Infrastructure

Apple Computer Inc. is recalling 1.8 million lithium-ion laptop batteries, following incidents where nine of its notebooks overheated causing minor burns in two users.

Blanket bans on mp3s and USB sticks in response to perceived security threats have silenced cubicles in many Canadian offices. But at least one Canadian security consultant believes just blackballing these devices can do more harm.

BEA Systems Inc. said it was buying metadata repository vendor Flashline Inc. of Cleveland, Ohio, for an undisclosed sum. Flashline brings a set of capabilities that will allow BEA to bring assets together not just at the service interface, but also the policies critical to managing those assets.

Intel Corp. says its soon-to-be-released virtual intrusion protection system (IPS) protects enterprise desktops by keeping bugs and viruses at bay even when the computer is powered off.

Today

With the proposed East Africa Submarine cable system (EASSy) fiber cable coming on stream in 2008, and the steady roll-out of national backbone and cross-border links, it might be expected that the proportion of African traffic carried by fiber would increase very quickly. This appears unlikely to happen within the next three to five years, according to a recent report from consultancy company, Balancing Act.

As much of Canada suffers through a scorching summer and as increased power consumption strains hydro grids, the odds of a brownout or a blackout are increasing, and IT managers would be wise to get ready, just in case.

Like the notion of soup to nuts, virtualization is a technology term that encompasses everything from servers and storage to applications and operating systems. While the concepts have been employed in the mainframe and Unix space, companies are bringing the technology to the x86 and Windows worlds in a big way.