Network World

Exchange alternatives: Front ends and back ends

NWW Lab Alliance member Joel Snyder tested six messaging products from vendors who hope to catch the eye of weary Microsoft Exchange users. This slideshow gives a peek at both the user Webmail front-end and the administrative back-end views of each product.

Products of the Week

Cool new announcements from IBM, HP, Veeam and others.

CeBIT 2009 highlights

The gates have been opened on CeBIT 2009 in Hannover, Germany, where 4,300 exhibiting firms from 69 countries are on hand to showcase digital solutions, trends and innovations.  Here we take a look at some of the highlights from the world's largest computer expo. 1

Acer sees the future of smartphones as free

Acer wants to bring the wholesale cost of smartphones down so far that mobile network operators can afford to give them away. It aims to release two such phones by October, said Aymar de Lencquesaing, the head of Acer's Smart Handheld Business Group.

Shown here: The Acer F900 touch-screen smartphone which runs Windows 6.1. 4

Foxit's eSlick challenges Kindle with PDF prowess

The thin and light eSlick device, on display this week at the Cebit trade show, is Foxit's first foray into hardware. Foxit has specialized in creating lightweight and fast desktop and mobile applications for viewing PDF (Portable Document Format) files, a format created by Adobe Systems and adopted as an international standard in July 2008. The eSlick is currently listed at $259.99 ($299.99 MSRP) excluding taxes and shipping fee.

MSI's svelte X-Slim laptops to get more powerful

After turning heads at CES with its X-Slim laptops Micro-Star International is using the Cebit trade show in Hanover, Germany, this week to unveil new versions with a more powerful processor.

11 cool tech products at DEMO

DEMO 09 looks for the next big thing

Some of the technology world's most promising companies will debut their products at DEMO Monday and Tuesday. Take a look at 11 cool new products.

Products of the Week

Cool new announcements from Fortinet, Prism and Check Point and others.

iPod...do you? A playful list of iPods

An ode to the iPod: In the fall of 2001, Apple launched its first iPod and forever changed the way we listen to music. Since that time, an amazing array of iPods have been introduced -- some of them becoming big hits, while others never quite caught on. Here we offer a visual history of the iPod. 12

Microsoft demos innovations at annual TechFest

Microsoft Research's annual TechFest event showcases solutions to some of the world's most challenging technical problems and provides a strategic forum for Microsoft researchers to meet with the broader group of Microsoft employees and product managers. Hundreds of researchers from Microsoft's worldwide labs in China, England, India and the United States gather at the company's headquarters in Redmond to exchange ideas with colleagues, show off their latest innovations, and shine a light into the future of computing.  Here we'll take a sneak peak at some of the hottest work from Microsoft's research labs around the world.

Turning 5,000 discarded cell phones into art

Artist Rob Pettit creates his artwork out of obsolete, discarded or recycled cell phones. His instillation are painstakingly arranged flower-swirls and stacked mini-mountains, as well as paintings. Here we take a look at some of his most recent work.

Photo: Rob Pettit sits on one of his installations 11

Products of the Week

Cool new announcements from Norton, BMC and Blade and others.

2009 Best of the Tests winners

Out of the more than 150 products tested by our Lab Alliance members last year, a baker's dozen rise to the top of the list. They excel in performance, usability and enterprise feature functionality.

Bring in the iPhone clones

The 2009 Mobile World Congress did not disappoint with the sheer volume of new devices, all with a new "angle" to introduce to the mobile phone market.  The gold standard is still the Apple iPhone 3G, and industry leaders like Samsung, LG, HTC and many more took a stab at trying to steal the smartphone spotlight. We take a look at the top "iPhone killer" contenders and breakdown what each "newbie" has to offer.  

iPhone-controlled car to demo at Geneva Motor Show

Stylish, speedy and sexy -- it's everything a concept car is meant to be. But the iChange isn't your run of the mill prototype car. Swiss automobile design house Rinspeed will unveil a concept electric car controlled by an iPhone at next week's Geneva Motor Show. 3

Samsung intros two compact digital cameras

The TL320 features a Schneider lens, renowned for quality and trusted by professionals worldwide, and offers consumers a more versatile 24mm ultra-wide angle focal length paired with a powerful 5x optical zoom.

Vertu opens first Japan store

The Vertu store in Tokyo's Ginza district

What does a real green data center look like?

Collocation facility provider Internap recently opened its latest data center in Somerville, Mass., which was built with green design principles in mind to reduce the consumption of power, manage the dissipation of heat and control humidity. The effort will help the company run the facility less expensively and won it a $453,000 rebate from the local power company. 3

Five fantastic open source tools for Windows admins

Open source projects for Windows are growing like weeds. Here's a short list of favorites that blogger Ron Barrett promises will make your network rock -- all at that lovable open source price. Barrett tested each one and offers a longer review of each (plus a list of Honorable Mentions), on his blog, A Better Windows World.

Highlights from 2009 Mobile World Congress

Some 50,000 industry officials from major cell phone makers, telecom companies and high-technology firms converged in Barcelona for an annual four-day Mobile World Congress that opened Monday.  Here are a few highlights.

Samsung at 2009 Mobile World Congress

Samsung shows new handsets at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, on Feb. 15, 2009

HTC unveils updated iPhone 3G rival and Touch Pro2

class="first">High Tech Computer (HTC), the largest maker of handsets that run Microsoft Windows Mobile software, unveiled updates to two of its most popular smartphones ever on Monday, the HTC Touch Diamond2 and HTC Touch Pro2 handsets. The sleek new handsets are both 3G touchscreen devices, but while the Touch Diamond2 is a consumer smartphone designed to compete with Apple's iPhone 3G, the Touch Pro2 is geared towards business people and could be a hit with its speaker phone function. Read the full story.

Forget the Oscars: Sit back for the 404 Awards

The Oscars may recognize the best that Hollywood has to offer, but Hollywood so often gets the technology wrong. In honor of the 81st Academy Awards airing Feb. 22, we've compiled the 404 Awards to recognize unreal appearances by technology in 2008 films -- and point out a few films that got it right.

Products of the Week

Cool new announcements from Symantec, IBM and Solar Winds and others.

First look at the latest Google phone: The HTC Magic

High Tech Computer (HTC) unveiled its second Google Android-based smartphone, the HTC Magic, with mobile service provider Vodafone on Tuesday. The new smartphone will soon battle its predecessor, the T-Mobile G1 (also called the HTC Dream) in Europe. Vodafone plans to launch the HTC Magic in the U.K., Spain, Germany, France and Italy and several other Vodafone markets over the next few months, the company said in a statement. T-Mobile has said it would roll out the G1 in continental Europe in the first quarter of this year. Vodafone did not provide pricing information, nor nail down a specific launch date.

New Windows Mobile UI images leaked out

Microsoft showed off its latest upgrade to Windows Mobile, version 6.5, and announce it will appear in phones early in the second half of the year. It also will announce that it is working on an applications store as well as an updated version of mobile Internet Explorer, and will open up a limited beta of its My Phone mobile backup service. Read the full story.

Pictured here: Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer speaks at a press conference during Mobile World Congress 2009, Barcelona, Spain, Feb. 16, 2009.

LG debuts new smartphones and video watch phone

LG Electronics CEO Skott Ahn had a little time on his hands before the company's news conference at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona on Monday, so he called up his buddy Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft, for a video chat on a prototype wristwatch phone. The video call somewhat overshadowed the company's purpose in calling the conference: the launch of the glitzy 3D S-Class User Interface on new smartphones, including what LG said is the first phone to run the latest version of Microsoft's Windows Mobile. Read the full story.

The Pirate Bay on trial

A Swedish prosecutor on Tuesday dropped a charge levied against four men on trial for running The Pirate Bay, one of the most popular BitTorrent search engines and trackers on the Internet. Tuesday's proceedings saw Swedish prosecutor Håkan Roswall drop a charge of aiding in the making of copies of works under copyright, said Peter Sunde, one of the four on trial. The charge was dropped due to the inability of the prosecution to prove copies of content were made, he said. "We have definitely won this round," Sunde said. Read the full story.

Nokia unveils thinner smartphones to do more with less

Nokia unveiled its thinnest smartphone yet, the E55, and another slim smartphone with a sliding QWERTY keyboard, the E75, a replacement for the old Communicator model also known as "the brick." It also unveiled the 6710 Navigator and 6720 Classic phones at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona on Monday. Read the full story.

First Look at Toshiba's TG01 Multimedia Smartphone

Toshiba says it will unveil a new TG01 Windows Mobile-based cell phone later this month that will sport the firm's TV technology, a touch screen, and a sleek design. Will it compete with Apple's iPhone? See for yourself.

Phones and cameras lead February's gadgets

As 2009 starts to pick up pace, the attention of the big gadget makers moves from January's International Consumer Electronics Show to February's Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. Lots of new phones will be launched at the event and the market for handsets with full touch-screens that was ignited by Apple's iPhone is of particular interest to phone makers. Japan's Toshiba has an intriguing proposal in the TG01, while both Samsung and LG have another try at the market with new handsets.

Elsewhere it's been a good month for shutterbugs with interesting new cameras from Sanyo and Panasonic, although they are perhaps more notable for their high-definition video capabilities than their still image functions. We've also got an interesting -- and expensive -- new device from Sony that streams live video over 3G networks.

How to build your own supercomputer

Supercomputer do-it-yourselfer Bruce Allen says anyone familiar with networking can build a supercomputing cluster today with modest funding and instructions pulled off the Internet. He built a 32.8T flop cluster most recently in Germany. This is a brief look at the unglamorous hardware that went into his first effort -- a 28.8G flop cluster built in 1998 at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee.

Photo credit: Albert Einstein Institute (AEI)/Norbert Michalke

MIT guitar combines acoustics and electronics

Acoustic instruments with their wood-grain patterns produce unique sounds, but a prototype guitar (built by Massachusetts Institute of Technology student Amit Zoran, pictured here) combines the natural acoustics of wood with the power of electronic processing. Called the Chameleon Guitar, it can mimic different instruments using an on-board computer and replaceable wood soundboards.

The Evolution of the Internet

From the beginning...

The origins of the Internet date back nearly 40 years, with the U.S. military's funding of a research network dubbed Arpanet in 1969. Since then, the Internet has undergone more than just a name change. The number of computers connected to the Internet has grown exponentially, while the number of users has risen from a handful of computer scientists to 1.5 billion consumers. The network's reach has expanded beyond the United States to every corner of the globe. But its popularity has a dark side, as it has evolved from a friendly research network to a hotbed of criminal activity including fraud and identity theft. 8

Evolution of the router

What a long, strange route its been

From its gestation period 40 years ago until now, the router has matured along with the Internet to become the linchpin of all communications - data, voice and video. Its application seems limitless as the Internet is enhanced to support more and more features and services 11

The mobile phone evolution

In the beginning...

...mobile phones were real eyesores. Like most types of technology, mobile phones started out large and unwieldy and have gradually shrunk down to lighter weights and more manageable sizes and shapes. And as mobile phones have grown smaller over the years, the number of applications they support have grown larger, as devices that were once used exclusively for voice services are now used to send and receive email, to take pictures, to surf the Internet and to play music. In this slideshow we'll trace the evolution of the mobile phone from their primitive early models in the 1980s to their current dynamic smartphone models. 1

Products of the Week

Cool new announcements from Sun, NetScout and CA and others.

Evolution of the PC

The PC makes Darwin proud

Over four decades PCs have evolved from clunky commercial flops to slick, high-power machines that play a huge role in our daily lives, both for work and play. Here's a look back at some of the biggest developments during the evolution of the PC 5

The evolution of Microsoft Windows

History of Windows

The Windows operating system has enjoyed a number of successes and a number of stubbed toes. Here is a look at some of the milestones in the evolution of what has become the dominant OS in the market. 3

The Mac Evolution: Looking back at Apple's 11 most intriguing computer designs

class="slideshow_body">For many computer users, Apple has defined the personal computer industry, driven technology innovation and changed the perception of personal computing. The company reinvented itself several times over, as it developed and enhanced the Macintosh, affecting the world of computing every time it did. Apple fans have defined their own culture and follow the metamorphosis of the company, its products and its software with passion. Apple made waves with its historic 1984 commercial, its rivalry with Microsoft and its retail megastores. Even Forrest Gump got in on the action when he "bought" stock in 1994. But although iPods and iPhones are perpetually cool to obsess over nowadays, it was really Apple's computers -- particularly the Apple -- that started it all.

Join us for a trip down memory lane, and learn how the Mac evolution led to the Apple revolution.

Samsung unwraps Touch Ultra handset

Samsung has unveiled its latest phone aimed at the full touch-screen end of the market that was ignited by Apple's iPhone.

Top 10 Valentines for your special techie someone

It's that time of year again to fret over what to do for that special geek someone, or, if you are that geek someone, what to do about getting your act together for Valentine's Day. Here are a few choice items that will help out the geek-inspired or the geek-impaired.

Forget the Grammy Awards: Behold the Tech Music Awards

And the winner is... 

The 51st Grammy Awards show airs on Feb.8, but if watching Lil Wayne, Katy Perry and Coldplay perform isn't your thing, then perhaps our very own 2008/2009 Tech Music Awards might be. Here are the winners...

Top 15 'networkiest' songs

In honor of the Grammy's, here are our picks for the top techie songs.  If we miss your favorite tech tune, let us know!

Where IT pros do their social networking

By the numbers

Where do IT pros do their social networking? That's what Network World wanted to find out when it conducted an online survey of 583 readers in January. We discovered that usage is way up compared to last year. 2

Products of the Week

Cool new announcements from Juniper, SonicWall and Reflex and others.

Top 10 hot spot safety tips

Access to the Internet via public "hot spots" is growing fast. However, this free bandwidth comes with an element of risk. Once you are associated to an access point, you are on the same network as others connected to the same access point. Simple network discovery will show who else is connected, and from there an unscrupulous user could try and access your machine. In addition to the possibility of direct attack, since your data is probably going to be "clear text" - not encrypted. Here's a list of the security risks associated with public hot spots and how you can protect yourself. 3

Digital Gear: A new dimension to 3D

Sans the cheap plastic spectacles, 3D has come a long way since its introduction in movies decades ago. Sharper images and deeper resolutions have made 3D TVs colorful, accompanied by sleek and expensive 3D glasses. 3D technology has also made its way to webcams, binoculars and video games, and attempts are under way to get rid of those dreaded glasses. Alioscopy is developing 3D display technology that could do that.

Hottest tech M&A; deals of 2009

A summary of who did the buying, who got bought, how much they went for and why. We'll be updating as more deals are made.

Cisco broadens data center ambitions

Cisco is making its widely-installed Catalyst 6500 and 4500 switches better data center citizens, expanding its Nexus switch line and cranking out new energy efficiency software.

Products of the Week

Cool new announcements from Nexsan, Sun and Coyote Point and others.

Five innovative flash-based products for enterprise storage

Flash memory quickly is becoming part of the enterprise's storage arsenal, and for good reason: Although it's more expensive than rotating disk drives, flash offers faster performance and consumes far less energy. You now can find flash embedded in servers and storage arrays -- and even in a newfangled disaster-recovery device. Take a look.

10 woeful tales of data gone missing

The idea of our identities being stolen scares us all in this day of electronic everything. But deliberate theft is only part of the problem. Backup tapes, the repositories of millions upon millions of personal data records, are slippery little devils. We see this in incident after incident, even though companies have been using magnetic tapes for more than 50 years and should know by now how to hang on to them. Here are 10 woeful tales involving backup tapes -- some current, some classic and one just plain unusual. 3

Reader survey: data storage by the numbers

With data storage requirements growing out of hand, we decided to ask readers about how they're dealing with the challenge. Almost 300 readers participated in the survey; here's a quick look at their storage environments.

In Las Vegas, data center takes power and cooling to the limit

Co-location provider Switch Communications claims the SuperNAP, a 407,000-square foot building that opened in September, is the world's most energy efficient and high-density data center in the world. 2

Most notable IT layoffs of 2009

As the current economic crisis continues to unfold, Network World is keeping a eye on the industry's financial fluctuations. As more companies make cutbacks, we will keep updating this slideshow with the latest news. For a review of last year's top layoffs, click here.

Big-name techies who could influence Obama

During the 2008 presidential election, President Obama made investment in technology infrastructure a major plank of his economic platform. With Congress poised to pass a major economic stimulus bill sometime within the next couple of months, Obama has said that he wants broadband rollout, an Internet-based smart energy grid and computers for schools as part of the package. Now that technology is to take a more prominent role within the White House, we thought it might be a good time to examine which techies will hold sway within the Obama administration. In this slideshow, we'll list the techies who are most likely to have Obama's ear and will discuss what stances, if any, they have taken on issues such as 'Net neutrality and universal broadband. 2

Products of the Week

Cool new announcements from HP, BigFix, Infoblox and others.

Review: Good options for wireless packet analysis abound

OmniPeek, CACE Technologies top the charts

If you need a tool to help capture and analyze your wireless traffic, you're not left wanting for choice. Both WLAN management suites as well as adhoc tools garnered perfect or near perfect scores in our tests, showing a very high level of maturity in this market. 2

Seven things to love, hate about Windows 7

We tested Windows 7 Beta 1 Build 7000 on several machines, including an HP Pavilion DV-9000 laptop and an HP Pavillion M7660e desktop - we love it more than we hate it.

Microsoft warns that beta code should be installed on bare metal, but allows upgrades from Vista SP1 for comparison's sake.

Is Windows 7 what we've really always wanted in Vista? Take a look at the evidence we've collected in our test, and decide for yourself. 11

CES enterprise gadgets and gear you might have missed

Although last week's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas did not specialize in showcasing enterprise-related gadgets and technologies, it did feature several new products that could be useful to both consumers and enterprises. In this slideshow we'll highlight CES gear that could be the most useful to both corporate IT departments and for workers.

Cisco Aironet 1140: 802.11n for the mainstream

Cisco's newest 802.11n access point is part of the vendor's plan to make 11n the default choice for enterprise wireless LANs. Key elements: sleek design, new "beamforming" technology, full 11n with existing PoE, better performance for 11a/g clients, 11n financing programs and trade-in discounts

Cisco invades home audio

The news of Cisco's home entertainment product push came out last month, but today we have learned some more details about the product names, pricing and availability. Linksys by Cisco (another name change?) announced today two new home entertainment-related products (the Wireless Home Audio system and Media Hub).

The Linksys by Cisco Wireless Home Audio system reminds me of the Sonos, Logitech Squeezebox Boom and other multi-room audio systems, in which users can stream audio files stored on PCs, devices and over the Internet throughout different "zones" set up around the house. The Cisco system uses Wireless-N (802.11n) technology to deliver music throughout the home, and supports Internet music services such as Rhapsody, AudioLounge and RadioTime.

How Apdex provides the best view into response times

Response-time numbers on their own don't really tell you what applications are in trouble. Apdex is an open standard that defines a better way to report response-time measurements, and the best part is it can be applied to any existing measurements. Here's how it works.

Wireless power energizes CES

There's something futuristic about wireless power that has grabbed people's attention at the recent Consumer Electronics Show, and 2009 could be a big year for the technology judging from what was on show. A few products from Wild Charge are already on sale for recharging small devices like phones and game controllers, by laying them side by side on a charging mat. Perhaps more interesting is some of the bigger equipment on show at CES this year, including power tools and blenders.

How thin can TVs get?

The demos of the latest and greatest in TV tech from Samsung, JVC and LG at this year's CES made it clear that thinness is the latest battleground in the competitive flat-panel TV business

Review: ASR 1000 ready to replace aging Cisco routers

Midrange router boasts excellent performance and many useful features

In Network World's exclusive Clear Choice test, the ASR not only moved traffic at 20Gbps but also did so while running QoS, security and monitoring functions on 120 million flows from hundreds of concurrent routing sessions. The ASR also proved a capable performer when handling multicast and IPSec VPN traffic. And with a 40-core processor, the ASR has enough headroom to run firewalls, load balancers and other services without requiring additional hardware. 1

Ma Bell’s 25-year odyssey

It's been 25 years since AT&T agreed to spin off its local divisions into seven separate local exchange carriers. Through a series of mergers and acquisitions, the Baby Bells have now consolidated into three major landline companies: AT&T, Verizon and Qwest. In this slideshow, we'll examine the immediate after effects of the breakup as well as the several mergers that have helped partially put Ma Bell back together again. 4

Palm Pre vs. Apple iPhone: How they stack up

The Palm Pre smartphone builds on Palm's personal information management heritage and UI expertise. The goal is to take the user experience to a new level by combining a big screen, with support for gestures not just single touch, and a very capable Web browser with innovative back-end integration across different Web sites and services. The following compares Pre with the iPhone.

The 2009 CES gadget gallery

The trend at CES this year seems to be consumer gadgets that have a smaller impact both on your personal space and on the environment. In the former category, entertainment devices such as Samsung's 39mm Blu-ray player and Lenovo's ultra-lean IdeaCentre A600 all-in-one desktop are vying to be the thinnest devices ever released. In the latter category, we have manufacturers such as Motorola and Nextar that are creating handsets made out of recycled plastic bottles and solar-powered hands-free cell phone kits, respectively. In this slideshow, we'll take a look at the thinnest and greenest gadgets on display at this week's CES in Las Vegas, as well as everything else that's generating a buzz.

2009's 25 Geekiest 25th Anniversaries

From the Mac's legendary Super Bowl debut to less flamboyant births of Cisco, Dell, RIM and the future founder of Facebook, 1984 provided a bounty of technological achievement and geeky infamy. There was the divestiture of AT&T, the advent of genetic fingerprinting, quantum cryptography, the book that popularized "cyberspace," and, let's not forget that Bernie Goetz was a hardcore geek before going medieval on that New York subway. NASA even crashed a jetliner ... on purpose. The media will revisit all of them one by one over the next 12 months, but here they are today, neatly alphabetized. 5

Tomorrow’s IT: Who will get us there?

The New Year is upon us, and by most accounts it will be a tight one for IT budgets. But innovation persists. We've singled out 10 people who are driving the research, product development and industry policies that will shape enterprise IT for years to come. Read on for details.

2009 IT budgets and spending: a snapshot

We recently surveyed IT professionals with budget and spending authority about how 2009 looked to them. We found bad news, but some good stuff, too ...

2009 IT hiring outlook

Slightly less than half of the hiring managers we surveyed said they expect to hire new employees this year.

10 start-ups to watch in ’09: a product roundup

Whether your chief concern is access, networking, mobility, security or Web 2.0, you'll find worthy solutions among these companies and their innovative offerings. 1

IT salary survey: a look at loyalty

Apparently, pretty much so...

IT salary survey: Satisfaction snapshot

By any measure, the answer is "plenty" - across all regions of the country, industries and companies regardless of size.

IT salary survey: pay overview

Broken out by job title, region, industry and a variety of other metrics, here's a look at IT salary expectations gleaned from our annual Salary Survey. This year, 1,854 readers participated in the survey.

2008's biggest tech crime stories

While 2008 didn't see any convictions of corrupt tech execs along the lines of Qwest's Joseph Nacchio or WorldCom's Bernie Ebbers , it did produce convictions for high-profile spammers, botnet operators, porn distributors and online scam artists as well as its share of other high profile network shenanigans, some of which haven't been sorted out in court yet. 5

10 breakthroughs in IT security

From encryption to intrusion detection to teamwork organization. In chronological order from the 1970's on, here are 10 security breakthroughs that matter. 2

Products of the Week

Cool new announcements from Q1 Labs, Core Security, QLogic and others.

Beam up my shape shifting robot Scotty: Layer 8's Best of 2008

Layer 8 is Network World's coffee break for your head but sometimes it feels more like a relief from reality. This year we had shape shifting robots, unbelievably hard math problems and submersible airplanes to contend with. But that's just the tip of the iceberg. Read on!

How much do you know about Cisco?

Have you been paying attention to Cisco news in 2008? Test your knowledge with the 2008 edition of our "How much do you know about Cisco" quiz, brought to you courtesy of Cisco Subnet, your gateway to Cisco news, gossip, blogs and advice. Give yourself a point for each correct answer and check out the final slide for whether your a Cisco cub or a Cisco commander. 3

8 ways to expense an iPhone

Management vendors have gotten wise to the fact that most in IT can't sit in front of monitoring consoles to detect problems and potential failures. Now several have designed their applications to run from the graphical user interfaces of iPhones and other smartphones. Here is just a handful of iPhone-friendly management tools. 3

10 really cool university networking labs

CMU, UNH, Stanford and Rutgers are just some of the schools whose labs are putting futuristic and not-so-far off network technologies through their paces 1

Ducks, dorks and deviants: Wackiest stories of 2008

Despite the daily drum beat of new and improved hardware or software, the tech industry isn't all bits and bytes. Some interesting things happen along the way too. Like floating data centers, space geekonauts, shape shifting robots and weird bedfellows (like Microsoft and Jerry Seinfeld). What we include here is an example of what we thought were the best, slightly off-center stories of 2008. 3

Products of the Week

Cool new announcements from Symantec, Novell, StorServer and others.

Biggest tech stories of 2008

Need a quick refresher on the biggest IT industry stories of 2008? We're keeping a running account of the top newsmakers, so check back often for updates.

The many faces of multifactor authentication

Authentication can be accomplished in many ways, from biometrics to hardware tokens to software-based password generators. And authentication can occur on many devices, including laptops, phones and USB memory sticks. Here are some of the latest authentication schemes.

Review: Email archiving tools focus on e-discovery, compliance

In this test, we measure how fast 10 leading message archiving products can tag, index and search hundreds of thousands of messages stored on our Exchange 2003 and 2007 servers. We also examine feature areas -- mailbox management, e-Discovery, policy enforcement, and compliance and retention management -- that have come to differentiate the products in enterprise network deployments. For full test details, go here.

Products of the Week

Cool new announcements from Cisco, NEC, VMware, Nokia and others.

8 tools that make Microsoft shops run smoother

IT has one unending need - good management tools. If you are a Microsoft shop, you face specific challenges to ensure all runs smoothly. That's why blogger Ron Barrett has assembled this eclectic list. These tools solve a variety of issues including group policy management, training, password management, collaboration, remote connectivity and managing the new Windows Server 2008 core. What they all have in common is that they will make a Microsoft shop run better and the tools themselves require no fuss or muss to manage.

10 Microsoft research projects

Innovation is not just about cool new products. In technology, the best ideas require a) really smart people and b) lots of funding. For the past 33 years, Microsoft has had both in spades. Yet, the precursor to any product release is the research and innovation that occurs before the first shipment to customers, that "pre-pre-alpha" stage where ideas are born.

In a recent two-day visit to Microsoft corporate headquarters, we met with several researchers working on new projects. A few of these projects have already resulted in shipping products; others may never see the light of day -- they are meant as a proof of concept. Some could change how we do computing altogether. Yet, all of them are driven by bright thinkers who are working to solve real-world technical problems.

Most notable IT layoffs of 2008

As the current economic crisis continues to unfold, Network World is keeping a eye on the industry's financial fluctuations. As more companies make cutbacks, we will keep updating this slideshow with the latest news. 5

Nokia N97: A closer look

Image credit: Nokia 1

Getting Digi With It

Got hundreds (or thousands) of audio CDs that you'd like to digitize, but don't want to pay thousands of dollars for a CD/DVD duplicator? Rent one from Primera through its Rent and Rip service. They'll send you a Bravo duplicator for a week, allowing you to quickly convert stacks of CDs into iTunes.

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