May 17th, 2008 - Call it a kind of bigotry for the new millennium. The packets of peer-to-peer applications such as BitTorrent have become the target of throttling—even complete blockage—by Internet service providers on their networks. Do they have the right? The revelation comes from study results published... (Read More)

May 16th, 2008 - Google on Monday launched Friend Connect, APIs for accessing data from Facebook and other social networks. By Thursday, Facebook banned the access, saying the tools don’t let its users know their data is being scanned. A post by Facebook’s Charlie Cheever on the Facebook Developers blog... (Read More)

May 12th, 2008 - If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. According to Web reports over the weekend, Google today is expected to launch Friend Connect, a set of APIs for pulling personal data from social networks that comply with the OpenSocial common interface specifications it published in October. The move would... (Read More)

May 14th, 2008 - Before I tell you about Bill Gates’ speech at CEO Summit 2008 today, I’d like to share one more story from my trip to Orlando for STAREAST last week. And then I’ll tie the two together. In my May 10 post from the conference, I mentioned “Testing Dialogues—In the Executive Suite,” an extremely... (Read More)

May 13th, 2008 - Microsoft continues to reach out and touch mobile device makers and their carriers. The company today announced a deal with Research in Motion that will enhance integration between Microsoft’s Windows Live services and Blackberry 7000 and 8000 series devices as well as the BlackBerry Bold, a... (Read More)

May 5th, 2008 - There’s a better-than-even chance that you’re using Microsoft Outlook for e-mail. And if you’re like me, you’re not too happy about it. But there’s a free plug-in available today that brings some much needed relief from some of what ails the world’s most popular e-mail client. I tried it today and... (Read More)

Apr 30th, 2008 - Microsoft has put the brakes on Windows XP Service Pack 3, which was supposed to be available yesterday through the Windows Update Website. A Tuesday post on its TechNet site said a “compatibility issue” between Microsoft’s Dynamics Retail Management System point-of-sale application and SP3 has... (Read More)

Apr 21st, 2008 - With the lackluster adoption of Vista, perhaps Microsoft plans to migrate XP users by attrition—one service pack at a time. The company today released Windows XP SP3, which enables in XP a slew of features, many native to Vista. Available now as a stand-alone installer pack, the update brings... (Read More)

May 13th, 2008 - Research in Motion has thrown its BlackBerry hat into the iPhone ring with BlackBerry Bold, the latest version of the company’s line of sleek, multimedia savvy smartphones. According to a RIM press release, the new unit is “crafted from premium materials inside and out, that radiate elegance... (Read More)

May 4th, 2008 - I’ve never liked Steve Ballmer very much as president of Microsoft. I don’t know the man personally, of course, and I could never quite put my finger on my reasons for disliking him. Until today, that is, when I read an Associated Press story that included allegations that the Microsoft CEO once... (Read More)

Apr 27th, 2008 - I don’t know about you, but I’m glad the Microsoft bid to acquire Yahoo was a bust—and I hope it stays that way. I shudder to think of the consequences of a company like Microsoft acquiring Google-like power. Microsoft already has too much power and control over my life. I don’t want to be further... (Read More)

May 10th, 2008 - ORLANDO, Florida—Thousands of software developers and testers converged here this week for the Software Testing Analysis and Review conference, better known as STAREAST. It’s one of just a few must-attend learning events for people in our field, and if you haven’t been to one of these events,... (Read More)

Apr 30th, 2008 - A federal court today ruled in favor of people using file-sharing applications such as Napster and Kazaa, notorious for illegal distribution of music files. The ruling was a blow to the Recording Industry Association of America, which has been combating users and developers of this software... (Read More)

May 7th, 2008 - It was the belle of the ball stumbling as she made her grand entrance. Sun Microsystems on Tuesday, hoping to make a big splash at JavaOne with the launch of its shiny new platform for rich internet application development, saw demos of JavaFX repeatedly crash. Like blaming it on the red... (Read More)

May 6th, 2008 - Sun Microsystems on Monday was giving away packaged copies of OpenSolaris in an effort to seed the development community with a Linux alternative and boost the number of available applications for the platform. The news came at CommunityOne, Sun’s free developer conference collocated with... (Read More)

Apr 20th, 2008 - Asustek Computer on Saturday unveiled the Eee PC 900, a beefier version of the ultra-mobile PC it introduced late last year. The new unit is available with Xandros Linux or Windows XP, and is scheduled to begin shipping on May 12 with a sticker price of US$549. Last year’s model 701—which at... (Read More)

May 2nd, 2008 - Watch out Java; Adobe wants a bigger bite of your mobile-device market share pie. The company yesterday said it will drop its licensing fee for including its Flash Player on handhelds and unveiled alliances with some of world’s largest telecom carriers, content providers and chip and handset... (Read More)

Apr 29th, 2008 - High performance computing has long been a part of Intel’s dossier. But a deal announced on Monday with supercomputer maker Cray Inc. could paint Xeon in neon on Intel’s resume. The multi-year pact puts Intel’s dual-core Xeon processors—found in most of the world’s most powerful HPCs—in Cray’s... (Read More)

Apr 27th, 2008 - Yahoo Inc., the apple of Microsoft’s eye in recent weeks, has unveiled improvements to the Yahoo Development Network, Web-service capabilities and advertiser opportunities. The moves could be seen as an attempt to show Yahoo’s value is greater than the US$40 billion acquisition bid of the Redmond... (Read More)

Apr 25th, 2008 - Having all your data wherever you go is useful beyond measure. A Web-based service and series of open APIs unveiled this week by Microsoft is intended to offer a solution to keeping all our devices in sync. If I had a dollar for every time I accessed an Outlook contact, set a reminder with my... (Read More)

Apr 24th, 2008 - The Fedora project team on Tuesday posted a preview edition of Fedora 9, its final stage of development during which users and contributors can provide feedback about bugs missed during beta testing. The latest Fedora distro is based on kernel 2.6.25; more on that later. General release is set for... (Read More)

Apr 23rd, 2008 - If you’re developing applications for MySpace or just thinking about it, the social networking company has made it easier to get the word out about and popularize your apps. An update to the fledgling MySpace Developer Platform released last week lets app builders add messaging and posting... (Read More)

Apr 21st, 2008 - I could have sworn that only Apple was making Apple-compatible computers. I remember well the era in which Apple famously granted—then revoked—licenses to Motorola and others to manufacture hardware that would run Mac OS. As I read today that a company called Psystar Corp. (www.psystar.com) was... (Read More)