Eric Lai

Microsoft has let the planned shipment date for its Service Pack 3 update to Windows XP slip again, this time to the first half of 2008.

The latest remodel of the Microsoft Home, the software vendor's techno-fueled vision of domestic accoutrements of the future, showcases a variety of smart appliances, from lamps to interactive wallpaper, that can be controlled by tablet PCs or cell phone-wielding residents.

Oracle Corp. released Version 4.5 of BerkeleyDB, the embedable database it acquired through the purchase of SleepyCat Software Inc. New features include multiversion concurrency control for databases often accessed by many users at once, the ability to install upgrades and patches in replicated BerkeleyDB environments without taking the database off-line and a prebuilt replication environment for easier deployment of high-availability systems.

Imagine waving your New York subway pass in front of the cash register at a 7-Eleven convenience store to buy a sandwich. Or paying for items you found while surfing the Web on your cell phone by sending a text message. Such futuristic exercises in the U.S. are already a reality in many Asian and European countries.

Hewlett-Packard Co. plans to begin supporting the Debian distribution of Linux by the end of the year for customers worldwide, claiming that it is the first major vendor to provide full-fledged commercial support for the operating system.

Microsoft Corp. said reports that it secretly plans to offer "reparations" to corporate customers hurt by delays in the release of Windows Vista and Office 2007 are inaccurate.

Internet users who employ Web-based services such as Bloglines or Web browsers such as Firefox to read Web site feeds and blogs are vulnerable to embedded malicious code that can install spyware, log users' passwords, scan PCs and corporate networks for open ports and more.

At its annual Summit user conference last month, Red Hat Inc. disclosed plans to halt development of its Red Hat Application Server (RHAS). The move had been anticipated since Red Hat in mid-April announced plans to buy open source application server provider JBoss Inc. for about US$420 million. The company will support RHAS users over the life of their contracts, which span one year, it said.