NEWS IN BRIEF
Daily Digest 9 April
09-04-2009
by Emmet Cole
Microsoft loses major patent case | Conficker starts to flicker
A federal court in Rhode Island has ordered Microsoft to pay USD388 million in damages for infringing a patent held by anti-piracy software maker Uniloc. The jury found that Microsoft infringed Uniloc's patent on software that generates unique identities for licensed users and prevents unauthorised use or copying of software. Uniloc USA and its Singapore-based parent originally filed their suit against Microsoft in 2003. The jury trial started in March and has resulted in one of the largest fines ever imposed in a patent law dispute. Microsoft plans to appeal.
The Conficker worm and its variants have started updating infected machines with unknown data, according to computer security firms monitoring the malicious software. Originally expected to cause maximum damage on 1 April, the worm instead sprang into action on Wednesday, and has begun delivering encrypted software to compromised machines. It is not known what is contained in the mysterious data package. The Conficker worm and its variants are thought to have infected millions of PCs worldwide.
ComReg has ruled that Colt Telecom Ireland's request for uncontended wholesale Ethernet access is a reasonable request and that Eircom has an obligation to meet the request. Colt's request for aggregation was also judged to be reasonable, meaning that Eircom will now have to provide Colt with a product to meet its access request "and the associated facility of aggregation".
The NovaUCD 2009 Campus Company Development Programme (CCDP), has been launched. The 2009 programme involves 16 new high-tech and knowledge-intensive business ventures. The CCDP is a nine-month, part-time programme offering a mix of monthly workshops, mentoring and one-to-one consultancy. It is delivered by NovaUCD staff, with support from the NovaUCD sponsors, Enterprise Ireland and other outside experts. Participants have the opportunity to access NovaUCD's desk space and incubation facilities and associated services. Former participants include BiancaMed, Celtic Catalysts, ChangingWorlds, CRDS, Haptica and TopChem.
A business plan for an internet car brokerage service -- CarZii.ie -- has scooped the top award (and EUR3,000) at the inaugural Student Synergy Awards 08. The plan, developed by Institute of Technology Tallaght (ITT Dublin) students Simon Berry Byrne and Paul Connolly, envisages an intermediary brokerage service between car dealerships, garages and potential customers. The Student Synergy Awards 08 were organised by ITT Dublin and the South Dublin County Enterprise Board. The winning entries will now progress to Enterprise Ireland's National Student Enterprise Awards.
Accenture is to provide Carlsberg IT with management consulting, systems integration, application development, and application services across Europe under a three-year contract announced on Thursday. As part of the deal, Accenture will help Carlsberg IT implement SAP and Microsoft software installations over the next three to five years to replace old legacy systems. The financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.
Yahoo is expanding its partnerships with top US universities to advance cloud computing research, according to a statement from the company on Thursday. The University of California at Berkeley, Cornell University and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst will join Carnegie Mellon University in using Yahoo's cloud computing cluster to conduct large-scale systems software research and manage internet-scale data sets. The Yahoo cluster, also known as M45, has been operational since November 2007 and in use by Carnegie Mellon. The cluster has approximately 4,000 processor-cores and 1.5 petabytes of disks.
Caped Koala Studios has built a virtual world for kids, combining education and social networking 