Articles by Kirk L. Kroeker

Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web and Director of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) was dubbed a Knight Commander, Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II during an investiture in London today. The rank of Knight Commander is the second most senior rank of the Order of the British Empire, one of the Orders of Chivalry ...

Aura, a NASA mission dedicated to the health of Earth's atmosphere, successfully launched today at 3:01:59 a.m. Pacific Time from the Western Range of Vandenberg Air Force Base, aboard a Boeing Delta II rocket. Spacecraft separation occurred at 4:06 a.m. Pacific Time, inserting Aura into a 438-mile (705-kilometer) orbit.

Thirty-six percent of the software installed on computers worldwide was pirated in 2003, representing a loss of nearly US$29 billion. These are the key findings of a global software piracy study released today by the Business Software Alliance, an international association for software manufacturers Conducted for the first time by global technology...

File-sharing applications are among the most popular uses of the Internet today. According to the market research firm Big Champagne, an average of 9.5 million Internet users are simultaneously logged on to use file-sharing applications at any given time of the day to share music, videos, applications and other digital media -- a fact that does not please the Recording Industry Association of America...

Details of five new mobile devices, a software roadmap overview, new mobile infrastructure equipment and updated 2004 volume projections all featured prominently among the news at the annual Nokia Connection conference held today simultaneously in Singapore and Helsinki Chairman and CEO Jorma Ollila introduced the new products, claiming that the fi...

Napster UK, a subsidiary of Roxio, has announced that the Napster 2.0 online music service went live to music fans across the United Kingdom today with what the company is calling "the UK's largest online music catalog." UK residents can download the new Napster 2.0 music service for free at www.napster.co.uk. Napster 2.0 provides both a subscript...

Sony announced today details from the presentation given this morning by Kaz Hirai, president and CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment America, at the 2004 Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) in Los Angeles. Hirai's presentation highlighted the company's announcements and focused in particular on new dimensions of the PlayStation business. He provide...

Computer virus attacks are up dramatically from 2,400 in 1995 to more than 80,000 in 2002. It seems that almost every week, there's a new, threatening virus. Now the Sasser worm -- which could in fact be a clone, at least in its effects, of last year's MSBlaster and Slammer worms -- is said to have affected more than one million systems worldwide so far.

Microsoft and IronPort Systems today announced what the companies are calling "initial success" with the new Bonded Sender Program, IronPort's legitimate e-mail sender program designed to reduce the deluge of unwanted e-mail sent to Microsoft customers. For the past five months, Microsoft has worked with IronPort Systems' Bonded Sender Program leg...

PayPal yesterday introduced PayPal Web Services, a set of application programming interfaces (APIs) that the company hopes developers will use to build code that will integrate the PayPal platform into other e-commerce systems PayPal Web Services, based on open standards and currently in beta, consists of four new informational and transactional AP...

The Open Park Project, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit, launched the first public outdoor wireless Internet hotspot in the nation's capital today. The free service provides coverage in front of the Supreme Court, the Library of Congress and the Capitol Visitors Center site. The Capitol Hill hotspot is the initial step in Open Park's plan to provide free public wireless Internet service across the National Mall...

Yahoo yesterday announced a new public beta version of its Yahoo Messenger application. Leading the instant-messaging industry in time spent per user, at least according to recent reports, the latest version of Yahoo Messenger introduces several new features and deeper integration with Yahoo services. The latest version of Yahoo Messenger is curre...

Forgent Networks announced today that its subsidiary, Compression Labs, has initiated litigation against 31 companies for infringement of U.S. Patent No. 4,698,672 -- the so-called '672 compression patent -- in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, Marshall Division. Forgent has engaged in aggressive pursuit of royalties relat...

World Wide Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee has won the first-ever Millennium Technology Prize -- worth 1 million euros (US$1.2 million) -- which is bestowed by the Finnish Technology Award Foundation. The new prize represents an international acknowledgement of an outstanding technological innovation that directly promotes people's quality of life, i...

Iomega, one of the largest storage peripherals providers in the United States, began shipping a new drive today designed to go head-to-head against tape backup systems. The new REV drive, which comes in 35-GB and 90-GB capacities, consists of a drive housing plus the new REV removable media that is said to offer performance equivalent to standard hard drives.

Intel CEO Craig Barrett is urging China to use information technology to transform and advance the region's competitiveness in an expanding global digital economy In a speech before business, government and education leaders in Shenyang, Barrett said deploying and maintaining a modern IT infrastructure will improve efficiency and employee productiv...

Even in the aftermath of a major announcement about shutting all its retail stores, Gateway continues to push new products, this week launching a new line of managed and unmanaged Layer 2 network switches designed for small businesses. The Gateway 7200, 7400 and 7600 Series products, based on Broadcom's switch technology, officially mark Gateway's...

Microsoft has announced the formation of a new Microsoft Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) council that will focus on promoting RFID technology. The group will look at RFID requirements and address how best to take advantage of today's technology to make it easier for retailers and manufacturers to track and ship merchandise. During the announ...

Sharp's Linux-based SL-6000 -- newly introduced in the United States this week and available at major retailers like Amazon.com -- offers a full 640x480 VGA screen and integration with IBM enterprise software to connect to remote offices, applications and databases Sharp is talking up the new Zaurus SL-6000 as the first handheld "mobile data termin...

In a bizarre twist of fate for the burgeoning Linux community, the U.S. Department of Justice has banned Linux from the United States The DOJ ruling comes after Darl McBride, CEO of SCO Group, and Linus Torvalds, original developer of the Linux kernel, agreed to arm wrestle over the disputed code in lieu of seeking a court ruling. Overall, SCO has ...