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From the New York Times: On a whiteboard in a windowless Microsoft conference room here, an elegant curve drawn by a software-testing engineer captures both five years of frustration and more recent progress. The principle behind the curve — that 80 percent of the consequences come from 20 percent of the causes — is rooted …
From BusinessWeek: In the race for Web-search share, Ask.com is the tortoise. The search engine formerly known as Ask Jeeves still handles less than 6% of U.S. searches, though it’s been in the industry since 1996, more than a year before front-runner Google. Google controls roughly 51% of searches, including queries conducted on Time Warner’s …
From the BBC: According to research from Nielsen/NetRatings, people are buying cutting-edge technology but often don’t understand the terms that describe what their device actually does. So while 40% of online Britons receive news feeds, 67% did not know that the official term for this service was Really Simple Syndication. Terms such as podcasting and …
From Vnunet: The internet infrastructure in the US would still be able to function even if terrorists were able to knock out key physical network hubs, researchers have claimed. According to academics who have completed a simulation of a major attack on the US internet infrastructure, it would be “very difficult” to cause major disruptions …
From MSNBC: The European Commission welcomed on Monday U.S. government moves to make the company that manages Internet domain names independent by 2009, but said it would monitor the process carefully. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), which controls addresses including “.com” and country domain names such as “.cn” for China, now …
From TechRepublic: Billionaire investor and dot-com veteran Mark Cuban had harsh words Thursday for YouTube, the online site that lets people share video clips, saying only a “moron” would purchase the wildly popular start-up. Cuban, co-founder of HDNet and owner of the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks, also said YouTube would eventually be “sued into oblivion” because …
From TechRepublic: Your child wants to learn more about Martin Luther King Jr. You might consider consulting a librarian instead of Google, AOL or Microsoft search engines. Using the keywords “Martin Luther King,” the first result on Google and AOL–whose search is powered by Google–and the second result on Microsoft Windows Live search is a …
From BusinessWeek: Social networking sites offer hackers a rich trove of potential victims and many opportunities to exploit them, a new security report says Your next MySpace friend could be a virus. Social networking sites, blogs, and other popular Web destinations that rely on user-generated content are hackers’ newest targets, according to a Symantec report. …
From the Globe and Mail: In the cyber underworld’s never-ending quest for weak spots, home computers are coming under increased attack as businesses tighten their defences, according to the latest Symantec Internet security threat report. “What really surprises is the way that attackers are moving,” says Dean Turner, Calgary-based editor of the twice-yearly threat report. …
From CNet News: Microsoft has confirmed that all versions of Vista will be shipped on a single DVD, in a feature called Windows Anytime Upgrade. The idea, said a company representative, is to let customers more easily and directly upgrade to a higher edition of Windows Vista from within their current edition. Vista is scheduled …