Top technology news headlines

• 

  Bill Gates offers lesson
  in physics to the world

  Microsoft's chairman talks about why he spent his own money to make a series of classic physics lectures available free on the Web. He also touches on Project Natal, Google's Chrome OS and more.
  • Gates on Google's Chrome OS
  • Natal to bring gesture recognition to Windows

  Read full story
• 

  Studying how fire works in order to battle it

  road trip A visit to the U.S. Forest Service's Missoula, Mont., Smokejumpers center and its FireLab program shows how the government battles and studies fire.
  • Photos: Preparing to fight fires

  Read full story

• Zero-day flaw found in Firefox 3.5

  The critical vulnerability in the two-week-old version of the browser opens users up to drive-by attacks, Mozilla has warned.

  (Posted in Security by Tom Espiner)

• Microsoft, Verizon rate low among IT pros

  Customer satisfaction with both companies is low among tech professionals, according to a VendorRate report, while IBM's Informix ranks high.

  (Posted in Business Tech by Lance Whitney)

• MTV Networks details which video ads work best

  A survey tested effectiveness and consumer opinion of different video ad formats across MTVN's media properties. The winner? A five-second pre-roll with a short pop-up in mid-clip.

  (Posted in Digital Media by Caroline McCarthy)

• Embedded Linux company boasts 1-second boot

  MontaVista demonstrates a vehicle dashboard system going from cold boot to "fully operational" in one second. The time may not translate into a desktop OS, though.

  (Posted in Business Tech by Victoria Ho)

• State Dept. to Clinton: Please let us use Firefox

  The Department of State wants to use the Mozilla browser, but support costs may get in the way. Is Firefox easier and more cost-effective to support than IE?

  (Posted in The Open Road by Matt Asay)

• End of an era for Office 2000

  With Office 2010 just around the corner, Microsoft finally ends support for the version that, in 1999, it said "unleashes the power of the Web work style."

  (Posted in Microsoft by David Meyer)

• Google Voice coming to Android, BlackBerry

  iPhone users will have to wait, but those on Android and BlackBerry devices will now be able make Google Voice calls directly from the handsets with two new mobile apps.

  (Posted in Webware by Tom Krazit)

• Adobe: Lightroom slows photo export on purpose

  Why does it take Lightroom less time to export three batches of 100 photos than one batch of 300? So you can do something else while it's at work.

  (Posted in Underexposed by Stephen Shankland)

• Hiccups in Dell's Windows 7 upgrade program

  Some customers who recently bought PCs at retail stores were unable to sign up for the free upgrade to Windows 7, but Dell says it's now resolved.

  (Posted in Business Tech by Erica Ogg)

• Intel posts loss on EU fine, but upbeat on rest of '09

  Intel lost $398 million because of an EU fine, but the chipmaker is optimistic about the second half of the year.

  (Posted in Nanotech - The Circuits Blog by Brooke Crothers)

• GE: Smart grid yields net-zero energy home

  At its research labs, GE says it has the smart-grid technology, including solar panels and efficient appliances, to build a home that has a net-zero energy consumption.

  (Posted in Green Tech by Martin LaMonica)

• 2009 to be PC industry's worst since dot-com bust

  This year is expected to be the first time since 2001 that PC shipments will decline compared with the previous year, according to iSuppli projections.

  (Posted in Business Tech by Erica Ogg)

• Microsoft plugs critical holes

  Latest Patch Tuesday updates plug nine holes in Windows, Office, ISA, Virtual PC, and Virtual Server, including several holes that have been targeted in attacks.

  (Posted in InSecurity Complex by Elinor Mills)
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