John Lister

A federal court has fined Microsoft $388 million for breaching the copyright of a rival software company. Ironically, the firm concerned was a producer of anti-piracy products. The court found Microsoft breached a patent belonging to Uniloc and ... involved the copy protection used on Windows XP and some parts of the Microsoft Office suite. Microsoft had not licensed the technology used in the activation process by which a product can be installed repeatedly on a single machine but can't be shared with other people or copied to another computer. Award Among All-Time Highs The sum is believed to ... (view more)

The major players in the Internet search market continue to add new tweaks to their presentation: Google is putting more emphasis on local results, while Yahoo has launched a refined image search feature. Previously, Google would supply search ... results based on the location of the IP address. For example: searching for a "museum in Cameron, North Carolina," using a mobile phone would produce results towards the phone's current location. Local Links Without Log-in From now on, people searching from a computer will get their usual results, but for appropriate search terms they'll also ... (view more)

T-Mobile is planning to use Google's open source operating system " Android " on devices that blur the line between cellphone and home PC. In addition, Samsung says they will also produce Android phones, but need to work out the kinks, first. Both ... announcements come shortly after HP revealed that it is investigating the idea of using Android to power some of its low-cost netbook computers in place of Windows. Home Phone to get Data Features According to the New York Times, T-Mobile is working on two home devices using Android, an open source rival to systems such as Windows Mobile ... (view more)

Security experts have put together some intriguing statistics about the Conficker virus, including the total spread of the worm and the worst-hit country. It seems Vietnam has seen the most serious invasion, while four per cent of all computer ... infections are related to Conficker. The figures come from OpenDNS, a firm which offers DNS (Domain Name System) resolution services. This is the process of mapping a website name (such as www.infopackets.com ) to the actual IP address where the website physically exists. Because Conficker interferes with this process, the firm has plenty of data to ... (view more)

A Texas senator is trying to make it illegal for any government agency to buy Windows Vista without prior approval. Juan Hinojosa says simply "Don't buy it because it's not worth it." If the law passes, all state agencies in Texas would need written ... approval from the Legislative Budget Board before buying Vista itself or any machine with the system pre-installed. The only exception would be for places of higher education. Anti-Vista Amendment Rides State Budget The proposal is not a separate law. Instead it's a rider to the budget: one of 800 amendments added during the legislative process. ... (view more)

Google will invest a whopping $100 million in start-up companies over the next 12 months, and says a recession is an ideal time to invest in firms that could someday make it big. The money comes from a scheme titled Google Ventures, which aims to ... combine the firm's technical knowledge and financial resources with the creative ideas of new companies. The firm says it will focus on industries including "consumer Internet, software, clean-tech, bio-tech, health care" and others. (Source: theregister.co.uk and nytimes.com ) Google says there's no reason not to invest during an economic slowdown ... (view more)

China is receiving a double dose of blame for the Conficker virus, as reports suggest that the country may either be the source of the virus, the reason why it spread so quickly, or both. The Conficker virus is due to update itself on Wednesday . ... China has already been in the news recently for security issues. It's been blamed for a widespread network of spy computers which have allegedly infected computers including those of the Dalai Lama. Origins may reach as far back as 2001 Vietnamese security firm BKIS says it has analyzed Conficker's coding and believes there are some unmistakable ... (view more)

Microsoft has revealed more about Windows 7 and its support for touch screen technology. The system sounds impressive, however, reports suggest it appears to have a high error rate. The Redmond-based company originally considered setting up a ... completely separate interface for software which used touch screens, similar to the way Media Center works. Instead, Microsoft opted to build everything into the main Windows 7 experience in order to cut down on switching back and forth between two interfaces. When Windows 7 is used with a touch screen, there will now be some slight tweaks to make it ... (view more)

According to security researchers, the Conficker worm virus -- which has infected millions of machines since its discovery in October 2008 -- is set to wreak havoc next Wednesday, April 1st. The problem is that nobody is sure exactly what the worm ... will do. At the moment the virus, which exists in at least three different 'strains' , does not actually do anything other than attempt to spread further across the webosphere. Secret Methods of Communication All that's known at the moment is that on April 1st, PCs already infected with Conficker will contact a random website for instructions on ... (view more)

If you are thinking of complaining on Twitter about a company's service, your grumble might be more effective than you think. A customer relations management firm is now offering a service that lets companies monitor and deal with comments about ... them on the site. Salesforce calls its product the 'Service Cloud' and already covers posts on Facebook. The Twitter functionality will be added free of charge to existing customer accounts. Complaints In Context While Salesforce uses some serious jargon in its publicity, their product is remarkably simple. It takes advantage of the fact that a ... (view more)