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Oracle and Novell certify their latest Linux offerings
Expanding their longtime partnership into the Linux arena, Oracle and Novell announced last week that Oracle’s latest database, clustering, application server, collaboration solutions and enterprise applications are now available for and supported on Novell’s SUSE LINUX Enterprise Server 9. Oracle Database 10g, Oracle Application Server 10g and Oracle Real Application Clusters, Oracle Collaboration Suite, and Oracle E-Business Suite 11i 10 have all been tested and certified for deployment on Suse Linux Enterprise Server 9.
“Oracle’s support of key products on Suse Linux Enterprise Server 9 marks another important step in providing choice to customers,” said Hal Bennett, vice-president of alliances at Novell. “Combining the power of Oracle with the 2.6 Linux kernel in Suse Linux makes for a compelling data centre option for enterprise customers.”
Oracle Database 10g running Suse Linux Enterprise Server 9 recently set the TPC-C World Record on non-clustered Linux, demonstrating that it meets the scalability and high performance requirements of enterprise environments.
Sunflower phone
Scientists in Amsterdam have come up with a cellphone cover that will turn into a sunflower when thrown away.
Materials company Pvaxx Research & Development, at the request of US-based mobile phone maker Motorola, has come up with a polymer that looks like any other plastic, but which degrades into soil when discarded.
Researchers at the University of Warwick in Britain then helped to develop a phone cover that contains a sunflower seed, which will feed on the nitrates that are formed when the polyvinylalcohol polymer cover turns to waste.
“It’s a totally biodegradable and non-toxic plastic,” said Pvaxx spokesman Peter Morris.
“This is the first product that we’ve made public. We’re working with blue chip companies and will introduce several products next year,” he said, adding it would be used in electronics, horticulture, ammunition and household cleaning.
The company’s new plastic, which was created over the past five years but was in development for longer, can be rigid or flexible in shape.
Motorola said it had not yet decided if it would introduce a model built with the new plastic, and that it would take until at least the second quarter of 2005 to get a commercial product.
Microsoft launches blog
With its release of a beta version of its first personal web-logging tool, Microsoft officially enters the blog-o-sphere — a term that means to bloggers roughly what cyberspace means to traditional web users.
MSN Spaces is being bundled with Microsoft’s release of version 7.0 of its MSN Messenger tool and the newest updates to MSN Hotmail.
“This is extending the meaning of what a blog is,” Yankee Group’s Patrick Mahoney told journalists last week. In the past, blogs have consisted primarily of a person’s (author, journalist, commentator) written entries.
Microsoft’s iteration, however, includes capabilities for uploading photograph albums and a variety of other personalization features not necessarily centered on the written word.
“MSN likes throwing things out there and seeing what sticks,” Mahoney explained. Microsoft likely will watch closely how consumers interact with the Spaces tool and then tailor it based on those observations, he predicted.
Many of the functions provided by MSN Spaces can be accessed other places online — there is a plethora of online photo album sites, for example. But bringing these tools together into a communication-oriented suite — along with instant-messaging capabilities and e-mail could be a very good strategic move, Mahoney said.
The question is whether or not mainstream consumers are ready to step into the blog-o-sphere. “It’s all about how you educate them to use a service like this,” he noted.
Security update released
Apple Computer released its December security update. The 12.7MB download consists of several updated components including Apache, AppKit, HIToolbox, Kerberos, Postfix, PSNormalizer, Safari and Terminal.
Several Apache modules were updated improving security for both client and servers version of Mac OS X. According to Apple, Apache mod_digest_apple authentication is vulnerable to replay attacks in Mac OS X Server. Corrections for the replay problem were made in versions 1.3.31 and 1.3.32 of Apache and have been included in this update.
For Mac OS X client and server, multiple vulnerabilities in Apache and mod_ssl including local privilege escalation, remote denial of service and in some modified configurations execution of arbitrary code. Apache and mod_ssl have been updated to fix this issue. — Sci-tech World Report
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