Intel announced a few days ago that it has made one of its biggest purchases in the history of the company. The hardware giant has picked up security and antivirus company McAfee for a whopping US7.68 billion, or around US$48 per share in cash. Intel says that McAfee will operate as a wholly owned subsidiary under their Software and Services subdivision.

This purchase is a mammoth one for Intel – the largest in the company’s 42-year history and the largest in the IT security industry. Intel made a nice US$4.3b profit in 2009 and had a record second quarter of this year raking in US$2.9 billion in profit. McAfee’s profit for 2008 was just US$172 million, so Intel must have some big plans for the security giant if they’re going to turn a 7.7 billion dollar acquisition into profit.

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At some point you’ve probably heard about how Google is under fire from many countries over their collection of data from unsecured wireless networks via their Street View cars. Google acknowledged that this was an “accident” and blames the collection of data on some rogue code from a single engineer, but also believe that they haven’t violated any laws and thus are being investigated by numerous countries including the US, Canada and Australia.

Today this debacle has escalated as South Korean authorities decided to conduct a raid on Google’s Soul office seeking out any data that may have been obtained via the Street View cars and the rouge code. Google says they have been fully compliant with the investigation. The raid comes after “security experts” claim that the data collected by Google could include email messages, visited websites and some passwords, although UK authorities claim nothing meaningful was collected.

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I have seen some outrageous things these past few years regarding copyright laws but this one beats them all. The United States government is always trying to figure out how best to handle intellectual property rights, so it has asked the concerned parties to submit all sorts of information in order to better understand what’s going on.

What the RIAA and MPAA have submitted borders on the insane. One of the solutions they came up with involves making computer users install anti-infringement software on their computers. This software would then scan the hard drive looking for any evidence of any pirated or illegal content and then delete it.

There are several technologies and methods that can be used by network administrators and providers…these include [consumer] tools for managing copyright infringement from the home (based on tools used to protect consumers from viruses and malware).

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Google and Verizon have not always agreed on every issue but according to a joint editorial in the Wall Street Journal they generally agree as a matter of policy that the framework of minimal government involvement should continue.

The Internet has thrived in an environment of minimal regulation. While our two companies don’t agree on every issue, we do agree generally as a matter of policy that the framework of minimal government involvement should continue.

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After some time in court it appears as though the decision is final – Microsoft will have to pay i4i US$240 million after losing a second appeal. Last year it was found that Microsoft had infringed upon several XML-related patents owned by Canadian company i4i and so had to pay damages. Microsoft appealed this and lost, so they filed another appeal and lost once more.

The judges apparently explained to Microsoft why the decision was final: the court has evidence to suggest that Microsoft knew of and willingly infringed the patents with the hope that i4i’s product would become obsolete with Word 11. Court documents and a company email support this idea. Microsoft is now waiting for court appeal judges to see whether they can have a wider review of the case, or they may take the case to the Supreme Court.

When using a rented-out PC at an internet café/business kiosk you might have thought it was legal. Well actually, up until now, it wasn’t legal under the old Microsoft licensing. Now, under the new Rental Rights Licensing all businesses have to do is pay a small fee and they can legally license out PCs to customers that have either Microsoft Windows or Office loaded on them.

The fee is a one-time only payment, and up until June 30, 2010 you can pay a cheaper promotional price (which is 30% off) to ensure your businesses legality. The prices to obtain the Rental Rights License are $58 (promotional)/$83 (standard) for Office Professional Plus, $45/$64 for Office Standard and Windows is licensed at $23/$32. Whether or not business will actually pay the fee after they’ve been running (illegally) for all these years has yet to be seen.

Greenpeace has gone and awarded Apple a prized four giant gold stars for their efforts in keeping their company, and products, green. According to the latest report from Greenpeace, Apple is the only company to have been awarded the four giant gold stars for keeping polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and brominated flame retardants (BFR) out of their desktop and laptop computers, as well as their mobile phones and computer monitors.

With this award, Apple blew away all the competition, coming in better than all the other five companies who have products in each category, and most of the other companies who produce computers (the best being HP with two small gold stars). Nokia and Sony Ericsson also did well, achieving a large gold star each for the only category they were in (mobile phones). Keep up the good work Apple; maybe we’ll see other manufacturers doing better in the future.

Microsoft is continuing to bask in the glory of their latest (and greatest) operating system, Windows 7, with new claims that suggest that it is the fastest selling operating system in history. While no actual sales numbers have been given, Craig Bellinson, the Director of Marketing for Microsoft’s Entertainment and Devices Division, shares with us that PC sales went up 50% the week after 7 was released, Black Friday sales were up 63% and year-over-year PC sales were up by more than 50%.

After the flop that Vista was, it isn’t surprising to see that Windows 7 sales are so good as people flooded to use the new operating system to rid themselves of Vista. Good reviews and positive comments also would have helped Windows 7 successfulness. It also wouldn’t be surprising to see Microsoft’s next big OS leap over Windows 7 and see better, and faster, sales.

An injunction against Microsoft to stop them selling Word has occurred before: it was Microsoft vs i4i, where i4i held a patent for custom XML tagging, something used by Word in the way it saves files, which Microsoft wilfully infringed. Microsoft lost the case and was barred from selling any versions of Word that contained the custom XML; however the injunction was delayed upon request until Microsoft could appeal the case.

Microsoft appealed the case, and today, once again, lost. The US Court of Appeals has ordered Microsoft to drop the Custom XML editing in Word, which has effectively banned current versions from sale and also prevents all versions of the entire Office suites from sale because they contain Word. The injunction will come into effect on January 11, 2010.

However, Microsoft has said that they have been preparing for this outcome since August, and will be ready to distribute copies of Office 2007 and Word 2007 without the feature by the injunction date. Microsoft Office 2010 will not be barred from distribution because it doesn’t contain the infringing technology, so you can keep downloading the beta all you like.

The browser ballot screen seems to finally be getting ready for approval, months after they originally set the plan in motion thanks to the EU blaming them for anti-competitive behaviour. Originally the browsers would have appeared on the ballot in alphabetical order by developer, putting Apple’s Safari browser in the first position. Google, Opera and Mozilla quickly hit back, saying that this was unfair and proposing that a random order is much better.

The case is apparently going to be settled on or before December 15th by the European Commission, and Microsoft is said to be randomising the browser ballot to appeal to the EU. If the case is settled this month, the release of the browser ballot to the general public would come sometime mid-February next year, with an update released to Windows Update if you have IE set as the default browser. You would then be presented a choice to download a browser out of IE, Chrome, Safari, Firefox and Opera and when you do download it, no security warning is present – a win to other browser developers.