Compaq Computer Corp. has pulled its iPaq Home Internet Appliances from its line-up after slightly more than a year on the market, the company said recently.
The company said it has sold out of its current inventory of both the IA-1 and IA-2, and will not manufacture more until it redesigns the devices. “We will launch a refresh of this platform later this year,” said Compaq spokesman Roger Frizzell. “We’re looking at different features and different price points.” While sales have faltered, Compaq believes there will be a market for the redesigned devices. “The category should survive, we believe there is a market for it,” Frizzell said.
Sun says Kodak suing over Java technology
Eastman Kodak Co. has filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Sun Microsystems Inc. over its Java programming technology, Sun said.
The lawsuit apparently came after several months of talks between the two companies. “Based on discussions over many months with Kodak, Sun believes that this suit is without merit and, accordingly, will defend itself vigorously and is confident that it will prevail,” Sun said. A Kodak spokesman confirmed the suit, saying that it involved infringement of three Java patents that were issued in the mid-1990s. The spokesman couldn’t give any further details of the suit, but did say that the two companies had been in communication over the issue for more than two years before Kodak took its claims to court
W3C blesses XML security protocol
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) put its stamp of approval on XML Signature, a key protocol for securing Web services. The protocol is the foundation for two other security protocols, XML Key Management and XML Encryption, both of which are still under development.
Security is a nagging issue in enterprise adoption of Web services. The XML Signature protocol allows data integrity and authentication mechanisms to be applied to XML files, which is key for e-commerce transactions. The protocol is the work of the first joint working group of the W3C and the Internet Engineering Task Force.
