Philly's Wi-Fi net to be shut down
Philadelphia's pioneering citywide Wi-Fi network is shutting down. EarthLink, the company that aggressively sought to be the network's operator, said Tuesday it will end the Wi-Fi service. Subscribers will have a 30-day transition period with service.

Icahn said to be mulling Yahoo proxy fight
Billionaire investor Carl Icahn is reportedly mulling a proxy fight against Yahoo's current board members in order to pressure the company to re-establish merger negotiations with Microsoft.

Fedora 9 hits the streets
The Fedora Project Tuesday said Fedora 9, a free, open source Linux operating system, is ready for download.

HP-EDS deal spurs range of customer reactions
Customers of HP and Electronic Data Systems offered a range of reactions Tuesday to HP's $13.9 billion bid for the massive outsourcing company.
Plus: Buzzblog: 'We are - and will remain EDS"
Yes, the deal is done, but … "We are – and will remain – EDS," CEO Ron Rittenmeyer assured his troops in an e-mail distributed Tuesday. Full text here.

Microsoft Patch Tuesday: Four patches fix mostly Office vulnerabilities
Microsoft Tuesday released four patches to fix six vulnerabilities, three of which were rated critical for Microsoft Word, Publisher and the Jet Database Engine 4.0. Experts say the fourth patch, rated important, could ...

BlackBerry boss leaves techies wanting
If 5,000 dedicated enterprise BlackBerry users attending Research in Motion's annual user conference were expecting any red meat from Research in Motion Co-CEO Michael Lazaridis' opening keynote address, they went away ...

AT&T pushes fiber service for small businesses
Small businesses are treated like the last child picked for a baseball team in the broadband world. Too small to afford connections faster than DSL, which might be inadequate for their needs, and too large to find plans ...

20% have never sent an e-mail
Roughly one-fifth of all U.S. households are disconnected from the Internet and have never used e-mail, according to research firm Parks Associates.

BlackBerry start-ups get $150 million funding boost from RIM
Research in Motion has launched a $150 million investment fund to spur development of mobile applications and services for its BlackBerry brand. Skip Links Go to page content Go to site-wide navigation ...

Radio communications and tunnels don’t mix, or do they?
Underground tunnels and wireless communications have generally been mutually exclusive entities, much to the chagrin of emergency responders. But serious help may be on the way. Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) said underground tunnels can have a frequency “sweet spot” at which signals may travel several times farther than at other frequencies, a development that may enhance rescue communications in subways, car tunnels and mines. The NIST data will support the development of open standards for design of optimal systems, especially for emergency responders.

LIVE CHAT

Open source and its changing role in the enterprise with Stormy Peters
Mark your calendars for Thursday May 15 from 2 p.m. – 3 p.m. EST. Peters can answer your questions about the open-source movement, reality versus hype, managing open source tools and anything else about the software world you want to discuss. Peters is co-founder of the non-profit GNOME Foundation and director of community and partner programs for OpenLogic. No registration necessary.

BLOGS

Today on Layer 8 we note that while copper thieves aren’t known for their brain power, a new depravity is infiltrating their ranks: stealing sometimes live ammunition from military bombing ranges.
An Army Times/AP story says bombing ranges have become prime hunting grounds for so-called scrappers, who are motivated by soaring commodity prices to take greater risks in their quest for brass, copper and aluminum. The scavenging causes headaches for the military, which cannot patrol every inch of the remote bases where spent ammunition, shrapnel and unexploded ordnance are easy to find.

Today on Cisco Subnet
FBI worried over counterfeit Cisco gear; More to consider on the counterfeit Cisco gear bust; Wendell Odom checks in with his 2008 resolutions and notes disappointing progress.

Today on Microsoft Subnet
Defending Microsoft's mega Chicago data center; Microsoft is gunning to make SMBs happy with new WS2008 bundles; Installation and use of Server 2008 Backup; Slowly changing dimensions ... a cool new transform in SQL Server Integration Services.

MAY GIVEAWAYS

May giveaways from Microsoft Subnet and Cisco Subnet
Win a Microsoft training course worth up to $2,500 from New Horizons; a Cisco training course worth up to $3,995 from Global Knowledge; one of 15 copies of the SharePoint training video, WSS and MOSS 3.0 Development (video training) published by Sams; one of 15 copies of the Cisco Press book CCNA Practice Questions (Exam 640-802), 3rd Edition, or a Cool Stuff techno-toy worth up to $500 from Global Knowledge. Hurry! Deadline for entries is May 31.