Recent technology news and commentary from silicon.com and ZDNet UK, sister sites of CNET News.com.
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From silicon.com:
Hospital's systems hit by computer virus
ID cards project adds implementation chief
Project Kangaroo makes leap to December testing
Photos: National Geographic explores store tech
'No lost memory sticks' shocker for gov't dept
Sepa adoption 'could take five years'
Peter Cochrane's Blog: Wave of innovation
Video: Cyber security's dragons and snakes
The McCue Interview: Catherine Doran, CIO, Network Rail
Photos: The world's fastest supercomputers revealed |
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From ZDNet UK:
OpenSocial, Facebook, Microsoft vie for developers OpenSocial's growth as a development platform for social-networking apps means it has to work out where it stands with rivals and programmers
Nasa turns to open-source problem-tracking tool The space agency plans to use new software written using Bugzilla tools to track and analyse problems with the Space Shuttle and Space Station programs
Yang's departure could open door to Microsoft Jerry Yang's resignation as chief executive of Yahoo may set the stage for another Microsoft offer, shareholders and analysts have said
Telcos warned: Join Google's cloud Telcos looking to offer cloud services to their customers would do well to get into bed with Google, analyst house Gartner has warned
OLPC 'Give One, Get One' set to launch in UK According to a listing on Amazon, UK customers will get the opportunity to take part in the OLPC scheme just in time for Christmas
Amazon launches content-delivery service The web company is pushing CloudFront as a high-speed, low-latency alternative to content-delivery-network rivals such as Akamai, while emphasising the service's lack of upfront costs
Virus downs systems at three London hospitals The unspecified computer virus has resulted in the indefinite shutting down of non-essential IT systems at Barts, the Royal London Hospital and The London Chest Hospital
LHC restart date now June at earliest
BT fibre-rollout on track despite financial crisis Plans to roll out next-generation super-fast broadband across the UK won't be affected by the economic situation, despite concern from some shareholders
Lords questions viability of £12bn comms database Questions have been asked in the House of Lords about how effective the database would be in tackling terrorism, and whether it could handle the three billion emails and 57 billion texts sent each year
Asus unveils world's 'fastest' smartphone
Mobile IE6 to hit Chinese handset first China Mobile will be the first operator worldwide to sell a smartphone with Microsoft's latest mobile browser Novell has released a new version of GroupWise, its answer to Microsoft's popular Outlook/Exchange collaboration suite
Mobile industry in RFID payment push The GSM Association has called on manufacturers to build technology for contactless payments into their handsets by the middle of next year
HP quadruples network virtualisation option The Virtual Connect Flex-10 module allows a single network connection to be split into four virtual connections, which HP promises will cut networking-infrastructure costs
Mozilla Ubiquity to bring mashups to the desktop Mozilla has put out a road-map proposal for version 0.2 of Ubiquity that could bring its shortcut features outside the browser and onto the desktop
Sun's StarOffice adds native Mac support The latest version of Sun's cut-rate productivity suite can also read but not write to the latest Office file formats.
Symantec chief Thompson to retire
Office Web Apps won't have offline ability Users will need a desktop version of Office to edit documents without an internet connection,Microsoft senior vice president Chris Capossela has said
Transmeta sold to video-chipmaker Novafora The struggling chipmaker agrees to be sold to video chipmaker Novafora for $255.6m in cash
Microsoft puts Exchange, SharePoint online
Adobe to bring full Flash to smartphones
Defra running 13 projects worth £289m The Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has revealed a complex, late-running and expensive programme of large IT projects
Adobe seeks to bridge gap between PCs, cloud While Microsoft's business is tethered to the PC and Google is trying to conquer the cloud, Adobe plans to show AIR and Flash technology that draws from both approaches
Firefox 2 support to be cut off Stability and security releases for the browser will end next month, despite ongoing problems with Firefox 3
Qualcomm serves up Brew SDK to developers Qualcomm has introduced a software developer kit for its Brew Mobile Platform, bringing Flash and applications to mid-range mobiles
iPhone 3G helps boost O2 sign-ups The Spanish-owned UK operator signed up three-and-a-half times as many new mobile customers in the third quarter 2008 as in the same quarter last year
Proxim: 802.11n to bring back 'fat' access points Wireless LAN veteran Proxim has launched a standalone 802.11n system, predicting the end of centralised controllers for WLANs
AMD runs live demo of Shanghai
The final specification for so-called SuperSpeed USB has been published by the USB Implementers Forum
Roadrunner pips Jaguar on supercomputer list Two systems, including one based on x86 chips, have become the first ever to break the petaflop/s barrier in the latest Top500 supercomputer list
Microsoft Store retail website launched With the launch of Microsoft Store, Windows Marketplace will shut down as an e-commerce site
IBM faces lawsuit for blocking exec's move to Apple Apple iPhone leader-in-waiting Mark Papermaster has filed a countersuit over an 'unreasonably broad' non-compete agreement with former employer IBM
iPhone 2.0 vying with BlackBerry in the enterprise
Gartner: 85pc of companies using open source The analyst house warns that, although take-up of open-source software is widespread, most companies do not have formal procurement or governance policies in place for such software
Women quitting IT over lack of employer flexibility The British Computer Society says 37,000 women left the IT industry between 2001 and 2007, mainly due to employer inflexibility towards career breaks
Adobe heeds calls for 64-bit Flash on Linux On Monday the company plans to release an alpha version of its Flash Player technology for users of 64-bit Linux software Prospective small-business suppliers of equipment for front-line troops have been invited to meet with the MoD at a seminar this week
Public rejects high-street enrolment for ID cards Identity and Passport Service research indicates only 25 percent of the UK public favours enrolling for ID cards at private-sector retailers
ARM takes on Intel with Adobe partnership The chipset designer says it is working to optimise Adobe's rich-media software for ARM's architecture, in a bid to take on Intel
Equifax offers online proof-of-age card
Nokia cuts handset-sales forecast The Finnish mobile-phone manufacturer has revised its fourth-quarter outlook, and also issued a warning over 2009 sales The IT-management software maker plans to buy identity- and role-management company Eurekify, marking its second security-related acquisition within two months
BlackBerry Storm goes on sale in UK
HP resolves inkjet dispute with LexJet LexJet will use a different ink formula in its remanufactured cartridges and pay HP an undisclosed sum
Google Site Search users get faster indexing An 'on-demand indexing' feature now lets Site Search customers direct Google to index specific pages so they'll be available in search results within hours
Obama team takes on more tech execs
Apple update fixes 11 Safari security flaws The update patches vulnerabilities affecting both the Mac and Windows versions Apple's web browser |
Repairs to Cern's Large Hadron Collider, which suffered a serious malfunction shortly after being turned on in September, could cost as much as £11m
The business-oriented Asus P565 uses an 800MHz processor, although UK availability for the Windows Mobile 6.1 handset is not yet a certainty
John Thompson will retire in April, but will remain chairman of the board, while company COO Enrique T Salem will take the helm
To target Lotus Notes and protect its turf against Google, the software giant has officially launched Microsoft Online, the hosted versions of Exchange and SharePoint
Powerful new mobile phones will get full-on Flash Player 10, not just the lightweight version, although Flash on the iPhone remains on the wish list
Jerry Yang will step back to his chief Yahoo role as soon as a successor is found for the CEO role, the company has announced 
AMD ran a live demonstration of its latest quad-core processor, Shanghai, at the chip's debut in Berlin
While the BlackBerry still rules the boardroom, chief information officers are giving the second-generation iPhone a fresh look
The company has announced it will reduce its workforce by between 15 and 18 percent, and restructure its software business
The Equifax Over-18 card is one of the first to use the open standards from the Information Card Foundation
The first touchscreen BlackBerry smartphone has been made available to UK customers, exclusively through Vodafone
US president-elect Barack Obama is enlisting more veterans of the tech industry to help his transition team evaluate federal agencies
