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The total cost of ownership (TCO) of Microsoft Windows for network administrators is widely acknowledged to exceed that of Unix-based systems, such as Linux and Solaris. System administrators with experience in multiple operating systems often recognize that Linux is less expensive to maintain, over the lifetime of the information system.

National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) physicists have demonstrated a version of quantum computer memory that lasts longer than 10 seconds, more than 100,000 times longer than previous experiments with charged atoms (ions). These experiments pave the way for reliable quantum computers that will not be harnessed to the limitations of transistors and silicon-based hardware.

Light always travels at 186,000 miles per second (300 Million meters per second) in a vacuum. Well, almost always. A team of scientists at the Ecole Polytechnique F|AMP|eacute;d|AMP|eacute;rale de Lausanne (EPFL) has been able to control the speed of light, both decreasing and increasing it using off-the-shelf instruments under normal working conditions.

Well written and accessible electronic texts are the holy grail of the digital classroom, and now, an otherwise traditional public school in Tucson, Arizona, Empire High School, has issued Apple iBooks to each of its 340 students, making the notebooks a core component of the academic environment. Students will have access to electronic text books, rather than printed texts.

Commercial internet wi-fi hotspots are popping up in coffee shops and bookstores around the country. Most universities and many public libraries offer free wi-fi service. A quick drive though any but the most downtrodden neighborhoods yields signals from at least a small percentage of the residences. With wi-fi being as popular as it is, why is it that wi-fi infrastructure isn’t as well developed as cellular telephone service? Why hasn’t someone made wi-fi even more accessible?

The U.S. Copyright Office is soliciting opinions, through August 22d, about it’s planned website upgrade that will require the use of Microsoft Internet Explorer, effectively banning most technically-advanced users and all Linux and open-source advocates from its service.

The SANS Institute reports that 422 new vulnerabilities were discovered in the second quarter of 2005. This is an 11 percent increase over the previous quarter. The increase in the number of security vulnerabilities stems from malicious crackers changing focus from attacking operating systems to webbrowser and other connected applications, such as digital music applications.

D-Wave Systems, a Vancouver-based computer engineering firm has announced it’s schedule to build a working quantum computer that will be able to solve physical-simulation problems that currently aren’t solvable using available processing tools. The computer is to be ready within three years. While most designs for quantum computers focus on the properties of quantum entanglement to calculate binary functions, the D-Wave system will use quantum tunneling, which enables particles to hop from one location to another without traversing the intervening space.

Microsoft Corp. is urging Windows XP users to uninstall the new Netscape 8 webbrowser because it can conflict with Microsoft Internet Explorer. Not surprisingly, Microsoft is claiming that the problem is with Netscape, rather than their own browser that invades the operating system like kudzu.

Nokia announced that its is developing a portable Internet device based on the open-source Linux operating system. Designed to take advantage of the wide distribution of accessible Wi-Fi networks, the Nokia 770 Internet Tablet features a widescreen display and an on-screen keyboard, a la a PDA on steroids. The device will also be able to connect to Bluetooth-enabled mobile phones as an alternative network connection source.

Seoul-based Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. announced that it has developed a Solid State Disk (SSD) with a capacity of up to 16GB. Using two NAND-based modules, the SSD is a low power, lightweight storage media for notebook PCs and, eventually, consumer electronic devices.

The Stanford Linear Accelerator Center has used a particle accelerator to create a highly-focused X-ray generator that is able to display hidden text that was authored by Archimedes, the Greek mathematician-scientist who was born in Syracuse in 287 BC.

Hyper-Threading technology, built into some Intel Pentium 4 central processing unit (CPU) microprocessors can be exploited by crackers and allow access to security keys. A description of the timing attack was presented Friday by a Colin Percival, a computer science researcher, at the BSDCan 2005 conference. Intel’s Hyper-Threading (HT) algorithm enables Pentium CPUs to maximize the efficiency of the processing system. According to Intel’s website, with HT technology “desktop users can experience greater system responsiveness and performance when multitasking. At home, users can encode audio and video at the same time, or run a virus scan in the background while continuing to play their favorite game. In the office, HT Technology enables IT managers to deploy PC services such as encryption, compression or backup technologies while minimizing the impact on PC user productivity. In addition, multitasking business workers can experience greater system responsiveness, enabling increased productivity. In summary, the Pentium 4 processor supporting HT Technology delivers a new level of performance and PC responsiveness for consumers and business professionals.”

The American Council of Mayors and Urban Managers voted Friday to lobby the U.S. Congress in support of pending legislation that will render illegal 802.11b/g Wi-Fi networks, paving the way for widespread development of the much faster 802.16 WiMAX networking protocol.

Digital Rights Management (DRM) is a tool that doesn’t reflect the general preference of legal music downloaders. Before you read on, hoping that I will advocate for the free distribution of music, let me warn you: I’m a strong supporter of copyright and the protection of intellectual property; I want artists and distributors to make a decent living, but I’m frustrated by the current misuse of digital technology that attempts to thwart illegal distribution. In practice, DRM makes creates compatibility problems that make it excessively difficult, and in most cases, impossible, to listen to music that has been purchased online.

The Globus Consortium, founded by Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Intel, and Sun Microsystems, announced today plans to design and market commercial grid-computing software applications. The consortium will promote technical standards to make grid computing a viable option for businesses. With a quarter million dollar investment from each company, the organization is sufficiently funded to begin operations. Other contributing participants include Nortel Networks, Univa Corp., and private individuals.

The U.S. Navy is developing a service-wide policy regarding the acceptable use of information technology. The policy will affect approximately 900,000 users, including Navy and Marine Corp service members, civilian employees, and contractors. The policy, which is scheduled to be effective during the first quarter of 2005, is designed to guide users and personnel managers in applying consistent rules of operation. The policy will affect all IT devices, including desktops, notebooks, handhelds, cell phones, and fax machines.

Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) and International Business Machines (IBM) announced, today, their joint development of an innovative high-speed computer chip that will boost transistor speed by 24 percent, improving the performance and reducing the power consumption of chips used in many products.

The City of Philadelphia has concluded negotiations with Verizon Communications, and will move forward with plans to develop a metropolitan Wi-Fi network, even though a new Pennsylvania law allows telecommunication carriers from blocking such projects.

Sales of network servers running the open-source Linux operating system are topped $1 billion last fiscal quarter, according to International Data Corporation (IDC), a market research and analysis firm.