unveiled at the Robobusiness Conference and Exposition in Pittsburgh, the same conference that hosted the premiere of the earlier version.

In what appears to be a very carefully considered, strategically phrased statement this afternoon, Yahoo said it will actually test carrying Google's ads on its own pages, calling the test a "strategic alternative." Microsoft isn't happy and quickly responded.

For an upcoming two-week period, the date of which was not announced, Yahoo said that it will imbue up to three percent of readers' search queries with ads generated using Google's AdSense for Search service. That service was intentionally created to give other Web sites a mechanism for its users to search the Web using Google, with AdSense ads appearing next to the results, and with sites sharing in Google's revenue.

Both companies on Tuesday released rather significant security updates addressing a wide range of security holes in their products.

11 issues are fixed in Apple's update for QuickTime, version 7.4.5. The updates affect both Mac OS X and Windows, although not all security fixes are for both operating systems.

A newly released update to Mainsoft's Java EE software product promises to let programmers use Microsoft's ASP.NET AJAX Web application framework on Java-supported platforms outside of Microsoft Windows, including Linux and Mac OS X.

Mainsoft's original claim to fame is its technology that allows programmers to run .NET code on the Java platform. The company reportedly invested $14 million in research to unchain Microsoft's approach to AJAX from .NET and Windows, letting it become a true full-fledged, cross platform that can be used with any Java Virtual Machine.

Sun Microsystems and Fujitsu today jointly announced two new UltraSPARC T2 Plus servers: The SPARC Enterprise T5140 and T5240 represent the third generation of Sun's CMT multithreading, whose key selling point remains energy efficiency.

"We have seen CMT [chip multithreading technology] expanded to the processor level," a Sun spokesperson told BetaNews. "Sun really created CMT technology with the original 'Niagara' architecture and continues to lead in the CMT space with the UltraSPARC T2 processor."

Outraged Germans are getting some but not all of what they want from Nokia, now that the Finnish cell phone maker has agreed to pay a severance package worth $314 million USD to workers displaced by its upcoming factory move to Romania.

Under the final pact announced this morning, Nokia will continue plans to close its plant in Bochum, Germany on June 30. But after that date, the phone manufacturer will establish a "transfer company" that will employ the displaced German workers for up to one year.

The horribly overused "2.0" tag has made its way to the authoring community in a new online book publishing community called WEbook, which launched in public beta today.

Claiming to be a sort of open source approach to authoring literature, WEbook is a forum where new books can be composed by an individual wishing to "sandbox" his work, or by communities who submit content on a given subject which can then be voted into a book. The site's founders say they hope it does for publishing what Linux did for software and Wikipedia did for information.