Spotlight Features

No less true today than it has been since the notion of private property became one of the main pillars of Western society, investing in real estate is one of the most popular means of amassing wealth. Now, a new breed of "virtual" real estate investors and developers is emerging. Massively multipla...

While Wikipedia may be the best known example, wikis are not only becoming the first place people turn when conducting online research, but also when they're looking to build specialist online communities. It's not surprising, then, that wikis dedicated to real estate are emerging. InmanWiki -- part...

IBM is putting its heft behind a project that could morph into new way of doing business in Second Life, Linden Lab's virtual 3-D community. The two have partnered to build a protected enclave in Second Life where the company can conduct serious business without fear of marauders. While there are mo...

Larry Augustin strives for collaboration. Augustin and James Vera launched VA Research in 1993 with the hope of providing a Linux-based operating system for personal computers. After the company bought out its biggest rival -- Linux Hardware Solutions -- the company changed its name to VA Linux Syst...

In the 1980s, auto manufacturers began using simple computers called the "engine control unit," or ECU, to monitor and regulate such things as fuel mixture and spark plug timing. Since then, a cottage industry has developed around hardware and software to bypass, tinker with or replace this system.

Open source software is making its way into the systems that touch our everyday lives, from our banks to the stores where we shop. Open source is also found in some of the IT systems that manage traffic flow on city streets, state highways and in the skies. In fact, throughout the overlapping transp...

Give office workers familiar with the Microsoft XP operating system an opportunity to try the same navigational tasks at a Linux-based desktop. Then step back and wait for the reaction. First will come the surprised look. Then questions like "where did the command line go?" will soon follow. That's ...

Vox populi vox dei -- the voice of the people is the voice of God -- was supposed to represent democracy in action. Until now, however, the true state of democracy was perhaps best expressed by the saying "Freedom of the press belongs to those who own one." The Internet and associated technologies a...

Wikis are finally becoming a useful tool for collaboration and information sharing in the workplace. However, like all business tools exposed on the Internet or corporate intranet, IT managers have to view their deployments with a stern eye regarding who can use them and what corporate information m...

The 2008 presidential primaries capture the lion's share of election season media exposure, but an equally critical campaign is running quietly in the background. The controversial decision to implement various types of electronic voting machines in place of paper ballots is garnering little public ...

Virtual worlds such as Second Life are making an impact on how companies conduct employee recruiting and workforce management activities. According to an ever-growing group of experts and companies in the employment business, that impact has the potential to be profound and far-reaching. Not everyon...

It's a dream scenario: A candidate aspiring to a pivotal job in the culinary arts field enters the virtual world Second Life, having never been an online gamer before. He attends an online job fair held by recruiting company TMP Worldwide Advertising & Communications, and is interviewed by major...

Open source software developers who were active in the late 1990s might find themselves yearning for those good old days, when venture capital flowed like wine at Napa Valley party. Maybe they forgot the hangover that settled in once the bubble burst. Paul Sterne, CFO of Open-Xchange, likes to point...

Running Microsoft Windows or Apple's Mac OS X gives users about the same amount of flexibility as was offered to early car buyers. They could drive any kind of car they wanted, as long as it was a Model T and as long as it was black. When the free open source Linux OS first showed up, early develope...

The third version of the GNU General Public License version 3, released last summer, is on the slow road to acceptance. The new licensing conditions usher in numerous changes in how open source software developers regulate what users of their freely distributed programming code are legally able and ...