IP addresses ruled personal data

IP addresses, strings of numbers that identify computers on the Internet, should generally be regarded as personal information, the head of the European Union's group of data privacy regulators said on Monday, reports Washington Post.

Germany's data-protection commissioner, Peter Scharr, leads the EU group, which is preparing a report on how well the privacy policies of Internet search engines operated by Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and others comply with EU privacy law.

Scharr told a European Parliament hearing on online data protection that when someone is identified by an IP address, "then it has to be regarded as personal data".

Apple's first quarter hit on all cylinders, as the company continued its financial run on the strength of its Mac business. But anyone looking for reassurance about the overall health of the economy later this year didn't get it from Apple, says News.com.

The company this week posted revenue of $9.6 billion for its first fiscal quarter, which ended 29 December. That's better than the $9.5 billion expected by financial analysts. Apple also gave analysts good news with its earnings-per-share number of $1.76, better than expectations of $1.62 per share. That translates to net income of $1.6 billion, up 58% from last year.

Mac sales were up 44% compared with last year, as Apple continued its resurgence in PCs. But investors will wonder if the iPod gravy train is coming to an end, as Apple's iPod sales of 22.1 million iPods was well below Wall Street expectations of 24.7 million.

Microsoft's forceful move into virtualisation with Windows Server aims to bring virtualisation to the data centre masses, but that's only part of the puzzle. Microsoft wants virtualisation to change the way IT works from the data centre to the desktop, reports Information Week.

The company announced this week that it would buy Calista Technologies, which makes presentation virtualisation technologies, for an undisclosed sum.

It also unveiled simplified licensing for virtualisation that will allow all versions of Windows desktop to be virtualised, support for running Office in a virtualised environment, an expanded alliance with Citrix Systems to include co-marketing and co-sales in virtualisation, lower pricing to run Windows clients remotely in virtualised instances, and new deployment tools.

It seems you can't read the news these days without coming across a new, improved, gee-whiz service that will make downloading movies and TV shows easier than opening a jar of peanut butter, says Business Week.

DVD-by-mail service Netflix is gearing one up. Sony just expanded its offering; same for TiVo. And of course, Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced his new, improved Apple TV and video iPod on 15 January with all the fanfare that only Apple zealots can muster.

Here's the latest entry in the what-you-want, when-you-want-it movie download race: HBO, Time Warner's iconic superbrand pay-TV service. The new service is called HBO on Broadband, and while Comcast CEO Brian Roberts mesmerised a recent Consumer Electronics Show audience with visions of TV shows and movies capable of streaming lickety-split across his cable TV wires, Time Warner is offering what is clearly a work in progress.