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Macworld on the Intel iMac Good first look at the

Macworld on the Intel iMac
Good first look at the new Intel-based iMac over at our sister site Macworld. Bottom line: Macworld's tests don't back up Apple's claim of the Core Duo iMac delivering a 2X performance improvement over G5-based iMacs. (That's not exactly a...

New Open-Source License Draft Less Controversial Than Feared For Business (TechWeb)
TechWeb - The Free Software Foundation's much-anticipated General Public License version 3 extends license compatibility to other open-source licenses, prevents businesses from imposing unfair patent restrictions on open-source software, and tightens some other loopholes. In general, though, observers say it's more pro-business than some had feared.

Firefox Auto-Upgrade Users Become Surprise Beta Testers (TechWeb)
TechWeb - Some Firefox users may be wondering why they are using a version of the popular open-source browser that has yet to be released.

Via unfurls computer designs for developing world
Taiwan's Via Technologies has opened a design center in Mumbai, India that will try to popularize the company's PHD computing appliances, which are inexpensive, energy-efficient . . .

SpikeSource's Polese cites open source complexities (InfoWorld)
InfoWorld - Kim Polese, CEO of open source services provider SpikeSource since 2004, is perhaps one of the better known IT executives.

Apple Offers College Lectures Via Podcasts (AP)

AP - In its latest move to broaden its iPod and iTunes franchises, Apple Computer Inc. has introduced "iTunes U," a nationwide expansion of a service that makes course lectures and other educational materials accessible via Apple's iTunes software.

Microsoft Office ready to go 'Live'?
Microsoft will soon begin a beta program for Office Live, a set of services aimed at small business users, according to LiveSide, a Web site dedicated to tracking Microsoft's . . .

Homeland Security Extends Scope To Open Source Software
In an effort called the 'Vulnerability Discovery and Remediation, Open Source Hardening Project', the Homeland Security Department has granted $1.24 million in funding to Stanford University, Coverity and Symantec to identify security bugs in open-source software. The project aims at building an automated system that does daily scans of popular open source projects like Apache, BIND, Ethereal, KDE, Linux, Firefox, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, OpenSSL and MySQL.

OnStar Moves Technology Platform To SOA
OnStar, a provider of vehicle GPS systems, is moving its technology platform from Web services to service-oriented architecture (SOA). The company has plans to move between seven and eight application platforms, such as Emergency Services, Vehicle Services, Business Objects and Billing to SOA.

WSDL 2.0 Enters New Phase As Spec Becomes Official W3C

WSDL 2.0 Enters New Phase As Spec Becomes Official W3C Candidate Recommendation
SOA Web Services Journal is pleased to announce on behalf of the W3C's Web Services Description Working Group that the WSDL 2.0 specification is now officially a W3C Candidate Recommendation, the phase during which the Group verifies the implementability of the spec and tests the interoperability between implementations from different vendors.

Global IP Sound (GIPS) Seeks to Protect the Rights of Its Speech Processing Products
Global IP Sound today announced that it has filed suit against Sonorit AB and its subsidiaries Sonorit ApS and Camino Networks Inc, alleging that the company has violated GIPS' trade secrets and has engaged in acts of unfair competition.

Windows watchers eye their new Vista
Those who follow the ins and outs from Redmond have been chewing on the Windows Vista name for awhile. Though some preferred its predecessor code name, Longhorn, others see merit . . .

Intel Enters Next Era of Moore's Law
Chip maker says it will ship 45-nanometer processors next year.

Hosted Apps Rule In an On-Demand World

The on-demand delivery model for enterprise software -- managed hosting, software as service, whatever you want to call it -- is a big deal right now. Ever since Salesforce.com broke out with its wildly successful IPO last June, investors and industry watchers have been bullish on the promise of hosted applications.
Sure, application service providers (ASPs) have been around for years, but after the dot-com hype faded, it became clear that the "rented software" model only made sense for small businesses that didn't require true enterprise functionality. Not anymore. Flash forward to 2005, and ASPs are once again the darlings of Silicon Valley.

Jon Box's .NET Blog: "VS2005: Designer or Markup View"
Back in November when Jerry Dixon was presenting the VS2005 launch at the Memphis .NET User Group meeting, I gave him a hard time publicly at one point for doing most of the demo's from in the Markup View. I thought that this was not very informative to those not familiar with the new features. This is also contributed to by my preference in VS2003 to living in the Designer.

Target Group Chooses .Net Framework for Its 1,400 Retail Stores Throughout the United States
Microsoft Corp. today announced that Target Corp., the nation's second-largest discount general merchandise retailer, will adopt Microsoft .NET Framework-based technologies within its 1,400 stores in 47 U.S. states. Target will migrate its systems within each store to the Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0, Windows Server 2003 and Microsoft SQL Server 2005.

Google Launches Censored Search Engine in China (NewsFactor)
NewsFactor - Google has agreed to comply with censorship mandates in China that will limit search results for users in that country.

Mono Will Be Part Of Fedora Core 5 The Mono

Mono Will Be Part Of Fedora Core 5
The Mono open-source development platform based on .Net will be included in the next version of the Fedora core Linux distribution. Fedora users will get Mono and the various Mono-based applications, along with support for new languages like Boo, IronPython and Nemerle.

Cape Clear Forges SOA Leadership Position in 2005
Cape Clear Software today announced the company achieved significant corporate milestones in 2005, highlighted by widespread customer adoption, key financial achievements and strategic management appointments, as well as increased awareness and recognition from industry analysts. With 75 new customers and more than 100 percent revenue growth over the previous year, Cape Clear continues to deliver on the promise of a simplified Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) platform for mission-critical deployments.

Microsoft sets timing for Vista betaMicrosoft said Tuesday it is

Microsoft sets timing for Vista beta
Microsoft said Tuesday it is aiming to have all of the features that will ship in Vista, the next edition of Windows, completed by end of this year. A feature-complete beta will . . .

HP Helps Dobson Cellular Systems Manage Wireless Networks for 1.5 Million Customers
Dobson Cellular Systems, a subsidiary of Dobson Communications Corporation, has deployed the industry-leading software solution, HP OpenView TeMIP, to streamline network management and provide better service to its Dobson Cellular and Cellular One wireless customers.

Free Lunch Ends for Most Electronic Tax Filers
If you file your taxes online, your free lunch may be over. Last year, anyone who filed an income tax return through the Internal Revenue Service could find a preparer who would do it free of charge through Free File, the IRS's online tax preparation program. This year, the IRS is closing the window to taxpayers who make more than US$50,000.

AJAX for Mobile Devices Will Be the Hallmark of "Mobile Web 2.0"
Recently, Opera announced the availability of AJAX on mobile devices through their browser. Considering the popularity of Opera in the browser market (especially in the mobile browser market), this announcement is indeed very significant. Having been involved in creating mobile services for a few years now, Ajit Jaokar believes AJAX will replace both Java ME and XHTML as the platform of choice for developing mobile applications.

Gates: Beating Asia piracy to take 10 yrs (Reuters)

Reuters - Microsoft Corp. founder Bill Gates said on Friday that beating software piracy in China and India and getting compliance up to U.S. and European levels would take 10 years.

Brick-and-Mortar Retailers Fall Short in Online Sales Conversions

If you're a brick-and-mortar or catalog retailer trying to break into the online channel, chances are your online sales conversion rates are below those of your competitiors that are focused on e-commerce, according to a new study released by Nielsen/NetRatings. The study found that among the top 10 online retailers ranked by conversion rates in February, only Coldwater Creek has a significant brick-and-mortar presence. Kudos to Coldwater -- that must be why Sears decided to keep it. While the average sales conversion rate on e-commerce sites is 4.9%, QVC led the pack, converting over 16% of site shoppers into purchasers. Land's End was close behind, and Amazon, Yahoo Shopping and eBay also made the top 10.

"Skinning" – When Design and Development First Met
Did you know that the terminology known as skinning has been around for quite some time, but never in the hands of mainstream designers and Web developers in the content management space? Simple skinning or skin themes, which are more familiar, started back in the days of Windows when you could change the color/background of your desktop.

i-Technology Globalization: Nokia Expands Mobile Device Production in Dongguan, China
Nokia today announced its plans to expand its mobile device production in Dongguan, China. This expansion will provide more capacity and flexibility to meet the growing market demand worldwide, especially China and Asia.

Microsoft sets timing for Vista betaMicrosoft said Tuesday it is

Microsoft sets timing for Vista beta
Microsoft said Tuesday it is aiming to have all of the features that will ship in Vista, the next edition of Windows, completed by end of this year. A feature-complete beta will . . .

IBM buys usage monitoring software vendor
CIMS Lab Inc. makes software that can be used by businesses that might share software applications and storage resources across several business units.

db4o Launches Hibernate-Enabled Object-to-Relational Database Replication
db4objects, creators of the open source object database for Java and .NET, have announced the launch of the db4o Replication System (dRS), which enables users to build applications that synchronize objects bi-directionally between distributed instances of db4o's object database, all common relational databases such as Oracle or MySQL, and any combination thereof.

Steve Jobs and the New Magic Kingdom
In the nine years since Jobs returned to Apple, his unique modus operandi has sparked broad changes in the world of music, movies and technology. Now, Jobs is stepping into the Magic Kingdom. On Jan. 24, Walt Disney agreed to pay US$7.4 billion in stock to acquire Pixar Animation Studios, where Jobs is chairman, CEO and 50.6 percent owner.

Congress Set To Examine U.S.-China Tech Dealings (NewsFactor)
NewsFactor - In the wake of Google's launch of its censored Chinese search engine on Wednesday, the company has been roundly criticized by human-rights groups and now might be subject to scrutiny from Congress.

Phirst Phishing, Now Pharming

Enough has been written about phishing scams by now -- those fake emails that purport to be from banks or eBay, trying to trick you into submitting personal information. I get these every day, and never really worried about it because I'm not a moron. It's a minor annoyance to delete them, but you don't have to respond. But the latest threat, dubbed "pharming," can get you even if you're Howard Hughes careful. Pharmers actually manipulate the domain name system (DNS) that translates URLs into the IP addresses that computers understand, so these fraudsters can send you to a scam Web site even if you type in the correct URL.

Is Web 2.0 Entering "The Trough of Disillusionment"?
'Jeffrey Zeldman has an interesting and widely covered new article on Web 2.0 which is almost exactly as content free as he claims the Web 2.0 hypesters are,' writes Dion Hinchcliffe. 'That's not to say that he doesn't make a few factually correct statements about AJAX and even makes a passing mention of social software,' Hinchcliffe continues. 'But he's missing many of the big pieces of Web 2.0 since he's apparently looking at it through the somewhat myopic tunnel vision of a web page designer.'

More E-business News...
View more E-business news and analysis from Computerworld.com.

Windows watchers eye their new Vista Those who follow the

Windows watchers eye their new Vista
Those who follow the ins and outs from Redmond have been chewing on the Windows Vista name for awhile. Though some preferred its predecessor code name, Longhorn, others see merit . . .

Spanish police smash Internet paedophile groups covering 40 countries (AFP)

AFP - Spanish police said they had smashed 62 Internet chat rooms which exchanged paedophile pictures and information across 40 countries.

Marking 20 years of viral havoc (InfoWorld)
InfoWorld - This month marks a true milestone in computing: 20 years of viruses. The Brain virus, first detected in 1986, was a boot-sector virus that infected only 5.25-inch 360k floppy disks. Unbelievable as it may seem in hindsight, Brain spread around the globe without the aid of the Internet or e-mail.

Windward Offers .NET Version of Enterprise Report Generation Software
With the .NET engine Windward Reports can be used to create reports in either Java or .NET environments. The .NET engine is a 100 percent managed code product that is built from the same source code base as the Java version. It is built using J# and requires .NET 2.0. AutoTag has also been upgraded to use the new .NET engine as well as some other capability added in the .NET 2.0 runtime. AutoTag no longer requires any interop DLLs to run and is now also 100 percent managed code. AutoTag also no longer requires a report server to be running - it directly calls the new .NET engine.

Network Manufacturers Team Up To Boost Carrier Platform Standards (TechWeb)
TechWeb - The network equipment industry has formed a new group called Scope that seeks to promote the use of commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) hardware, software and open source products.

Steve Jobs and the New Magic Kingdom
In the nine years since Jobs returned to Apple, his unique modus operandi has sparked broad changes in the world of music, movies and technology. Now, Jobs is stepping into the Magic Kingdom. On Jan. 24, Walt Disney agreed to pay US$7.4 billion in stock to acquire Pixar Animation Studios, where Jobs is chairman, CEO and 50.6 percent owner.

Submit your questions for Windows' chief Want to know why

Submit your questions for Windows' chief
Want to know why you should buy Vista, the next version of Windows? Here's your opportunity to go straight to the source: Jim Allchin, the man behind Vista's development. On . . .

SLI Systems' Hosted SEO Offerings Help BedBathStore.com Rease Sales
With the holiday online shopping season underway, SLI Systems, a provider of on-demand search services for Internet and e-commerce sites, announced that BedBathStore.com has deployed the company's Learning Search and Site Champion hosted offerings.

Notebooks Rev Up With Dual-Core Tech
First dual-core portables tested prove to be multitasking powerhouses.

US tech firms that abet China censors face scrutiny (Reuters)

Reuters - Google Inc's decision to block politically sensitive terms on its new Chinese search site has drawn the scrutiny of U.S. lawmakers, who next month will probe American technology companies that help Beijing's censors.

Spain shuts down 62 Internet child porn forums (Reuters)
Reuters - Spanish police have arrested six people in Spain and shut down 62 international Internet "communities" that exchanged child pornography, the Interior Ministry said on Saturday.

Businesses still iffy on Vista plans
Businesses are taking a wait-and-see approach when it comes to plans for Windows Vista. According to a Merrill Lynch survey of 100 North American CIOs, two-thirds of businesses . . .

Marking 20 years of viral havoc (InfoWorld) InfoWorld - This

Marking 20 years of viral havoc (InfoWorld)
InfoWorld - This month marks a true milestone in computing: 20 years of viruses. The Brain virus, first detected in 1986, was a boot-sector virus that infected only 5.25-inch 360k floppy disks. Unbelievable as it may seem in hindsight, Brain spread around the globe without the aid of the Internet or e-mail.

Eclipse focuses on reports in new business intelligence tool (InfoWorld)

Eclipse focuses on reports in new business intelligence tool (InfoWorld)
InfoWorld - Seeking to offer an industry standard for report development, the open source Eclipse Foundation on Monday is releasing Version 2.0 of its Business Intelligence and Reporting Tools (BIRT) project.

Spanish police smash Internet paedophile groups covering 40 countries (AFP)

AFP - Spanish police said they had smashed 62 Internet chat rooms which exchanged paedophile pictures and information across 40 countries.

Google Co-Founder Larry Page Announces Video Marketplace
Google announced the planned opening of the Google Video Store, the first open video marketplace enabling consumers to buy and rent a wide range of video content from a major television network, a professional sports league, cable programmers, independent producers and film makers. 'Google video will let you watch lots of high quality video on the web for the first time. You can search and browse, and we make it fast and easy for you to watch,' said Larry Page, Google's co-founder and president, Products. 'For video producers and anyone with a video camera, Google Video will give you a platform to publish to the entire Google audience in a fast, free and seamless way.'

Kick the Microsoft habit in 12 steps
Do you know you want to beat your Microsoft addiction but don't know where to start? Well, there is a new book with all the answers: "Just say no to Microsoft: How to ditch Microsoft . . .

Torvalds Says No to Digital Rights Management License
Says in Web posting he doesn't expect Linux kernel to adopt GPL v3.

Google Hearing on Providing Search Records Set (PC World) PC

Google Hearing on Providing Search Records Set (PC World)
PC World - Federal judge sets a February 27 hearing date in the government's attempts to obtain Google search records.

Cape Clear Forges SOA Leadership Position in 2005
Cape Clear Software today announced the company achieved significant corporate milestones in 2005, highlighted by widespread customer adoption, key financial achievements and strategic management appointments, as well as increased awareness and recognition from industry analysts. With 75 new customers and more than 100 percent revenue growth over the previous year, Cape Clear continues to deliver on the promise of a simplified Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) platform for mission-critical deployments.

Nokia Launches Three Great Bluetooth Headsets
Nokia , the global leader in mobility, today announced three new Bluetooth Headsets; the tiny and stylish Nokia Bluetooth Headset BH-800, the powerful Nokia Bluetooth Headset BH-900 and the sleek Nokia Bluetooth Headset BH-200.

Blogger Gains Following With Iraq Reports (AP)

AP - He didn't have to go, it wasn't his job and nobody paid him to do it. But Michael Yon says he went to Iraq because he wanted to see for himself what was going on.

Windward Offers .NET Version of Enterprise Report Generation Software
With the .NET engine Windward Reports can be used to create reports in either Java or .NET environments. The .NET engine is a 100 percent managed code product that is built from the same source code base as the Java version. It is built using J# and requires .NET 2.0. AutoTag has also been upgraded to use the new .NET engine as well as some other capability added in the .NET 2.0 runtime. AutoTag no longer requires any interop DLLs to run and is now also 100 percent managed code. AutoTag also no longer requires a report server to be running - it directly calls the new .NET engine.

New Vaios coming home to AOL.com
Sony and AOL are introducing a special version of the AOL.com Web page that will be the default home page on Sony's Vaio PCs in 2006. Sony also plans to ship other AOL software . . .

In Brief
Seagate buys Maxtor--what it means; Sony's new Handycam.

Macworld on the Intel iMac
Good first look at the new Intel-based iMac over at our sister site Macworld. Bottom line: Macworld's tests don't back up Apple's claim of the Core Duo iMac delivering a 2X performance improvement over G5-based iMacs. (That's not exactly a...

Tibetans, others protest Google censorship
The public outcry continues over Google's launch of a search site in China that censors results authorities there object to. Tibetans and supporters protested at the Googleplex . . .

AOL Plans Nationwide Broadband Expansion (TechWeb)
TechWeb - America Online says it will soon expand its broadband network coast-to-coast through partnerships with service providers.