Microsoft buys SCO Unix licence

IP-wielding SCO has found a friendly ear with Microsoft, as it upsets the Linux community. Microsoft has obligingly agreed to license SCO's Unix patents and source code that lies at the heart of SCO's $1bn suit against IBM. Brad Smith, general counsel for Microsoft said that 'the announcement of this license is representative of Microsoft's ongoing commitment to respecting intellectual property (IP) and the IT community's healthy exchange of IP through licensing. ...more

Apple's Cube team disbanded

Despite a price drop and the addition of a CD-RW drive, poor sales of the Power Mac G4 Cube are starting to take their toll. Apple's Cube development team has been dissolved, and Apple has been forced to buy back some $3.5 million-worth of Cubes from a major US retailer. ...more

Microsoft makes its Black Hat stage debut

Microsoft yesterday made its stage debut at the Black Hat hacking conference to demonstrate its latest products and procedures, giving away preview copies of its flagship Vista system to several thousand security specialists with the invite to try and break in. In a first for Redmond, the company took part as a platinum sponsor and presented a series of briefings on its efforts in the security space and in particular, the new security technologies in Vista. Andrew Cushman, Director, Microsoft Security Response, Engineering and Outreach Team detailed Microsoft's security story from a historical perspective, while John Lambert, Security Group Manager, Security Engineering and Communications Group took the lid off Vista and talked up the lengths his company has gone to secure the system, including what he claimed is the world's largest commercial penetration test. ...more

Apple hears MacBook whine

Apple has finally acknowledged that reports of whining MacBooks are not unsubstantiated. An updated knowledge base article advised owners of 15in MacBook Pros that emit 'a high-pitched buzzing sound' to contact AppleCare. Noise is not the only problem that Apple has had with the MacBook Pros: in April it began shipping Rev D models with a new motherboard; in May a firmware patch was released to prevent overheating. ...more

Optical discs face obsolescence

Research from Forrester predicts that online entertainment services will cut hard into revenues from physical media from 2005. 'On-demand services are the future of entertainment delivery. CDs, DVDs, and any other forms of physical media will become obsolete,' said Josh Bernoff, principal analyst at Forrester. ...more