HP unveils 'microneedle' drug patch

Inkjet printers and intravenous drugs don't mix. But Hewlett-Packard (HP) thinks it has the goods to play in both markets, reports TheStreet.com.

HP said Tuesday it has developed a product that can simultaneously release various types of medication into a person's bloodstream through a skin patch containing 1 000 "microneedles" per square inch.

The microneedles, which are based on HP's printer technology, barely penetrate the surface of the skin, causing significantly less pain than traditional hyperemic needles, according to the company.

A group of state plaintiffs in the US Microsoft antitrust case will ask for a five-year extension of a large portion of the 2002 judgment against the company, the group's lawyer said Tuesday, according to PC World.

California, Connecticut, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Massachusetts and the District of Columbia - known as the "California group" - want an extension of most of the middleware portions of the judgment, said Stephen Houck, a lawyer for the group.

Microsoft still retains a huge lead in the operating system and Web browser markets, he said.

IBM is moving closer than it has ever been to the OpenOffice.org community, with stepped-up support in its Lotus product line of collaborative software and a commitment to contribute code, reports TechNewsWorld.

The announcement suggests a win-win for IBM and OpenOffice.org, a seven-year-old project created by Sun Microsystems and widely recognised as the open source contender to proprietary office software.

"With downloads of more than 100 million, this is the first real competitive grassroots office productivity suite that rivals proprietary alternatives," Sun spokesman Terri Molini told LinuxInsider.

Microsoft yesterday issued four patches fixing four security flaws affecting several of its products, including two flaws affecting recent versions of Windows, and three that have been publicly disclosed.

IT Jungle reports that there was only a single critical flaw issued yesterday - for a remote code execution vulnerability affecting Windows 2000 SP4 - and three other patches the company deemed "important."

A fifth patch was in the works as recently as Friday, but the software giant elected against releasing it for its September Patch Tuesday.