My calendar

AFP – A US judge has ordered a pair of accused spammers to pay MySpace about 230 million dollars in what was being billed Wednesday as a record-setting punishment for such Internet abuses.

AP – Comcast Corp. is buying contact management company Plaxo Inc. and plans to incorporate into all its offerings features intended to help people synchronize their address books and connect socially online.

Reuters – Shares of Sony Corp (6758.T) opened 10
percent higher on Thursday after it forecast a
bigger-than-expected operating profit this financial year as it
aims to boost flat TV sales and wipe away losses on the
PlayStation 3.

PC World – IBM has released software that allows BlackBerry users to access more of its applications, including its Cognos business…

PC World – Comcast will acquire social-networking company Plaxo to power upcoming community features on its TV, broadband data and phone…

AP – Billionaire investor Carl Icahn reportedly plans to try overthrowing Yahoo’s entire board to clear the way for Microsoft to renew its attempt to buy Yahoo.

PC World – The Windows-compatible scripting language, which was cut from Office 2008 for Mac, is back on the drawing board for a future version.

AP – Nintendo of America Inc. was ordered to pay a small East Texas gaming company $21 million Wednesday for infringing on a patent while designing controllers for its popular Wii and GameCube systems.

InfoWorld – Facing serious challenges to its dominance in the RIA (rich Internet application) space, Adobe Systems will refresh its bread-and-butter Flash Player technology Thursday with capabilities that could provide an edge on the RIA battleground.

AP – Hackers often harness the combined power of thousands of virus-infected personal computers to pump out spam e-mail or disable targeted servers by overwhelming them with Internet traffic.

PC World – A French blog has posted pictures of what looks to be Asustek Computer’s Eee PC 901, an upcoming version of the low-cost…

Macworld.com – ConvenienceWare/AssistiveWare on Wednesday announced the release of GhostReader 1.5, a significant update to their text-to-speech software for Mac OS X. It costs US$39.95, and the update is free for registered users.

PC World – Over the last few days the Web has been abuzz with discussion about how users on Twitter, the online social messaging system…

Reuters – Google Inc co-founder Sergey Brin
said on Thursday advertising on social networking sites was
improving but “still had a long way to go.”

AP – NEC Corp.’s profit for the fiscal year through March more than doubled from the previous year as the Japanese electronics maker’s mobile phone and computer-chip businesses swung to profit.

AP – Ask.com has bought a stable of Internet reference sites that includes Dictionary.com in its latest effort to distinguish itself from online search leader Google Inc. and other much larger rivals.

AP – BT Group PLC, Britain’s biggest telecommunications company, reported a 6.2 percent decline Thursday in its fourth quarter profit, as costs rose and it lost some wholesale customers to broadband services.

AP – CBS Corp. says it has agreed to buy online technology news and entertainment company CNet Networks Inc. for about $1.75 billion.

Reuters – Microsoft Corp said on
Wednesday its Xbox 360 game machine beat Nintendo Co Ltd’s
(7974.OS) Wii and Sony Corp’s (6758.T) PlayStation 3 to reach
10 million units in U.S. sales.

USATODAY.com – Traditional land-line phones, once the bedrock of communications in the USA, are quickly going the way of eight-track tapes as consumers go wireless or choose Internet-based phone calling.

USATODAY.com – NEW YORK – Shigeru Miyamoto, the father of iconic Nintendo mascot Mario, among many others, doesn’t just bring characters to life in his video games. He injects his life into his creations. That’s why his latest project, Wii Fit, which arrives in stores Wednesday, is not really a game at all. It’s a $90 software-and-gadget fitness package for Nintendo’s revolutionary Wii, reflecting Miyamoto’s interest in his own physical health. Wii Fit, which comes with a balance board, has a built-in virtual trainer that helps players with yoga, aerobics and muscle toning.

AP – CBS Corp. agreed to buy online technology news and entertainment company CNet Networks Inc. for about $1.75 billion, expanding its access to the burgeoning Internet advertising market.

Reuters – The new technology which enables small
payments from mobile phones by just flashing the handset is
likely to reach masses only around 2012, when one phone from
five sold will be equipped with the technology.

AP – Cox Communications appears to be interfering with file-sharing by its Internet subscribers in the same manner that has landed Comcast Corp. in hot water with regulators, according to research obtained by The Associated Press.

Reuters – Carl Icahn launched a proxy battle to
force Yahoo Inc to reopen buyout talks with Microsoft
Corp , the billionaire investor said in a letter to the
Internet company on Thursday.

InfoWorld – The first public release of Moonlight, which provides a Linux client implementation of Microsoft’s Silverlight rich Internet application (RIA) technology, was made available this week.

InfoWorld – The first public release of Moonlight, which provides a Linux client implementation of Microsoft’s Silverlight rich Internet application (RIA) technology, was made available this week.

AP – Cable companies attracted more Internet subscribers than phone companies did in the first quarter, reversing a 3 1/2-year trend, according to a research report Thursday.

AP – Cable companies attracted more Internet subscribers than phone companies did in the first quarter, reversing a 3 1/2-year trend, according to a research report Thursday.

InfoWorld – Apple’s U.S. network partner AT&T is now limiting iPhone sales to one unit per customer.

InfoWorld – Apple’s U.S. network partner AT&T is now limiting iPhone sales to one unit per customer.

NewsFactor – Cable company Comcast is becoming more sociable with Wednesday’s announcement that it will buy social-networking site Plaxo. Terms were not disclosed, although there are reports that the price could be up to $175 million, based on performance targets over the next few years.

NewsFactor – Cable company Comcast is becoming more sociable with Wednesday’s announcement that it will buy social-networking site Plaxo. Terms were not disclosed, although there are reports that the price could be up to $175 million, based on performance targets over the next few years.

NewsFactor – Cable company Comcast is becoming more sociable with Wednesday’s announcement that it will buy social-networking site Plaxo. Terms were not disclosed, although there are reports that the price could be up to $175 million, based on performance targets over the next few years.

Reuters – Europe’s biggest low-cost airline
Ryanair launched a Web site for holiday lettings on Thursday,
providing a platform for owners to create and publish adverts
for their properties and manage bookings.

Reuters – Europe’s biggest low-cost airline
Ryanair launched a Web site for holiday lettings on Thursday,
providing a platform for owners to create and publish adverts
for their properties and manage bookings.

Reuters – Yahoo Inc has introduced a
software development tool that lets outside parties create
customized views of Yahoo Web search results, the company said
on Thursday.

NewsFactor – On Wednesday, Microsoft announced that its Xbox 360 video-game and entertainment system has sold more than 10 million units in the U.S., making it the first current-generation gaming console to break that mark. The U.S. installed base contributes to global sales of more than 19 million.

PC World – A 23-year-old Oregon man has pleaded guilty to charges that he used identity theft to set up bogus accounts on eBay, where he…

Reuters – Nintendo is finally bringing
original downloadable games to its popular Wii video game
console.

AP – Deutsche Telekom chief executive Rene Obermann said Thursday the company has so far sold more than 100,000 of Apple Inc.’s iPhones since the device’s November debut in Germany.

PC World – A server problem at the U.S. National Security Agency has knocked the secretive intelligence agency off the Internet.

AP – Rex Jameson bikes and swims regularly, and plays tennis and skis when time allows. But the 5-foot-11, 180-pound software engineer is lucky if he presses 200 pounds — that is, until he steps into an “exoskeleton” of aluminum and electronics that multiplies his strength and endurance as many as 20 times.

AP – A one-time dot-com billionaire was convicted Thursday of stock fraud and obstruction of justice after a court finding that he deceived investors in his Las Vegas software company.

PC World – U.S. cable broadband providers Comcast and Cox Communications are slowing BitTorrent traffic at all times of the day, not just…

AP – A federal grand jury on Thursday indicted a Missouri woman for her alleged role in perpetrating a hoax on the online social network MySpace against a 13-year-old neighbor girl who then committed suicide.

InfoWorld – VersionOne launched an agile project management platform for small teams of developers this week and is sprucing up its enterprise-level product next week.

Reuters – BlackBerry maker Research In Motion Ltd

Reuters – CBS Corp said on Thursday it would buy
web media company CNET Networks Inc for about $1.8 billion to
boost the television broadcaster’s reach across the Internet.

NewsFactor – Verizon Wireless’ decision to join Sprint Nextel and T-Mobile as members of a Linux-based mobile initiative appears to have dealt a setback to Google’s ambitions for its Android mobile platform. A Verizon spokesperson told the Chicago Tribune that the company joined the rival LiMo Foundation because “of LiMo’s approach to providing a truly open OS that isn’t simply an extension of a for-profit company’s business model.”

NewsFactor – Nintendo of America was hit with a judgment for $21 million in a patent-infringement case brought by a company that claims to be a small Texas game developer. A U.S. District Court jury found that Nintendo’s designs for its Wii, WaveBird and GameCube controllers infringed on patents held by Anascape Ltd.

NewsFactor – Nintendo of America was hit with a judgment for $21 million in a patent-infringement case brought by a company that claims to be a small Texas game developer. A U.S. District Court jury found that Nintendo’s designs for its Wii, WaveBird and GameCube controllers infringed on patents held by Anascape Ltd.

AFP – Billionaire corporate raider Carl Icahn announced a bid Thursday to unseat the board of Yahoo and reopen merger talks with Microsoft, which Icahn said had been “completely botched” by the Internet firm.

TechWeb – InformationWeek – The social networking site cooperated with authorities and is named as a victim in the case.

PC World – This week our readers engage on a wide range of topics, from software piracy to capitalism.

AP – Timeline of events in the Megan Meier Internet suicide case:

AP – Federal authorities said Thursday that former Gemstar-TV Guide International Inc. chairman Henry Yuen is a fugitive after he was indicted on a felony obstruction charge that carries a possible five-year prison term.

Investor’s Business Daily – Software installed on cell phones provides first responders basic medical information such as blood type, medications, allergies and emergency contacts. The application appears as an emergency logo on the screen of the user’s cell phone, and it helps paramedics find the person’s medical history in case of emergency, even in areas without cellular reception. The software was created by developer MyRapidMD in Calif. If the phone is broken, emergency workers can call an 800 number and access data remotely.

PC World – Billionaire investor Carl Icahn’s proxy fight for Yahoo is aimed at reigniting merger talks between the Internet company and…

AP – The New York Times won three accolades for its Web sites and USA Today won two as the “EPpy Awards” were announced Thursday.