Digital rights management software embedded in some Sony BMG CDs has become a lightning rod for complaints against the measures the music industry is taking to prevent illegal copying. Eight months after Sony incorporated the software into 20 of its CD releases, developer and author Mark Russinovich...

Hewlett-Packard announced yesterday a bundle of application modernization services designed to help large enterprises do some IT housekeeping and set a roadmap that will lead them to a service-oriented architecture (SOA). Within about three months, consultants will have sifted through the legacy app...

The Audit Bureau of Circulation measured a 2.6 percent drop in weekday circulation for U.S. newspapers year-over-year in the six months ending Sept. 30. As the industry comes under more pressure to increase profits, some publications are maintaining their push into the online world and trying to reg...

Jeanson Ancheta, 20, installed pop-up adware on the commandeered computers and rented his "botnet" -- or network of computers compromised by Trojan horses that allow remote control of the infected machine -- to other hackers for profit, prosecutors say. Ancheta is charged with 17 federal counts incl...

A fruitless prosecution against a teenager in English court highlights the inadequacy of that nation's cyberlaws to cope with denial of service attacks. The youth was accused of sending 5 million e-mails to a former employer, thereby shutting down the company's servers. The case did not fail because...

Hewlett-Packard announced today that it has added an HP-UX blade server to its Itanium arsenal, a move that gives it a slight edge over IBM, one analyst said. "When you compare where they were Monday vs. where they are today, this does give HP salespeople something in their kit bag which not only di...

Samsung plans to enter the nascent online music market and although there's a vast pool of consumers who have not yet made the leap to downloading songs, it will take "an incredibly compelling proposition" to make a dent in Apple's hold on the segment, one analyst said. Speaking to South Korean medi...

Computer ownership and home Internet access were still rising through 2003, a U.S. Census Bureau report released yesterday found, but the study also noted that regional, racial and socioeconomic factors still play a big role in who does and does not have access to and interest in the Web. The Census...

The U.S. government has finalized plans to implant RFID tags in all newly issued or renewed passports beginning October 2006. The State Department issued new regulations earlier this week, despite concerns from privacy advocates that the chips will pose threats on several different fronts, including...

Gamers who dream of developing products for Sony's soon-to-be-released PlayStation 3 and its PlayStation Portable handheld will soon get their chance. The electronics giant will launch its latest Sony Game Yaroze! -- which means "Let's Play Games" -- on Nov. 15 and accept entries from amateur and pr...

Lurking behind that spooky haunted house -- whether it be next door or at the local amusement park -- are embedded computing devices and other bits of engineering magic that, while not the highest tech gadgets on the market, sure come in handy when the Jedis, ninjas, princesses and witches come arou...

The U.S. government has finalized plans to implant RFID tags in all newly issued or renewed passports beginning October 2006. The State Department issued new regulations yesterday, despite concerns from privacy advocates that the chips will pose threats on several different fronts, including the abi...

Hong Kong officials have successfully prosecuted a BitTorrent user for sharing three copyrighted movies on the file-sharing network. The user faces up to four years in jail and a fine of up to about US$6,400. He had pleaded not guilty to copyright infringement for sharing movies "Miss Congeniality,"...

IBM announced yesterday that it has bought DataPower, a private maker of devices that speed the processing of XML (extensible markup language). The move is a good one for IBM, because "it's one of those acquisitions that stretches across the breadth of the company," Frank Dzubeck, president, Communi...

Perhaps it was only a matter of time before an information tool such as a search engine grew into a source of information on its own. Yahoo last month took that leap, announcing Kevin Sites in the Hot Zone, a multimedia effort to bring online news to life. Yahoo says that it is not looking to duplic...

A California law banning the sale or rental of violent video games to anyone under 17 is being challenged by two industry trade groups 10 days after Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed the bill. The Entertainment Software Association and Video Software Dealers Association have filed a lawsuit in U.S.

Oracle announced Friday what seems to be a squeeze play on MySQL -- the purchase of Innobase, a Finnish developer of open-source database technology. Terms of the agreement were not released. Innobase's most prominent product is InnoDB, a transaction engine that ships as an add-on to MySQL, the most...

Owners of PlayStation Portables who may be inclined to alter their devices so they can play unauthorized games should beware of the software they use to do so. Anti-malware company Symantec reports that one of the programs that claims it allows gamers to circumvent security measures on their devices...

T-Mobile claims its Web'n'walk service, already available in Germany and now expanded to the UK, breaks down the walls of mobile Web surfing. Users are able to access almost any Web site -- with some exceptions -- and view it just as it would look on a computer, according to company representatives....

When Oracle agreed early in September to buy former rival Siebel Systems for US$5.85 billion, some questioned how long Siebel would continue its CRM OnDemand service. That question came to light because Oracle rival IBM plays a big role in the on-demand service. Yesterday, Siebel responded with the ...