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The early-morning sunshine that lit up the outskirts of Los Angeles on March 13, 2004, revealed a strange and wonderful collection of vehicles gathered in the dusty landscape. A variety of four-wheel-drive trucks and SUVs bristling with electronic gear contrasted with custom-built models resembling lunar rovers. There were vehicles with two, four ...
In some ways, the computer business is a bit like show business. There are stars that become household names -- names to conjure with. But for every one of them, there are dozens of workaday actors who may deliver perfectly credible performances but remain largely anonymous Something similar goes on with personal computers. Everybody knows Dell -- ...
In a move to build better relationships with certain classes of customer, Microsoft in 2001 began allowing them to look at portions of Windows source code. Several programs were set up, serving selected enterprises, "most valuable professionals," OEMs, system integrators, academics and several other customer categories all grouped under one heading: the Shared Source Initiative...
On April 20, a NASA rocket will lift off from Vandenburg Air Force Base carrying one of the most remarkable physics experiments ever attempted. Gravity Probe B will try to answer questions raised by Einstein's General Theory of Relativity, proposed in the early years of the 20th century Einstein published not one, but two theories of relativity: th...
Like most countries boasting modern telecommunications systems, Australia has been implementing Voice over IP (VoIP) services. After a slow start, what began as a mild flirtation is now becoming an embrace, although use of VoIP technology is still in relatively early stages compared with market expectations. Figures from VoIP provider Optus Teleco...
The old adage about there being "safety in numbers" no longer applies, at least not in the world of IT security. Microsoft platforms are not only the most widespread, but also the most attacked. About that much, most -- but not all -- commentators agree The mi2g Intelligence Unit, a UK-based security consultancy, issued three bulletins recently. On...
Let's do some arithmetic. Multiply the number of different hardware platforms in current use by the number of operating systems that have a reasonably large user base. Subtract the systems that simply won't work together. Multiply the result by the number of applications, servers and databases used in business, academia and on the Internet A silly ...
Among the allegations raised by The SCO Group in its current spate of lawsuits is that the GPL -- the GNU General Public License, which is used for much open-source software, including Linux -- is unconstitutional and in violation of federal copyright and patent laws SCO bases this claim on the clauses in the U.S. Constitution that establish a prin...
There's nothing like a good legal battle to whip up passions, and the SCO Group-versus-the-open-source-world dogfight is no exception. Rhetoric runs high. From the open-source advocates, it's "you're stifling free thought in the name of greed." SCO allies counter with "you're attacking the core values of capitalism." As SCO president and CEO Darl M...
Not long ago, TechNewsWorld published a story describing divergent conclusions reached by two recent studies of Web server market share. One, the latest in an ongoing series conducted by UK-based Netcraft, cast its net wide and surveyed a sample of more than 45 million Web sites. It concluded that open-source Apache controls some 67 percent of tha...
Beige boxes may still be the norm for a lot of desktop computer equipment, but people have been fooling around with design ever since they began making machines. Now that even Dick Tracy's wristwatch videophone is a reality, what's next for computers? While computer design has, by and large, stuck to the basic need for a protective enclosure, there have been some outstanding ideas and some duds over the years...
"How do I love thee? Let me count the ways." Whether we "love" our operating systems or not, counting how many of us use which platforms has become a favorite indoor sport for IT trend-watchers and marketing gurus alike Why would it matter, unless you're a vendor's shareholder?...
Many an intergalactic sci-fi flick has showcased the "instant translator" -- the clever box that makes earthling speech intelligible to alpha-centaurians, and vice versa. Now something similar is helping Australian organizations bring legacy applications and enterprise knowledge up to date. Perhaps the analogy with the instant translator is inexact. A sci-fi instant translator would operate as a kind of middleware; this new kind of translation is more about total "transformation" -- turning earthlings into alpha-centaurians...
Computing is moving out of the office and heading for the living room, the coat pocket and the car. In a convergence with traditional home entertainment, computing and telecommunications technologies are starting to weave together a pervasive mix of "lifestyle" products and services. In the near future, if some visionaries have their way, the personal computer will serve as the command-and-control center for devices to play audio CDs and DVD videos, view and download streaming video, download music, play video games, listen to online radio and burn music to CD...
On April 20, a NASA rocket will lift off from Vandenburg Air Force Base carrying one of the most remarkable physics experiments ever attempted. Gravity Probe B will try to answer questions raised by Einstein's General Theory of Relativity, proposed in the early years of the 20th century Einstein published not one, but two theories of relativity: th...
What's in a name? Not much, according to Shakespeare. But today, the answer is "plenty" -- especially when you're talking about the intersection of domain names with trademarks The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers -- most commonly known as ICANN -- is a nonprofit corporation that was set up in California to administer several cor...
Those wanting to represent the Internet graphically to a lay audience are fond of animations showing a spinning Earth criss-crossed by a network of buzzing, vibrating lines. Lift those animations up from the planet a bit, and you get a picture of what space someday could become -- a place where common Internet protocols are the norm for information exchange...
Say "NASA" and most people immediately think "space exploration." But space also offers a unique vantage point for observations of Earth, and NASA devotes significant resources to scientific projects aimed at understanding our own planet and our impact on it. This is the first of three articles about NASA's Earth-centric efforts and the role of information technology in them...
What's in a name? Not much, according to Shakespeare. But today, the answer is "plenty" -- especially when you're talking about the intersection of domain names with trademarks The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers -- most commonly known as ICANN -- is a nonprofit corporation that was set up in California to administer several cor...
Is it an urban myth, or is it really true that NASA sent the first men to the moon with less computing power than what sits inside today's average desktop? The answer largely depends on how you define "computing power." But however you define it, today's typical PC packs more punch than a 1960s mainframe Back in the slide-rule days, space flight an...
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