TechWeb - Sensors monitored by Symantec’s DeepSight threat management service have reported a significant spike in traffic related to TCP port 2967, which Symantec has traced to scans generated by the "Sagevo" worm.

TechWeb - Discovery of the patents has led to conjecture among tech bloggers that the software giant may someday try to seek payment for use of the technology, which is related to receiving and organizing news feeds through a Web browser.

NewsFactor - A high-level programmer has resigned from Novell, citing the company’s patent deal with Microsoft as the reason. The patent deal between Novell and Microsoft is designed to let the two companies collaborate on new technologies that will allow Microsoft’s Windows to operate with Novell’s SuSE Linux.

PC World - The company will pay $4.25 million to settle investigations by 40 U.S. states into its use of rootkit-based copy protection software.

TechWeb - The City of Atlanta has licensed Cognos’s business intelligence platform as the software foundation of its citywide performance management initiative.

TechWeb - Online software provider NetSuite has launched an employee resource management service that the company says reduces costs and boosts productivity by enabling workers to perform project-related chores, and access human resource-related documents.

NewsFactor - As promised, Microsoft has released a software update for the Zune media player so it will work with the soon-to-be-released consumer editions of Windows Vista, scheduled to hit retail outlets at the end of January.

AP - Sony BMG Music Entertainment will pay $4.25 million as part of a settlement with 39 states to resolve investigations into problems caused by music CDs loaded with hidden anti-piracy software.

Internet service provider has announced that it has turned on citywide Wi-Fi in Milpitas, Calif., and New Orleans.

Samba co-founder Jeremy Allison says he objects to Novell’s patent pact with Microsoft, heads to search giant.

TechWeb - The number of online searches made on Microsoft Windows Live Search fell 12% in November to 8.2% of the total number of Web searches, according to Nielsen/NetRatings.

Initial public offering filing comes as casual-game market emerges as a significant driver of growth in the game industry.

Task force led by commonwealth’s attorney general says ISPs should aid police by keeping e-mails, customer information.

PC Magazine - The software giant and its security partners say they have made progress in building links that allow third-party applications to interact more closely with Vista’s PatchGuard kernel protection technology.

PC Magazine - Microsoft, Yahoo! and many other players will detail their new directions.

About two-thirds of U.S. voters received automated and prerecorded phone calls prior to November election, study says.

AP - Opera Software ASA on Thursday announced that it has signed a contract with South Korea’s Samsung Electronics Co. to provide Internet browsers for its advance mobile telephones.

PC Magazine - Soleus, the Windows CE based operating system for non-smartphones, reached version 1.0 today, according to developer Intrinsyc. That means it’s ready to go – but no retail cell-phone manufacturer has committed to building phones with the new OS yet.

PC Magazine - While 2006 may have started off as a casual walk in the park for Microsoft, it ended as a sprint to the finish line as the software maker rushed to get Vista and Office out the door.

Birthday wishes go out to Steven Spielberg, my all-time favorite director, who celebrated his 60th birthday on Monday. He may not always make the coolest movies, or even the smartest movies, but his movies are always exceedingly watching, expertly made and laced with the type of magic seldom seen on-screen. In other words, he makes the best movies.

With $2.1 billion, company beefs up IP-routing expertise as it tries to help phone companies offer services like IPTV.

NewsFactor - Mozilla has released a set of security updates for versions 1.5.x and 2.0.x of the Firefox Web browser and for two other software packages: Thunderbird, an e-mail client, and SeaMonkey, a suite of programs that includes a chat client and a tool to build Web sites.

TechWeb - The APIs are meant to give security software makers access to information heading into the Vista kernel so that they can create software similar to what they now write for earlier versions of Windows.

Disc duplication company it hired is allegedly responsible for 20,000 unauthorized copies of Microsoft Exchange and SQL Server.

AP - Consumer electronics retailer Circuit City Stores Inc. said Tuesday it swung to a loss in the third quarter as deep discounts on flat-panel televisions and computer hardware and software cut into profit margins. It also lowered its full-year sales outlook and shares fell more than 16 percent.

InfoWorld - Believing current software testing approaches are antiquated, FedEx is working with the University of Memphis to take testing to its next steps.

Reuters - Sony BMG will pay $750,000 in
penalties and costs and reimburse California consumers whose
computers were harmed by anti-piracy software on some CDs sold
by the record company, California officials said on Tuesday.

TechWeb - The laptop avoids the use of Microsoft software and name brand PC processors such as Intel and AMD.

NewsFactor - Following a three-year international investigation, Microsoft has reached agreement with a contractor that illegally produced and distributed counterfeit copies of the company’s server software.

TechWeb - SiteAdvisor Plus displays ratings beside links in e-mail and instant messages, and automatically blocks access to questionable sites when the browser is pointed to a potentially risky URL.