Officials from the University of Minnesota recently informed regents that costs to upgrade the institution’s financial software have risen from an earlier estimate of $28.6 million to $45.7 million, an increase due in large part to additional functionality that the university requested. Grants and contracts, which make up one-quarter of the university’s operating budget, will […]

Results of the 2006 Teen Trend study indicate that U.S. teenagers spend more than 72 hours per week using electronic media, which includes the Internet, television, cell phones, video games, and music. The study, which is in its third year, was conducted by the Harrison Group and sponsored by VNU Business Media. Jim Taylor, vice […]

A federal grand jury has indicted Rafael G. Adame on nine counts of wire fraud in connection with what federal authorities said was a practice of defrauding the E-Rate program. Operated by the Universal Service Administrative Company (USAC) on behalf of the FCC, the E-Rate Program provides funds to extend Internet access to schools and […]

Microsoft is set to release a test version of its competitor to Google’s controversial book-scanning project. Unlike Google’s program, Microsoft’s Live Search Books, which goes online December 7, is only scanning out-of-copyright books or those whose copyright owners have given explicit permission. By contrast, Google is scanning in-copyright books, though only books out of copyright […]

According to spam-filtering company IronPort Systems, spam doubled from last year to this year, now representing more than 90 percent of all e-mail traffic. Much of the increase is attributable to image spam, which quadrupled over the same period of time and now accounts for between 25 and 45 percent of all spam. With image […]

Social networking site MySpace said it is developing tools that will compare data for its 135 million members to published lists of sex offenders. A total of 46 states publish such lists, which include 550,000 registered sex offenders. MySpace’s new tool will cross-reference names of users registered to use its site with names on those […]

The state of Washington has reached its first settlement under a new law designed to root out spyware schemes. The attorney general’s office had accused Secure Computer LLC of defrauding consumers by telling them their computers were infected with spyware and then selling them a tool to remove it. According to authorities who conducted an […]

A hacking attack on the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island, has disabled the institution’s site for more than two weeks. On November 16, officials at the college discovered the intrusion and took the network offline. Since then, staff have been investigating the incident, evaluating damage, and implementing stronger security measures. Doug Gabos, spokesperson […]

This time it was Jeaniene’s mom who suffered a heat attack. The doctors have determined that bypass surgery is not required.

The U.S. government has approved a deal under which VeriSign, which has operated the .com domain since 1999, will retain control of the domain until 2012. The proposal, drafted by VeriSign and the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), was presented to the U.S. Department of Commerce in March of this year. Since […]