Judge sets schedule for Google book search case
The judge in the copyright infringement case pitting the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers (AAP) against Google and its book search program has set a date for the final hearing on the parties' controversial settlement proposal. Read more...

EU gives Oracle extra time to respond to Sun inquiry

New H-1B hiring bill takes aim at tech firms

Former DHS cybersecurity chief points finger at Congress

Chinese authors turn up heat on Google over book scanning

FTC: Online check-writing service not authenticating users

Verizon launches electric grid reliability consulting

Tech workers take H-1B case to Supreme Court

FCC identifies roadblocks to broadband adoption

IPhone cleared for sale by South Korean regulator

More Legislation/Regulation Stories

Chrome shines, Gore opines, staffs decline
Google's Chrome OS captured a lot of headlines and hype this week after the company invited the media in to have a look-see, setting off a whole lot of opinions about whether it will be any good. Microsoft, predictably, doesn't think so. Otherwise, Al Gore offered his opinion on the role supercomputers can play to quell climate change, and for the first time we can recollect there were not one, but two, cat-related IT stories that caught our attention.

AMD and Intel patch things up, HP buys 3Com
We had a blockbuster deal this week, with Hewlett-Packard saying it plans to buy 3Com, and a blockbuster settlement, with Advanced Micro Devices and Intel ending a long-running legal dispute. By midnight tonight, Google, the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers are supposed to file a revised book-search settlement proposal, which could add to our top stories list for the week. For now, though, what follows are our top IT headlines of the moment.

iPhone security problems bring new risks
In just four days, not one but two worms targeting the iPhone have emerged. Both of the worms target the same vulnerability, a default password in the SSH server that is installed on jail-broken iPhones. While one worm is a mostly a nuisance, the second siphons personal information from the iPhone, which makes it a serious identity theft threat.

Finding Your Photos Online
Recently, a friend of mine congratulated me for selling one of my wildlife photos. When I asked him what he meant, he sent me a link to a site that was prominently using a shot I had taken of some wolves. The problem? I had never given the site owners permission to use my photo, which they had "borrowed" from my Flickr page. I asked them to remove the photo, and they did--but not everyone out there is so reasonable. You can watermark your photos to prevent this sort of thing from happening. But is there any way to find your photos online to see they're being used inappropriately?

PeerBlock Helps You Surf the Web in Secret
They're lurking out there--sleazy spyware companies, unscrupulous advertisers, and just people you don't want looking at what your computer is doing. PeerBlock (free), an open source program, offers part of a solution--low level blocking of packets coming from, or going to, a long list of hosts.

Microsoft rivals, consumer groups want browser offer changed
Microsoft's antitrust settlement offer to the European Commission needs minor, often cosmetic changes in order to restore fair competition to the market for Internet browsers, said some of the software giant's main rivals Thursday.

Microsoft rivals, trade groups want browser offer changed
Microsoft's antitrust settlement offer to the European Commission needs minor, often cosmetic changes in order to restore fair competition to the market for Internet browsers, said some of the software giant's main rivals Thursday.

Follow the money: States scramble to track federal stimulus bucks
State IT organizations are hustling to whip up new processes and tools to accurately track and account for their states' shares of the $787 billion stimulus pie.

Droid and Android, ICANN votes, Win 7 residue
The world got another smartphone this week with Motorola's Droid, available from Verizon. Google rolled out Android 2.0 as well. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers finally voted to allow non-Latin characters in domain names, and Windows 7 news continued apace, among other things. So read on and Happy Halloween everyone (see number 10).

EFF launches 'Takedown Hall of Shame'
The Electronic Frontier Foundation last week aimed a historically potent weapon -- the spotlight of public shame -- at those corporations and individuals who abuse copyright claims to stifle free speech.

Editors' Picks

Getting to know Windows 7? Don't stop now: From speeding up taskbar thumbnails to reining in UAC, here are 20 ways to make Windows 7 act the way you want. Is Motorola's new Droid good enough to vanquish iPhone envy? To find out, we took it on a 3-day trip. Sure, you could always use Linux as a desktop OS, but Corel Linux 1.0 was the first distro designed for ordinary users. It's been a long, strange trip since then. New touch-screen laptops from Fujitsu, HP and Lenovo take advantage of Microsoft Windows 7's touch-friendly infrastructure.

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General Mills, Genentech, San Diego Gas & Electric, University of Pennsylvania and Monsanto top the list.

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