4 Ways to Catch a Liar
Most people lie, whether they're covering up something sinister or just embarrassed over a mistake. Research conducted a few years ago at the University of Massachusetts found that 60 percent of participants lied at least once during an observed 10-minute conversation.

E-commerce Fraud: The Latest Criminal Schemes
E-commerce fraud costs retailers approximately $4 billion each year, according to the most recent results of an annual survey conducted by Cybersource, a provider of electronic payment and risk management services. Sebbe Jones, manager of fraud and disputes at 2Checkout, is in the business of keeping e-commerce fraud at bay.

July Giveaways
Cisco Subnet is giving away 15 copies each of books on Enterprise Web 2.0 and Building a Greener Data Center; Microsoft Subnet is giving away training from New Horizons to one lucky reader and 15 copies of Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services Unleashed. Entry forms can be found on the Cisco Subnet and Microsoft Subnet home pages. Deadline for entries July 31.

Network World on Twitter? You bet we are

Firefox cracks 1 billion downloads
Less than five years after its initial release, Mozilla's Firefox Web browser has hit its one billionth download.

MI5 website reportedly hacked
MI5's official site has been hacked in a bid to steal the identities of visitors to the site, according to media reports. The hackers, who called themselves Team Elite, rigged the site to download viruses onto the machines of anyone using the British intelligence services Web site.

Twitter, Linux, Red Hat, Microsoft "honored" with Pwnie Awards
Think of the annual Pwnie Awards delivered at the Black Hat conference as a geek version of the Oscars – if they were combined with the tongue-in-cheek Razzies that celebrate the worst of Hollywood. Twitter, Linux and Red Hat were among honorees that didn't go unscathed this time around.

iPhone virus: What you need to know
The iPhone's security flaws were laid bare at the Black Hat Conference in Las Vegas yesterday, and now the smartphone-clutching public has boiled itself into a frenzy. But how serious is this supposed iPhone virus, and what can be done to protect your iPhone from infection? Here is what we know, and why you probably shouldn't worry.

Conficker talk sanitized at Black Hat to protect investigation
A talk at Black Hat had to be scaled back because it contained information about Conficker that might tip investigators' hand and send the perpetrators further underground, says F-Secure's chief research officer.

Microsoft details how to upgrade between Windows 7 SKUs
Microsoft on Friday let users who want to upgrade from one version of Windows 7 to another know how they can do so.

Adobe patches 12 Flash bugs, 3 caused by Microsoft
Adobe on Thursday patched a dozen vulnerabilities in Flash Player, including three it inherited from faulty Microsoft development code and one that hackers have been exploiting for at least a week.

Mobile phone shipments drop 11% in Q2, IDC says
The worldwide mobile phone market remained weak in the second quarter despite some encouraging signs in smartphone shipments, market researcher IDC said Thursday.

Microsoft puts positive spin on sales drop
Microsoft executives put a rosy glow on the company's prospects and performance at the company's annual financial analysts meeting, despite a recent quarterly report that fell short of revenue expectations by $1 billion.

July Giveaways
Cisco Subnet is giving away 15 copies each of books on Enterprise Web 2.0 and Building a Greener Data Center; Microsoft Subnet is giving away training from New Horizons to one lucky reader and 15 copies of Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services Unleashed. Entry forms can be found on the Cisco Subnet and Microsoft Subnet home pages. Deadline for entries July 31.

Network World on Twitter? You bet we are

IBM, HP use big discounts to woo Sun customers
Sales programs designed to poach rivals' customers are commonplace, but IBM and HP have become significantly more aggressive since the April 20 announcement that Oracle is buying Sun.

Black Hat roundup
In one of the more exciting Black Hat conferences in recent memory, researchers revealed holes in everything from SSL to Microsoft software to the iPhone's SMS. Here are some of the best stories from the conference.

Detente in Cisco/IBM "war"?
Buried at the end of this Marketwatch story on Cisco's upcoming earnings is a quote by a securities analyst to the effect that IBM will continue to sell a significant amount of Cisco product despite the networking giant's invasion of IBM's data center server turf.

New features can open up Cisco IOS to hackers
New features embedded in Cisco IOS like VoIP and Web services -- which could be enabled by default -- can present an opportunity for hackers, according to this story in SearchSecurity.com. A security researcher at this week's Black Hat conference in Las Vegas delivered a presentation in which he outlined ways hackers can infiltrate Cisco routers through these new IOS features.

iPhone Support by Enterprise IT Groups Grows
So what mobile device should CIOs support? BlackBerry? Windows Mobile? iPhone? A new study from Forrester Research suggests that CIOs will eventually support all of them.

The truth about new SSL attacks
Cisco Security expert Jamey Heary has been attending Black Hat this week and has been especially interested in new exploits on SSL. However, he notes that most of them require that an attacker has already gained significant access before they can hack into the encoded data stream.

Fixed Wireless vs. Wire: And the Winner is...
We recently did a study of the cost-effectiveness of wide-area ("outdoor") wireless access vs. wire.

BlackBerry Troubleshooting Tips & Tricks from RIM
Experiencing problems with that new BlackBerry Tour? Is your tried-and-true Curve 8300 acting up on ya? Have no fear; you don't necessarily have a "lemon" on your hands.

FTC delays identity theft rules for third time
Well this is getting kind of predictable. The Federal Trade Commission this week has delayed for the third time in less than a year the deadline for companies to enact its identity theft rules known as Red Flags, which were set to become practice Aug. 1.

July Giveaways
Cisco Subnet is giving away 15 copies each of books on Enterprise Web 2.0 and Building a Greener Data Center; Microsoft Subnet is giving away training from New Horizons to one lucky reader and 15 copies of Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services Unleashed. Entry forms can be found on the Cisco Subnet and Microsoft Subnet home pages. Deadline for entries July 31.

Network World on Twitter? You bet we are

More top picks from the week:

Cisco fortifies data center storage capabilities

Cisco setting sights on a multibillion dollar cloud market

John Chambers to stay at Cisco for another decade or more?

Cisco provides update on FCoE

Brocade responds, adds color to IBM OEM deals

Cox deploys Cisco DOCSIS 3.0 gear

From our bloggers:

Cisco UCS ships
Cisco Subnet blog: Cisco's Unified Computing System -- which includes the company's controversial blade server -- reportedly underwent first customer shipment last week.

What business is Cisco in today?
Brad Reese: This week in an open letter to Cisco CEO John Chambers, Global CIO Senior VP and Director - Bob Evans asked: What business is Cisco in today? Remarkably, it took Evans 3 long pages to get to that statement.

Time for a Data Center Tune-Up
Douglas Alger: We all know the importance of doing regular, preventative maintenance on our cars. Similar tricks can be used to keep your data center green.

Business travelers need to read before booking great deals.
Larry Chaffin: Starwood's Hotels did a good thing by lowering prices at some 600 of 1000 properties by 50%. But be sure if you are reading everything before you book, the deal requires a pre-pay only with no refund.

Networking in the (Storm) Clouds
Michael Morris: Johna Till Johnson wrote a very good column this week on cloud computing and networking; something that's been on my mind lately as "Cloud Computing" gets more and more buzz not just in the industry, but also at my IT shop.

Cisco retaliation angle played down in IBM/Juniper OEM deal
Cisco Subnet blog: All that banter about IBM retaliating against Cisco's incursion into the blade server market was put down this week when Big Blue rolled out its data center OEM arsenal. Lo and behold, there's Cisco's Nexus 5000 switch on the docket to be resold by IBM for top-of-rack 10G FCoE applications.

Switch QoS: Catalyst 6500
Dennis Hartmann: QoS processing is performed on the Catalyst 6500 series platform using the policy feature card (PFC) and the port application specific integrated circuit (ASIC) for layer 2 modules.

July Giveaways
Cisco Subnet is giving away 15 copies each of books on Enterprise Web 2.0 and Building a Greener Data Center; Microsoft Subnet is giving away training from New Horizons to one lucky reader and 15 copies of Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services Unleashed. Entry forms can be found on the Cisco Subnet and Microsoft Subnet home pages. Deadline for entries July 31.

Network World on Twitter? You bet we are

News podcast: Network World 360
Spam now constitutes 92 percent of all e-mail, according to McAfee's latest threat reports. MX Logic sees that figure as even higher – it says a whopping 94.6 percent of all e-mail sent is spam, which is often linked to phishing attacks or fraud. Also, a new survey from Gartner says that companies that neglect their IT workforce because of recession-related staff cuts could hurt the companies in the long term. (5:36)

Slideshow: Error messages in public places
It's bad enough when the error messages pop up on your PC's monitor in the privacy of your own home. But with so many public displays -- many of them quite prominent -- driven by consumer-grade hardware, sometimes these dialog boxes can show their faces in the most awkward of situations.

HP researchers say browser-based 'Veiled' make darknets a snap
Darknets – private networks carved out of the Internet to allow peer-to-peer sharing – can be quickly and easily created among Web browsers making it possible for people to participate anonymously and for the darknet itself to vanish with barely a trace when all the participants close their browsers, researchers told Black Hat yesterday.

Ballmer surprised by market's reaction to Microsoft-Yahoo
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer was surprised that Wall Street reacted negatively to Yahoo's plan to hand over its Internet search and advertising reins to Microsoft, he said Thursday.

Microhoo allows economies of scale? Ho-hum
By now, we've all heard: nearly a year and a half to the day Microsoft first tried to take Yahoo to bed, the pair have finally completed their prenup negotiations and gotten hitched.

Top 10 iPhone Annoyances (And How to Fix Them)
Even the greatest gadgets have flaws, and the iPhone is certainly no exception. Praise it all you want, but the "Jesus phone" has plenty of little annoyances or nuisances that get under a user's skin. Fortunately, technology is all about workarounds to common problems. So we've not only put together a Top 10 list of iPhone annoyances to vent about, we're also offering solutions.

Open-source project aims to makes secure DNS easier
A group of developers has released open-source software that gives administrators a hand in making the Internet's addressing system less vulnerable to hackers.

Five questions financial analysts should be asking Microsoft
On Thursday Microsoft will reveal its annual earnings via its full-disclosure filing with the SEC (the 10K) and its annual financial analyst meeting. Microsoft last week announced its earnings -- (via an 8K filing) and the news was not good, a 29% dive in profit. We can only hope that its past two painful quarters will serve as a wake up call.

Greenpeace Slaps HP in the Headquarters
Throughout this entire week, I have noticed the same story appearing over and over again in most "green" related news channels as well as many mainstream media distributions as well. The story is about HP and their failure to keep promises regarding their environmental policies.

The Hidden Cost of Out-of-Cycle Security Patches
This week we all had to deal with the emergency Microsoft security patches due to a critical exposure in the Active Template Library (templates used for COM+ development) that could result in local code execution by a hacker.

Man Scales Wall With DIY Spiderman Gloves
UK TV presenter and inventor Jem Stansfield has recently used his very own vacuum powered invention to scale a London building.

Defense stalwarts building cybersecurity CSI
Northrop Grumman has become the latest defense contractor to go whole hog into cyber threat monitoring and detection. The defense giant said it has opened cyber threat detection and response center staffed around-the-clock, providing security monitoring for more than 105,000 clients and 10,000 servers worldwide.

Cloud-based identity services taking on a different look as they grow
Cloud-based identity services are starting to gain a foothold among corporate users, but the evolving architecture looks nothing like the platforms companies have been building internally, according to Bob Blakley, vice president and research director at the Burton Group.

July Giveaways
Cisco Subnet is giving away 15 copies each of books on Enterprise Web 2.0 and Building a Greener Data Center; Microsoft Subnet is giving away training from New Horizons to one lucky reader and 15 copies of Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services Unleashed. Entry forms can be found on the Cisco Subnet and Microsoft Subnet home pages. Deadline for entries July 31.

Network World on Twitter? You bet we are

Cisco fixes critcal WLAN flaws, warns Microsoft hole puts Cisco Unity at risk
Cisco on Tuesday warned users of its Unity unified communications products that they are at risk from a flaw in Microsoft Internet Explorer that spurred Microsoft into an emergency, out-of-band patch. In addition, Cisco on Monday released a patch to fix multiple flaws in its WLAN controllers that affect a long list of Cisco routers.

Vyatta discounts on Cisco margin
Vyatta, the open source David to Goliath Cisco, is once again offering discounts based on Cisco's profit margin. If Cisco reports it usual 64% to 68% profit margin, Vyatta will discount its service and support subscriptions by 36% to 32%.

Broadband speeds 50% slower than promised
More than 50 percent of ADSL broadband users in the UK can only achieve half the download speeds promoted in ISPs' 'up to 8Mbps' adverts, a new Ofcom study shows.

Cox deploys Cisco DOCSIS 3.0 gear
Cox Communications and Cisco announced this week that they have deployed a DOCSIS 3.0 network as the basis of an "Ultimate Internet" service for residential and business customers in Rhode Island. The service will support download speeds of up to 50Mbps, rivaling fiber-to-the-home/premises/node offerings from Verizon, AT&T and other carriers.

July Giveaways
Cisco Subnet is giving away 15 copies each of books on Enterprise Web 2.0 and Building a Greener Data Center; Microsoft Subnet is giving away training from New Horizons to one lucky reader and 15 copies of Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services Unleashed. Entry forms can be found on the Cisco Subnet and Microsoft Subnet home pages. Deadline for entries July 31.

Network World on Twitter? You bet we are

Developers cautiously optimistic about Verizon store
Mobile application creators at the Verizon Developer Community conference on Tuesday welcomed the carrier's plans for an on-device application store but said cross-platform consistency and other issues might pose hurdles for the project.

25% of Brits don't know their broadband download limit
Nearly a quarter of Brit don't know they have a download limit on their internet service, says Moneysupermarket.com.

Sprint Nextel to acquire Virgin Mobile USA
Sprint Nextel and Virgin Mobile USA have reached an agreement for Sprint to acquire Virgin Mobile for US $483 million, the companies said Tuesday.

July Giveaways
Cisco Subnet is giving away 15 copies each of books on Enterprise Web 2.0 and Building a Greener Data Center; Microsoft Subnet is giving away training from New Horizons to one lucky reader and 15 copies of Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services Unleashed. Entry forms can be found on the Cisco Subnet and Microsoft Subnet home pages. Deadline for entries July 31.

Network World on Twitter? You bet we are

More free Wi-Fi on the way
Both Verizon and AT&T have made news this week by offering more free Wi-Fi services.

Recession no reason to neglect IT workforce, Gartner says
Gartner survey shows companies continue to put hiring and staff development on hold, despite specific skills being in demand.

Citrix eliminates security holes in hypervisor
Citrix's hypervisor has caught up to VMware in providing enterprise-class security features, analyst says.

What business is Cisco in today?
This week in an open letter to Cisco CEO John Chambers, Bob Evans asked the oversimplified question: What business is Cisco in today?

Visibility: What's possible
Jim Metzler and Steve Taylor's newsletter presents a concrete discussion of what one company has been able to achieve relative to getting the visibility it needs.

How Washington, D.C. is using IT to clean streets
The District of Columbia had a mess on its hands. Its streets were dirty and illegally parked cars were blocking the city's fleet of street sweepers from cleaning them up. Meanwhile, 40,000 pounds of oil and grease and 1,200 pounds of nitrogen and phosphorus needed clearing from roadways each month. Residents wanted it taken care of.

Developers cautiously optimistic about Verizon store
Mobile application creators at the Verizon Developer Community conference on Tuesday welcomed the carrier's plans for an on-device application store but said cross-platform consistency and other issues might pose hurdles for the project.

Broadband speeds 50% slower than promised
More than 50 percent of ADSL broadband users in the UK can only achieve half the download speeds promoted in ISPs' 'up to 8Mbps' adverts, a new Ofcom study shows.

July Giveaways
Cisco Subnet is giving away 15 copies each of books on Enterprise Web 2.0 and Building a Greener Data Center; Microsoft Subnet is giving away training from New Horizons to one lucky reader and 15 copies of Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services Unleashed. Entry forms can be found on the Cisco Subnet and Microsoft Subnet home pages. Deadline for entries July 31.

Network World on Twitter? You bet we are

Microsoft, Yahoo search deal will change cloud app landscape
After a year and a half of negotiating, Microsoft and Yahoo finally announced a search deal partnership. Redmond's new search engine, Bing, will become Yahoo's search platform. Yahoo's sales force will be in charge of handling both companies' search advertisers.

Cisco fortifies data center storage capabilities
Cisco this week added new features to its MDS 9000 SAN switches in an effort to enhance storage performance on IBM mainframes as well as third-party SAN products.

IBM hosts applications in cloud for Chinese vendors
A new IBM product that allows data centers to host online applications for software vendors has been deployed in a Chinese technology park and could later appear overseas.

July Giveaways
Cisco Subnet is giving away 15 copies each of books on Enterprise Web 2.0 and Building a Greener Data Center; Microsoft Subnet is giving away training from New Horizons to one lucky reader and 15 copies of Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services Unleashed. Entry forms can be found on the Cisco Subnet and Microsoft Subnet home pages. Deadline for entries July 31.

Network World on Twitter? You bet we are

Mystery solved: MS emergency patch precedes Black Hat session
Microsoft's latest emergency out-of-band patch was weird beyond belief. A notice was sent to journalists and researchers late Friday evening that the patch was coming Tuesday, but Microsoft refused to explain the flaw and even put a cone of silence around researchers who would otherwise talk about it.

Extra '&' in Microsoft development code gave hackers IE exploit
Microsoft on Tuesday confirmed that a single superfluous character in its own development code is responsible for the bug that has let hackers exploit Internet Explorer since early July.

Adobe confirms Flash contains Microsoft dev code bug
Adobe says it's the first major third-party vendor to have used Microsoft's flawed development code in its products. It patched Shockwave on Tuesday and promises a fix for Flash on Thursday.

Cisco fixes critcal WLAN flaws, warns Microsoft hole puts Cisco Unity at risk
Cisco on Tuesday warned users of its Unity unified communications products that they are at risk from a flaw in Microsoft Internet Explorer that spurred Microsoft into an emergency, out-of-band patch.

Verizon offers free service to help developers test for Microsoft ATL flaw
Verizon Business is offering a free scanning service for developers to help them determine whether any controls or components they built using Microsoft's ATL are vulnerable to flaws Microsoft patched on Tuesday.

Microsoft-Yahoo search deal: 3 reasons why it makes sense
The expected search deal between Microsoft and Yahoo will no doubt face extra scrutiny -- and criticism -- from jaded observers, but it also appears to be a winning one.

What's new in SSIS 2008?
Many new features of SQL Server 2008 have grabbed the headlines in the past year or so, but Microsoft has also been quietly enhancing SQL Server Integration Services, says SQL Server blogger Brian Egler. A few of the improvements include support for better scripting tools, multi-thread processing, and connectors to data warehouses from SAP, Oracle and Teradata.

VisualRoute 2009: A tool to help you analyze, track and diagnose Internet traffic
Every IT person comes to the point where they need to know just what in the world is going on with Internet traffic. Traditionally, finding the answer depends upon multiple tools and an intricate study of very tedious log files. Anyone who has had to go down that path knows it can be a nightmare and a huge waste of time.

Start-up to watch: Criteo lets advertisers re-target users
According to Criteo, users visit a site up to five times on average before making a purchase. With its patent-pending technology, Criteo serves targeted banner ads to users, goading them to go ahead and make that purchase. The banner can offer up a special promotional price, show similar products or complementary products.

July Giveaways
Cisco Subnet is giving away 15 copies each of books on Enterprise Web 2.0 and Building a Greener Data Center; Microsoft Subnet is giving away training from New Horizons to one lucky reader and 15 copies of Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services Unleashed. Entry forms can be found on the Cisco Subnet and Microsoft Subnet home pages. Deadline for entries July 31.

Network World on Twitter? You bet we are

IBM adds replication to deduplication
IBM announced new asynchronous remote replication capabilities to its ProtecTIER virtual tape library and ProtecTIER deduplication appliance.

To Tape or Not to Tape, That Is The Question
Mention Shakespeare and everyone spouts "To be or not to be." Mention backup, and the question becomes, "To tape or not to tape?" Is tape dead, or do tape-based backup systems still have a place in the modern small business?

July Giveaways
Cisco Subnet is giving away 15 copies each of books on Enterprise Web 2.0 and Building a Greener Data Center; Microsoft Subnet is giving away training from New Horizons to one lucky reader and 15 copies of Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services Unleashed. Entry forms can be found on the Cisco Subnet and Microsoft Subnet home pages. Deadline for entries July 31.

Network World on Twitter? You bet we are

Nissan car monitors GPS for road dangers ahead
A new safety system in the car will automatically slow it down if its traveling too fast into an oncoming curve

Hitachi cell phone shoots HD video
The cell phone, available in Japan, is the second handset to feature high-def video recording

Reviews

Sharp's solar-panel cell phone
An hour in the sun will provide 6 minutes of talk time and 6 hours of standby time. The phone has just gone on sale in Japan.

Motorola Evoke Q4A Cell Phone
The Motorola Evoke Q4A ($280 with no contract; as of 7/28/09), from pay-as-you-go carrier Cricket, has a sleek slider design and a few smartphone-like features such as a full HTML browser and a widget-based user interface. Unfortunately, unlike a more advanced phone or a smartphone, the Q4A doesn't have a whole lot of room for customization, and its performance can be painfully slow.

MSI Wind U123 Netbook
It's been a year since the Wind U100, the "big" sibling to the MSI Wind U123, came out--and the similarities between the two netbooks are eerie. Both run Windows XP Home Edition, and both carry 1GB of RAM, a Webcam and mic, and essentially everything else, except the U123 features a bulbous nine-cell battery and the 1.6GHz Intel Atom N280 processor (versus the U100's N270 CPU). In short, same stuff, different day.

Canon PowerShot SD990 IS
As a fan of Canon's Digital Elph cameras, I was a bit disappointed by the current flagship model of the series, the 14.7-megapixel PowerShot SD990 IS. That may be surprising, given that this camera dominates most other point-and-shoot cameras in terms of image quality.

Kodak EasyShare Z980 Point-and-Shoot Camera
As manufacturers produce more megazoom cameras with similarly astounding capabilities (the 26mm-to-624mm-equivalent lens that's now de rigueur comes to mind), pinpointing the features that make a camera unique becomes more difficult. For the Kodak EasyShare Z980, the standouts are ergonomics and battery life.

Fujifilm FinePix F200 EXR
The Fujifilm FinePix F200 EXR ($400 as of July 27, 2009) is an excellent pocket camera for relatively advanced photographers, either as a more-portable backup to a digital SLR camera or as a versatile primary point-and-shoot. The basic specs are nice: You get a 5X optical zoom lens with wide-angle chops (28mm to 140mm), optical image stabilization, a bigger-than-most 12-megapixel sensor (1/1.6 inches), and ISO levels of up to 12800 at reduced resolution. But the biggest draw for photographers is the sensor itself.

Pentax X70
The 24X optical-zoom Pentax X70 is one of the lightest, smallest megazoom cameras on the market, but it maintains "bigness" where it should: in the lens.

T-Mobile myTouch 3G
The T-Mobile MyTouch 3G is T-Mobile's second smartphone running Google's Android mobile operating system. And while the MyTouch 3G ($200 as of July 22, 2009) has much going for it-- a lightweight design, a gorgeous screen, and the 1.5 update to the Android operating system, it's not without its flaws -- the on-screen keyboard is far from perfect, for example.

Dell Latitude XT2 Tablet PC
Go on, grab the Dell Latitude XT2--it just feels good. The rugged metal-alloy casing gives it a solid, substantial frame. Pick it up, and the 13.3-inch machine is deceptively light (3.8 pounds). Put all of that together, and you seem to have a premium choice for mobility-minded businessfolk in need of a tablet PC. It has style in spades and a host of great features. But is this $2653 (as reviewed, as of 7/23/09) ultraportable package good for the long haul?

Asus Eee PC 1005HA
I can sum up the Asus Eee PC 1005HA in one sentence: It's a slightly thicker, slightly cheaper version of the Eee PC 1008HA. Hey, it's only fair. At this point, Asus releases more netbooks than Baskin Robbins has flavors. I won't recap all the versions we've reviewed--or are about to review--but the netbook maker continues making nips and tucks with designs, making just enough variations to warrant a separate take of the same micromachine. Is the 1005HA for you, though?

AssaultCube: FPS Fun, Unburdened by Plot
If the thought of free frags makes your trigger finger twitch, take a look at AssaultCube. This open-source first person shooter doesn't offer much in the way of snazzy graphics or major frills, and there's no storyline or plot. Just a selection of maps where you can hunt or be hunted by other players or computer-controlled bots. But the multi-platform AssaultCube can run on Windows, Linux or Macs, and its minimum system requirements are so low that just about any computer should be able to run it (Pentium III 500Mhz and nVidia GeForce 256 or equivalents, 128MB RAM). Plus, the entire game fits into a compact 40MB download.

Explore Oz Noir in Emerald City Confidential
Ah, the joys of public domain! With the Oz books out of copyright, everyone can spin their own tales, from the subversive "Wicked" to this intriguing and well-acted adventure game. In Emerald City Confidential, you control Petra, a former member of the City Guard turned Private Detective. Forties film-noir meets talking ragdolls and pompous wozzlebugs. Does it work? That is the mystery we'll explore in this review.

July Giveaways
Cisco Subnet is giving away 15 copies each of books on Enterprise Web 2.0 and Building a Greener Data Center; Microsoft Subnet is giving away training from New Horizons to one lucky reader and 15 copies of Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services Unleashed. Entry forms can be found on the Cisco Subnet and Microsoft Subnet home pages. Deadline for entries July 31.

Network World on Twitter? You bet we are

16 Breakthrough Notebooks: A Look Back
From the first prototype portable computer in 1968 to the OLPC XO (an inspiration for netbooks) to the CrunchPad Web tablet of the near future, these 16 notebooks mark important stages in the progress of laptops.

Apple: Jailbreaking could knock out transmission towers
Apple has told the U.S. Copyright Office that modifying the iPhone's operating system could crash a mobile phone network's transmission towers or allow people to avoid paying for phone calls.

Adobe confirms Flash contains Microsoft dev code bug
Adobe says it's the first major third-party vendor to have used Microsoft's flawed development code in its products. It patched Shockwave on Tuesday and promises a fix for Flash on Thursday.

Clampi Trojan revealed as financial-plundering botnet monster
A close look at the Clampi Trojan, an elusive piece of malware that uses encryption to help hide its nefarious data-stealing deeds, reveals it to be a botnet-controlled monster that can swipe a victim's sensitive data associated with more than 4,500 different sites, according to one researcher.

IBM, long the patent king, may put official at top of U.S. patent office
Big Blue may put one of its own officials at the top of the government office that oversees patents in America.

Recession no reason to neglect IT workforce, Gartner says
Gartner survey shows companies continue to put hiring and staff development on hold, despite specific skills being in demand.

Dr. BlackBerry: Eight Apps Making Medicine More Mobile
Physicians may not have been the first professionals to embrace BlackBerry devices and smartphones, in general. But they sure aren't wasting any time nowadays. Heck, Dr. John Halamka, CIO of both Beth Israel Deaconness and Harvard Medical School is regarded as a mobile guru, even appearing in his ownBlackBerry ad campaign.

Government departments guided on Tweeting
The government has launched a policy document to explain how to use Twitter.

BBN grabs cash, turns up heat on language translation technology
When it comes to translating languages in real time, BBN must speak the tongue as it netted a $14 million check from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) this week to continue developing its speech and text technology. 

July Giveaways
Cisco Subnet is giving away 15 copies each of books on Enterprise Web 2.0 and Building a Greener Data Center; Microsoft Subnet is giving away training from New Horizons to one lucky reader and 15 copies of Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services Unleashed. Entry forms can be found on the Cisco Subnet and Microsoft Subnet home pages. Deadline for entries July 31.

Network World on Twitter? You bet we are

iPhone SMS attack to be unleashed at Black Hat
Apple has just over a day left to patch a bug in it's iPhone software that could let hackers take over the iPhone, just by sending out and SMS (Short Message Service) message.

What business is Cisco in today?
This week in an open letter to Cisco CEO John Chambers, Global CIO Senior VP and Director - Bob Evans asked the oversimplified question: What business is Cisco in today?

Sprint gains 777,000 prepaid subscribers, but overall subscriptions still falling
Sprint added 777,000 prepaid wireless subscribers to its ranks in 2Q, but suffered a net loss of 257,000 wireless subscribers for the quarter.

Extra '&' in Microsoft development code gave hackers IE exploit
Microsoft on Tuesday confirmed that a single superfluous character in its own development code is responsible for the bug that has let hackers exploit Internet Explorer (IE) since early July.

Video: Microsoft rushes to fix IE kill-bit bypass attack
At Black Hat this week researchers will show a way to bypass kill-bits; Microsoft is releasing a patch for the bug on Tuesday

Security vendor McAfee spills 1,400 customer names
In a story just dripping with irony, e-mail security vendor McAfee has accidentally sent the contact details of some1400 conference attendees in a spreadsheet attached to a thank you message.

Android Needs More Developer Evangelists
This past weekend featured a bit of a dust-up in the Android blogging community. Tactically, the issue was one of confusion between Donut (the development branch in the Android open source repositories) and Donut (the code-name for an update to Android). Strategically, the issue really centers around Google's role in building a developer ecosystem around Android.

E-mail stream spammier than ever, reports say
Spam as a percentage of all e-mail has reached an all-time high, according to two security firms releasing their periodic threat reports Wednesday.

U.S. supercomputing lead rings Sputnik-like alarm for Russia
Russia's launch of Sputnik in 1957 triggered a crisis of confidence in the U.S. that helped drive the creation of a space program. Now, Russia is comparing the U.S.'s achievements in supercomputing with theirs, and they don't like what they see.

Reddit readers will enjoy this video
The two-and-a-half-minute video is here (don't miss the MJ shout-out near the end). As might be expected, they are discussing the tribute over at Reddit in the typical Reddit style.

July Giveaways
Cisco Subnet is giving away 15 copies each of books on Enterprise Web 2.0 and Building a Greener Data Center; Microsoft Subnet is giving away training from New Horizons to one lucky reader and 15 copies of Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services Unleashed. Entry forms can be found on the Cisco Subnet and Microsoft Subnet home pages. Deadline for entries July 31.

Network World on Twitter? You bet we are