UN summit ends in Net debate

A crucial UN summit on expanding Internet access around the world has ended in Tunis marred by controversy over censorship and who runs the Internet, reports the BBC. The World Summit on the Information Society ended with talk about narrowing the technology gap between rich and poor nations, but little in actual funding.

It was overshadowed by a lingering resentment about who should oversee the management of the Net. The summit was also marked by stark differences over freedom of speech.

More than 170 countries and 17 000 participants attended the International Telecommunication Union`s summit, billed as a "summit of solutions", in Tunis. It ended with declarations of a "Tunis Commitment", and a "Tunis Agenda for the Information Society".

After two weeks of withering criticism, Sony BMG Music Entertainment last week stopped selling 50 CD titles with its extended copy protection content-protection software, removed the discs from stores, and offered replacements without copy protection to customers, reports InformationWeek.

The company issued an apology on its Web site, citing security concerns raised by installation of the XCP software, provided by digital-rights-management vendor First4Internet.

Sony instructed retailers to remove unsold CDs with XCP software from their store shelves and inventory. But the trouble isn`t over as the company faces charges of deceptive advertising, illegal spyware distribution and computer crimes in three lawsuits.

In an effort to join the move toward virtualisation, IBM is building a software tool to enable customers to change data sources or rules that govern data without affecting applications, reports eWeek.

Due for release in the first quarter of next year, the product, currently known as Information Virtualisation Server, will be part of IBM`s Information Management portfolio and will plug into the company`s upgraded DB2 platform, code-named Viper.

Last week, IBM unveiled the public beta of Viper, which is also scheduled for release early next year. The new database features native XML data management and relational data capabilities.

Mercury Computer Systems has started showing off a new Turismo design that promises to pack an incredible amount of computing power into a small space, reports The Register.

Mercury had pictures of the Turismo system on display this week at the Supercomputing event in Seattle. The rectangular box can supply up to 800 GigaFLOPS of horsepower in a 600 cubic-inch system.

Four of the boxes can be combined to create a 5U system that cranks out 3.2 TeraFLOPs. A six-foot rack of the boxes would produce 25 TeraFLOPs.