Stories about: Skype

A common compression technique can make internet telephone calls significantly more susceptible to bugging, according to recent research from Johns Hopkins University.

It's a small step for an operating system, perhaps, but it could be another giant leap for Linux. DeviceVM has announced that its Splashtop 'instant-on' Linux is to appear on Asus laptops from this US summer.

Many of my clients are getting serious about the Internet. Let me explain: No, they're not Rip Van Winkles who've slept through the technology innovations of the past 20 years. But they are thinking about how they can use Internet services to augment -- or even replace -- their WANs.

There are few clearer bellwethers as to the imminent direction of technology than where venture capitalists put their money. They're about making money, so they look for industry patterns they think will lead to sure bets. And that means they invest where the tech industry has begun to coalesce its thinking, not on exotic new science fiction. According to PricewaterhouseCoopers, VCs have invested a total of US$57 billion in startups -- mostly tech ones -- in 2005, 2006, and 2007.

It's not exactly how devotees foresaw Linux reaching mass-market desktop PCs, but it could be a turning point nonetheless. Taiwanese giant Asus is to embed DeviceVM's Splashtop Linux on millions of mainstream motherboards.

For many of us, our first painful introduction to old-school Linux installs came from installing early versions of Red Hat. Like most early Linux installs, it was a highly technical, highly finicky process that was best left to the experts.

Trademark-holders have until May 20 to register their company and product names under the new .me domain, which is being marketed as a generic top-level domain by the country of Montenegro.

Europe's large enterprise and small-medium enterprises (SMEs) see the dilemmas and challenges of unified communications rather differently, according to a recent advisory report from Current Analysis, based on surveys and analysis of the European market.

The late science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke famously said that "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

When it comes to running a business, our feet are firmly on the ground but our data and software are increasingly in the cloud. My burgeoning media empire consists of two people (my lovely wife and me), but to the outside world we seem a lot bigger, thanks to online applications. To get our tasks done, we lean heavily on Web-based apps, from office suites to calendars to collaboration tools that let us work with colleagues on the other coast. Better yet, many of the services we use are free--at least, in their most basic incarnations. That never hurts.

Jonathan Zittrain is an internationally known cyberlaw scholar and technologist with a giant resume. He is Professor of Internet Governance and Regulation at Oxford Internet Institute and also teaches at Harvard. Zittrain is co-founder of the Chilling Effects Web site (a watchdog site) and holds patents on wireless and network devices. Zittrain has been making headlines with his latest book, The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It , in which he argues that closed-systems devices like the iPhone are potentially harmful. In a chat, Zittrain explained how he feels about the iPhone and the dangers posed to the Internet as a whole.