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When most people think of Web search, they think of Google. But Yahoo said Monday that it has completed a vast expansion of its search engine index and now encompasses almost double that of its main competitor.

Yahoo's Tim Mayer said Monday on the company's Search Blog that it now indexes more than 20 billion documents and images. That's almost twice the 11.3 billion Google publicly says it currently spans.

Source: http://news.com

After almost a year of pilot testing, Microsoft's Windows Genuine Advantage program, designed to nab counterfeit copies of Windows, has finally gone live worldwide.

As part of the program's terms, Microsoft is making it mandatory for all Windows customers to electronically submit their copy of Windows to determine its authenticity before users can download patches, update and fixes.

Microsoft said the intent is not to punish unwitting victims that might have received counterfeit or stolen copies of Windows, but to nab system builders that preload machines with counterfeit or stolen copies of Windows bearing false Certificate of Authenticity (COA) labels, said David Lazar, director for Genuine Windows at Microsoft.

Source: www.crn.com

While the cost of fending off hackers appears to be dropping for U.S. companies, attacks that involved unauthorized access to information are becoming much more costly, according to a survey by the Computer Security Institute (CSI) and the FBI.

The survey, which included about 700 respondents from government and a variety of industries, found that the average losses related to computer attacks dropped by 61% in 2004. On average, companies reported that computer and network attacks cost them $204,000 last year, down from an average of $526,000 in 2003. The report did not explain how specific factors, such as loss of employee productivity or security consultant fees, contributed to these costs.

This marks the fourth consecutive year that this number has declined, said Robert Richardson, editorial director of the CSI and a co-author of the report, which was released last week.

Source: www.computerworld.com

A new essay published by Microsoft Corp. on its Web site thanked the U.S. Congress that law-enforcement agencies may soon have stronger tools to help curb spyware.

The U.S. House of Representatives recently approved two different anti-spyware bills. As the Senate takes up the issue, Microsoft said it and many other technology companies have joined in supporting targeted legislation that would establish a strong standard for anti-spyware enforcement.

Microsoft favours legislation because the company said consumers should be able to make informed decisions about the software they install on their PCs. To help ensure this, Microsoft officials said the Redmond, Wash.-based software giant hopes Congress will include in its final bill a provision that would prevent spyware traffickers from using the courtroom to stop anti-spyware and anti-adware providers from supplying consumers with anti-spyware tools.

Source: www.integratemar.com

In a victory for the cable industry, the Supreme Court on Monday said cable companies don't have to share their lines with rival providers of high-speed Internet service.

The 6-3 decision in the so-called "Brand X" case upholds a Federal Communications Commission ruling that said the cable companies were exempt from the same regulations requiring phone companies to offer access to independent providers. At the time, the FCC said it wanted to encourage cable companies to build their networks to offer broadband services.

Source: www.insidebayarea.com

The US court ruled that file-sharing networks such as Grokster can be held responsible if they intend for their customers to use software primarily to swap songs and movies illegally.

The decision has given the entertainment industry a new legal weapon against internet piracy.

But experts say that the ruling leaves plenty of room for interpretation.

Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk

Moving voice communications to Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) isn't just about saving money on long distance. Smart companies will make the transition because of a whole host of other reasons that include improved business communication, customer service, and increased employee productivity and mobility.

The benefits of VoIP can reach all corners of a business, in areas that both CFOs and IT managers may not have ever considered. All these benefits demonstrate clear competitive advantage in and among themselves, so put them together and you have a very powerful business case to move your communications infrastructure to a VoIP model.

Source: www.itbusiness.ca

Samsung said it will promote the Xbox 360 on Samsung high definition televisions since the XBox 360 will pump out the pixels in a format to support HDTV.

A senior Samsung Veep in ths US said Samsung had "selected Microsoft Xbox as the best next-generation game console and a key driver in the global HDTV revolution."

Microsoft will return the favour by plugging Samsung in some games on the console, we learned.

Source: http://www.theinquirer.net

Microsoft has released Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1 (SP1) to manufacturing. This service pack provides customers with significant security enhancements as well as reliability and performance improvements. Building on a comprehensive collection of security updates, Service Pack 1 is designed to address additional core security issues by providing customers with a reduced attack surface, better protected system services with stronger default settings, and reduced privileges.

"Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1 gets to the root of the security issues our customers face, going beyond alleviating the symptoms of the problem," says Jordan Chrysafidis, director, Windows Server System, Microsoft Canada. "This important Service Pack brings us closer to fulfilling the goal of our Trustworthy Computing Initiative, which is to provide customers with a secure computing environment. We encourage all of our Windows Server 2003 customers to deploy Service Pack 1."

Source: http://www.intergratedmar.com

Those on the outside might assume the e-mail marketing industry is in a state of crisis as a result of the backlash against spam, but insiders say business is booming.

Issues with unsolicited e-mail have indeed made some companies wary of sending messages that might be misconstrued as spam, but despite these threats, e-mail service providers and their clients maintain that e-mail marketing continues to gain support from advertisers.

And they point out that in Canada, consumers seem more willing than ever to receive relevant commercial e-mail that promotes products and services.

Source: http://www.globetechnology.ca

Microsoft's decision to end support prompts a petition from some of its key partners. We explore the platform differences to figure out why some customers don't want to let go

"Basic has been around for 40 years. People right from high school have grown up with Basic. It's almost like when Coke came out with New Coke. People didn't even taste New Coke and said, 'No, I hate it.' There's the emotional aspects to the language as well as the technical aspects," he said.

Source: http://www.itbusiness.ca

Samsung Electronics has developed a cell phone that runs on Microsoft's Windows Mobile operating system and includes a hard drive. The new handset will be shown this week at the Cebit show in Hanover, Germany, the company says.

The SGH-I300 offers 3GB of storage space, which is considerably more than that available in any cell phone currently on the market, and is Samsung's second phone to feature a hard drive. The first phone, the SPH-V5400, was unveiled in September last year and offered 1.5GB of space. That handset was the first cell phone in the world to include a hard drive.

Source: http://www.pcworld.com

Several security vulnerabilities in Firefox and the Mozilla Suite of Internet software put users of the open-source products at risk of hacker attacks, The Mozilla Foundation warned this week.

The organization released Firefox 1.0.1, which fixes 17 security flaws in the popular Web browser. The most serious flaws could allow an attacker to gain full control over a victim's PC, The Mozilla Foundation said in a statement. Firefox 1.0 was released in November and has since been downloaded more than 27 million times.

Firefox 1.0.1 also includes several fixes to guard against spoofing of Web addresses and the security indicator on Web sites. These vulnerabilities could be exploited for phishing scams, which typically use spam e-mail messages to drive people towards fraudulent Web pages that look like legitimate e-commerce sites.

Source: http://www.computerworld.com

Users have found a way to skirt copy protection on Napster Inc.'s portable music subscription service just days after its high-profile launch, potentially letting them make CDs with hundreds of thousands of songs for free.

Napster is currently offering a free trial of its new Napster To Go service, which, for a monthly $15 fee, will enable users to download as much music as they want and transfer it to a portable device. They can also pay 99 cents for each track they want to burn to a CD.

According to various Web sites, thwarting the intellectual property protections of the service is as easy as a free software patch.

Source: http://money.cnn.com

Carly Fiorina, the woman who executed the largest merger in high-tech history between Hewlett-Packard and Compaq Computer Corp., ended her six-year run at the helm of HP Wednesday over disagreements about its future direction with the company's board.

Fiorina, 50, said in a public statement that she and the board "have differences about how to execute HP's strategy." Patricia C. Dunn, an HP board member, will take over as chairman, while the company's CFO, Robert Wayman, will act as CEO on an interim basis.

In a conference call with investors, Dunn said HP's board isn't planning any other structural changes while it begins a search for Fiorina's replacement, which she said would likely be an external candidate.

Source: http://www.itbusiness.ca

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