Twitter under investigation

Federal regulators are looking into the interactions between Twitter and Ubermedia, a company that develops applications that help users follow and communicate with each other on Twitter, according to two published reports, says the Associated Press.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) inquiry is still at a preliminary stage and the focus remains unclear, the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday.

The Business Insider blog, which first reported the probe, said FTC anti-trust investigators are studying how Twitter deals with outside companies that build applications for its messaging platform - such as photo-sharing, URL-shortening and advertising services - and whether it is trying to limit competition by buying or banning outside developers.

More than four million PCs have been enrolled in a botnet that security experts say is almost “indestructible”, reports the BBC.

The botnet, known as TDL, targets Windows PCs and is difficult to detect and shut down. Code that hijacks a PC hides in places security software rarely looks and the botnet is controlled using custom-made encryption.

Security researchers say recent botnet shutdowns had made TDL's controllers harden it against investigation.

Xhead = World IT spend swells to £2.3tn

Worldwide IT spending is set to grow 7.1% in 2011, according to the latest quarterly spending outlook from Gartner, writes Computing.co.uk.

This figure has been revised upwards from a previous estimate of 5.6%, and total IT spend is now set to reach £2.3 trillion this year.

“It is a bit surprising that we have not seen a more significant impact on our global IT spending forecast as a result of the Japan earthquake and tsunami, but despite widespread concerns about disruptions to the supply of critical components in the initial aftermath of the natural disaster, there has not been a dramatic impact on overall IT spending,” says Richard Gordon, research VP at Gartner.

HP's decision to sue Oracle has been called a “publicity stunt” and “an abuse of the judicial process” in a court filing from Oracle on Wednesday, reveals V3.co.uk.

HP filed a lawsuit against Oracle earlier this month after it revealed the end to its database software for Intel's Itanium processors, which are the power source for HP servers.

Oracle said the lawsuit is a ploy by HP to escape blame from customers for selling outdated products.