Articles by Jay Lyman

With a goal of connecting all villages, schools, hospitals and governments by 2015 to put half the world's people within reach of information and communication technology (ICT), the U.N. opened the first-ever global summit on information in Geneva, Switzerland this week International issues such as socioeconomic divisions, censorship and governance...

A U.S. House of Representatives subcommittee confirmed this week the concerns of security experts and Washington insiders by grading most federal agencies with a D or F in terms of IT security There was improvement from last year's federal computer-security progress report as the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and National Science Foundation each ea...

Concerns about computer viruses and worms are spreading beyond the PC arena as embedded software and systems vulnerable to attack are introducing risk to several unique technology sectors, including automatic teller machines (ATMs), emergency response systems and even automobiles ATM maker Diebold recently confirmed that this year's Nachi worm infe...

Although there is agreement that IT spending will increase in 2004, views vary on whether it will be marked by a return to more traditional buying patterns or significant structural changes forced by commodity pricing According to a survey of more than 600 IT decision makers, IT spending confidence has improved substantially from a year ago and eve...

Companies and developers hanging on to older releases of Microsoft software will no longer find downloads or support from the Redmond, Washington-based company as it complies with a nearly three-year-old settlement with Sun Microsystems over the use of Java Microsoft said that because of the settlement, the company will phase out software that incl...

IBM claims it has found a way to apply nanotechnology -- a field of study in which researchers have manipulated materials at dimensions approaching the size of individual molecules -- to producing semiconductor components with existing chip-making tools Big Blue researchers, who will present their findings at the IEEE International Electron Devices...

Despite a healthy boom for WiFi wireless products among home users, issues of security and complexity are still holding back the technology on the enterprise side, experts at a wireless conference said this week While speakers at the WiFi Planet Conference in San Jose, California, talked about improvements in the technology and the incredible marke...

U.S. Cyber Security Division director Amit Yoran, warmly embraced by the IT security community as head of the nation's cyber security when appointed in September, warned this week that more sophisticated and potentially disruptive cyber attacks could be looming against a system that remains vulnerable Speaking with U.S. Department of Homeland Secur...

The Recording Industry Association of America pushed forward with its campaign to sue illegal music file-traders this week, piling on another 41 suits in the third wave of legal action aimed at those who share music files over peer-to-peer (P2P) networks The industry group that represents the world's major recording labels touted the success of and...

An international anticensorship group is calling on the biggest names in technology, including U.S. heavyweights Cisco, Microsoft, Intel, IBM and Sun Microsystems, to stand against the "repression of the Internet" by China's government. Despite commercial gains in what analysts describe as one of the most significant markets in the world -- the country contains an exploding market of nearly 50 million Internet users -- China remains an oppressive overseer of Internet use within its borders.

Boasting half a billion dollars of technology innovation and no fewer than 20 new products, Sun Microsystems has released new software, systems and pricing aimed at leveraging its new relationship with chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices. As part of the strategy, Sun plans to move into the small-business market by promoting Java as a programming language and a platform...

A Norwegian court is again hearing the case of prominent cracker Jon Johansen, known as "DVD Jon" for his 1999 software program that circumvents DVD copy protection, the publication of which launched a swarm of lawsuits against Web publishers, including hacker site 2600.com While a three-judge panel in January rejected charges that Johansen had ill...

Despite holding the threat of legal action over college students and ISPs involved in publishing information about flaws in its electronic voting systems, Diebold has now retracted its threats and is looking to settle a suit brought against the company by those it threatened North Canton, Ohio-based Diebold agreed in federal court not to sue or sen...

Software pirates in Malaysia are reportedly selling an illegal version of Microsoft's next-generation Windows desktop operating system, codenamed Longhorn, which is not scheduled for official release for another two years at least In October, Microsoft gave out previews of Longhorn at its developers' conference in Los Angeles, and the company has s...

The disclosure of a handful of critical security holes reported in Microsoft's Internet Explorer Web browser is conjuring up an old debate about the process of reporting security vulnerabilities as well as the usual concern over hacker attacks and compromised computers The five scripting vulnerabilities, described as "extremely critical" by Danish ...

IDC's Worldwide Quarterly Server Tracker indicated growth for nearly all classes of the network computers, with a whopping $10.8 billion in overall revenue representing 2 percent growth in the third quarter of 2003 Overall shipments of servers worldwide grew almost 20 percent, driven primarily by demand for lower-end, lower-cost servers that are in...

IBM hopes to hit it big with its new Business Integration Game (BIG) technology, which is a software system designed to throw third-party e-commerce and communication into the latest online role-playing and multiplayer video games The BIG framework, which uses open standards such as SOAP and J2EE, lets game developers use standard Web services to b...

Intel has revealed plans to extend the number of transistors the company can put on chips with existing equipment. The next-generation technique includes a 65-nanometer process that the company said will help develop more capable processors and larger, more cost-effective 300-nanometer wafers, which are used for processors and other semiconductor manufacturing products...

Incessant, unsolicited e-mail brought out the worst of a Sunnyvale, California programmer who is now charged with 11 federal counts of illegal interstate communications after he graphically threatened to harm, torture and kill the alleged spammer in a series of e-mails and telephone messages As it turns out, 44-year-old Charles Booher -- who faces ...

Computer chip king Intel has committed to producing a 4-GHz processor by the end of next year as it adopts an aggressive push toward smaller, faster 90-nanometer chips that cost less for the company to make The official announcement of plans to hit the 4-GHz mark in 2004 might be less significant than the Santa Clara, California-based company's que...