Between the Lines

HP ups 3Par bid to $33 a share after Dell counters

3Par said Hewlett-Packard has raised its offer to $33 a share for the storage company, or $2.4 billion, after Dell countered with a $32 a share offer.

• Google, AOL renew search deal, adds mobile, YouTube
• Twitter's link logging, URL shortening should bolster its analytics
• Ranking the digital living room barbarians: Netflix rules; Apple, Google others likely to struggle
• Apple's music event: The videos

All About Microsoft

Microsoft: Windows Phone 7 operating system is done

Microsoft has released to manufacturing (RTM'd) the Windows Phone OS 7.0, company officials announced on September 1.

• (Not so) Crazy Microsoft Rumors: A new Zune HD?
• Microsoft readies more volume-license portal updates
• Windows 7 Family Pack to make a comeback in October
• Are routerless datacenters in Microsoft's future?

Zero Day

Malware hosted on Google Code project site

Malicious hackers are using the Google Code repository to host Trojans horses, backdoors and password stealing keyloggers

• Microsoft ships 'Fix-It' for DLL load hijacking attack vector
• RealPlayer haunted by 'critical' security holes
• Verizon DBIR challenge clue #4
• Critical security holes in Adobe Shockwave

The Apple Core

Apple's big day: all new iPods, iTunes and Apple TV

Apple held its highly-anticipated press event today, and for the first time in recent memory, streamed it live via the Web. Cult of Mac reports that Apple decided to stream the event to test its...

• Apple to stream Sept 1 event exclusively to Mac, iPod
• Pro HDR app make High Dynamic Range photography easy
• New iPod nano rumored to shrink further
• Apple mulling new audio jack for iPhone

Hardware 2.0

Microsoft: Windows Phone 7 is "most thoroughly tested mobile platform" ever released

Yesterday Microsoft's new mobile platform Windows Phone 7 hit the RTM milestone, and in the official announcement Microsoft was keen to stress how mush tested had gone into this new platform.

• Does Apple really have a plan for the iPod?
• Mac OS usage share in decline
• iOS usage surpasses Linux - by a whisker
• UPDATE: Windows Phone 7 hits RTM stage

Linux and Open Source

How IBM hopes to make the cloud proprietary

IBM hopes to embrace and extend the cloud into its mainframe monopoly, and keep filing patents on the technology so as to make it an eternal lock on the top end of the business.

• Global struggle over software patents
• This was the year of desktop Linux
• Open source benefits from 7th circle of Apple hell
• Time for IBM to become an open source hero

Googling Google

Google launches Priority Inbox, the reverse spam filter

Google has discovered that their spam filter is multi-purpose. It's great for eliminating spam in your inbox -- it's been effectively fighting spam for many years. Now, Google is taking their...

• First Angstro, now SocialDeck: Clues to Google's social media strategy?
• How to turn GPU acceleration on in Chrome 7
• Verizon is teasing Droid Incredible owners with Froyo
• Are Orkut updates harbingers of Google's social strategy?

Ed Bott's Microsoft Report

Windows 7 Family Pack discounts return

Last year, in the run-up to the launch of Windows 7, Microsoft rewarded early adopters with a series of discounted upgrade offers. And then, as quickly as they appeared, those deals vanished. But...

• How much will a Windows 7 migration really cost?
• Paul Allen is no patent troll
• Fact check: malware did not bring down a passenger jet
• Microsoft's Phoenix takes flight (maybe)

Smartphones and Cell Phones

Windows Phone 7 reaches major RTM milestone

Microsoft just announced that Windows Phone 7 has now reached the RTM milestone and is moving quickly towards retail availability this holiday season.

• How do you say closed in Finnish? Nokia shuts down yet another service
• Flash video playback coming to the iPhone through the Skyfire browser
• Swype keyboard comes to Symbian, should rock the N8 soon
• Sprint Samsung Epic 4G available today, thoughts on another week of use

Tech Broiler

Apple TV: You're a Glorified Roku

Apple's updated Apple TV, while more streamlined and less expensive than the original, offers little more than what Roku already offers today.

• Open Standard, Insert Foot
• Personal Computer Security: Using Uncommon Sense
• Apple, Google TV: Does Pay as You Go Make Dollars and Sense?
• Dude, Where's My Android Tablet?

The Mobile Gadgeteer

Samsung takes on the Apple iPad with the 7 inch Galaxy Tab device

We can expect to see several Android-based tablet devices coming out to take on the iPad and Samsung looks to have a winner with the Galaxy Tab.

• Why buy an Apple TV when Roku players already do it all and more?
• Is Apple's new iPod nano the perfect geek watch?
• Watching Apple's Live Special Event Stream from a train
• Review: Ruggedize your iPhone 4 with the OtterBox Defender Series

The ToyBox

Samsung debuts Galaxy Tab Android tablet; can it out-price iPad?

Samsung has announced the launch of its Galaxy Tab (GT-P1000) tablet computer, the nearest rival to Apple's iPad. Here are the specs.

• PlayStation 3 will be ready for Blu-ray in 3D in October
• Sony Qriocity video-on-demand service headed for Europe
• Creative intros pair of Sound Blaster Tactic 3D headsets
• Sprint expands 4G network coverage to three more metropolitan areas

Social Business

100 Brains: Thinkers and tinkerers in social business

Starting this month, I will post frequent interviews with 100 people in my network who I believe fit the "thinker" and / or "tinkerer" mold. These are people with amazing brains.

• Fact or Fiction: Verifying claims of social media 'experience'
• Research: Google reaches malware milestone, while 'true' Twitter users increase
• Facebook passes 500 million: milestone or mildly horrifying? [Poll]
• 'The Cloud' is still a cloud

GreenTech Pastures

Greenpeace's tenacious Facebook attack shines light on need for 'green cloud' options

Environmental activist organization Greenpeace just won't get off Facebook's case for planning to invest in a data center facility that happens to be powered by "dirty coal-fired electricity." The...

• Fujitsu stakes claim in green IT services
• $4 billion IT services company opts for Enviance carbon management software
• Southern hospitality bids new welcome to e-cycling
• Hey kids, we used less energy and more renewable tech in 2009!

Laptops & Desktops

Samsung rolls out stylish new "shark" SF laptop series for the ladies

Samsung continues to design laptops with the ladies in mind, with the company's new SF series offering a fin-like design, ivory-colored exterior, and the usual press shots of the notebooks being...

• How GlobalFoundries' "major announcements" today impact AMD
• HP's latest Pavilion dm3 laptop uses next-generation CoolSense Technology cooling solution
• Asetek liquid cools, overclocks 2.8GHz Apple Mac Pro because it can
• Details emerge about Intel's next six-core Extreme desktop CPU, the Core i7-990X

Storage Bits

Drive giants plan next gen tech

Chip fabs aren't the only costly factories: next gen disks - which look to include self-assembling nanotech and frikkin' lasers - is going to be so expensive to develop that drive vendors have...

• Non-volatile DIMMs: immortal DRAM?
• Intel's doomed McAfee foray
• 3 bit-per-cell flash coming soon
• Flash cache for RAID

Digital Cameras & Camcorders

Canon rolls out XF105 and XF100 compact pro camcorders

Professional videographers, listen up. Canon has a pair of new camcorders for you. In fact, the XF105 and XF100 are the company's most compact pro camcorders yet.

• Sony S-Frame digital photo frame series boasts AVCHD video playback
• Sony Bloggie Touch captures full HD video, 12.8 MP stills
• Olympus PEN E-P2 gets two limited edition kit options with retro lens cap
• Summer digital camera and camcorder announcement round-up

Home Theater

Apple's new AirPlay feature to be supported by third-party speakers, AV receivers

While the whole world debates the merits of the new Apple TV, including my ZDNet colleagues here and here, Apple made another announcement today that could impact the home theater. By introducing...

• Netgear introduces NeoTV media streamer: Does it have any chance against new Apple TV, Google TV?
• Sony's SMP-N100 "Netbox": Netflix streaming, built-in 802.11n, DivX support for $129
• Sony announces three new Bravia 3D HDTVs, none cheaper than $3,000
• Samsung still leads in LCD HDTV shipments, with Vizio close behind. LG moves up, while Sharp dips further.

iGeneration

Should public Wi-Fi access be 'free'?

Public Wi-Fi is there as a benefit, more often provided by larger franchises who can afford to offer it. But with legality, cost and piracy issues, should public wireless access be free?

• Next generation HD calls to hit UK mobile network
• Mapping the world's most popular software in users
• Generation Y prefer unrestricted office web access
• Office Web Apps: Can it replace desktop Office?

Software as Services

Multi-tenancy: why you should care

SaaS buyers shouldn't settle for the limited horizons of single-tenancy. Multi-tenancy is the ideal architecture to make the most of the cloud environment, because it continually evolves to keep...

• Single tenancy, the DEC Rainbow of SaaS
• How T-Mobile nixed my summer roaming
• Unlocking Google's Lotus Notes opportunity
• Calling all cloud skeptics

Service Oriented

Study: increase enterprise data usability, save billions

Make it slightly easier for business users to get quality data, and save billions in productivity, says a new study out of Sybase, University of Texas and Indian School of Business.

• Two good reasons for service-orienting healthcare systems, ASAP
• Yankee Group: Infrastructure as a Service now a bona fide cloud strategy
• How to survive your first day as CIO
• Hybrid cloud means full employment for integration specialists

BriefingsDirect

Process automation elevates virtualization use while transforming IT's function to app and cloud service broker

Automation, policy-driven processes and best practices are offering more opportunities for optimizing virtualization so that server, storage, and network virtualization can move from points of...

• HP eyes automated apps deployment, 'standardized' private cloud creation with integrated CloudStart package
• Platform Computing steps up with easy-entry solution for building private clouds
• Trio of cloud companies collaborate on new private cloud platform offerings
• Modern data centers require efficiency-oriented changes in networking with eye on simplicity, automation

Collaboration 2.0

Distance Worker Mental Health Challenges

We don't have any problem understanding that someone has a broken limb when we see them with their arm in plaster and a sling, but it takes us a while to understand that someone has mental...

• Enterprise 2.0 Launch Pad - Get your Entry In!
• Online No One Knows You're an Expert...
• Covering your Social Tracks
• Designing for Simplicity is Timeless

Dev Connection

How to build the perfect Android tablet, part 3: Market watch

What's on your tablet? For the perfect Android tablet, you need the real Android Market.

• How to build the perfect Android tablet, part 2: A touch of class
• "I am not a villain," says alleged Android Trojan creator
• How to build the perfect Android tablet, part 1
• Why software patents are a joke, literally

A Developer's View

Shake-up at Microsoft: It's about time

Microsoft recently shook-up its Entertainment & Devices division in an attempt to jump start its device efforts and pose better competition to Apple and Google. Here are five suggestions as...

• How Microsoft loses the TV space
• Everybody hates browser applications
• Microsoft changes the Windows license
• Apple's play for platform dominance

Five Nines: The Next Gen Datacenter

The Containerized Datacenter; at the end of its 15 minutes?

Was the containerized datacenter a good idea, or just an evolutionary deadend for the datacenter?

• How does a new datacenter benefit the community?
• Does Geothermal Cooling Make Sense for your Datacenter?
• Random freeze problem chills Windows Server 2008 R2 / Windows 7
• Purdue experience shows value of out of the box datacenter thinking

Emerging Tech

Brazil goes all-digital with 2010 census

Better known for its beaches and passion for soccer, Brazil also happens to be the world's second-leading open source country (just behind the U.S.) and boasts an IT services sector that rivals...

• Singularity Summit 2010: No place for human values in a 'posthuman' future?
• Researchers successfully create new semiconductor based on spintronics
• Fly corneas prove viable for biomimetic surfaces, i.e. solar cells
• Video trailers for next week's Siggraph 2010

Enterprise Web 2.0

Made on the Web, designed by us

With a new survey showing that the majority of people on the Web are willing to co-create, crowdsourcing is looking like a repeatable, reliable way to outsource work and partner with online...

• CoIT: How an accidental future is becoming reality
• Enterprise 2.0 and improved business performance
• When online communities go to work
• Webciety and Enterprise 2.0: A snapshot of today's social computing conversations

Tom Foremski: IMHO

Loren Feldman is the jester in the court of Web 2.0...

Loren Feldman uses sock puppets to criticize the West Coast tech scene and he has ruffled a lot of feathers...

• Loren Feldman is the jester in the court of Web 2.0
• The culture of Silicon Valley And Burning Man...
• The media tsunami and how much media should you produce?
• The Intel/McAfee mystery and Charlie Rose...

Virtually Speaking

Virtualization: Critical component of hurricane planning

As the hurricane and two tropical storms slide across the Atlantic ocean towards the U.S., I can't help but think about the impact virtualization can have on disaster planning and recovery. If we...

• Sychron launches OnDemand Desktop 4.2 beta
• VMware's Maritz virtually pronounces death of Windows
• VMware acquires Integrien, TriCipher for IT-as-a-Service Era
• VMWare launches six new vCloud products

Irregular Enterprise

Social CRM - another crock?

I can't think of any plausible use case where such crowdsourcing will have anything other than a marginal impact. There will always be that spark of invention that no one's heard about -- but does...

• Multi-tenancy vs. single tenancy: Looking beyond TCO
• Workday: lessons learned from the past and more
• Workday week - social ninjas
• SAP and Sybase: live from Boston

IT Project Failures

Five analyst relations lessons from Workday

Enterprise vendor, Workday, invited twenty top analysts to the company's first briefing day. The event offers lessons for creating transparent and open dialog with industry analysts.

• Advice for working with analysts
• Twelve early warning signs of IT project failure
• IDC offers an impartial social business framework
• Do large projects really fail more often?

The Web Life

Dodocase: the best case for your iPad

When Apple releases a new product, there are a few companies that build accessories that far outperform Apple's accessories. Dodocase is no different. I had a chance to speak with Craig Dalton,...

• Ubercab: a step above the yellow taxi
• It's about time: Google kills Wave
• How to find out if your data is in the Facebook torrent file
• Why Facebook is better than Quora...or is it?

Forrester Research

Lloyd's Of London Takes Facebook To The Board

Lloyd's of London has made Facebook a priority for customer communications. Ted Schadler blogs on what you can take from it to empower your employees to solve customer problems.

• Dell: Ready to challenge HP and IBM for the high ground?
• AP's API Empowers New Media Through AWS And Azure
• How GlaxoSmithKline empowered IT staff to dramatic savings in PC energy costs
• Is Google powering its data centers with wind?

Social CRM: The Conversation

Sigh. CRM is NOT Dead, OK?

I like RightNow. I really do. I think that their CX applications and platform are genuinely very good. I think they are an innovative company that has chutzpah. Their release of the Cloud Services...

• CRM Evolution 2010 - A Retrospective - 28 Hours Old
• The Thing About Analysts - And PR/Marketing Folks
• SCRMish Thoughts - A Look Back at 1st Half of 2010
• Cisco Enters the E20 Fray - SCRM Next?

Software & Services Safari

Take my colleague, please!!!

Alumni, referrals & social networks can change the economics of recruiting. SelectMinds offers up one such approach.

• Part Two - Workday Technology Summit
• Workday Technology Briefing - part 1
• e-vites: An HR/Recruiting tool gaining acceptance
• It's About Time: Embedding Security in Hardware

Lawgarithms

Muddling through privacy and the social Web

Chief privacy officers from Yahoo!, IBM, and Comcast, as well as CDT's public policy guru, weigh in on where things stand with privacy as social network usage becomes ubiquitous.

• Six things to know if your Facebook username has been squatted
• Napster and the "The more things change" rule
• Microsoft's Bing playing fast and loose with fair use?
• Video helps to quantify "fair"

The Semantic Web

Siri acquired by Apple; iPhone becomes the Virtual Personal Assistant?

Apple buys Siri, and brings real semantic smarts to Cupertino.

• David Siegel discusses the Power of Pull; a different view of the Semantic Web?
• Putting the Semantic Web to work in e-Commerce with GoodRelations
• Siri offers virtual assistance, with a little help from your iPhone
• Oracle delivers native support for Thomson Reuters' OpenCalais service

On Sustainability

Facebook Places rebuffed by eminent sociologist who inspired it

Facebook claim their service in general and in particular the new geo locations service Facebook Places helps to rebuild social cohesion and civic life in the public space. At the launch event...

• O2 launch handset eco index but Apple refuse to play ball
• Nokia Siemens Networks respond to Iran human rights abuses claims
• Nokia Siemens Networks sued by Iranian activist for human rights abuses
• Google to end serendipity (by creating it)

Team Think

How Software Can Turn Your Creativity into Products

A new trend in innovation management (aka ideation)  platforms  that I'm seeing I think will mark  the beginning of the next generation of our industry. With them you'll be able to  help your...

• San Francisco Saves $75,000 on Car Washing
• Using Reputation to Change Web Surfing Habits
• 4 Innovation Management Tools for Your Mobile
• Salesforce Makes Another Move

Managing L'unix

Tragedy: Waiting for the laughter to start

Usually I ignore idiotic comment but sometimes the idiocy is so apropos that the petty response is the right response - here because the writer is normally sane but produced a stunning indictment...

• Forces of nature
• Drones, arrogance, and fate
• Who does client-server serve?
• The real meaning of the service level agreement

ZDNet Education

Will this year be different?

Every year, most of us who spend time in Ed Tech-land come back from a summer spent fixing, upgrading, enhancing, and developing, excited for the possibilities of a new year. Without students and...

• Do we owe kids more than netbooks?
• X2 Development Corporation: Extraordinary Service? Yes indeed!
• Shmoop and Scitable leverage mobile platforms to reach students
• HP Mini 100e first look: What does $300 get you these days?

ZDNet Government

With the new Apple TV, did Steve Jobs really just introduce a $99 Macintosh?

Does it have enough in common with the old Apple TV to do what the old Apple TV could do?

• Will the digital world be destroyed in 2012?
• How a mediocre iPad knock-off could foretell Steve Jobs' eventual doom
• Internet free speech protected in the Middle East
• Inside look at Pentagon's cyberdefense strategy: The battlefield beyond bad flash drives

ZDNet Healthcare

How much next-generation health IT will be made in China

The China opportunity will accelerate trends that were already underway. While the U.S. sstimulus grows the market, China will help move the mainline vendors ahead.

• CCHIT finally gets foot in ONCHIT certification door
• Ebix gets into health care market with A.D.A.M. buy
• Look for that Canadian seal of approval
• Real-time medical tests delivered to a cell phone

Networking

There will never be enough Wi-Fi bandwidth

As both Internet video and mobile entertainment devices like the iPad grow ever more popular, the load on network resources will only grow ever higher. Frankly, most public networks won't be able...

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The DocuMentor

A New Sustainability Resource – the Paper Life Cycle Website

The Paper Life Cycle details critical environmental issues from the forest through paper manufacturing process, end-use, and recovery in a science-based and interactive format. The Website was...

• Inkjet or Offset? How about Both.
• Document Services and Change Management
• What about the Hard Drive in Your Printer?
• Are Postage Rates on the Way Up?

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UberMobile

Study Refutes Nick Carr, Shows Data & IT Do Matter

Lots of people have debated Nicholas Carr's argument that IT Doesn't Matter Anymore in the last 7 years, but few have offered new empirical evidence one way or the other. Now there is some - and...

• Location-Based Apps - Not Just For Hooking Up Anymore
• Are Businesses Really Opening Up To The iPad?
• iPhone 4's biz features tantalize 1/3 of Americans (and 8 other stats in chart form)
• U Write Bieber Not Beeber (Why English Teachers Must Hate SMS)

India IT

Wink: India's alternative to the Kindle

Bangalore-based EC Media has launched India's first ebook reader, Wink. The ebook reader has been launched along with an ebook store for users to purchase books from.

• India finally emerging as an indigenous consumer tech manufacturer?
• IT progress in India is still stifled by people in power
• India gets another Supercomputer – Annapurna
• Dell's Alienware makes a big splash in Bangalore with gaming cafe