Software

Privacy groups have long worried about Google's privacy policies --- and now it appears that consumers have followed suit. Google has dropped off the list of the most trusted companies when it comes to privacy protection. Check out my blog for details, and to find out how other companies like Apple, Microsoft, IBM, and eBay fared.

Cisco is going to be finding out, the hard way, that open source isn't the same thing as free software.

In Tuesday's IT Blogwatch, Richi Jennings watches bloggers watch Apple upgrade Max OS X to 10.5.6. Not to mention I can has popcwn?..

Google's releasing the not-yet-baked Chrome as 1.0, rather than continuing to develop it as a beta, is the company's biggest blunder yet. It's also a disturbing indication that the company has started to emphasize marketing over technology --- always the first sign of a company in decline.

New Microsoft President of Online Services Qi Lu has given his first public interview, and it shows that the division may be headed in the wrong direction. Lu is taking dead aim at Google search, when he should instead be focusing on creating new services focused around Office and other Microsoft products. Microsoft will never catch Google, but it has a considerable lead it can build on when it comes to applications.

In Friday's IT Blogwatch, Richi Jennings watches bloggers watch Google lose the "beta" tag from its Chrome browser. Not to mention Charlie The Unicorn II...

In Thursday's IT Blogwatch, Richi Jennings watches bloggers watch hackers exploit a vulnerability that Microsoft "missed" on Tuesday (and breathe). Not to mention the tweets of Sockington the cat...

Lord knows it took HP long enough, but the PC giant has finally started shipping a pre-configured Linux on a desktop Linux. Hallelujah! Now, all the major PC OEMs are shipping at least one Linux desktop.

Now drivers in Indiana have one more excuse for hating their license photos. Effective in November, Indiana residents applying for new driver's licenses or renewing existing ones are being forbidden from smiling for the camera. The reason is new facial recognition software being used by the Indiana Bureau of Motor Vehicles. The software was installed as part of an effort to cut down on identity fraud and is being used to compare an applicant’s new photo with the ones on file.

Google has said that it plans to soon to take Chrome out of beta and release it officially, but it better squash plenty of bugs before it does it. A software testing service has found that Chrome's beta is buggier than both the beta of Firefox 3.1 and Internet Explorer 8, with nearly 300 bugs that need to be fixed.

Microsoft has apparently seen the light, and is readying versions of Office applications that will be available for free on the Web.

Its employees like the idea of choosing their own end computing devices - even if it means going elsewhere for support.

Users don't want anything to do with Vista, so Microsoft and its partners will still let you get XP... for a hefty surcharge.

The Mumbai terrorists' most powerful weapon appears not to have been guns or grenades, but instead their handheld VoIP phones, which allowed them to get detailed, live instructions from handlers on how to evade police, and where to attack next, while the police where powerless to detect them. So reports the New York Times.

I've put the recent beta of SP2 through its paces, and found that there's less to it than meets the eye. Some of its most notable features aren't new at all, and have been available since July. I have details in my blog