Articles by Jay Lyman

With a little help from a lesser-known piece of malicious software code, the Glieder Trojan, a wave of Bagle computer worm variants spread successfully today, disabling and blocking antivirus and other security software and spreading in spam-like fashion Security experts said as many as 15 Bagle variants were spreading in a coordinated attack that ...

Two companies are looking to combine two tech trends -- the growing revenue from Internet advertising and the popularity of Really Simple Syndication (RSS) content distribution -- to open Web advertising to more users Search advertising company Kanoodle and content aggregator Moreover Technologies announced today they will partner to provide a self...

Looking to repeat the high score of its Xbox-exclusive "Halo 2," Microsoft has signed legendary Japanese game-maker Hironobu Sakaguchi -- who created "Final Fantasy," one of the most significant role-playing games (RPGs) ever -- to produce two new RPGs for the next-generation Xbox console Microsoft declined to disclose a time line for the two Xbox...

Looking to round out its database offerings for smaller and entry-level customers and also to fill in the time before the arrival of its next-generation of Windows, Microsoft unveiled the latest version of its SQL Server 2005 database this week Microsoft unveiled an updated line of SQL Server. Offerings include a free entry-level version designed f...

Less than 24 hours after Intel erased Advanced Micro Devices' status as the sole provider of 64-bit chips by announcing its own, AMD demonstrated a dual-core Athlon 64 processor, touting multiple core capability in its chips for servers, workstations and desktops and claiming it is the only company with an x86 architecture dual-core server The comp...

Intel has finally matched its foe AMD in delivering 64-bit silicon solutions to the market in the form of five new Pentium 4 processors. The market, however, may not be ready for the more powerful chips Intel said the new desktop chips -- a 3.73 GHz P4 Extreme Edition and four new 3.0-3.6 GHz P4s -- represented the latest in high-performance proces...

In the latest battle in a fierce war over intellectual property, the European Parliament yesterday rejected software patent legislation that some fear would result in overly broad patents on software ideas. The governing body sent the directive back to the European Commission for review and possible resubmission Backers of the measure -- which woul...

Researchers at Intel have claimed a breakthrough with a continuous-wave laser created with standard silicon manufacturing, calling it a world first that could lower the cost of high-quality lasers for optical devices used in mainstream computing, communications and medical treatment Applications of the technology, still at least a few years from co...

Microsoft this week signaled its new anti-spyware technology will be provided to Windows XP users who have upgraded with Service Pack 2 (SP2) at no charge, also announcing a more secure version of its Explorer browser that will be released separately from the next Windows operating system The news -- a departure from the company's previous stance o...

Hewlett-Packard this week unveiled three new systems based on Advanced Micro Devices' Opteron processor, taking advantage of the processor's price-performance advantage and in the process drawing ever closer to Intel's main rival In announcing new BladeSystem servers, a workstation supporting dual-PCI Express graphics, and a new family of ProLiant ...

Microsoft and Flextronics announced today that the Windows Mobile operating system will power a new GSM/GPRS smartphone the companies have dubbed "Peabody." Microsoft is looking to capitalize on its connection to the corporate back office, where users are already familiar with Microsoft applications, which can be taken on the road with smartphones....

The movie industry won a court ruling against movie and TV show download service LokiTorrent.com this week, shuttering the site almost immediately after a U.S. District Court in Dallas sided with the industry and declared the site could be taken down The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) also moved to scare some users, posting a message ...

Antivirus vendor Sophos reported this week that the BankAsh-A Trojan, a malicious software program thatsilently infects and corrupts computers, was disabling Microsoft's new AntiSpyware software and attempting to steal passwords and other banking information from Windows users. The Trojan represents the first effort to thwart Microsoft's anti-spyware software, which is now in beta...

Microsoft this week outlined its Indigo Web services technology, telling developers the Windows programming model would take Web services to the next level in terms of security, reliability and interoperability Microsoft also announced a community technology preview (CTP) of Indigo scheduled for March, at which time developers will be able to test,...

IBM continued its extension to the small and medium business market this week as the company unveiled its entry-level, Unix-based p5 510 server, priced at just under US$4,000 The company is matching similar moves by rivals Hewlett-Packard and Sun. All are responding to demand for more powerful resources from smaller businesses, which are a growing ...

Three technology giants -- IBM, Sony and Toshiba -- today took the wraps off of their jointly developed, much-hyped "Cell" chip, which the companies claim to be "effectively a supercomputer on a chip." A prototype was unveiled today at the International Solid State Circuits Conference in San Francisco. It integrates 234 million transistors, measur...

Spamhaus, an authoritative force against the unwantede-mail that accounts for more than half of all mailsent on the Internet, sounded an alarm this week overthe problem of Internet service provider (ISP) e-mailrelays being used by spammers The so-called "proxy" spam -- which is sentby machines compromised by malicious software,sometimes without com...

Napster has unveiled its new "To Go" technology, calling it the first, portable music subscription service, and it is backing the effort with a US$30 million multimedia marketing campaign aimed at biting away at Apple's dominance in the music download space Napster, which is a legitimate song-swapping service using the outlaw original peer-to-peer...

Sun Microsystems this week unveiled new pricing for its grid computing, storage, developer and desktopservices, as well as for its Java Enterprise System (JES). The move is viewed as an attempt to adjust how enterprises pay for IT resources At its analyst summit in Santa Clara, California, Sun said that it would deliver IT resources through a utili...

Technology researchers at Johns Hopkins University have found that radio frequency identification (RFID)technologies used for automobile locks and easy-pay gasoline systems are sorely lacking inprotection, warning that opportunists could easily exploit the weakness for ill deeds The researchers, led by Avi Rubin, technical director of the Johns Hop...