Skype users don't buy explanation

eBay's explanation for last week's failure of its Skype communication service has left many users still wondering what caused the worst outage in Skype's five-year history, says PC World.

Millions of Skype users were knocked offline last week when a programming bug made it impossible for most Skype users to connect during a 36-hour period, starting last Thursday.

On Monday, Skype said the disruption was kicked off when a large number of Skype users restarted their computers after installing Microsoft's monthly security software updates, which were pushed out to Windows users starting on Tuesday.

Japan's Toshiba and its partners gained a much-needed boost in the next-generation DVD format war after Paramount Pictures and DreamWorks Animation said they would exclusively support HD-DVD, says The Age.

The decision to drop the rival Blu-ray format is a blow to Sony and its partners, which have scored some valuable points recently in the tussle in high-definition DVDs.

Movies distributed by Paramount Pictures, DreamWorks Animation and Pictures, Paramount Vantage, Nickelodeon Movies and MTV Films will be released exclusively in HD-DVD, the companies said in a statement yesterday.

Cisco and Microsoft will ensure their products work together to prevent customers from delaying buying decisions, reports Australian IT News.

While Cisco and Microsoft are the undisputed leaders in their respective fields, they are competing to deliver a single, "unified communications" system that ties together e-mail, phones and other tools over Internet networks.

In their first joint public discussion, Cisco chief executive John Chambers and Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer said they would compete in some areas, but also meet demands from customers who want to pick and choose from both.

IBM and TDK will work together to develop higher-capacity, more compact MRAM chips, the companies said yesterday, reports PC World.

They will study how to use "spin momentum transfer" to make the cells that store data smaller. This could enable the production of smaller chips with higher capacity, necessary if the technology is to achieve more widespread adoption.

Magnetoresistive RAM, also known as magnetic RAM, uses tiny magnetic fields rather than electrical charges to store data. It is a non-volatile memory, meaning that like flash memory, it retains data without the need for electrical power.

A new Trojan is successfully attacking online recruiting sites and has already accessed data on hundreds of thousands of users, researchers said last Friday, according to Forbes.

Researchers from Symantec and SecureWorks separately reported finding surprisingly effective penetrations by the new Trojan, called Infostealer.Monstres, which was attempting to access the online recruitment Web site, Monster.com.

Other versions of the Trojan, which is a variant of the Prg Trojan, were also found to be attacking other online job sites.