North America

Google has launched Knol, its user-generated online encyclopedia, which it announced in December but had kept under wraps in private testing.  read more »

The researcher whose speculation led to an early disclosure of information about a critical flaw in the Domain Name System (DNS), the Internet's traffic cop, wasn't the first to come close to the truth, said the security expert who found the bug and organized a massive patching effort.  read more »

Ubuntu Linux Founder Mark Shuttleworth urged development of a Linux desktop to rival what Apple has done in this space and aired a vision of software changing the world.  read more »

Yahoo reported a modest revenue increase and a considerable drop in profit for its second quarter, along the way missing Wall Street's expectations in both categories, results that are unlikely to please its nervous shareholders.  read more »

Brocade Communications Systems' planned US$3 billion acquisition of Foundry Networks is a major strategic move in a brewing war over the future of data-center connectivity, industry analysts said Tuesday.  read more »

At the 2008 Game Developers Conference, Microsoft made a splashy entrance into independent game design with its new Community Games push. In short, you can develop a downloadable Xbox 360 game and submit it to Microsoft's peer-review website. If your game passes muster and makes it onto the new Community Game storefront -- which goes live with the Xbox 360 Experience dashboard update in late 2008 -- you'll get up to 70% of the revenues from sales. You'll even be able to choose the price point (200, 400, or 800 Microsoft points) when you publish the game.  read more »

The "spam king" was sentenced on Tuesday to 47 months in prison, with a ruling that the court hopes sends a message to other online criminals.  read more »