Articles by Katherine Noyes

This is the third installment in a three-part series. Part 1 outlines the discussions that surround the evolution of the Linux kernel. Part 2 centers on the current state of opinions on the standardization process. Part 3 presents a detailed look at the current state of opinions on the mission of free and open source software If the FOSS community ...

This is the second installment in a three-part series. Part 1 outlines the discussions that surround the evolution of the Linux kernel. Part 2 takes a look at the current state of opinions on the standardization process When Microsoft won its bid to make Office Open XML an international standard last year, it was a pivotal moment for many in the FO...

This is the first installment in a three-part series, presenting a detailed look at the current state of opinions on matters of the Linux kernel The free and open source software community is known for many things, but perhaps none more than its propensity for passionate debate....

Oh, Linux is Linux, and Windows is Windows, and never the twain shall meet -- isn't that how the saying goes? Well, not quite, of course, but it might have been if Kipling had only lived long enough to get to know our favorite operating system. The fact of the matter is that Linux and Windows must and do meet up in a variety of ways -- several of w...

Google on Tuesday unveiled Insights for Search, a new tool designed for marketers that expands upon Google Trends with new search analysis capabilities Google Insights for Search "provides more flexibility and functionality for advertisers and marketers to understand search behavior, and adds some cool new features like a world heat map to graphica...

Beginning on Friday, Reuters can no longer use a critical piece of technology in its widely used Reuters Messaging Network, a court ruled Wednesday Instead, the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York entered judgment in favor of FaceTime Communications, owner of the instant messaging (IM) technology, in its contract disp...

Proponents of the beleaguered Child Online Protection Act suffered yet another blow Tuesday when a federal appeals court deemed the law unconstitutional once again The 1998 law, known as "COPA," aims to keep children from viewing pornographic materials on the Internet by making it a crime for commercial Web site operators to let children access "ha...

It's no secret that individual privacy has already suffered since the Internet era began, but privacy law expert Daniel Solove believes things are likely to get even worse -- much worse -- and he illustrates his vision in living color with a wealth of examples from the here and now In The Future of Reputation: Gossip, Rumor, and Privacy on the Inte...

After unveiling its Live Mesh cloud computing service back in April, Microsoft on Wednesday opened up the software's preview version to a larger number of early users in the United States "This week we did two things," wrote the Live Mesh Team on its official blog. "[We] doubled the maximum number of users we'll allow to access the Live Mesh Techno...

A new health-mapping system crawls the Web's disparate news sources and aggregates the information it finds there into a unified view of the world's health HealthMap, which was launched by a team of researchers from Children's Hospital Boston and Harvard Medical School, provides a comprehensive view of the current global state of infectious disease...

Two legal groups have filed a lawsuit to get more information on whether the U.S. government may be using Americans' cell phones to pinpoint their locations -- sometimes without any warrant or court oversight The American Civil Liberties Union and the Electronic Frontier Foundation filed their suit on Tuesday urging a federal court to order the Dep...

Dell on Thursday introduced a new, colorful laptop line aimed at artistic and creative consumers Combining aesthetics and technology, the new Studio line launched with two distinctively styled laptops: the Dell Studio 15 and Dell Studio 17. Both offer sleek designs, striking visual color elements and personalization options with features such as st...

For most companies, a corporate ad that spreads virally on YouTube is nothing short of a dream come true. Not so for JCPenney, which is protesting a racy and unauthorized ad that took the video sharing site by storm -- until YouTube removed it. The purported ad, titled "Speed Dressing," shows two teenagers timing themselves at home as they race to...

Scientists on Friday confirmed that NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander has uncovered ice in the sandy soil of the red planet "It is with great pride and a lot of joy that I announce today that we have found proof that this hard bright material is really water ice and not some other substance," said Phoenix Principal Investigator Peter Smith of the Universi...

Two Orange County, Calif., teens have been charged with breaking into their school late at night and using stolen log-ins to hack into its computer system and change their grades Omar Khan, 18, a student at Tesoro High School in Rancho Santa Margarita, now faces 34 felony counts of altering a public record, 11 felony counts of stealing and secretin...

After 15 years of development and beta testing, the first stable version of Wine is now available, its developers announced Tuesday Wine is an open source implementation of the Windows application programming interface (API) on top of X, OpenGL and Unix that allows Windows applications to run on other operating systems, including Linux and Mac OS, ...

When startup ZeeVee launched its ZvBox last month, it entered a fray in which high-profile contenders have already found success elusive The ZvBox aims to let consumers watch any Internet TV, online video or computer content on their home high-definition TVs, and it marks one of the latest attempts in the industry to solve the persistent problem of...

A new microchip developed by researchers at the University of Michigan uses 30,000 times less power in sleep mode and 10 times less power in active mode than comparable chips now on the market, the university announced Friday Intended for use in sensor-based devices such as medical implants, environment monitors or surveillance equipment, the new P...

Now that NASA has entered the virtual world with its two islands in Second Life, public outreach, collaboration and space exploration may never be the same again On its CoLab Island, outreach and collaboration are the focus, as Part 1 of this two-part feature explains....

Two U.S. lawmakers on Wednesday accused China of hacking into their office computers, bringing a swift denial from the Chinese government the next day U.S. Rep. Frank Wolf (R.-Va.), a frequent advocate of human rights causes, said that in August 2006 an outside attack was made on four of his office computers that contained "information about all of...