Stories about: NICE

The market share of Microsoft's Internet Explorer (IE) dropped under the 70 percent mark last month for the first time since Web metrics vendor Net Applications started keeping tabs on browsers, the company said Monday.

The processor world has officially moved beyond quad-core.

Mozilla will try to squeeze more into Firefox 3.1, the company's chief engineer said today, in part as a reaction to rival browsers from Microsoft and Google.

The technology behind almost every electronics device in the world, the integrated circuit or IC, celebrated its 50th anniversary on Friday. Its enduring success is thanks in part to two "nice guys" who developed it, and their early efforts to convince an industry that at first reviled their idea.

Google's just-released Chrome takes the same approach to browser design that Google takes to its home page -- stripped-down, fast and functional, with very few bells and whistles.

The quad-core chips that have sat at the top of the microprocessor heap for two years are about to begin to be replaced by their bigger, burlier older brother - the 6-core processor.

When Gmail crashed last Monday, affecting many organizations that depend on it for work e-mail via the Google Apps suite, widespread gnashing of teeth ensued.

The obvious thought came to me while writing last week's column, that about the only folk (other than the deluded and amoral management of the SCO Group) that want the SCO Group effort attacking Linux and other open source initiatives to succeed is Microsoft. So I decided to explore that side in this follow-up column, but a bit of reading led me to the conclusion that things are not as simple as they appear.

Mobile executives at a Silicon Valley roundtable discussion threw down the gauntlet to Symbian, Android and other software platforms to match the impact of the iPhone.

Even the most casual observer of the linux-kernel mailing must have noticed that, in the shadow of the firmware flame war, there is also a heated discussion over the management of security issues. There have also been some attempts to turn this local battle into a multi-list, regional conflict. Finding the right way to deal with security problems is difficult for any project, and the kernel is no exception. Whether this discussion will lead to any changes remains to be seen, but it does at least provide a clear view of where the disagreements are.

Yahoo and Carl Icahn have apparently ended their public acrimony over the billionaire investor's proxy fight to replace the company's board of directors and its CEO Jerry Yang.