With ATI Technologies in its pocket and only the $5.4 billion acquisition bill left to pay off, AMD is now supposed to deliver on a broad design initiative code named Fusion that creates a new class of x86 processor that integrates the CPU and the GPU at the silicon level. These Fusion chips, which will theoretically make widgets cheaper and less power hungry, are slated for late 2008 or early 2009. They're meant for all market segments.

SGI, fresh out of Chapter 11 and just back trading on the Nasdaq, filed a patent infringement suit against ATI Technologies Inc in district court in Wisconsin, where SGI's research and manufacturing facilities are located. The suit was filed Monday, two days before AMD closed on its pricey $5.4 billion purchase of the Canadian graphics and chipset house.

IBM has announced a new dynamic data warehousing platform, built upon the industry-leading DB2 9 'Viper' data server, that is designed to help customers quickly and easily gain greater insight into their business information.

Sun lost $56 million, or two cents a share, on revenues up 17% % year-over-year to $3.189 billion, which Sun attributed to its acquisitions, the increasing acceptance of the Solaris and growth in its services business.

A new digital archive storage system from Sun Microsystems, the creator of the Solaris Operating System, is helping computer generated imagery (CGI) leader Rhythm & Hues protect Superman's secret lair and the studio's 20 years worth of groundbreaking CGI work. Sun's solution has helped Rhythm & Hues achieve dramatic five-fold performance gains, improve ease of archive management, and reduce its hardware footprint, and prepare for continuing data growth.

Apple has announced that its entire MacBook Pro line of notebooks now includes the new Intel Core 2 Duo processor and delivers performance that is up to 39 percent faster than the previous generation. All MacBook Pro models now offer double the memory and greater storage capacity than the previous generation, as well as a FireWire 800 port for connecting to high-speed peripherals.

Sun ended the first fiscal quarter of 2007 with significant customer momentum for its recently enhanced IT product portfolio and the Solaris 10 Operating System (OS), including key wins with Alcatel, MasterCard, Research in Motion (RIM), the US Library of Congress, and Verizon Wireless.

Parallels have often been drawn between the computer security landscape and the biological world, since security threats such as computer viruses and worms can be viewed as digital incarnations of common biological threats. Similarities exist in terms of modes of reproduction as well as infection, and some research even suggests that digital threats follow the laws of evolution that predict these threats will become more sophisticated and effective as time progresses. A logical extension of this concept has always been to therefore consider the idea of computer security as a form of digital immune system, and in many regards, current security measures do in fact overlap with the protections present in biological systems.

Information has always been vital to running a business. Today, with businesses striving to meet compliance requirements, minimize legal risk and protect overall business health, information has become even more critical to survival. This means that organizations must continually raise the bar for protecting and recovering information.

The mobile industry is at the dawn of a new era of convergence that has been primarily driven by three key factors. First, mobile network operators (MNOs) have made huge investments over the past five years in 3G and 3.5G licenses and in building out high-speed data networks. This has enabled the development of a new generation of handheld devices featuring a growing number of new multimedia applications including cameras, music, and video players. Finally, consumers have seen the value of these developments and driven the demand for devices and bandwidth. With all of this activity and the lure of multimedia applications, recent research (iSuppli; Data Flash Market Tracker, Q2 2006) indicates that by 2009 there will be more than 900 million mobile handsets in the market. Of this number, more than 700 million will feature cameras, more than 600 million will include music players, and 100 million will have integrated TV capabilities.

SYS-CON Events (www.events.sys-con.com) announced today that the first international 'AJAXWorld(TM) Conference & Expo' (www.ajaxworldexpo.com), taking place on October 3-4, 2006, at theSanta Clara Convention Center, California, will offer AJAXWorld University - Developer Bootcamp program. The AJAX Developer Bootcamp will take placeon Monday, October 2, 2006, one day before the conference opens.

Further increasing its performance, capacity and innovation lead in network storage, DataDirect Networks will showcase its highest performing and most dense storage solutions, the S2A9550 Cluster Solutions and S2A9550 Archive Solution, at this year's SEG (Society of Exploration Geophysicists) International Exposition and 76th Annual Meeting in New Orleans, Louisiana, from October 1st to the 4th in booth 2719.

The latest Internet Security Threat Reportreleased today by Symantec (NASDAQ: SYMC) shows that because home users areless likely to have established security measures in place, they are beingincreasingly targeted by attackers for identity theft, fraud, or otherfinancially motivated crime. Furthermore, attackers are now using a varietyof techniques to escape detection and prolong their presence on systems inorder to gain more time to steal information, hijack the computer formarketing purposes, provide remote access, or otherwise compromiseconfidential information for profit.

Staid old Dell, which unlike its erstwhile image has turned into a regular trouble magnet, said Monday that it wouldn't be filing its second-quarter 10-Q on time - the one that covers the period when revenues plummeted 51% - because of that mysterious government probe into its books that the company admitted on August 18 has been going on for the last year.

Years ago, when Itanium - or what became Itanium - was still a threat and HP was working closely with Intel on the chip, this paper contacted a guy working deep inside the HP side of the project to find out more about the then-mysterious widgetry. Our budding relationship didn't last all that long. Although he didn't tell us that much - very little, by reporters' standards - HP turned him using phone records. HP police descended on him, ignominiously marched him out of the building under guard, and HP put him on unpaid leave until he successfully pleaded that he was just talking to his cousin, who, as it happens, was one of our reporters.

StillSecure, provider of an award-winning, integrated suite of enterprise network security solutions, has announced Safe Access v5.0, a network access control (NAC) solution.

The Eclipse Foundation, an open source community committed to the implementation of a universal development platform, has announced that it has approved the creation of the Aperi Storage Management Framework Project. The Aperi Project will give customers more choices for deploying open-storage infrastructure software.

Danish security research organisation Secunia states that the rise in the number of discovered vulnerabilities in the period July 2004 to July 2006 was 77%. And 23% of all disclosed vulnerabilities are still without a patch solution - an explosive cocktail for company assets.

For the third week in a row, IBM has spent in the neighborhood of a billion dollars on software acquisitions. This time it's the upscale neighborhood of $1.3 billion cash, which is what it intends to lay out for Internet Security Systems (ISS) in the name of IBM Global Services. Services hasn't been doing as well as IBM's software arm lately. ISS' product line will also be integrated into Tivoli's management portfolio such as identity management, access management, SOA and security part.

'Clients increasingly recognize that security must become a network-integrated business process rather than a reactive response to individual threats,' said Tom Noonan, President and CEO of Internet Security Systems, Inc. (ISS) as it was announced yesterday that ISS had entered into a definitive agreement for IBM to acquire it in an all-cash transaction at a price of approximately $1.3BN, or $28 per share.

Graphics chip maven Jon Peddie figures Intel is going to build a GPU in response to the AMD-ATI tie-up, which he says threatens Intel across a broader front than anything AMD has ever be able to manage before. The ATI acquisition will let AMD offer OEMs more one-stop shopping and a greater chance of cutting their procurement costs. Seems they're all determined to bring costs down anywhere from 3%-10% a year.

Storix announced that it has signed a partnership agreement with Clark Data Systems (CDS), a computer network development, service and support company. CDS will bundle its routers with Storix's System Backup Administrator (SBAdmin) backup and disaster recovery software for Linux and AIX.

Data storage in the surveillance world is undergoing a major revolution. With an increased focus on capturing and managing digital information, some of the old methods of storing and archiving video footage can?t address the new business requirements imposed by changing times. When planning storage implementations, the high-end surveillance market requires optimal digital storage characteristics.

Security is a hot topic of the moment and as potential threats are identified and news about viruses, worms, bots, and unauthorized access abounds, a multitude of new security technologies continue to be introduced to the market.

A dangerous but likely sight in almost any hospital care unit is an unattended computer workstation, accessible by any passerby. If by chance the computer is locked, simply flip over the keyboard and you?ll often find the generic logon ID and password posted on the bottom; a failsafe for all caregivers in the care unit wanting to log on.

Companies today are very aware of the high costs associated with managing stored data and keeping this data available to business-critical applications. These management costs are escalating at a time when corporate IT organizations are looking to streamline operations to ensure that infrastructure investments lead to increases in productivity and profitability.

Several years ago, when Microsoft recognized its security woes and institutionalized its response in the form of 'Patch Tuesday,' IT and security management had good reason for discomfort. It's now 2006, and if anything, the situation continues to deteriorate, with the number of crippling attacks skyrocketing.

Successful businesses execute simultaneously on three fronts: sustained revenue growth, continuous cost control, and comprehensive risk management. Driven by a significant rise in public awareness of information security breaches, the discipline of risk management is under increased pressure to protect the information assets of the business better.

S.P.I. Dynamics, Inc. (ht tp://www.spidynamics.com/ ), the expert in Web application security, today announced the company's renowned R&D team, SPI Labs, has discovered a technique to scan a network, fingerprint all the Web-enabled devices found, and send attacks or commands to those devices.

S.P.I. Dynamics, Inc. (ht tp://www.spidynamics.com/ ), the expert in Web application security, today announced three of the company's leading researchers will highlight the latest hacking trends at the upcoming Black Hat 2006 in Las Vegas, Nevada, August 2 and 3, 2006. This year's Black Hat includes a significant number of talks focused on Web application security - a clear indicator of the impact Web applications are having on future trends in security.

The fight against spam just got easier today for ISPs, Web Hosts, Universities and anyone who manages multiple domains. Roaring Penguin Software Inc., makers of the acclaimed CanIt-PRO anti-spam solution, announced the release of CanIt-Domain-PRO an anti-spam solution designed specifically for organizations managing multiple domains.

Mobile phones around the world are taking on the role of a 'PC'- personal communicator- the task for which the traditional PC was initially developed. Applications originally restricted to high-end smartphones and multimedia phones are now becoming more pervasive in mid-tier feature phones.

Sun Microsystems has introduced three x64 (x86, 64-bit) products: the world's first 16-way x64 server in a single 4U chassis; the world's first hybrid data server; and the world's first no-compromise blade platform. The three new x64 servers, powered by AMD Opteron processors with Direct Connect Architecture, reinforce Sun's x64 systems leadership and further extend the company's reach into the $25.3B addressable market opportunity for volume and midrange servers.

'IT organizations need to ensure the availability and recoverability of email, database and other business applications across their storage infrastructure,' said Bob Davis, senior vice president and general manager of CA's Storage Management business unit. ?With this acquisition, CA is meeting customers' requirements for protecting, securing and quickly recovering critical applications and information from any location across the enterprise.'

db4objects, creator of the open source object database for Java and .NET has announced that Jerry Fiddler, founding CEO of the embedded software company Wind River, has joined the company's board of directors.

Findings from Sophos show that the most widespread threat from January to date is the Sober-Z worm, which at its peak, accounted for one in every 13 emails, even though it was programmed to stop spreading on January 6, 2006. New Trojans now outweigh viruses and worms by 4:1, compared to 2:1 in the first half of 2005, yet worms continue to dominate the mass email charts. Further reinforcing this, only one email in every 91 was viral to date, compared with one in every 35 for the same period in 2005.

A lawsuit filed in a U.S. District Court in Seattle by a Los Angeles resident allges that Microsoft has not adequately disclosed details of its WGA (Windows Genuine Advantage) feature when it was delivered to PC users through the company's Automatic Update system.

Information security, information storage. Two topics that often go together, but now taken to new levels by the breaking story about storage giant EMC buying security goliath RSA. One thing, neither of the two Boston-area companies will have to anyone very far, and perhaps their similar name forms indicate a sympatico mindset.

Security continues to be a key issue for organizations today. Nearly 60 percent of U.S. businesses believe that cybercrime is more costly to them than physical crime. In fact, the FBI estimates that cyber crime cost US organizations more than $62 billion in 2005. One of the most daunting challenges for organizations is that many software products contain security flaws in architecture, design, or implementation and organizations are constantly playing catch-up instead of 'locking the door' against security breaches.

Sun Microsystems has announced that it has withdrawn from the Aperi open source storage management initiative started by IBM in October 2005. Sun is a proponent of open source projects across its portfolio and has been a major supporter of this initiative in its formative phases. Given that Sun believes this initiative should be governed by the Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA), Sun plans to participate in software projects under the auspices of that organization.