Huge job cuts at Sun

Sun Microsystems has fallen further and harder on Wall Street than its main competitors over the last few years and, according to Forbes, Sun's market cap has dropped below $3 billion, states CNet.

This morning, Sun revealed it is taking the headcount reduction route to profitability, letting go of 15% to 18% of its global workforce - up to 6 000 employees. The headcount reduction will reduce annual expenses by $700 million to $800 million.

Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz has pushed the company towards open source and created demand for its hardware and service via free software, but the big payoff has been slow in materialising.

Mobile phone chip designer Arm has formed an alliance with the makers of Ubuntu open source software, reports The BBC.

The deal will produce a version of the operating system for small net-browsing computers known as netbooks. It marks a departure for Arm, which before now has been best known for designing the chips inside smartphones and feature phones.

The new operating system for Arm-powered machines is set to be available in April 2009.

Digital-pen-maker Livescribe plans to release a Mac version of its handwriting recognition software as well as the ability for digital-pen owners to print special "dot paper" using their own printer, says CNet.

However, the Mac software is still in beta. The handwriting recognition software and print-your-own paper options are Windows only for now, with plans to add them to the Mac version in the first quarter of next year, when the Mac product goes final.

Livescribe's big advantage over digital-pens of the past is its ability to synchronise its ink captures with audio recordings, enabling users to click the pen on a specific part of their notes and hear the audio from that point.

Google has seeded a new version of its Chrome browser to developers with fixes for a pair of security issues that could expose users to data theft, says ZDnet.

The issue, rated as a “moderate” risk, could allow hackers to use HTML files to steal arbitrary files from a victim's machine.

The patch, which will eventually be rolled out via Chrome's automatic update feature, also adds new features around bookmarking and pop-up blocking.