HP bought Palm for US$1.2 billion, sparking hope among the remaining Palm enthusiasts that its OS will survive and even flourish. Meanwhile, the case of the “lost” iPhone not only continued, but just got a whole lot more weird along the way. And Steve Jobs jabbed at Adobe again, and Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen jabbed back. We’re certain they are not yet finished jabbing.
1. HP to buy struggling Palm for US$1.2 billion, Palm purchase a risky move for HP, analysts say, Palm users ‘giddy’ over HP’s buyout and History shows HP’s Palm buy can work: HP ended speculation about who would buy Palm, shifting the speculation to what the acquisition will mean for the future of the smartphone and slate markets in particular.
2. California police seize computers in ‘lost’ iPhone case, Lawyer confirms identity of ‘lost’ iPhone seller and Naval cryptologist with top-secret clearance shopped around secret iPhone: While we’re not inclined to engage in conspiracy theories, this particular saga sure does invite them as it just gets weirder and weirder. Hey — is that a black helicopter flying overhead?! Grab your tinfoil hat!
3. Steve Jobs pens public thoughts on Flash, Adobe CEO fires back at Jobs, Microsoft echoes Apple: ‘future of the Web is HTML5’ and Will iPad kick Adobe Flash off the Internet?: OK, at this point there’s only one way to settle this — it’s time for a death-cage match. And no fair tag-teaming with Ballmer.
4. Facebook execs answer new privacy criticisms, New threat: Undetectable Facebook scams and 1.5 million Facebook IDs up for sale: We’re not sure what’s worse — Facebook telling users that it is sharing their personal information with other sites, the rash of undetectable Facebook scams or the hacker who put 1.5 million Facebook IDs up for sale. All three stories in this week’s “Facebook makes us unhappy” entry served to prompt enormous sighs.
5. Admin who kept SF network passwords found guilty and Terry Childs juror explains why he voted to convict: Former San Francisco network administrator Terry Childs was found guilty of one count of denying computer services, in a verdict that surprised many an IT pro. One of the jurors explained in an interview why he voted to convict Childs.
6. Final tally: IT lost 250,000 jobs last year: The final count of IT jobs lost last year came in at 250,000. Even so, the IT sector fared better than the overall job market.
7. Symantec encryption buyouts raise open source, overlap questions: Symantec went on a buying spree, acquiring open-source PGP and GuardianEdge Technologies, prompting a lot of questions about what will happen with those companies’ products and brands.
8. Google: Crank up the heat in your data center: If you want to cut the cooling bill in your data center, crank up the heat, Google advises. (We confess to being a bit befuddled as to how this constitutes truly “green” energy advice and think it might actually be more chartreuse.)
9. Microsoft SharePoint 2007 bug exposes company secrets: Microsoft is trying to fix a bug in SharePoint 2007 after proof-of-concept code was released. Security experts are concerned that the vulnerability could be exploited by hackers looking to steal sensitive information from companies.
10. Infosec: Kaspersky kills off the iPhone: Bwahahahahahahahahaha!
