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Featuring the new processor based on the Intel XScale microarchitecture at 400MHz, Toshiba's next-generation PDA will deliver improved performance and significant power savings to handle the most demanding productivity and multimedia applications. With integrated wireless functionality and dual expansion slots, customers will experience seamless communication and increased mobility, without adding weight or increasing the size of the handheld device.

Microsoft next Tuesday will announce an application that will let manufacturers using its Pocket PC 2002 operating system add wireless access for data and voice calls to their upcoming devices. The announcement will be made in Cannes, France, and the application will be called Microsoft Phone Edition, sources said. The software will allow handhelds to access data and make wireless voice calls. The first devices to support Phone Edition will run on GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) and GPRS (General Packet Radio Service) networks and will be a new class of devices from manufacturers supporting the Pocket PC OS.

"Phone Edition shows that Microsoft is thinking integration, and it's a good prelude to products that we'll see in the future," IDC analyst Kevin Burden said.

Thanks Rod for this story. Immersion, which develops technology that makes joysticks and video game pads vibrate and rumble, on Monday filed suit against Microsoft and Sony, claiming that elements of their video game consoles violate Immersion's patents.

The lawsuits in the computer industry are getting more and more ridicules. Because Sony's and Microsoft's joysticks work similarly, doesn't mean they are design (specification and schematics) are identical to Immersion's patents.

Macromedia said Monday that it will support Microsoft's .Net platform by making its products, including tools, servers and players, interoperable with the initiative. To that end, Macromedia said its Macromedia Dreamweaver UltraDev will be complementary to Visual Studio .Net, and that future versions of Macromedia Flash Player and ColdFusion will fully support the .Net framework. The next major release of Macromedia ColdFusion, code-named "Neo," will also interoperate with Microsoft .Net platform technologies through support for XML (Extensible Markup Language) Web services and Microsoft .Net servers. Microsoft's .Net initiative covers a range of technologies, but is basically designed to help software interoperate. It uses XML, a Web standard for online data exchange.

The "11 February 2002 Cumulative Patch for Internet Explorer" update eliminates all known security vulnerabilities affecting Internet Explorer 6, as well as six new vulnerabilities, and is discussed in Microsoft Security Bulletin MS02-005. Download now to protect your computer from these vulnerabilities, the most serious of which could allow an attacker to run code on your computer.

The nine state attorneys general still pressing an antitrust case against Microsoft Corp. told a federal judge on Monday she should bar more than a dozen last-minute witnesses Microsoft plans to call to argue against more severe sanctions against the company.

Attorneys for California, Connecticut, Massachusetts and six other states told U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly that Microsoft had used a "hide-the-ball" tactic by naming 23 new witnesses in the case on Friday, only hours before the deadline.

After what he describes as one of the best product launches in the company's history, Jim Allchin's star at Microsoft has never shined more brightly. As group vice president of Microsoft's Platforms Group, Allchin was ultimately responsible for shepherding Windows XP, the company's latest operating system, through to a successful completion last fall. Arguably the company's third most important executive behind Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer, Allchin, a soft-talking Southerner, can be excused for enjoying a moment of schadenfreude at the expense of critics who said XP's debut would fall far short of the hype.

But in the computer business, the XP launch was an eternity ago; these days Allchin is wrestling with the equally daunting challenge of helping transform Microsoft .Net and HailStorm from white-board sketches into commercially successful ventures. Also, there's the not-so-small matter of trying to bulletproof Microsoft software against security holes during a companywide code review, taking place during the month of February.

Today at DEMO 2002, Microsoft will unveil the beta version of MSN Money Professional, the first Microsoft .NET service for the financial industry. The subscription-based finance service is designed to help financial industry professionals better serve their customers through the flexibility and power of the Internet.

"Introducing MSN Money Professional at one of the most influential events in the technology industry is a great honor," said Erik Jorgensen, general manager for the Financial Products Group at Microsoft. "By presenting Advent's WealthLine solution, we're able to demonstrate how ISVs can utilize .NET services to facilitate more effective client communications in the finance industry."

Operating systems will become highly distributed and self-healing and will collaborate with applications. Imagine computers in a group providing disk storage for their users, transparently swapping files and optimizing their collective performance, all with no central administration. But the machines providing this pool of virtual storage dare not trust one another completely. Indeed, a hacker takes over one of them and ruthlessly begins attacking others in the group. But not to worry. Thanks to an experimental operating system technology called Byzantine fault-tolerant protocols, users and their data are protected.

Both sides in the Microsoft antitrust case presented their arguments to Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly last week in anticipation of what will probably be an ugly court battle that's set to begin March 11. The District of Columbia and nine US states that still oppose the Microsoft and Department of Justice (DOJ) proposed settlement say that their goal is to prevent a "Microsoft-controlled world." Microsoft, meanwhile, says that the sweeping restrictions the states seek will harm "software developers, hardware vendors, and consumers."