When Microsoft walked away from its blockbuster bid for Yahoo, the media sought desperately to keep the news coming even when there wasn't much left to say. That seems to be how The Wall Street Journal came up with the notion that Microsoft had approached Facebook about an acquisition. It's not true.
A decade ago Akamai was not much more than a handful of scientists at MIT trying to come up with an approach that would rid the Internet of congestion. The only glitch was that in 1998 there wasn't any congestion on the Internet. Today, of course, it all makes sense. The Internet is getting jammed as more people conduct their business, find information, or simply get entertained online. The Akamai team's foresight and the solutions they have concocted are now a business that booked $636 million in sales in 2007, with a profit just north of $100 million. The company, based in Cambridge, Mass., was No. 48 on our 2007 list of fastest-growing companies and is projected to break $1 billion in revenue in 2009. Not bad for an outfit that solved a problem nobody knew we had.
The electronics chain said that it would allow Blockbuster to examine its books, a shift from its initial, highly skeptical stance toward Blockbuster?s unsolicited takeover bid.
The prospect of an electronic Trojan horse, lurking in the circuitry of a computer and allowing attackers clandestine access or control, was raised again recently by the F.B.I. and the Pentagon.
The company will require users under 18 to confirm they have read Facebook?s safety tips when they sign up; the site will also display a prominent ?report abuse? icon.
Copyright 2008
The New York Times Company
Reuters: Technology News
Fri, 09 May 2008 17:13:06 -0400
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Playing video games does not turn children into deranged, blood-thirsty super-killers, according to a new book by a pair of Harvard researchers.
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Take-Two Interactive Software Inc said on Friday that "Pirates of the Caribbean" director Gore Verbinski will make a movie version of "BioShock," its hit video game about an underwater utopia gone disastrously wrong.
BOSTON (Reuters) - Pierre Avignon is no pirate, but he does not believe in paying for software. His computer is filled with programs like Symphony -- a free suite that he downloaded from an International Business Machines Corp website (http://symphony.lotus.com).
AP - The popular online social hangout Facebook says it's setting up a new system that will allow its 70 million users to take their personal profiles with them as they surf other Web sites.
AP - Microsoft Corp. on Friday said it has appealed a $1.39 billion fine imposed in February by the European Commission for the company's failure to comply with a 2004 antitrust order.
AP - Jon Edwards often manages what appears impossible. He has recovered precious data from computers wrecked in floods and fires and dumped in lakes. Now Edwards may have set a new standard: He found information on a melted disk drive that fell from the sky when space shuttle Columbia disintegrated in 2003.
AP - EBay Inc. is exploring whether to require customers to use its online payment service PayPal, a move that has angered users and prompted antitrust scrutiny in Australia, where a PayPal-only rule takes effect next month.
