Ryan Naraine

A technology research think-thank believes increased government spending by the newly-formed Department of Homeland Security will push growth in the biometric sector in the second half of 2003. Oyster Bay, N.Y.-based research firm Allied Business Intelligence (ABI) said the use of biometrics — authentication technology that uses biological characteristics — by government agencies like the […]

Months after losing out on a whopping $1.7 billion FAA contract for telecommunications services, WorldCom announced a 10-year deal to provide IP and ATM services to the U.S. State Department. The contract is valued in the range of $360 million. The Clinton, Miss.-based WorldCom, which also has GSA deal in place said the newest contract […]

Internet security consultants Foundstone Research Labs has issued a ‘critical’ warning that the popular MP3 and WMA digital music formats can be used to attack users of Windows XP and Nullsoft’s Winamp because of buffer overflow vulnerabilities in the way those file formats are handled. Microsoft confirmed the hole in its 72nd security bulletin and […]

Microsoft’s eagerly-anticipated entry into the mid-market CRM market has hit a speed bump with technical hiccups pushing back its release to resellers. Microsoft is still on track to send a release candidate of the CRM suite to manufacturers before December 31 but difficulties with front-end and back-end integration mean wider distribution to OEMs and resellers […]

Norway-based Web browser upstart Opera has added a slew of power-browsing features in the latest beta of its flagship product, including a one-click password manager and a fast-forward browsing utility. Opera, which is rebranding itself as “The Best Internet Experience,” said Wednesday that changes in the 7.0b2 for Windows beta were aimed at speeding up […]

A San Jose, California jury on Tuesday cleared software firm ElcomSoft of charges it violated the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) with its program that cracks the copyright protections in Adobe Systems eBooks. The landmark decision, which comes after a week of deliberations, clears ElcomSoft of five counts of criminal violations of the controversial DMCA […]

The Gallup Organization is putting its 62-year old “brain” online. For a price. Looking to cash in on a growing market for polling and stats-based editorial services, the Washington D.C.-based Gallup plans to roll out a $95-per-year “Tuesday Briefing” service providing weekly summaries and analyses of its latest proprietary poll findings. The Tuesday Briefing premium […]

Microsoft’s ambitious aim to turn Windows XP into a full-fledged digital entertainment system took another step forward Tuesday when the company unveiled the Microsoft Plus Digital Media Edition and final versions of the popular MovieMaker and Windows Media Player (WMP) software. The Redmond, Wash.-based software giant announced the Plus Digital Media Edition would hit stores […]

The CERT Coordination Center has issued a warning that vulnerabilities in multiple implementations of SSH could allow hackers to execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the secure SSH process or cause a denial of service. A CERT/CC security alert said implementations of the SSH transport layer protocol contained vulnerabilities that affect SSH clients and […]

Reston, Va.-based Nextel Communications on Monday announced a $200 million deal with the U.S. General Services Administration to provide emergency wireless services to all federal agencies. Nextel, known for its two-way walkie-talkie devices that double as a cell phone, said the latest deal would also extend to wireless communications for state and local agencies that […]

Text mining technology from New York-based ClearForest is at the heart of a second multinational war games experiment being run by the U.S Joint Forces Command and defense officials from Australian, Britain, Canada and Germany. The Joint Forces plan to use the ClearResearch software analysis tool to displays relationships between key facts buried in separate […]

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) plans to add “a limited number” of new Top Level Domains (TLDs) into the Web address pool but early indications are the sponsored domains will be created only for specific community groups and won’t be freely available to the public. ICANN, a non-profit group that controls […]