Sun shines on standard Java 5.0

There's a new version of Java and Sun describes it as the most significant update ever to the platform-neutral programming language. Hyperbole surely - wouldn't that be the move to Java 2 (JDK 1.2) back in December 1998? Nonetheless, the Standard Edition (SE) of Sun's Java platform has evolved to version 5. ...more

Hackers hijack Wikipedia for virus distribution

Unscrupulous hackers took advantage of Wikipedia's openness over the weekend when they posted a link to virus. A page on the German version of the collaborative encyclopaedia purported to point to a fix for a fictional new version of the Blaster worm. Instead the link downloaded a piece of malicious code designed to infect PCs. ...more

Google finds record revenues in latest results

One of the few things to be issued by Google in non-beta form: its financial results. And they make pleasant reading for company founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, and indeed all those stockholders who invested in the floatation of the search giant. With profits totalling $381m, the company has reported record revenues of $1. ...more

Google sued for $5bn

Technology company Google is being taken to court over the VoIP technology which underlies the GoogleTalk messaging product it launched last year. A small technology company called Rates Technology Inc is suing the search giant for $5bn, alleging that it owns the patents to two technologies unlawfully used by Google. At issue is 'least cost' technology which allows a phone system to find the lowest price carrier prior to the call being made. ...more

iPod factory sets up state-sponsored trade union

The Chinese government has ordered the owner of the now infamous iPod manufacturing plant in the country's Shenzhen province to allow workers there to set up a trade union, albeit a state-sponsored and management friendly one. Hongfujin Precision Industry, whose Foxconn subsidiary employs some 200,000 workers at the plant, is among several of the region's companies who have been told to establish a union affiliated to the All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU), according to the official Xinhua News Agency [via AP]. Several foreign companies have already permitted ACFTU unions in their Chinese facilities. ...more