Yahoo, Cisco target spam

Cisco Systems and Yahoo have combined their efforts to combat e-mail spam and forgery, reports AP.

The move, announced yesterday, combines Yahoo`s Domainkeys and Cisco`s Internet Identified Mail System technologies, which rely on cryptography to help determine whether the sender of an e-mail message is legitimate.

"This is the fist time that we`ve had something fundamental to the mail system that the vendors could get together and agree on," says Sendmail CTO Eric Allman.

eBay said yesterday it would acquire competitor Shopping.com for around $620 million in cash, reports AP.

Executives at eBay said the purchase is expected to be completed in the third quarter of 2005 and will expand the auctioneer`s efforts to provide more reviews and customer feedback about products listed on the site.

Shopping.com controls Epinions, a site that contains more than 400 000 amateur reviews on items ranging from computer servers to mountain bikes.

"The intent of the Shopping.com acquisition was to aid eBay`s overall global marketplace, but it does indicate that we are still strongly investing in the US business," says eBay`s North American president Bill Cobb.

Eneo Labs claims to have developed a smart home that is situated outside Barcelona, Spain, something the company says many people will be enjoying in as little as two years, reports CNN.

Javier Zamora, GM of Eneo Labs, says smart houses are able to predict the user`s routine and adapt accordingly.

"For centuries we have been building homes using only concrete and bricks, and more and more we need to provide intelligence for our homes because we want those spaces to adapt to the user`s requirements," he said.

Zamora says smart houses have two main components: an "information network", which is like a human body`s nervous system in that all devices inside the house would be connected to it, and a "brain", which co-ordinates what is inside the home and connects to what goes on outside.

Microsoft has entered into deals with camera companies Nikon and Canon as well as Fuji Photo Film and Adobe Systems.

CNET reports the deal will let Windows users view, print and eventually edit uncompressed digital camera images, which are stored in what is commonly known as a 'raw` format.

Referred to as a digital negative, a raw file is pre-pixelised data that comes directly off a camera`s charge-coupled device. Eventually these raw files get converted to more common file formats like JPEG, GIF and TIFF.

But the problem, according to Microsoft, is that most camera manufacturers use proprietary file formats to store the raw data from their digital cameras, and every new camera that comes on the market introduces changes to raw image files.

"Users are then cornered into either using the camera-maker`s editing software or off-the-shelf conversion software like Adobes Photoshop," says Windows Digital Media group product manager Josh Weisberg.