California denied parole on Wednesday to Charles Manson, one of America’s most notorious mass murderers, in his 11th bid for release. California’s Board of Parole Hearings said that Manson (72) ”continues to pose an unreasonable danger to others and may still bring harm to anyone he would come in contact with”.
MySpace is yielding to demands by American state justice officials that it expose sexual predators that may be prowling the youth-oriented social networking website. The move ends a stand-off between MySpace and top prosecutors from eight American states.
Salesforce.com’s stock price climbed by more than 4% on Monday in response to a report that the online software pioneer is poised to team up with internet search leader Google in a double-barrelled attack on Microsoft. A formal announcement between the two companies is expected in early June.
Amazon.com said on Wednesday it is launching an online music store this year featuring millions of songs without copying limitations. The online retail giant said it has signed a deal with British-based music publisher EMI Music to include its music catalogue as well as those from 12 000 other music labels.
Chevron temporarily shut down some operations in Nigeria’s offshore waters on Friday as the second-largest United States oil company scrambled to protect its workers and equipment from rampant violence that threatens to drive up fuel prices.
Yahoo! on Thursday launched a web-based version of its free instant messaging service for internet users who want to stay connected while away from their home computers. The service lets people use the online search titan’s service from any internet-linked computer without needing to download or install software.
Yahoo! will close its online auction service for North America next month, signalling the internet powerhouse’s intention to focus on more profitable endeavours as it tries to snap out of a financial malaise. The Sunnyvale-based company’s auctions in the United States and Canada will end on June 16.
Actor Robin Williams said on Thursday that he had not drunk alcohol for 10 months since announcing publicly that he was entering treatment for alcohol abuse. In August his spokesperson said he had ”found himself drinking again” after two decades of sobriety.
In a hip swirl of pink cosmopolitan cocktails and mashed-up dance music, Silicon Valley insiders on Friday paid homage to the geeks and the glamorous reshaping culture with technology. An invitation-only crowd of about 700 people swarmed under a tented patio walled with the visages winners of this year’s Wired Magazine Rave Awards.
David Halberstam, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author who chronicled the Washington press corps, the Vietnam War generation and baseball, was killed in a car crash, a coroner said. He was 73. His wife, Jean Halberstam, said she will remember him most for his "unending, bottomless generosity to young journalists".
David Dain Smith lives in Missouri, but his California winery is just a click away, waiting to spring to life in the dim glow of his computer screen. Smith is making wine through Crushpad, a winery where the grapes are real but the experience is as virtual as members want it to be with email updates, live chat and web cams.
In the battle over next-generation DVDs, pornography could prove to be the XXX factor that helps determine a winner. Thirty years ago, VHS toppled Betamax in part because of the adult film industry, and now some see blue movies playing a key role again as backers of HD-DVD and Blu-ray manoeuvre to make their formats the standard.
Hewlett-Packard (HP) on Wednesday showed off innovations it said were at the heart of a plan to become a major player in the multibillion-dollar computer-game market. The company has even installed new gaming features into a home coffee table dubbed "Misto", which features a built-in computer, stereo speakers and a touch-screen for a top.
Microsoft on Tuesday released a high-priority software patch intended to fix a dangerous vulnerability in its Vista and Windows operating systems. The world’s largest computer software company made the patch available as hacker groups, most of them based in China, intensified attacks crafted to exploit the weakness that Microsoft disclosed on Thursday.
A new version of Adobe Systems’ Creative Suite software will go on sale this month, a launch that executives have billed as the most significant in the company’s 25-year history. The software suite includes well-known programs such as Photoshop for photo editing and Dreamweaver for web design.
Presiding over a company with a market value of -billion apparently gives Silicon Valley’s most famous billionaires a good sense of humour. Google launched their annual April Fools’ Day prank on Sunday, posting a link on the company’s home page to a site offering consumers free high-speed wireless internet through their home plumbing systems.
Sprucing up its famously plain website, Google is offering a new option that plants its internet search box in panoramic settings that change with the time of day and the outside weather. Google’s new package of skins are designed to make the home page feel even more homey, said Marissa Mayer, the company’s vice-president of search products.
Google on Monday added details of WWF environmental projects to its popular global online mapping service. The Mountain View, California, internet search powerhouse wove WWF images, information and website links into its popular Google Earth program.
Gears of War designed for the Xbox 360 console was on Wednesday crowned best game at a video-game industry version of the Academy Awards, complete with red carpet and adoring fans. Winners were unveiled Oscars-style at the Seventh Annual Game Developers Choice Awards ceremony in San Francisco.
Microsoft announced on Thursday its first software licensing deal under a programme mandated by a 2004 European Commission anti-trust ruling. The contract with California-based Quest Software came a week after commission officials accused Microsoft of setting prices too high for technology offered in the Work Group Server Protocol Program.
Video-game makers from around the world gathered in San Francisco on Monday to collaborate about the future of play. The 20th annual Game Developers Conference is the largest gathering of its kind and is dedicated to the ”art, science, and business of games”, according to its organisers at CMP Technology firm.
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/ 26 February 2007
Despite much public ado about piracy at YouTube, research released on Friday shows that the Google-owned website is thriving and many visitors are looking for home-made works. "It turns out a lot of the content people are seeking is user generated," Hitwise general manager of global research Bill Tancer said.
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/ 26 February 2007
Internet titan Google has begun selling an online suite of business software in a new challenge to software powerhouse Microsoft. "Google Apps Premier Edition" packages communication and collaboration programs that are hosted on the internet giant’s computers. They are available to use by businesses for a $50 (about R350) yearly fee.
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/ 24 February 2007
In an explosive display, virtual-world banes now mirror the havoc of the real one as terrorists have launched a bombing campaign in Second Life. People controlling animated avatar members of a self-proclaimed Second Life Liberation Army (SLLA) have set off computer-code versions of atomic bombs.
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/ 18 February 2007
An asteroid may come uncomfortably close to Earth in 2036 and the United Nations should assume responsibility for a space mission to deflect it, a group of astronauts, engineers and scientists said on Saturday. Astronomers are monitoring an asteroid named Apophis, which has a one in 45 000 chance of striking Earth on April 13 2036.
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/ 16 February 2007
MySpace claimed vindication on Thursday after a judge threw out a lawsuit filed on behalf of a 13-year-old girl who claims she was sexually assaulted by a man she met on the website. The decision bodes well for the youth-oriented social networking website in similar suits.
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/ 16 February 2007
Intel on Monday touted a diminutive new microprocessor that it said could deliver "supercomputer-like" performance to home computers and handheld devices. Intel said its unprecedented programmable processor can perform more than a trillion calculations per second — a "teraflop".
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/ 16 February 2007
In a Valentine’s Day gift to the world, Google has dropped the invitation-only policy for Gmail and made the free e-mail service available to anyone. "Gmail sign-ups are now open worldwide," Google associate product manager David Murray said in a posting on the California internet search engine’s website on Thursday.
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/ 7 February 2007
The biggest sexual discrimination case in United States history advanced against Wal-Mart on Tuesday when a top court ruled that more than a million women could join a suit charging bias in pay and promotions. The plaintiffs estimate they could win billions of dollars in lost pay and damages.
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/ 7 February 2007
Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates addressed thousands of computer-security specialists gathered at a San Francisco conference on Tuesday, calling for a "powerful paradigm" to thwart online crime. "People want more flexibility and anywhere access with multiple devices," Gates told a crowd of RSA Conference 2007 attendees.
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/ 7 February 2007
Apple’s Steve Jobs posted an open message to record studios on Tuesday, asking them to abolish security software that prevents music bought online from playing on different types of MP3 players. Apple would embrace eliminating technology that prevents songs downloaded from its iTunes music store from being played on iPod rivals, he said.
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/ 1 February 2007
Computer hackers are off and running trying to find vulnerabilities in Microsoft’s new Windows Vista operating system, putting to test the software maker’s claim that it is the most secure Windows program to date. The new version of Windows became available to consumers on Tuesday.