Credit Woes and IPOs
A vibrant IPO pipeline is brimming with new registrations, according to a report, but analysts say that turmoil in the credit markets could squeeze the flow of new deals. A new Ernst & Young U.S. IPO Pipeline Report found that 108 companies had registered for initial public offerings worth $22.7 billion as of July 31. But the IPO market could be challenged by a gathering storm in the credit markets that sent the Nasdaq Composite reeling to a loss of 2.16% Thursday followed by a .45% decline on Friday.The report listed: three telecommunications companies seeking to raise a total of $325 million; four biotechnology companies, $2.4 billion; 19 pharmaceutical companies, $2.7 billion, and 20 technology companies, $3 billion. Of the filers, 12 of the pharmaceutical companies and 15 of the technology companies were backed by venture capital. The biggest IPO on deck is a $2 billion deal filed by Cosan Ltd., a Brazilian sugarcane grower and processor. In the second quarter, 59 U.S. IPOs raised $15.7 billion. A credit crunch reduces marginal spending by consumers and businesses as credit card companies, banks and other lenders tighten terms.

Microsoft tests ‘dashboard’ view for Web services
Microsoft has started testing a new dashboard interface, to bring together its various Windows Live online services in one place. The service lets Windows Live users sign onto home.live.com and quickly scan for new e-mails, blog postings from friends, contact updates or try out other Microsoft services such as online antivirus and spyware scans. The world's largest software company aims to create a large and engaged audience in order to compete against Web rivals Yahoo and Google for tens of billions of dollars in online advertising. The company has attracted more than 300 million Windows Live users, who frequently log in to check e-mail and instant messages. Microsoft is hoping the dashboard view will encourage email and IM users to start using its less popular services, such as Windows Live Spaces, its blog and picture-sharing site, and send a notice to anyone on their instant messaging contact list.

Google Pack gets free Star Office
Google has included Sun's Star Office amongst its free recommended software packages. Star Office 8, which is flogged by Sun for $70, is apparently available for free in Google Pack. We say apparently, because Google Pack only works in Windows and since I don't, I can't check it. However the "fully featured" office suite that contains a word processor, a spreadsheet tool, applications for presentations, databases, math formulas and drawing is actually listed in the Google pack here. While it would have made sense for Google to run the free Open Sauce version of StarOffice, OpenOffice.org, it is strange that the search engine outfit opted for its paid for cousin. The only difference between the two flavours of software is some proprietary add-ons like clip-art graphics, a few fonts, templates and tools for Microsoft Office migration. Most people can probably live without them and the cost a bit for Google to provide free, unless this is one of those deals between Sun and the search engine that did not cost it anything.

Google shuts down video service
Google is shutting down its premium video service, leaving users who have bought or rented content unable to view their videos in the future. In an e-mail to users the web giant said that money spent on videos would not be refunded. Customers are being offered fixed credit on the firm's online payment system, Google Checkout, instead. The move comes nine months after Google paid $1.65bn for online site You Tube, which also sells some video. Google started selling video content on its video site in January last year, offering programs such as Survivor, CSI and Star Trek for about $1.99. Google said users would be offered a Google Checkout credit of $5, which would expire within 60 days.

Breakthrough in Graphics Processing
US computer scientists have developed a technique that allows the generation of highly complex images like smoke-filled bars and smog-choked cityscapes without the computational drag and slow speeds that have dogged previous computer graphics methods. Currently rendering realistic computer generated images with smoke, fog, clouds or other 'participating media' (some of the light is actually absorbed or reflected by the material, thus the term 'participating') generally requires computational 'heavy lifting', lots of processor time, or both. With the scientists’ new approach, when smoke, clouds, fog or other participating media vary smoothly across a scene, the lighting is computed accurately at a small set of locations and then this information is used to interpolate the lighting at nearby points. This approach, which is an extension of 'irradiance caching', cuts the number of computations along the line of sight that need to be done to render an image.

Yet another Toshiba battery recall
Toshiba has been forced to issue yet another battery recall due to safety fears, its fourth in barely a year. The recall, issued through the US Consumer Product Safety Commission, recalls some of Toshiba's Satellite A100, Satellite A105 and Tecra A7 ranges that are powered by batteries manufactured by Sony. Some 1,400 laptops are thought to be affected. "Over a relatively short period, certain incidents occurred where certain battery packs installed in Toshiba portable computers caught fire," said the company in a statement.

Are ATMs punching holes in customer confidence?
One in three bank customers would switch their account based on the condition of the bank's ATM network, research claims. According to a study sponsored by ATM software company Level Four, 38% of the 1,000 respondents said they would consider jumping ship if too many of their bank's hole-in-the-wall machines were either out of order or out of cash. Get the latest financial services news straight to your inbox. The reaction is more marked when the respondents are broken down by age, with 43% of bank customers aged between 18 and 24 more likely to consider switching - while 51% of respondents aged over 65 would not consider it The researchers said a greater willingness for younger customers to switch their bank if they are not satisfied with self-service facilities should worry banks, which traditionally try to sign up customers when they are young.

Veoh files pre-emptive copyright lawsuit
Video sharing site Veoh Networks has filed a pre-emptive lawsuit against Universal Music Group (UMG), requesting that the courts prevent UMG from suing it for copyright infringement. Veoh has copyright infringing material aplenty on its site, but argues that it's entitled to "safe harbour" provisions because it doesn't encourage infringement (although it hardly needs to) and it helps monitor infringement (but not very well). UMG, the world's biggest record company, struck a deal with Google's YouTube service last year after first threatening to sue it. Google has said YouTube will introduce software that identifies copyright infringement next month. AT&T has vowed to fight infringement too, using deep packet inspection to root out P2P sharers. All are moves which weaken the "safe harbour" defence - hence Veoh's desire to see the principle (which doesn't really apply in many jurisdictions outside the US) strengthened.

Court Ruling Gives Novell Copyright in Unix System
A federal court in Utah ruled that Novell Inc., not SCO Group Inc., is the rightful owner of the copyright in the Unix operating system. The ruling is a boon to the "open source" software movement and to Linux, the freely available computer operating system that has become an alternative to Microsoft Corp.'s Windows operating system. The ruling will harm SCO's efforts to claim money from installations of Linux. The decision also will aid a Novell ally, International Business Machines, which has been defending a separate suit from SCO over Linux. Novell senior vice president and general counsel Joe LaSala said, "The court's ruling has cut out the core of SCO's case and, as a result, eliminates SCO's threat to the Linux community based upon allegations of copyright infringement of Unix." He added, "We are extremely pleased with the outcome." In 2003, SCO announced that it had determined that Linux was an illegal knockoff of Unix, an operating system originally developed by AT&T in the 1970s, and which it claimed to have purchased from Novell in 1995. At that time, SCO filed its lawsuit against IBM, claiming that IBM had unfairly taken part of the Unix code and contributed it to the community of programmers who develop Linux. SCO also sought to charge $700 for every computer that ran Linux, which would have made Linux more expensive than SCO's own UnixWare operating system. Several Unix-based operating systems, including SCO's UnixWare, have been hard-hit by the availability of a free Linux. But SCO merely licensed Unix from Novell, the court ruled, in a 102-page opinion by U.S. District Judge Dale A. Kimball. The company never purchased the copyright to Unix, the judge ruled, meaning SCO probably can't sue Linux users or IBM for copyright infringement. The judge also said Novell had the authority to force SCO to waive its claims against IBM. SCO has alleged that IBM engineers who had once worked on a joint project with a SCO predecessor improperly used knowledge they gained in later contributions to Linux.

UN's website breached by hackers
Hackers have attacked the United Nations official website, forcing some sections to be taken offline. Slogans accusing the US and Israel of killing children appeared on the pages reserved for statements from UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon. Other pages on the site were also breached by the group, who described their actions as a "cyberprotest". In other attacks by hackers using the same names, they have claimed to be from Turkey. The message on the UN site said: "Hey Ysrail and Usa dont kill children and other people Peace for ever No war." The hackers named themselves as "kerem125", "Gsy" and "M0sted". Groups using the same names have attacked many websites. In one message left on a travel agency site, they described themselves as "Turkish defacers". The UN was forced to take down the affected pages for repair, but later managed to restore the secretary general's statements.

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