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San Francisco - Sun Microsystems is stepping up efforts to boost Java usage in Linux shops by working to remove some final encumbrances in the open-source Java platform.

By freeing these up, Java can be fully open-source and thus be packaged more easily with Linux distributions. In conjunction with this activity, Sun is talking with Linux distributors, including OpenSuse, Ubuntu and Fedora to have them offer an updated version of OpenJDK, which constitutes the open-source Java platform. Sun plans to offer the updated OpenJDK soon and clear the last few encumbrances later.

“We're hoping to see some movement [with the] Linux distributions in the very near future, hopefully by JavaOne,” said Rich Sands, group manager for developer marketing at Sun, in an interview on Tuesday. The JavaOne conference is to be held in San Francisco in two weeks.

OpenJDK is based on Java Platform, Standard Edition (SE) 6. The open sourcing process began in November 2006. But a few components, including some encryption libraries, graphics libraries, the sound engine, and some SNMP management code still could not be offered under the GNU General Public License. These components accounted for 4 percent of the platform.

“We've been engaging with the open-source community for Java to finish off the OpenJDK project, and the specific thing that we've been working on with them is clearing the last bits that we didn't have the rights,” to distribute, Sands said.

“Over the past year, we have pretty much removed most of those encumbrances,” Sands said. Work still needs to be done to offer the Java sound engine and SNMP code via open source; that effort is expected to be completed this year. Developers, though, may be able to proceed without a component like the sound engine, Sands said.

The few remaining encumbrances on Java have prevented Linux distributors from offering a fully open-source version of Java, said Sands. “All those Linux distributions, they haven???t had a full-blown implementation in them,” he said.

Once Java is 100 percent open source, it can be shipped as part of Linux, Sands said. Ubuntu has distributed Java as separately available commercial software, he noted. But once Java is fully open source, it can be offered as part of the free Ubuntu distribution and other Linux variants, Sands said.

“We're trying to get Java into places it's never been before,” Sands said. Linux developers, absent of an open-source Java, have been building applications with languages like C, C++, and PHP (Hypertext Preprocessor), he said.

Sun with its Linux push for Java seeks to expand the footprint of Java usage worldwide, which could yield opportunities to sell support, services and systems to these new users.

OpenJDK features a runtime as well as compilers and tools to build Java programs. “What we can do is create Java programs and then run them on Linux,” said Sands.

Having Java on Linux helps Sun, said analyst Michael Cote of RedMonk. “I think it's in Sun's interest to have Java spread as widely as possible,” he said. Linux developers have wanted Java but Cote confessed, “I don't really know to which magnitude.”

Sun's bread-and-butter operating system has been Solaris, but the Linux push shows the company's determination to spread Java to Solaris's open source rival. Meanwhile, Sun also has sought to make Solaris to more palatable to Linux users through Project Indiana, which is intended to provide binaries for the OpenSolaris open source implementation of Solaris, similar to how Linux is packaged.

BOSTON - A key person behind the “$100 laptop” for schoolchildren has left the project as the organization overhauls its operations and prepares to tweak its open-source approach by welcoming Microsoft Corp.’s Windows.

While the One Laptop Per Child Foundation is known as the brainchild of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Nicholas Negroponte, his longtime MIT colleague Walter Bender was a close No. 2. Bender oversaw software and content for the green-and-white “XO” laptops, whose user interface was specially designed as an educational tool.

But in March, after OLPC’s initial run of its $188 laptops reached fewer children than originally envisioned, Bender became head of “deployment.”

Officially, OLPC said it was streamlining its organization because the laptop’s technology essentially had been built. A different view came from the XO’s former top security architect, Ivan Krstic, who wrote on his blog that Bender got demoted. Krstic said OLPC was undergoing a “drastic internal restructuring” and “a radical change in its goals and vision.”

Then last week, Bender left the group entirely. That marked a third high-profile departure from OLPC. In addition to Krstic, Mary Lou Jepsen, who had been chief technology officer, left in December.

Negroponte said Bender was burned out after helping to shape OLPC for two years, during which time it has sold more than 500,000 laptops for children in such countries as Haiti, Afghanistan, Rwanda, Peru, Uruguay and Mongolia.

But Bender already has new plans: to launch an independent effort to further the development of the XOs’ homegrown software, known as Sugar, and get it to run on Linux computers other than XOs. “Sugar is in a narrow place and it is ripe to be unleashed,” he wrote in an e-mail exchange.

Sugar relies heavily on icons and other graphical features and avoids Windows’ files-and-folders format. That was done to be intuitive to children in developing countries who have never encountered a PC, but some governments have hesitated to invest in laptops without Windows. Some competing low-cost laptops being billed as educational tools, such as the Classmate PC developed by Intel Corp., do run Windows.

For about a year, however, Microsoft has been working to get a slimmed-down version of Windows to run on XO laptops. As a result, Negroponte said Tuesday that he expects XOs to soon have a “dual-boot” option, meaning users would be able to run Windows or Sugar.

One current hang-up is whether the necessary hardware would add $7 to $12 to an XO’s cost, taking the project even further away from its eventual goal of producing the machines for less than $100. Eventually, Negroponte added, Windows might be the sole operating system, and Sugar would be educational software running on top of it.

That might disappoint advocates of open-source software who helped bankroll OLPC and cheered the challenge it represented to Microsoft’s dominance. Unlike proprietary software like Windows, open-source applications are developed by a community of programmers and the underlying code is freely shared.

Wayan Vota, whose OLPC News blog reported Bender’s departure Monday, said he feared Sugar would get neglected on XOs that run Windows. “Which do you think Microsoft is going to put its marketing muscle behind?” he said.

Negroponte said he was mainly concerned with putting as many laptops as possible in children’s hands.

He lamented that an overriding insistence on open-source had hampered the XOs, saying Sugar “grew amorphously” and “didn’t have a software architect who did it in a crisp way.” For instance, the laptops do not support Flash animation, widely used on the Web.

“There are several examples like that, that we have to address without worrying about the fundamentalism in some of the open-source community,” he said. “One can be an open-source advocate without being an open-source fundamentalist.”

Besides rethinking the laptop’s technology, Negroponte wants to get OLPC moving more efficiently. An executive-search firm has been looking for a chief executive for the group for more than a year.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The top U.S. communications regulator said on Tuesday that an investigation of how Comcast Corp manages its network had raised further concerns about tactics the company has used to restrict Internet users who share movies and other material.

Testifying before Senate lawmakers, U.S. Federal Communications Commission ChairmanKevin Martin said Comcast had used a “blunt” technique to impose broad restrictions on peer-to-peer file-sharing.

“Contrary to some claims, it does not appear that this technique was used only to occasionally delay traffic at particular nodes suffering from network congestion at that time,” Martin said in prepared remarks before the Senate Commerce Committee.

Martin also disputed the claim by Comcast that the FCC does not have the legal authority to enforce its open-Internet policy. He told the committee that the agency does not need any new laws or regulations to take action.

“I do not believe any additional regulations are needed at this time. But I also believe that the commission has a responsibility to enforce the (open-Internet) principles that it has already adopted,” Martin said.

The FCC is looking into complaints from consumer groups that cable operator Comcast violated those principles by unreasonably hindering some file-sharing services, such as BitTorrent, that distribute TV shows and movies.

Comcast issued a statement on Tuesday reiterating that it believes its network management practices were a “reasonable choice” and saying that it was switching to a new technique by the end of the year.

DISCLOSE MORE

Martin has previously expressed concern about some Comcast network practices, specifically that the company did not disclose more to customers and application developers about the way it manages traffic on its network.

Subsequently last month, Comcast announced it would change the way it manages its network and cooperate with BitTorrent and other critics to resolve the dispute. Comcast also said it would partner with a second file-sharing company and help create a “bill of rights” for consumers and Internet service providers.

Comcast, which has more than 13 million broadband subscribers, has denied impairing some applications and has said it merely managed the system to deal with network congestion for the good of all users.

In his prepared testimony for Tuesday's hearing, Martin said that “based on the testimony we have so far, some users were not able to upload anything they wanted and were unable to fully use certain file-sharing software from peer-to-peer networks.”

Martin said the equipment Comcast used to delay traffic “is typically deployed over a wider geographic or system area and would therefore have impacted numerous nodes within a system simultaneously.”

“It appears that this equipment blocks the uploads of at least a large portion of subscribers in that part of the network, regardless of the actual levels of congestion at that particular time,” Martin said in his testimony.

The dispute over so-called network neutrality pits open-Internet advocates against some service providers such as Comcast, which say they need to take reasonable steps to manage traffic on their networks.

The head of the cable industry's chief trade group also testified at the hearing, telling lawmakers that concerns of network neutrality advocates are “misplaced.”

Kyle McSlarrow, head of the National Cable & Telecommunications Association, said companies should be allowed to manage their networks as they see fit to alleviate congestion and combat illegal file-sharing.

McSlarrow said putting every network management technique up for scrutiny “would severely hamper the ability of network providers to ensure high-quality and reliable Internet access for their subscribers.”

(Reporting by Peter Kaplan; Editing by Brian Moss and Lisa Von Ahn)

San Francisco - Microsoft will soon detail ways that partner companies will be able to deliver their services based on Microsoft's hosted services, the software company said on Tuesday.

When

Yoggie Security Systems has shrunk the computer, big time. Or should I say, little time? Their Gatekeeper Card Pro, shown for the first time today at the InfoSecurity Europe conference, is an extension of their current line of tiny systems that have embedded security suites. The $199 Linux-based system built into an ExpressCard form factor is designed to offload all tasks from its host computer related to viruses, phishing, spam, malware, spyware, and intrusion. It also handles filtering and parental control. This version also bundles a VPN client.All the Yoggie adapters and appliances act as a sort of shunt between your network connection and your system. You install Yoggie software on your Windows XP or Vista computer with their directly connected devices, or plug a network Yoggie appliance between your broadband router and Ethernet switch. In either case, the Yoggie intercepts and analyzes all traffic, acting as the first line of defense against all incoming hazards, including crud that's embedded in email or trying to hit your system via a Web page or Web-based download.Yoggie claims that having a dedicated computer within your computer frees your system up to perform at its best without reducing its security. Imagine Windows running with no anti-virus, anti-phishing, anti-malware, firewall, and intrusion-protection software! It might be rather speedy.The Gatekeeper Card Pro will be released “soon,” the company says, and on its own Web starting May 26, 2008.

Steven Huey Software on Tuesday announced the release of Hamilton 1.1, an update to its savings bond management software for Mac OS X. A free update for registered users, Hamilton costs $19.95. A demo is available.

Hamilton helps you organize and calculate the value of your United States Savings Bonds. You can organize them by serial number, set them up in groups, get warnings for bonds too new to cash in, ones that have matured, or those subject to interest penalty.

New to the 1.1 release is the ability to support Series E bonds issued between 1941 and 1980. Also new is HTML import and export, which can be used to interact with the U.S. Treasury online Savings Bond Calculator. A new search function has been added, along with printing capabilities.

Hamilton requires Mac OS X v10.5 or later.

The last service pack for Microsoft Windows XP was released almost four years ago. In the meantime, engineers in Redmond were busy on a little project called Vista. Now that Vista has been out the door for a year, Microsoft has finished up Service Pack 3 for Windows XP and released it to manufacture. The new release will be available for public download next Tuesday, April 29.

“Windows XP SP3 bits are now working their way through our manufacturing channels to be available to OEM and enterprise customers,” Chris Keroack, release manager for Windows serviceability, posted to Microsoft's TechNet forum. “We are also in the final stages of preparing for release to the Web (i.e. you!) on April 29th, via Windows Update and the Microsoft Download Center.”

SP3 will be distributed to home users via Automatic Update in early June, the company said. Online documentation for Windows XP SP3 will be updated next week.

The new service pack is a 70MB download to update Window XP and can be installed on top of either SP1 or SP2. It doesn't work with the 64-bit version of XP, however.

Previous Patches

Much of SP3 consists of previously released patches, according to Andrew Storms, director of security operations for nCircle Network Security. “In terms of functionality, SP3 delivers eight mainline items, which had already been previously available by download,” Storms noted in an e-mail.

While consumers won't notice much difference, “enterprises will welcome the added functionality of Digital Identity Management Service (DIMS) and support for WPA2,” Storms said. WPA2 is a wireless security solution derived from the 802.11e standard. DIMS allows users to access all their certificates and private keys for applications and services.

As for the new items in XP, enterprises will be mostly concerned with Network Access Protection, a platform that enforces compliance with network policies, and “possibly FIPS 140-1 compliance” — a federal standard for cryptography.

“If there were ever a sign that Microsoft really will discontinue support and development for XP, then this is it,” Storms said. “Every enterprise that dreads the move to Vista (and there are a lot of them), needs to wake up and bite the Vista bullet soon.”

Waiting for Windows 7?

Indeed, SP3 is the “official final step in the evolution of XP,” said Charles King, principal analyst with Pund-IT. “Microsoft has done a very good job of putting a cherry on the top of XP and in a sense bringing it fully up to date so that it is capable of additional years of service.”

But it's not clear that enterprise users will make the shift to Windows Vista, King said, especially in light of last week's statements by Steve Ballmer that Vista is a “work in progress” and Bill Gates' prediction last month that Windows 7, the next version of Windows, will be completed within a year.

The completion of XP, together with the executives' comments, could “potentially impact uptake of Vista,” King said. “If customers are wedded to XP and have heavy concerns about Vista, they may calculate, can I wait for Windows 7?”

Comparisons with Microsoft's previous Windows disaster, Windows ME, may be overblown, King said. ME was a dumbed-down version of the OS intended to offer a Mac-like experience to consumers and was quickly rejected by the market. With Vista, Microsoft may have erred by “biting off more than they could chew,” King said.

While most consumers will simply take whatever operating system comes with their new PCs, businesses — especially large enterprises — will think long and hard before adopting an OS that is not stable and predictable. “If Windows 7 is “not too far down the pike,” and Microsoft has not addressed key concerns about Vista, the enterprise may well take a pass on Vista for the next 12 to 18 months, King said.

PORTLAND, Maine - Hannaford Bros. Co. said Tuesday it is spending millions of dollars to enhance the security of its data network following a massive security breach that exposed up to 4.2 million credit and debit card numbers to fraud.

It was during the card approval process that customer accounts at grocery stores in the Northeast and Florida were compromised from Dec. 7 to March 10. That exposure occurred even though the company met the latest standards for data security.

Company officials said Tuesday that the new measures include encryption of all card numbers during the entire time they are within the supermarket chain’s data network. Hannaford also said it has installed a “24/7-managed security monitoring and detection service” from IBM to detect intrusions.

Hannaford President and CEO Ron Hodge apologized again Tuesday to customers for concerns and inconvenience they experienced because of the breach and reported that there has been no drop in sales since it was announced five weeks ago.

He called it one of the biggest challenges in the Scarborough-based company’s more than 100-year history and said it was pressing ahead with “military and industrial strength” security measures to plug vulnerabilities and prevent future attacks.

In a conference call with reporters, Hodge and Bill Homa, senior vice president and chief information officer, declined to address the cause, scope and nature of the breach, citing the ongoing criminal investigation and pending litigation.

Hannaford previously blamed unauthorized software that was secretly installed on its servers for the data breach that has been linked to about 1,800 cases of fraud. Accounts were stolen during the seconds it takes for information to travel to credit card companies for approval after customers swiped their cards in checkout-line machines.

Homa said cyber attacks on retailers are becoming more sophisticated.

The Hannaford case is among the largest security breaches on record but is much smaller than the tens of millions of credit cards that were exposed at TJX Cos. of Framingham, Mass., which has 2,500 stores and includes the T.J. Maxx and Marshalls chains.

The video gaming industry must do more to protect minors from unsuitable material and cooperate better with national authorities in the European Union, the European Commission said Tuesday, after conducting a survey of measures taken at national level designed to shield children from violent, explicit and frightening video games.

After the school massacre of eight children in Finland last November, some E.U. countries banned violent video games, when it emerged that the killer,18-year-old Pekka-Eric Auvinen, had been an avid gamer.

Authorities across Europe, including the Commission, have been trying to create one single rating system for video games since 2003, but with limited success. Efforts were redoubled after last year's tragic events in Finland.

The Commission's survey found that 20 of the 27 E.U. countries now apply the PEGI (pan-European games information) age-rating system developed by the gaming industry with the help of the E.U. The PEGI labels, which first appeared on video games boxes in 2003, warn of violence or bad language.

“Industry must invest more to strengthen and in particular to regularly update the PEGI system so that it becomes a truly effective pan-European tool,” the Commission said in a statement.

It added that industry and public authorities should step up cooperation to make classification and age rating systems better known, to avoid confusion caused by parallel systems. A retailer conduct code on video game sales to minors should also be drawn up within two years, it concluded from the survey's findings.

“Video games have become a strong pillar of Europe's content industry and are experiencing booming sales across Europe. This is welcome, but implies greater responsibility for the industry to ensure that parents know what kind of games their children play,” said Viviane Reding, E.U. commissioner for the information society and media.

She described the PEGI system as “a very good first step,” but said it could be greatly improved and even expanded beyond the E.U.'s borders.

“All consumers need clear, accurate information to make informed choices. But this is particularly about children– some of the most vulnerable consumers in society. And our clear message today is that industry and national authorities must go further to ensure that all parents have the power to make the right decisions for themselves and their child,” added Meglena Kuneva, the E.U. consumer commissioner.

According to the Commission survey, Cyprus, Luxembourg, Romania and Slovenia lack an age rating system. Fifteen countries have legislation concerning store sales to minors of video games with harmful content, although the scope of laws varies widely by country. Germany, Ireland, Italy and the U.K. have banned certain violent video games.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A California appeals court has upheld a 2006 settlement of a consumer lawsuit against online movie rental company Netflix Inc over the objections of four Netflix subscribers who challenged the terms.

In a ruling issued on Monday, an appeals court in Los Angeles rejected the plaintiffs' claims that the attorneys fees awarded by the trial court were “excessive,” the way that subscribers were notified of the terms was “deficient,” and that the settlement should have consisted of a cash award rather than a free month of Netflix rentals.

The original lawsuit, filed in San Francisco state court by Netflix subscriber Frank Chavez, accused the Los Gatos, California, company of delaying delivery of DVDs by mail to heavier users who are less profitable, a practice that came to be known as “throttling.”

Under the settlement, Netflix provided a free month of rental or a service upgrade to 5.5 million current and former subscribers and paid the plaintiffs' attorneys fees and costs.

(Reporting by Gina Keating; Editing by Brian Moss)