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For those wondering about Microsoft exec Stephen Elop’s suggestions that Office is coming to the iPhone, let me be unequivocal. It is.

How do I know? Microsoft has already said so. The software maker is planning over the coming months to introduce Web-based versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote. Those programs will run not only in Internet Explorer, but also in
Safari and
Firefox. And, lest there be any ambiguity, Microsoft has already confirmed that this means Office for
iPhone and Office for Linux.

For those who want to hear about Office for the iPhone straight from Microsoft’s mouth, here’s a video interview I did earlier this year with Office development chief Antoine Leblond.

Don’t get me wrong. Those are both big deals–particularly Office for Linux (think Netbooks and other Web appliances). It’s just that they weren’t new revelations, as some thought, on Wednesday.

Today, for kicks, I tried to draw a map of all the places I write content, all the places it is displayed, and all the intermediate services that re-post my content in places other than where I originally write it. It’s a spaghetti of interlinked services, and it’s becoming unmanageable. I think it’s just dumb luck that I haven’t created an infinite loop of republishing so far. Adding one more service could push things over the edge.

It gets worse. Each of the sites my content ends up on (partial list: Webware, News.com, ProPRTips, Swagalicio.us, Twitter, Friendfeed, Jaiku, Identi.ca, Pownce, Kwippy, Flickr, Delicious, Digg) has its own communities. And I never know where a conversation will take hold. Since I’m most active on Webware, Twitter, and Friendfeed, I check those services more frequently. Sometimes something I write will spark a conversation on one, sometimes another. There’s no telling. (By the way, Plurk gets a decent share of community action; every time I go there I think I should check in more frequently.) Disqus can do a lot of discussion bridging between blogs, but one thing it doesn’t do is bridge communities between the microblog sites.

It shouldn't be this complicated (click for full-size).

Or should I drop it all and just write e-mail newsletters instead?

The challenge is keeping track of all the connections between services. It’s a tangle, as I said: I have Friendfeed republishing my Twitter posts. Ping.fm, which I often use to post to Twitter (and thus, to Friendfeed), could just as easily publish to Friendfeed directly. I just happened to set up the Friendfeed-Twitter link before I started using Ping.fm. I have Ping.fm updating several other nanoblog feeds, like Jaiku, Pownce, and Plurk. Meanwhile, my Webware article feed (just my stories) is read into Friendfeed and directly by Jaiku. I do not feed Webware into Twitter directly; I use a republisher called Twitterfeed. I am also using Twitterfeed to republish my ProPRTips blog into Twitter, which is strategic, since I get more readers for that blog’s content on Twitter than the blog gets itself.

So this is my challenge to the Web 2.0 community: Solve the personal content and community problem. Take the multi-publishing chops of Ping.fm, the aggregation features of Friendfeed, the republishing capability of Twitterfeed (with more functions, please), and the discussion aggregation of Disqus, and put it all together into one simple, easy-to-maintain product that acts as a hub for publishing, reading, and community in all these services. And while you’re at it, make sure you don’t steal traffic or community from the services you’re front-ending; they all have personalities we want to keep alive.

Although my profession is creating content and publishing it, my problem is hardly unique. I post a few times a day on Webware and Twitter, and I contribute to some other blogs and podcasts, and once in awhile I update Delicious and Flickr. But compared with some people in non-publishing jobs my output is modest. There are people active on multiple personal content services like Facebook, Digg, Vox, Blogger, and Youtube that produce more content than I do, and they’re also using republishing services to make sure that all their friends, on all their networks, see all their content.

I am, so far, managing to keep most of these connections in my head, but I fear that if I sleep for more than nine hours I could forget how my network is put together. I could look at my sketch. But we really shouldn’t need network maps to keep track of what we’re doing where, should we?

Twhirl, a desktop client for Twitter and Friendfeed that I dearly love, updates only one site at a time, so I can use it to send Twitter posts to either my main Twitter account or other specialized accounts I occasionally write to. Friendfeed reads in only what I write in my main Twitter account, though. And since Twhirl does not update other services I use, like Jaiku and Plurk, when I use Twhirl I need to be mindful that some of my followers on these other networks aren’t going to see the posts.

(Credit:
Rafe Needleman / CNET)

Solid-state drives are generally faster than hard-disk drives, particularly at reading data, and have no moving parts, unlike hard disk drives.

These drives are especially valuable for database and data mining, virtual machine deployments, and financial transactions, according to Flynn.

(Credit:
Fusion-io)

“The ioDrive and ioDrive Duo are able to supply the extreme storage performance (for data centers) at a fraction of the power, cooling, and per unit-of-processing-power price compared to traditional solutions,” said David Flynn, chief technology officer of Fusion-io, in a statement.

This configuration allowed the engineers to achieve about 1 million IOPS, or input/output operations per second. By comparison, hard disk drives typically don’t excel at IOPS, achieving only a fraction of this level of data transfer speed, which makes solid-state drives appealing to large customers such as CitiBank and Bank of America. These kinds of companies need lots of IOPS for their financial transactions.

HP offers solid-state drive arrays as part of HP’s BladeSystem. The HP StorageWorks IO Accelerator is a flash-based storage adapter based on Fusion’s ioMemory technology. Each IO Accelerator card achieves more than 100,000 IOPS. A single HP BladeSystem server can accommodate two or three IO Accelerator cards.

Working together in HP’s ProLiant engineering labs in Houston, HP and Fusion-io built a system using five 320GB ioDrive Duos (see photo) and six 160GB ioDrives in a single HP ProLiant DL785 G5 server, running with four Quad-Core Opteron processors from Advanced Micro Devices, Fusion-io said.

Fusion-io ioDrive Duo

Fusion-io, the company that boasts Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak as its chief scientist, says it has achieved extremely high data transfer speeds on servers from Hewlett-Packard.

Just as Jobs has been deliberate about the business market, Research in Motion’s co-CEO Jim Balsillie is taking his time targeting consumers. The indirect hints about RIM coming after Apple make for tantalizing speculation. But the real spadework is taking place on RIM’s flank, where Balsillie is deepening the company’s alliances with enterprise partners. That’s why he’s at the Sapphire conference in Orlando, Fla., this week, talking up a deal to run SAP’s CRM application natively. Larry Dignan at our sister site ZDNet literally ran into Balsillie at the conference, where he pressed him about what’s next:

Now we’re witnessing a interesting confluence of events. Apple’s plying its consumer expertise to take the iPhone into the corporate marketplace. At the same time, Research in Motion is adopting the opposite tack with its product line. (RIM is reportedly working on an
iPhone killer although details are still sketchy.

(Credit:
Dan Farber/CNET News.com)

That network of relationships with enterprise vendors will come in handy if RIM decides to more directly confront Apple. When Jobs gives his WWDC keynote in early June, he is expected to unveil new iPhone models. Maybe he’ll also have more to say about any new friends he’s made in the corporate world.

Balsillie said one path would be to expand into adjacent SAP applications for direct store delivery, salesforce automation, and human resources. Another path would be to go after analytics and embedded business intelligence. Balsillie said he’s leaning toward the latter, but noted that “it’s just my opinion” and he would have to consult with developers, product managers and other key people inside RIM and SAP.

Jobs’ pursuit of the consumer assumed that computers would become media terminals in millions of homes. Not overnight, but over the course of years. It was a wise hunch. In the early part of the decade, the computer industry was at a point where home networking technologies were still limited and consumers were only then starting to move video content from Internet-connected devices to televisions in sizable numbers.

That’s not an interesting market, he said. Next question.

Steve Jobs: Consumers rule but how seriously is he thinking about Corporate America?

Of course, Jobs was entirely right. IT has since become a predictably cyclical business, while the real sizzle in tech turned out to be in the consumer space. Besides, Apple’s been able to win over increasing numbers of corporate converts without doing much–let alone paying for an expensive sales force to knock on corporate America’s doors. (Last year, its enterprise share grew threefold to 4.2 percent, according to Forrester. However, the uptake was largely confined to enthusiasts and small work groups.)

I once asked Steve Jobs why Apple was so indifferent toward corporate customers. At the time, big companies were in the beginning stages of one of their periodic PC upgrade cycles, leaving Dell virtually alone to clean up.

Times change and who knows? He may have concluded that it’s become a more “interesting” business.

So, didn’t it make sense to more aggressively pursue that business? Jobs froze me with one of those looks.

Silly me.

Hulu announced Tuesday that it now has more than 900 series and movie titles in its library from over 100 content providers. So in conjunction, the video hub–started as a joint venture between NBC Universal and News Corp.–has done some cleanup work.

Hulu now has a “Channels” option where you can sort through its programming by genre, from “comedy” to “reality” to “anime.” The site is working to beef up the latter in order to attract Japanese animation’s millions of Web-savvy fans. There’s also a “Web Originals” channel to filter the programming that’s available only online–ranging from the new Lonelygirl15 series The Resistance, to short comedy series produced by the Saturday Night Live team, to Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog. If you don’t know what that is, I suggest you search for it on Hulu.

Genre browsing is also another way to get advertisers in the mix. Hulu’s “food and leisure” channel, for example, is currently sponsored by sweetener brand Splenda.

Indexing by channels is something that other video-content providers, like Joost, have already been doing for months. Hulu didn’t need it at first–launching with a handful of movies, Web series, and NBC and Fox shows. At that point, giving the option to sort by genre would only have made the selection look limited. Now that Hulu has gotten much bigger (two words: Stephen Colbert), it’s a different story entirely.

Hulu has also rolled out a few more new features, including actor-based search (a queue for “Rainn Wilson” brought up not only episodes of The Office but also red-carpet interviews with the oddball actor) and discussion boards for specific episodes and programs.

ATS
This patch affects users of
Mac OS X v10.4.11, Mac OS X Server v10.4.11, Mac OS X v10.5 through v10.5.4, and Mac OS X Server v10.5 through v10.5.4. The update addresses the issue in CVE-2008-2305 in which viewing a document containing a maliciously crafted font may lead to arbitrary code execution. Apple credits Chris Ries of Carnegie Mellon University Computing Services for reporting this vulnerability.

mDNSResponder
This patch affects users running Mac OS X v10.5 through v10.5.4, and Mac OS X Server v10.5 through v10.5.4. The update addresses a buffer overflow vulnerability described in CVE-2008-1447 in which mDNSResponder is susceptible to DNS cache poisoning and may return forged information. Apple credits Dan Kaminsky of IOActive for reporting this vulnerability.

System Preferences II
This patch affects users of Mac OS X v10.4.11, Mac OS X Server v10.4.11, Mac OS X v10.5 through v10.5.3, and Mac OS X Server v10.5 through v10.5.3. The update addresses the vulnerability described in CVE-2008-3618 in which authenticated users may have unexpected remote access to files and directories.

Ruby
This patch affects users of Mac OS X v10.4.11, Mac OS X Server v10.4.11, Mac OS X v10.5 through v10.5.4, and Mac OS X Server v10.5 through v10.5.4. The update addresses a vulnerability described in CVE-2008-2376 in which running a Ruby script that uses untrusted input as the arguments to the Array#fill method may lead to an unexpected application termination or arbitrary code execution. Apple says there’s an integer overflow in rb_ary_fill(), which implements the Ruby Array#fill method.

With the release of Mac OS X 10.5.5 on Monday, the Cupertino, Calif., computer company provided patches for almost three dozen software flaws. Some of the fixes are specific to Apple features, such as image processing and Finder. Other fixes are updates to various open-source projects including Bind, ClamAV, OpenSSH, and Ruby.

ImageIO
This patch affects users of Mac OS X v10.4.11, Mac OS X Server v10.4.11, Mac OS X v10.5 through v10.5.4, and Mac OS X Server v10.5 through v10.5.4. The update addresses the issue detailed within CVE-2008-2327, in which viewing a maliciously crafted TIFF image may lead to an unexpected application termination or arbitrary code execution. Apple says multiple uninitialized memory access issues exist in libTIFF’s handling of LZW-encoded TIFF images.

ImageIO IV
This patch affects users of Mac OS X v10.4.11, Mac OS X Server v10.4.11, Mac OS X v10.5 through v10.5.4, and Mac OS X Server v10.5 through v10.5.4. The update addresses the vulnerability detailed within CVE-2008-1382 in which libpng in ImageIO is updated to version 1.2.29. Apple adds that CVE-2008-1382 is not known to affect the use of libpng in ImageIO, so this update is applied as a precautionary measure.

Finder II
This patch affects users of Mac OS X v10.5 through v10.5.4 and Mac OS X Server v10.5 through v10.5.4, specifically those running Mac OS X v10.5.2, MacBook Air running Mac OS X v10.5.3, and MacBook Air running Mac OS X v10.5.4. The update addresses a vulnerability detailed within CVE-2008-3613, in which an attacker with access to the local network may cause a denial of service. Apple credits Yuxuan Wang of Sogou for reporting the vulnerability.

ImageIO III
This patch affects users of Mac OS X v10.4.11, Mac OS X Server v10.4.11, Mac OS X v10.5 through v10.5.4, and Mac OS X Server v10.5 through v10.5.4. The update addresses the vulnerability detailed within CVE- CVE-2008-3608, in which viewing a large maliciously crafted JPEG image may lead to an unexpected application termination or arbitrary code execution. Apple says there’s a memory corruption issue that exists in ImageIO’s handling of embedded ICC profiles in JPEG images.

Directory Services II
This patch affects users of Mac OS X Server v10.4.11, Mac OS X Server v10.5 through v10.5.4. The update addresses the insecure file operation vulnerability within CVE-2008-2330, in which a local user may obtain the server password if an OpenLDAP system administrator runs slapconfig.

ImageIO II
This patch affects users of Mac OS X v10.4.11, Mac OS X Server v10.4.11, Mac OS X v10.5 through v10.5.4, and Mac OS X Server v10.5 through v10.5.4. The update addresses the issue detailed within CVE-2008-2332, in which viewing a maliciously crafted TIFF image may lead to an unexpected application termination or arbitrary code execution. Apple says there’s a memory corruption issue that exits in ImageIO’s handling of TIFF images. Apple credits Robert Swiecki of Google Security Team for reporting this vulnerability.

BIND
This patch affects users of Mac OS X v10.4.11, Mac OS X Server v10.4.11, Mac OS X v10.5 through v10.5.4, and Mac OS X Server v10.5 through v10.5.4. The update upgrades users to BIND version 9.4.2-P2, which addresses performance issues associated with BIND version 9.4.2-P1.

System Configuration I
This patch affects users of Mac OS X v10.4.11 and Mac OS X Server v10.4.11. The update addresses the vulnerability described in CVE-2008-2312, in which a local user may obtain the PPP password. Apple says Network Preferences stores PPP passwords unencrypted in a world readable file, accessible to any local user. Apple credits Hernan Ochoa of Core Security Technologies, Tore Halset of pvv.org, and Matt Johnston of the University Computer Club for reporting this vulnerability.

Login Window II
This patch only affects users of Mac OS X v10.4.11 and Mac OS X Server v10.4.11. The update addresses the vulnerability described in CVE-2008-3611 in which person with access to the login screen may be able to change a user’s password. Apple says that when a system has been configured to enforce policies on log-in passwords, users may be required to change their password in the log-in screen. If a password change fails, an error message is displayed, but the current password is not cleared and this may not be obvious to the user. Apple credits Christopher A. Grande of Middlesex Community College for reporting this vulnerability.

OpenSSH
This patch affects users of Mac OS X v10.4.11, Mac OS X Server v10.4.11, Mac OS X v10.5 through v10.5.4, Mac OS X Server v10.5 through v10.5.4. The update addresses multiple vulnerabilities in OpenSSH described in CVE-2008-1483 and CVE-2008-1657, the most serious of which is local X11 session control.

Version 10.5.5 can be obtained from the Apple Software Downloads page.

ClamAV
This patch affects users of Mac OS X Server v10.4.11 and Mac OS X Server v10.5 through v10.5.4. The update addresses the vulnerabilities detailed within CVE-2008-1100, CVE-2008-1387, CVE-2008-0314, CVE-2008-1833, CVE-2008-1835, CVE-2008-1836, CVE-2008-1837, CVE-2008-2713, and CVE-2008-3215 by updating Mac OS users to ClamAV version 0.93.3.

Wiki Server
This patch affects users of Mac OS X v10.5 through v10.5.4, and Mac OS X Server v10.5 through v10.5.4. The update addresses a divide by zero vulnerability described in CVE-2008-3622, in which a remote attacker may cause persistent JavaScript injection on a Wiki server. Apple says “the Wiki Server mailing list archive will execute JavaScript code embedded in messages. A remote person may send an email containing JavaScript code to a mailing list hosted on a Wiki server. Viewing the message from the Wiki Server mailing list archive will trigger the execution of the embedded JavaScript code on the system of the person viewing the message.”

Time Machine
This patch affects users of Mac OS X v10.5 through v10.5.4, Mac OS X Server v10.5 through v10.5.4. The update addresses the vulnerability described in CVE-2008-3619 in which backing up a system with Time Machine may lead to the disclosure of sensitive information. Apple says that during a Time Machine Backup, several log files are saved to the backup drive with read permission allowed to other users and may lead to the disclosure of sensitive information.

VideoConference
This patch affects users of Mac OS X v10.4.11, Mac OS X Server v10.4.11, Mac OS X v10.5 through v10.5.4, and Mac OS X Server v10.5 through v10.5.4. The update addresses vulnerability described in CVE-2008-3621, in which videoconferencing with a malicious user may lead to an unexpected application termination or arbitrary code execution. Apple says a memory corruption issue exists in the VideoConference framework’s handling of H.264 encoded media.

Login Window I
This patch affects users of Mac OS X v10.5 through v10.5.4 and Mac OS X Server v10.5 through v10.5.4. The update addresses the vulnerability detailed within CVE-2008-3610, in which a user may log in without providing a password. Apple explains that a race condition exists in Login Window. To trigger this issue, the system must have the guest account enabled or another account with no password. This issue does not affect systems prior to Mac OS X v10.5.

Directory Services
This patch affects users of Mac OS X v10.5 through v10.5.4 and Mac OS X Server v10.5 through v10.5.4. The update addresses the vulnerability detailed in CVE-2008-2329, in which a person with access to the log-in screen may be able to list user names. Apple says an information disclosure issue exists in Log-in Window when it is configured to authenticate users with Active Directory. “By supplying wildcard characters in the user name field, a list of user names from Active Directory may be displayed.”

SearchKit
This patch affects users of Mac OS X v10.4.11, Mac OS X Server v10.4.11, Mac OS X v10.5 through v10.5.4, Mac OS X Server v10.5 through v10.5.4. The update addresses a vulnerability described in CVE-2008-3616 in which applications passing untrusted input to the SearchKit API may lead to an unexpected application termination or arbitrary code execution. Apple explains that an integer overflow issues exist in functions within the SearchKit framework.

System Preferences I
This patch affects users of Mac OS X v10.5 through v10.5.4, and Mac OS X Server v10.5 through v10.5.4. The update addresses the vulnerability described in CVE-2008-3617, in which users may be misled into believing their passwords are stronger than they are. Apple says “Remote Management and Screen Sharing can be configured to require a password for VNC viewers. The maximum length for VNC viewer passwords is eight characters. The password field can display more than eight characters, implying that the additional characters are used in the password. This update addresses the issue by limiting VNC viewer passwords to eight characters in the user interface.” Apple credits Michal Fresel of hi competence e.U. for reporting this vulnerability.

Kernel
This patch affects users of Mac OS X v10.5 through v10.5.4, Mac OS X Server v10.5 through v10.5.4. The update addresses the vulnerability detailed within CVE-2008-3609 in which files may be accessed by a local user who does not have the proper permissions. Apple says cached credentials are not always flushed when a vnode is recycled. Apple credits Nevin “:-)” Liber, Thomas Pelaia of Oak Ridge National Lab, Thomas Tempelmann, and Ram Kolli for reporting this vulnerability.

QuickDraw Manager
This patch only affects users of Mac OS X v10.4.11, Mac OS X Server v10.4.11, Mac OS X v10.5 through v10.5.4, and Mac OS X Server v10.5 through v10.5.4. The update addresses the integer overflow vulnerability described in CVE-2008-3614, in which opening a maliciously crafted PICT image may lead to an unexpected application termination or arbitrary code execution.

Finder
This patch affects users of Mac OS X v10.5 through v10.5.4 and Mac OS X Server v10.5 through v10.5.4. The update addresses the details within CVE-2008-2331 in which The Get Info window may not display the actual privileges for a file. Apple says “Finder does not update the displayed permissions under some circumstances in a Get Info window. After clicking the lock button, changes to the file system Sharing & Permissions will take effect, but will not be displayed. This issue does not affect systems prior to Mac OS X v10.5.” Apple credits Michel Colman for reporting the vulnerability.

Libresolv
This patch affects users of Mac OS X v10.4.11, Mac OS X Server v10.4.11, Mac OS X v10.5 through v10.5.4, Mac OS X Server v10.5 through v10.5.4. The update addresses the vulnerability detailed within CVE-2008-1447, in which libresolv is susceptible to DNS cache poisoning and may return forged information. Apple explains that libresolv provides translation between host names and IP addresses for applications that use its unicast DNS resolution API. A weakness in the DNS protocol may allow remote attackers to perform DNS cache poisoning attacks. Apple credits Dan Kaminsky of IOActive for reporting this vulnerability.

But stiff opposition from the U.S. Department of Justice–plus telecommunications companies that are concerned about the wording of the latest draft of the bill–is likely to imperil the legislation. In addition to the Justice Department, the U.S. State Department has sent a letter to House Foreign Affairs Chairman Howard Berman saying the bill would affect broader policy issues.

Yahoo spokeswoman Tracy Schmaler said the company supports some of the “key principles” of the bill, such as creating an office within the State Department charged with leading the way against Internet censorship. But the company continues to negotiate with members of Congress to come up with a version “that will help create a better environment for online freedoms without preventing companies from engaging in these emerging markets,” she said.

Update 5/28 1pm PT: Fixed name of Yahoo’s subsidiary

Internet companies have had mixed responses to the Global Online Freedom Act, often declining to take issue with it publicly for fear of drawing criticism or attracting more attention to the legislation.

Excerpt from revised draft of Global Online Freedom Act that targets "Internet communications services."

One recent source of opposition came from Internet service providers, who have told Berman they are alarmed at a blanket of regulations aimed at covering U.S. companies providing “Internet communications services.” That term does not appear in the version of the Global Online Freedom Act posted on the Library of Congress’ Thomas Web site; it does, however, appear in a subsequent version that has not been publicly circulated.

The Administration shares the view reflected in H.R. 275, the Global Online Freedom Act, that freedom of expression on the Internet must be protected globally. However, the bill’s key provisions–calling for labeling Internet-restricting countries and penalizing certain affected U.S. firms in such countries–are likely to undermine U.S. diplomatic efforts and to interfere unjustifiably with such U.S. firms’ commercial engagement in those countries. For these reasons, the Administration would oppose the bill, as reported to the House.

It’s no surprise that technology companies have not exactly applauded the Global Online Freedom Act, which also would require them to disclose censorship pressure from allegedly repressive regimes. Microsoft, for instance, has said that no new laws are necessary.

A report from Berman’s committee cites, as justification for the legislation: “American companies have disclosed to security forces in repressive regimes the content of private communications and the identity of their Internet customers, sometimes leading to the arrest and conviction of political dissidents. In some cases, this cooperation has been done willingly and for profit. In others, it has occurred in response to subpoenas or due to the fear of sanctions imposed by local law.”

Justice Department spokesman Erik Ablin said on Friday that no response had been received from Berman’s office. Berman’s press secretary told us in e-mail that: “This is a very important bill. Howard wants to carefully study its ramifications and so he is meeting with both the human rights groups and the business groups in that pursuit. He’ll want to finish that process before he comments on the DOJ letter.”

The State Department agreed to provide CNET News.com with a two-paragraph excerpt from that letter, which reads in part:

Meanwhile, a letter to Berman from the Justice Department dated May 19 that News.com obtained says:

A Microsoft spokeswoman said her company would still prefer not to see legislation in this area.

Moreover, the bill’s approach for securing personally identifiable information is one which the United States would likely not countenance if it were applied by foreign entities operating in the United States pursuant to the dictates of foreign law. Consequently, it is the department’s view that the restrictions imposed by the bill may have the unintended effect of prompting foreign countries to preclude United States business from operating in their territories…The department opposes the bill as drafted.

Cisco says it hasn’t “taken a formal position” because the bill could change and it will “examine” the final language.

For their part, human rights and journalists’ advocacy groups generally support the Global Online Freedom Act. In March, they sent a joint letter saying they strongly support the measure because “decisions about what information can be disclosed would be made by the U.S. government, removing this burden from the companies involved” and that it should be enacted before the Beijing Olympics. It was signed by Reporters Without Borders, Human Rights Watch, the Committee to Protect Journalists, PEN USA, and the World Press Freedom Committee.

The letter points to the case of Shi Tao, a political dissident in China who in April 2005 was sentenced to 10 years in prison for “divulging state secrets.” Shi Tao had e-mailed foreign reporters; the Chinese government tracked him down because Yahoo’s Hong Kong China subsidiary in Beijing supplied an IP address.

Google spokesman Adam Kovacevich pointed us to a statement from last week and added: “We support the Global Online Freedom Act because of our deep belief in and commitment to Internet freedom. We believe that this legislation can be improved further to help ensure that people around the world have even greater access to as much information as possible, and we will be sharing our thoughts with Congress in the weeks ahead.”

The department foresees the potential to thrust United States businesses into an environment of conflict of laws and to create significant difficulties for the department in the administration of the bill’s requirements, thus seriously compromising the attorney general’s ability to work with foreign law enforcement agencies in an atmosphere of cooperation. Additionally, certain of the bill’s provisions raise constitutional questions to the extent they would operate to constrain or jeopardize the president’s ability to conduct foreign diplomacy, and to the extent they would operate to regulate the content of U.S. firms’ expression in a manner vulnerable to First Amendment challenge.

With public concern about human rights in China growing in advance of the summer Olympics, spurred along by trade and currency concerns, the uprising in Tibet in March, and a Senate hearing last week with executives from Yahoo, Google, and Cisco Systems, it seemed possible that Republican Rep. Chris Smith’s proposal could become law this year. It already has cleared the hurdles of three House committees, thanks in part to enthusiastic support from the late Democratic Rep. Tom Lantos, and is awaiting a floor vote.

Kovacevich would not elaborate on what improvements Google wanted to see made to the bill.

Editor’s note: Updated at 5:50 a.m. PDT with comment from Yahoo.

“It is the department’s view that the restrictions imposed by the bill may have the unintended effect of prompting foreign countries to preclude United States business from operating in their territories.” –Justice Department in letter to House Foreign Affairs Chairman Howard Berman

The House of Representatives bill says that search engines, Web e-mail services, and other Internet businesses may not place servers with user account information in those nations. Any “aggrieved” person anywhere in the world would have the right to sue U.S. companies in federal court.

A proposed federal law that would slap extensive regulations on technology companies doing business in China and other nations deemed to be unreasonably “Internet-restricting” is facing an uncertain future due to opposition from the Bush administration and telecommunications providers.

News.com’s Anne Broache contributed to this report.

The app’s not out yet, unfortunately.

My favorite app concept from the Facebook F8 Developers’ Conference was Connected Weddings. Based on the fact that planning a wedding is a social affair (duh), it lets you connect with two different groups: the people coming to your event, and other people who are getting married. With the former, you can share stories and photos. With the latter, you can talk about your plans and get advice. But that’s not the cool thing.

What I really like is that Connected Weddings will create seating charts for your wedding reception, based on the Facebook connections between your invitees. You can overrule the placements, but this concept is just cool. As anyone who’s planned their own wedding knows, figuring out who to seat where is a difficult topology problem, and it’s great to see the “social graph” applied to this real-world exam test.

Somewhat related: Those trying to get to the wedding can use the Carpool app.

Microchip Technology and On Semiconductor have made a $2.3 billion bid for semiconductor maker Atmel Corp., the companies announced Thursday.

“We appreciate your having taken the time to meet with (Microchip CEO) Steve Sanghi on September 5th to discuss Microchip’s potential acquisition of Atmel,” the letter says. “However, we were deeply disappointed to learn subsequently that the Atmel Board of Directors appears unwilling to consider a transaction at this time under any circumstances.”

The letter follows earlier discussions between Atmel and Microchip.

The two companies sent a letter to Atmel CEO Steven Laub proposing a $5 per share buyout, which represents a 52 percent premium over Atmel’s closing share price on October 1, 2008.

Atmel also said that if the deal goes through, it intends to dispose of Atmel’s ASIC business upon completing the acquisition or shortly thereafter, and has spoken to an interested third party about the sale.

The plan calls for Microchip to lead the acquisition and then sell Atmel’s nonvolatile-memory and RF and automotive businesses to ON to partly finance the deal. ON said it would finance its purchase using a combination of existing cash resources, borrowings under its existing credit facility and additional financing.

Atmel designs and manufactures microcontrollers, advanced logic, mixed-signal, nonvolatile memory, and radio frequency (RF) components.

In a statement, Atmel said its board of directors would “review and consider the proposal in due course.”

Google has released the beta version of a new browser, Chrome. In its comic-book pre-announcement, Google stated correctly that watching videos, chatting, and even playing Web-based games didn’t exist when browsers were first invented. For the user, Google wants the browser to disappear and to focus on the applications and pages users are viewing, rather than on the border with its tools, and such. Google has rethought the Internet browser–some of its basic underpinnings are quite novel–but users will recognize some features as they exist in other, open-source browsers on the market today.

At the moment, only the Windows version of Chrome is available for download. Plans call for
Mac OS X and Linux versions in the near future. That said, Google has released Chrome in 43 languages and in 122 countries.

For more details, see the Chrome First Take on CNET.

The interface in Chrome is very different from other browsers and takes a little getting used to. Instead of the traditional Netscape/IE-style toolbar across the top, Chrome uses tabs. Moreover, the tabs are detachable, so the terms "tabs" and "windows" become interchangeable within Chrome. Detached tabs can be dragged and dropped into the browser, and tabs can be rearranged at any time.

Click here for full coverage of the Google Chrome launch.

Chrome is based on the open-source project Webkit, the same rendering engine used by Apple
Safari. If a page renders in Safari, it will render in Chrome. Webkit is also the basis for Android, Google’s mobile platform, so it seems that Google is planning to use Chrome in mobile environments.

(Credit:
Robert Vamosi / CNET)