AMD to feel the Intel squeeze

Research from In-Stat/MDR recommends that if AMD is to stay the course, competing against Intel in the x86 market, it must move to more efficient and advanced production processes fast and get its Opteron chip into machines from major server vendors. The report, Intel x86 Competitors, outlines the prospects of AMD, VIA and Transmeta in a market where Intel is expanding across all niches and driving forward performance. 'It is widely recognized that Intel makes a very formidable competitor, and conventional wisdom would dictate that it is foolhardy of these companies to challenge the behemoth's grasp on this market,' says Kevin Krewell of In-Stat/MDR. ...more

DesignIT 2007 challenges IT pros

It's a chance for IT professionals to show their creative side, and it's charities that benefit. The DesignIT 2007 challenge was launched last night, with three charities - the NSPCC, Global Action Plan and Leonard Cheshire - setting the problems they hope the IT community will help surmount. Examples of the charity challenges include: how can IT help redesign or develop a web service that allows people to calculate their carbon footprint (Global Action Plan)? How can IT help a small scale local arts and crafts shop to benefit from the increased interest in local produce (Leonard Cheshire)? And how can IT provide a mechanism that would validate a user across a number of different media channels, helping to make younger users safer online (NSPCC)? The competition is sponsored by Microsoft and the head of its UK Server Product team, Bruce Lynn, officially launched the event, highlighting a usually unseen side of IT pros: their creativity. ...more

Sony boss treads thin DRM line

Sony CEO Howard Stringer has spoken about his company's recent problems with copy protected CDs, saying that they demonstrate the difficulty of balancing the needs of artists and consumers. He clearly understands - at least now if not before - what Sony's customers want. 'Clearly the perception out there is that we shouldn't be doing too much of that copy protection stuff,' he said at a CES press conference. ...more

New IE flaw involves spoofed URLs

Security site BugTraq is reporting a new security flaw in fully patched versions of Internet Explorer 6.0. A simple piece of HTML will display a misleading destination URL in the status bar of fully patched Internet Explorer 6. ...more

OpenOffice debuts bizdev community

The OpenOffice project has created an online meeting place for developers, consultants and business users of the OpenOffice and Sun's StarOffice office suites. Covering both OpenOffice and Sun's StarOffice the bizdev.openoffice. ...more