1/16/2008
Sun Microsystems is making a play to boost its standing in the $15 billion database market. The company announced Wednesday a definitive agreement to acquire MySQL AB, whose technologies are behind some of the highest-volume sites on the Web, including Google and Facebook. The deal will cost Sun about $1 billion, but the company said it expects the move to "[reaffirm] Sun's position as the leading provider of platforms for the Web economy and its role as the largest commercial open source contributor."
1/16/2008
Xignite is offering subscribers an on-demand service that lets users create custom business applications via a Web services mashup platform. The platform, called Xignite Splice, enables composite Web services applications to be built using a visual development environment.
1/16/2008
Newsgator, one of the earliest entrants into the RSS and aggregated content reader business, has decided to offer its latest generation of client tools for free. That includes NetNewsWire 3.1, a Mac reader; FeedDemon 2.6, a PC reader; and NewsGator Go! for Windows Mobile 2.0, a mobile reader. The company is also offering a free version of NewsGator Inbox, which delivers RSS feeds to Microsoft Outlook folders.
1/15/2008
At the Macworld Conference & Expo in San Francisco, Apple CEO Steve Jobs took the stage Tuesday to introduce the company's latest technologies. As rumored, Apple launched a new, super-slim version of the MacBook laptop computer, known as the MacBook Air. Jobs also introduced a new version of the AirPort Extreme Base Station known as Time Capsule, which combines an 802.11n router with a wireless backup storage solution.
1/15/2008
A Syracuse University associate professor introduced a new program that gives people a simple way to do file sharing among digital devices. Syracuse University School of Information Studies Associate Professor Lee McKnight debuted Innovaticus during the International Consumer Electronics Show last week. The software lets users set up a grid of devices--computers, cell phones, printers, and even MP3 players--to collaborate and share files and hardware using devices across multiple networks, wired and wireless. Users with access to that grid could drag and drop files from one device to another, whether it was local or around the world.
1/15/2008
Oklahoma's Campus Life and Safety and Security (CLASS) Task Force is expected to release a report today detailing the status of security on the state's public post-secondary institutions. The report, if all goes according to plan, will be handed over to Oklahoma Gov. Brad Henry with recommendations for increased security spending and greater collaboration between higher ed and law enforcement and mental health professionals.
1/15/2008
At the Macworld Conference & Expo this week in San Francisco, Applied Micro Circuits Corp. (AMCC) announced that its SATA II hardware RAID solution, the 3ware Sidecar, now offers support for Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard. The units have also undergone a price reduction, and the company is offering a $100 Macworld show discount.
1/15/2008
A new Web platform for publishing collections and exhibitions online got a nod of fame last week when it was referenced in The Washington Times profile of George Mason University's Center for History and New Media, which the paper called "at the forefront of the new wave of collecting history." The free, open-source platform is named Omeka, a Swahili word meaning "to display or lay out goods or wares; to speak out; to spread out; to unpack."
1/15/2008
At the Macworld Conference & Expo, Microsoft has officially released Office 2008 for Mac, the latest version of the company's ubiquitous office productivity suite. Office 2008 was originally supposed to have shipped last summer but instead arrives today in three versions, including a new education edition. The company is providing guided tours of the latest edition at the Macworld convention through Thursday.
1/14/2008
CMS/LMS developer Blackboard announced this week its intent to acquire NTI Group. NTI is a provider of mass notification and emergency alert systems used in higher education and K-12. Both companies have already approved the acquisition, and the deal is expected to close this quarter, pending regulatory approval.
1/14/2008
At the Macworld Conference & Expo being held this week in San Francisco, Nexsan is debuting a new high-density storage solution for Apple's Xserve and Mac Pro systems. Dubbed the SATABeast Xi, the 4U rackmount system, which is expected to ship in mid-March, will offer up to 42 TB of storage and features that allow it to improve energy efficiency.
1/14/2008
Microsoft today is providing Macworld Expo attendees with an in depth guided tour of Office 2008 for Mac, which is expected to ship starting tomorrow (Jan. 15). Microsoft will show off the software at a day-long training session entitled "A Day At The Office: Microsoft Office 2008" beginning at 9 a.m. PST and running until 6:30 p.m. Other sessions and labs wil be held throughout the expo.
1/14/2008
At the Macworld Conference & Expo, being held this week in San Francisco, Adobe is previewing its forthcoming Photoshop Elements 6 for Mac for the first time to the public.
1/11/2008
Oklahoma's Campus Life and Safety and Security (CLASS) Task Force next week will present Gov. Brad Henry with the results of its seven-month study on the state of campus security in Oklahoma. Among the recommendations, released in draft form this week, are calls for increased spending on security in post-secondary institutions and greater collaboration between higher education, law enforcement, and mental health professionals.
1/10/2008
The University of Georgia this week said it's investigating a security breach that might have exposed as many as 4,250 Social Security numbers, including those of several hundred current residents. The actual incident occured in late December and was the second discovery of a breach potentially exposing SSNs at the University of Georgia in 2007.
1/10/2008
Clemson University in South Carolina has beefed up its campus safety systems with the expansion of emergency notification systems and a new university safety site that provides information on safety issues and signups for messaging services.
1/10/2008
Hamline University in Minnesota has switched its e-mail security over to the Proofpoint on Demand hosted service. The campus had previously housed its own system on premises but outgrew that system as the volume of spam and malware increased for it's approximately 10,000 e-mail accounts, according to the university.
1/9/2008
Smart Technologies this week debuted a new full-version update of its Notebook collaborative learning software and also launched new interactive whiteboard systems. The new Notebook 10, which will make its first public appearance at the Macworld Conference and Expo next week in San Francisco, adds 30 new features for lesson creation and delivery.
1/9/2008
SpringSource is offering the final release of Spring.NET 1.1. The framework, which apparently was released early last month, lets .NET developers use some of the features that are currently available in the open source Java-based Spring Framework.
1/8/2008
The University of Illinois is powering its latest online initiative using Desire2Learn's electronic learning solutions, including the Enterprise eLearning Suite and the D2L Learning Environment. The initiative, called the University of Illinois Global Campus, is aimed at expanding the university system's reach to provide affordable and accessible education to students in Illinois and around the world.
1/8/2008
Rich Media software developer Panopto is making its CourseCast lecture-capture technology available free to qualified educational institutions, including K-12 schools, colleges, and universities. The software is being distributed though the company's new Socrates Project to provide free access in exchange for participation in "ongoing beta and developer programs aimed at continually enhancing the technology...."
1/7/2008
Providers of service-oriented architecture (SOA) solutions may face a long road ahead--or not--as we look to 2008. Still, SOA solution providers have always had a tough task. SOA products are based on an IT architectural approach that requires getting management and IT support together on the same page.
1/7/2008
Mitsubishi has launched a new high-definition projector targeted toward education, home theater, and corporate applications at the Consumer Electronics Show, happening this week in Las Vegas.
1/4/2008
Eclipse and Java coders are being offered a helping hand with their component assembly challenges from a new company with a fledgling free service. The Web-based Cloudsmith service, from the company of the same name, is designed to streamline component assembly across multiple sources. It helps developers cobble components directly from the Internet, or "the cloud"--that global pool of connected computers drawn as lump on countless whiteboards.
1/3/2008
The Creative Commons foundation recently released the CC+ protocol, which allows authors and other content makers to release their work for free (under the Creative Commons noncommercial license) and charge a fee for commercial use at the same time.