Making the Switch to iSCSI Storage (Campus Technology)

Client by client, iSCSI is claiming ground against fibre channel in the external storage wars. For Queensborough Community College in Bayside, NY, that day of reckoning came a week or so before Thanksgiving 2006 when the school's fibre channel storage system went down.

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Review: Autonet Mobile: Your Own Personal Hot Spot, Everywhere You Go (Wired)

Sure, on the outside it looks like a standard-fare, late-model Pontiac Grand Am rented from Avis. But in actuality, it’s your very own personal rolling WiFi hot spot: no wires, no weird antennas, no voodoo witchcraft. As long as you're within 100 feet of this candy-apple-red vehicle, connecting and surfing the net is easier than drifting into a power slide on wet pavement. The device that does it is the Autonet Mobile WiFi router.

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Apple, AT&T, 31 others sued for infringing on smart phone patent (Network World)

Last week, the United States Patent and Trademark Office granted a patent to Minerva Industries, a Los Angeles-based patent-holding firm. On the same day it received the patent, Minerva proceeded to sue 33 companies for patent infringement.

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Spectrum auction starts, draws over $2.7 billion in first-day bids (Ars Technica)

Bidding is finally under way for the 700MHz spectrum being vacated by analog television broadcasts. Bids have totaled nearly $2.8 billion, but the reserve prices on the C and D Blocks are far from being met.

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Inside The Exclusive Diamond Lounge Social Network (AppScout)

Are you a CEO? A celebrity? Maybe just a poor tech journalist? If you're the latter, you can get a trial membership to the Diamond Lounge, where richer, cooler people than you can add you to your friends list. It's the velvet rope, Web 2.0 style.

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Team Aquaduct wins Innovate or Die competition (Google)

The contest said to "Innovate or Die" – and Team Aquaduct lives! The quintet was declared the winner out of 102 entries by building a unique and functional solution to provide rural communities with access to clean water.

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XM/Sirius merger could be finalized soon: report (TG Daily)

After months of government probing and questions of antitrust violations, the merger between the two satellite radio services may be coming to a close, according to a news report.

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OLPC Delays Angering Donors (Digital Trends)

The OLPC's Give One, Get One program launched to an enthusiastic response...now production delays and delivery problems are raising ire amongst some donors.

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Tesla Roadster to enter production on March 17 (TG Daily)

Tesla Motors announced that it has received all regulatory approvals to import the first production Tesla roadster, code-named P1, for sale. Series production of the car is scheduled to begin on March 17 of this year.

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Obama: I'm Not a Muslim! Forward This to Everyone You Know (Wired)

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama launched an online viral counteroffensive Tuesday against persistent e-mail chain letters that lie about his religious and political background. But history suggests that the effort might backfire, according to experts in urban myths and folklore.

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ICANN makes case for freedom from US oversight (Ars Technica)

ICANN, the group charged with overseeing the Internet's addressing system, says it's time to cut the cords tying the organization to the US Department of Commerce, arguing that it has met the criteria for operating independently.

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Techspin: Capitalism and Its Discontents (RedHerring)

Bill Gates feels the poor's pain at Davos, Belgian officials face a tough choice, and other imperfections of the free market.

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Music Sales Slipped by 10 Percent in 2007 (Digital Trends)

It wasn't a good year for the music industry in dollars and cents, but the rapid growth of legal download services holds promise for the future.

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Last.fm debuts free music service (BBC NEWS)

Social music site Last.fm has launched what it describes as the world's biggest free music service. It is promising to pay unsigned artists royalties every time a user streams a track to their computer, and has done deals with the four major record companies as well as more than 150,000 independent labels to offer access to their catalogues.

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Airwaves Sale Is Payoff for Digital Move (Wired News)

So far, the decade-long transition to digital broadcasting has mostly been about pain. Beginning Thursday, the public will start to see the gain. That's when the government will begin auctioning off the airwaves that are being made available thanks to the transition, raising billions for the U.S. Treasury and freeing up badly needed space for emergency communications.

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WSO2 Releases Web Services Framework for Ruby (Application Development Trends )

Web developers who use the increasingly popular combo of the Ruby programming language with the Rails framework, better known as Ruby on Rails, now have an open source framework for providing and/or consuming Web services: WSO2's newly released Web Services Framework for Ruby (WSF/Ruby), the first Ruby extension to support the WS-* specifications.

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Sold at Auction: One Mainframe (Campus Technology)

Time to unplug the mainframe? Just what do you do with that big black box with all of its gear and software--especially if it's only three years old and still running in the data center? Why, if you have nerves of steel, you auction it off on eBay, of course.

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Parents crashing online party (CNN.com)

Chicago teen Scott Seigal gets text messages from his girlfriend's mother, his friends' parents leave greetings on his MySpace page and his grandmother instant messages him every day.Increasingly, however, he and other young people are feeling uncomfortable about their elders encroaching on what many young adults and teens consider their technological turf.

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Oops: MPAA admits college piracy numbers grossly inflated (Ars Technica)

The MPAA has admitted that a key 2005 report it commissioned overstated the "losses" from collegiate file-sharing—by a factor of three.

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Olympus Unveils Nine New Cameras for 2008 (PC Magazine)

Olympus' 2008 lineup includes four entry-level cameras, two water- and shock-proof shooters, and a 10MP enthusiast camera with 20X optical zoom.

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AT&T unveils iPhone business rate plans (Computerworld)

AT&T Inc. on Monday unveiled business plans for Apple Inc.'s iPhone, the first time that the mobile carrier has courted corporate customers of the smart phone. But the lowest-cost data plan is still two and a half times higher than a comparable consumer plan.

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Microsoft Revives Virtualization Push (BusinessWeek)

The software maker wants to tap the demand boom for the money-saving technology. So why isn't VMware shaking in its boots?

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Halo 3 Meets Second Life (Baseline)

The U.S. Army enlists new virtual world video game to teach soldiers interpersonal skills and cultural awareness for combat environments like Iraq and Afganistan.

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8 Hot Technologies for 2008 (Network World)

The editors of Network World identify eight technologies that you should watch in 2008...and give you the opportunity to vote on your own choices.

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Intel's Classmate scheme could be "checkmate" for OLPC (Ars Technica)

While OLPC only toys with the idea of going commercial, Intel is licensing its designs for local markets and manufacturers. It's a strategy that can only boost the Classmate PC.

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Software Morphs Rapper Prodigy Into Global Cipher (Wired)

When Prodigy's next album drops, it could debut in nearly 1,500 different languages without the rapper having to so much as crack a translation dictionary.

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UltraBattery promises more power, less cost for HEVs (TG Daily)

Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) has developed a new battery for hybrid electric vehicles that could deliver a 50% increase in power, a 70% decrease in cost and a 300% improvement in life expectancy.

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Surprise: The Wii Ruled 2007 Console Sales - Video Game News (Digital Trends)

The video game industry's sales in 2007 were higher than any other year at almost $18 billion...and, surprise surprise, the NIntendo Wii took honors as top-selling console.

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Apple giveth: Firmware 1.1.3 un-bricks iPhones (Ars Technica)

Unlocked iPhones that were bricked after firmware updates can now get restored to original, working condition.

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Mozilla browser interface to get 'humanized' (InfoWorld)

UI developers from startup Humanized join Mozilla and will use technology from the Enso project to add more human interaction to the Firefox browser and other products.

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MySpace Bug Leaks 'Private' Teen Photos to Voyeurs (Wired)

A backdoor in MySpace's architecture allows anyone who's interested to see the photographs of some users with private profiles -- including those under 16 -- despite assurances from MySpace that those pictures can only be seen by people on a user's friends list. Info about the backdoor has been circulating on message boards for months.

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Theo Jansens’s Mechanical Pneumatic Beasts (Design News: Spatial Engineering and Aesthetics)

Imagine beaches across the world populated by inorganic autonomous mindless beasts, dependant only on the earth’s wind for their mobility. No I am not talking of the army of plastic bags currently populating our city streets; I am referring to the Strandbeests, the kinetic sculptures created by artist Theo Jansen.

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SANS Flags Browsers, Botnets as Top Security 'Menaces' (Campus Technology)

Research and education organization the SANS Institute this week revealed its list of the top menaces facing IT in the coming year. Echoing earlier reports from security watchdog organizations, the group's "Top-10 Cyber Security Menaces for 2008" cited Web 2.0 technologies, converged devices, botnets, and browser addons among the worst, with a heavy emphasis on consumerized technologies and the vulnerabilities they present.

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US intel chief wants carte blanche to peep all 'Net traffic' (Ars Technica)

In a new New Yorker profile, top spy Mike McConnell says he needs broad new powers to save our data. "He's got the whole 'Net, in his hands..."

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Satire: Failure Now An Option (The Onion)

In a stunning reversal of more than 200 years of conventional wisdom, failure—traditionally believed to be an unacceptable outcome for a wide range of tasks and goals—is now increasingly seen as a viable alternative to success, sources confirmed Tuesday.

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Apple Looking Less Shiny? Look Again (BusinessWeek)

Investors were underwhelmed by Apple's lineup at this year's Macworld conference. Give it time, says BusinessWeek.

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Google, Clearwire Forge Portal Deal (Red Herring)

Google continued its headlong dive into the wireless communications market with a joint announcement on Tuesday that it is teaming with WiMAX operator Clearwire to promote its suite of applications among Clearwire's 350,000 subscribers.

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Better than nothing: crippled network DVR alive at Comcast (Ars Technica)

Comcast will offer a limited network DVR service called "Start Over." You can jump back to the beginning of a show in progress, but forget about skipping commercials. Ars Technica sheds a tear for what might have been.

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A Web 2.0 Dashboard for Buzz (BusinessWeek)

StrategyEye is mixing Web search services with in-house analysis to provide companies with business info in easy-to-digest, interactive formats

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Apple announces MacBook Air, HD movie rentals, Apple TV 2.0 at Macworld keynote (Ars Technica)

Steve Jobs took the stage at Macworld San Francisco this morning, announcing the rumored MacBook Air, the expected movie rental feature on the iTunes Store (in high-definition), and a new Apple TV 2.0. The iPhone and iPod touch are also getting some new features.

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Gibson’s Robot Guitar Tunes Itself (Design News)

Not so long ago, a self-tuning guitar was simply one you tuned yourself. Gibson’s latest electric guitar, however, really does take tuning out of the guitarist’s hands and tunes itself with servo mechanisms and control algorithms that dynamically adjust string tension.

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Gates Bids Farewell to CES (eWeek)

In what might have been his final keynote address at an International CES event, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates opened the 2008 expo with talk about entering a new "digital decade," where his company plans to play a major role. Gates acknowledged Apple's iPhone and signaled the importance of new content deals with NBC and others.

Back from the dead: CompUSA assets snapped up by TigerDirect (Ars Technica)

CompUSA's brand, trademarks, e-commerce business, and several retail locations are being saved from the ashes by Systemax, parent company of TigerDirect. Through the acquisition, TigerDirect plans to more than double its retail presence.

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Panasonic, Sharp, and Toshiba launch tech recycling company (CNET News.com)

Three of the biggest makers of TVs have formed a company to help manage the wave of electronics waste set to swell with the onset of digital television. Panasonic, Sharp, and Toshiba have launched the Manufacturers Recycling Management Co. in Minnesota.

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Intel Drops From One Laptop Per Child (Red Herring)

Intel said on Thursday it will drop out of the One Laptop Per Child project and resign from the board after the project's board demanded the chip maker stop supporting other efforts in emerging markets.

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The IT department is dead, author argues (Network World)

New Nicholas Carr book predicts utility computing will replace internal IT shops.

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