Network World staff

Intel this week said it is offering as much as US$1 million in prizes to the PC designer and maker that builds the most stylish small computer optimized for multimedia use at home.

In a bizarre case being tried in Framingham, Mass., a 24-year-old man (Marlon Brando Gill) is being charged with first-degree assault for allegedly shoving the phone down a woman

University of Buffalo researchers say they have put their fingers on a way to improve security of wireless handheld devices and Web sites.

Heightened communication, standards, disaster recovery and virtualization are just a few of the areas IT managers are focused on as they chart their courses for the coming months. Purse strings are still tight, so products and services with big price tags are out. Instead, the themes in 2006 will be about increasing efficiency, tightening security and enhancing communication. This wish list for 2006 was compiled from discussions with more than a dozen IT managers:

Network-connected output devices are becoming an absolute primary target of people, foreign and domestic, who are penetrating networks

McAfee Inc. last month said it would open up its Plano, Texas, lab to intrusion-prevention system testing and training for customers and channel partners....

The company says it will release Notes 7.0 by mid-2005 and that customers will find a natural integration between Notes/Domino and Lotus Workplace, a collection of collaborative components that run on WebSphere, the DB2 database and Java 2 Platform Enterprise Edition (J2EE).

Speak freely; Price hike approved; Allstream plays host