Cisco Systems is getting into the security surveillance market with the acquisition of a small company called SyPixx Networks. The networking giant is paying $51 million in cash and options for SyPixx, which has developed software and hardware products that allow existing analog video systems to operate as part of a digital IP network. Digitizing video using the SyPixx technology will make video accessible at any time from any place, so watchers can respond to, investigate and resolve incidents as they happen.

Learn how to setup and use the Calendar Delegation feature in the Lotus Notes client to grant another Notes user access to your mail file and act on your behalf.

Leading Turkish industrial group, Zorlu, has signed a $25 million, 7-year strategic outsourcing agreement with IBM. IBM will take over Zorlu’s IT infrastructure, improving the efficiency of the Zorlu Group’s IT operations and bringing expected cost savings of 30 per cent. In terms of the contract, IBM will manage Zorlu’s server infrastructure, networks and manufacturing software, migrating systems to IBM solutions. Zorlu Group will draw on IBM’s research capabilities and benefit from IBM’s expertise in micro-processors, storage and home technology software in product development.

Invoking the Patriot Act and other surveillance laws, Federal law enforcement has tried to track the location of cell phones without providing any evidence of criminal activity. The Justice Department’s surveillance requests were denied. Cell phones constantly broadcast their location even when no call is in progress. The FBI and other police agencies often seek access to that location-tracking information, which can reveal the cell phone owner’s movements. But only in the last few months have judges begun to scrutinize what have traditionally been routine tracking requests and concluding that police must show at least some evidence of actual criminal activity.

Novell’s stock dropped 16 percent in morning trading Friday after the server software company reported its revenue declined 5 percent in its most recent quarter. The Waltham, Mass.-based company on Thursday reported that revenue dropped to $274 million in the quarter ended Jan. 31, down from $290 million the year earlier. Net income was $2 million, or break-even in terms of cents per share, using Generally Accepted Accounting Principles.

PDFTron Systems announced the release of a new major version of PDFTron PDF2Image v.3, a stand-alone command-line application designed to convert PDF documents to various raster image file formats. PDF2Image can currently export to PNG, JPEG, TIFF, BMP, and RAW, while providing a wide range of options to control the output image size and quality. The new version of PDF2Image features a brand new, completely redesigned, high-performance, rendering engine and support for Linux and Mac OSX platforms. The new release also supports documents secured with 128-bit AES (Advanced Encryption Standard) encryption and Crypt filters.

The long-running BlackBerry saga appears to be over. Research In Motion and NTP have agreed to settle the patent dispute over the BlackBerry device for $612.5 million, the companies announced in a press release on Friday. Under the agreement, RIM will receive a license to NTP’s patents going forward, they said. The agreement involves a one-time payment to NTP, said RIM co-CEO Jim Balsillie in a Friday afternoon conference call. Even if the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office eventually overturns NTP’s patents, NTP will not have to repay the $612.5 million. "There is no provision for the PTO re-exam. This is a full and final settlement," he said. RIM was feeling the effects of enterprise customers that were waiting for some resolution in the case before expanding their current BlackBerry usage or upgrading to new hardware and software, said Dennis Kavelman, RIM’s chief financial officer. The agreement comes one week after the companies argued over whether Judge Spencer should impose an injunction on the sale and support of BlackBerry devices in the U.S. During that hearing, Spencer expressed his frustration that the companies hadn’t settled their dispute, and promised to rule promptly on the injunction. Patent lawyers agreed that strong words from Judge Spencer last week hinted at an injunction in RIM’s future and played a major role in the speedy resolution.

Looks like you’ll be able to use your CrackBerries into the foreseeable future. Research in Motion (RIM), makers of the BlackBerry, has apparently settled the lawsuit that was scaring the berries out of everyone for a mere $625 million. Thanks to Jason Perlow for quickly sending us the link to this breaking news. We’ll cover this development more extensively in the next few days.

Google has fixed a flaw in its Gmail Web based email service after the problem was disclosed by a blogger, the company said Thursday. The flaw could allow JavaScript code to run when viewing a message in Gmail, potentially allowing malicious code to be used by an attacker to compromise a Gmail account. Google fixed the flaw "very shortly after the initial blog post went up," a representative for the Mountain View, Calif., company said. Because the vulnerability was fixed quickly, it likely never was exploited in any attacks, the representative said.

Kryos Systems and Genii Software announced that they have signed a strategic OEM agreement to offer the popular Midas Rich Text LSX as part of the TitanWEB ViewsFeed for Portal solution. Having a strong solution for rendering the myriad of Rich Text stored in legacy Notes/Domino applications is a fundamental issue while bringing Domino content into any JSR 168 compatible portal, including IBM WebSphere, and IBM Workplace Services Express. This OEM relationship makes that possible.