IBM adds support for a third Linux flavor: Ubuntu
The latest Ubuntu distribution of Linux will support an entire new Lotus office productivity suite from IBM. Red Hat said it will support part of the suite: Notes and Lotus' upcoming Symphony, which is still in beta.
As part of a product introduction today around Lotus Symphony and other members of a new desktop suite, IBM today announced first-time backing for a third Linux distribution beyond Red Hat and Novell's SuSE Linux: namely, Ubuntu, a distribution put out by Canonical, Inc. and also supported by Sun.
Maryland governor plans to drop electronic voting, buy optical scanners
Making good on a campaign promise to overhaul Maryland's suspect electronic voting system, the governor there proposed an initial outlay in the state budget toward the purchase of scanners to replace its $65 million touch-screen voting systems.
As the Baltimore Sun first reported on Saturday, in his state's budget officially submitted to the Maryland legislature this morning, Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley (D) has proposed an outlay of $6.8 million toward the purchase of optical-scan voting machines which utilize hard-copy paper ballots.
Interview: Universal EVP Ken Graffeo says HD DVD is here to stay
In an exclusive interview with BetaNews, Ken Graffeo, executive vice president for Universal Studios and also the co-president of HD DVD, provided a behind-the-scenes look at the high-def industry and said that, despite the rumors, HD DVD is here to stay. But he does leave the door open to ending the format war by coming to some sort of an agreement with Blu-ray.
Nate Mook: Let's start with a little background. You work for Universal, but you are also the co-president of the HD DVD Promotional Group. Does this create a conflict of interest?
Guitar Hero franchise nets a billion
NPD group has reported that American retail sales of Activision's popular Guitar Hero music simulator franchise have put it among the top-selling game franchises of all time, earning over $1 billion in 26 months. Activision has reported sales of 14 million units and 5 million additional song downloads since the title's initial release in 2005. The fiscal year of 2007 ended with the company posting $1.5 billion net revenues.
Several sources report that the Pokemon series, which consists of over 30 individual titles holds the position of "best-selling video game of all time." Other sources say the Mario Brothers series is the best-seller of all time, with a total sales figure somewhere in the neighborhood of 195 million units.
EA experiments further with free, ad-subsidized games
EA announced today that it will be releasing a free online version of its Battlefield franchise, driven by advertisements and micro-transactions called Battlefield Heroes.
The main difference between Battlefield Heroes and FIFA Online is that there is no limit to the potential for in-game advertisements in the former. Ads in the football game are limited to only those companies who already are FIFA sponsors. The ads, fortunately, will appear in the front-end and not interfere with the aesthetics of the game.
Banned Turkish YouTube visitors won't see Armenian journalist's death
The official explanation for a Turkish court once again banning citizens' access to YouTube over the weekend was the presence of new videos insulting the name of one of Turkey's founding fathers. But that video's been there awhile, and there could be another reason.
Mustafa Kemal Ataturk is as genuine a hero to Turkey as George Washington is to America. Considered the father of his country, Ataturk laid the foundation for Turkey's metamorphosis away from the Ottoman Empire that was the focus of World War I, to an active component of a modern European Union. As a beloved figure in his country, defacing his name or his image is illegal there, under laws similar to those being considered in the US with regard to defacing the American flag.
Microsoft's new virtualization strategy could include graphics
Press sources were not able to keep a tight lid on impending news from Microsoft tomorrow regarding a new acquisition in the virtualization space, and a change to its licensing policy regarding virtual desktops.
Leave it to The Wall Street Journal to let the news slip a day earlier than planned: At a press event scheduled for tomorrow morning Pacific Time, Microsoft will announce its intent to purchase virtualization tools provider Calista Technologies, the WSJ reported this morning.
HTC Touch sales half that of Apple's iPhone
Taiwanese handset manufacturer HTC has reported its sales for 2007, and it looks like the touch-screen smart phone market is more balanced than it is often portrayed to be.
The HTC Touch and Touch Dual run Windows Mobile 6 and utilize a gestural touch interface much like Apple's iPhone, the lineup's chief competition.
AT&T finally announces business users' plan for iPhone
Over a year after its existence was confirmed by Apple at that historic Macworld event, US carrier AT&T has come to terms with small businesses insisting there is indeed some business value in the device.
This morning, AT&T Wireless announced at last it is making the Apple iPhone available to its business customers, under a plan requiring a two-year service agreement.
HBO next to open its shows to the Web
Though it may be a bit late for it to enter the download market, Time Warner's HBO will begin a controlled launch of HBO Broadband tomorrow, a free add-on to HBO on Demand.
The service will be made available initially to Time Warner Cable/Roadrunner high speed Internet customers in the Green Bay and Milwaukee, Wisconsin areas. There is no timeline yet for a national rollout.
NASA to explore strange, new virtual worlds
The Learning Technologies Project Office of NASA is actively considering hopping on the video game bandwagon by releasing its own massively multiplayer online game.
NASA has apparently gotten wind of the fact that young people are intensely interested in MMORPG games, and is now actively pursuing the possibility of developing or at least hosting its own game in an effort to renew students' interest in what it calls the "STEM" subjects: science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.
RIAA Web site apparently hacked over the weekend
An old-style SQL injection hack is the suspected culprit in a malicious attack on the RIAA's Web site. During the weekend, its framework was still going, though its content had been erased.
For well over a decade, malicious users have known how to pass unchecked SQL queries through Web forms, in what is called a SQL injection attack. With unsecured databases, it's an almost ridiculously simple hack, not really displaying any real skill or prowess on the part of the malicious user. But last weekend, one hack was notable particularly for its target.
Will Sun's MySQL purchase drive down database prices?
Some enterprise database users and industry analysts with whom BetaNews spoke today believe yesterday's announcement of Sun Microsystems' intent to purchase open source database producer MySQL could have an across-the-board effect on the entire database market, impacting IBM, Microsoft, and Oracle.
But based on what we learned today, it doesn't look as though the pricing impact will show up vividly any time soon.
Local online advertising to become big business in next decade
A host of research firms are saying that local ads are the next big thing, with the latest being Jupiter Research saying it will be a $9 billion business by 2012.
Jupiter is certainly not the first to address the market; others have made their predictions as well. While some are not as optimistic, a few even say that the market could potentially grow larger than that.
UK concerned over Facebook's profile deactivation methods
British officials are set to question Facebook over its data retention methods after a user complained that personal information remained on its severs after he deactivated his account.
Facebook's current system still retains some data even after an account is deleted. So far, it has defended the practice claiming that it is in full compliance with UK privacy laws.
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