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IBM moves for bioscience searches
IBM and a Norwegian company are teaming up to work on search products geared to the life sciences industry, a market that is becoming more and more lucrative for technology developers.
Oslo-based Fast Search & Transfer said that the two companies will look to integrate Fast’s data search technology with Big Blue’s products for bioscience customers in Europe and North America. The combined technology aims to help life sciences professionals track down information more quickly by providing a single point of access to massive amounts of data in internal systems and in external databases, in a disparate range of storage formats.
“We expect this partnership to help improve the discovery process for those in the life sciences sector who require real-time access to scientific information that is highly relevant to their research needs,” Martin Stoddart, a senior marketing manager in IBM’s Life Science Discovery Solutions unit, said in a statement.
The life sciences industry, which includes pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, is seen as a fertile field for technology vendors, as spending in the niche is stimulated by a growth in research archives and a push to discover new drugs quickly and efficiently.
IBM formed its life sciences business unit “DiscoveryLink,” in August 2000, shortly after the draft mapping of the human genome was announced.
Microsoft has released a test version of the second major update to its WinXP OS.
The beta version of Service Pack 2 for WinXP is available now for download through BetaPlace, Microsoft’s site for registered beta testers. Microsoft is expected to offer it later through the download section of its MSDN developer site and on CD.
As previously reported, changes in SP2 are focused on security. The update includes a reworked firewall component, now dubbed Windows Firewall, that will be turned on by default to protect PCs from outside threats.
SP2 also turns off the Windows Messenger service by default. Spammers have latched onto Windows Messenger, which is supposed to be primarily used by systems staff to send administrative messages to computers on a network, as a way to deliver unsolicited pop-up ads. In addition, the update tweaks the Internet Explorer Web browser to block pop-up ads on websites and to prevent inadvertent downloads of software.
It also provides more support for wireless networking and for short-range Bluetooth wireless connections, along with a new version of Microsoft’s DirectX graphics library. Microsoft has said it expects to have a final version of SP2 ready by mid-2004 for all Windows XP users.
The Open Source Development Labs officially announced that the Linux 2.6 production kernel is complete.
After a three-year effort, the kernel Thursday was signed off by Linus creator and OSDL Fellow Linus Torvalds and kernel maintainer Andrew Morton.
Linux 2.6 kernel is available at
The last version of the kernel, Linux 2.4, was released in January 2001. Torvalds released the original Linux kernel in September 1991.
The Linux 2.6 kernel offers many performance improvements, including scalability to 64-CPU system threading, additional memory support, enhanced disk drive, storage and embedded chip support, and desktop improvements for sound, USB and FireWire, the OSDL noted.
The improved Linux 2.6 kernel is designed to enhance use of the open-source operating system in embedded systems, desktop PCs and telecommunications applications, the Open Source Development Labs said.
A website that published a third-party patch to fix a security hole in Microsoft’s Internet Explorer has had to reissue the patch, after the original was found to be flawed.
Openwares.org published the second patch last Saturday, after the first was found to contain a buffer overflow exploit.
This exploit, which allowed an attacker to take control of the patched PC, might have been far more damaging than the flaw the patch aimed to fix.
Openwares’ administrator said: “The new version has been rewritten and tested by dozens of users who helped out. If you’re unsure, look at the new source code for yourself.”
Microsoft has not so far released a fix for the IE problem. — Dawn ScienceDotcom Report
