The New York Times reports on a new study that basically says multitasking actually makes you less efficient than if you concentrated on one thing at a time.

To some extent, this is common sense. It’s long been known that talking on a cell phone while driving a car is exceedingly dangerous. Some studies say it’s just as bad as driving drunk.

The key is that you lose time and focus when you switch between tasks.

Some of you may have noticed there was no news yesterday. Unlike on other occasions where I’m just too fried to finish, this time it was caused by a server kerflooey (that’s a technical term). So today, you get two days worth of news in one

The Free Software Foundation will release the third discussion draft of the GNU General Public License Version 3 on March 28, some eight months after the previous draft was made public.

The move will push back the final release of GPL 3 by several more months, which means the license is now unlikely to debut before late summer at the earliest.

Oracle and the OIN (Open Invention Network) announced that Oracle will become an OIN licensee.

By doing this, Oracle opens the doors to making some of its patents available royalty-free to any company, institution or individual that agrees not to assert its patents against Linux.

OIN members–which currently include IBM, NEC, Novell, Philips, Red Hat and Sony–agree to assign software patents that might affect Linux to the OIN. These patents can then be used by anyone in Linux without having to pay any royalty fees or having to worry about future law suits.

The health of the U.S. technology industry is at it’s highest level in five-and-a-half years, finds the latest quarterly index from Forrester Research and Information Technology Association of America.

The Q4 2006 Index suggested that there will be continued slow but steady gains for the tech sector in 2007. Based on 11 indices measuring IT supply, demand and the fiscal strength of U.S.-based vendors, and measuring against a 2002 average of 100 as the baseline, seven of the 11 indices were up in Q4 2006. There was a 2 point increase in Q4 and a 3.7 point gain in Q3.

IBM and 3Com will launch new collaboration features and further application integration for their joint System i IP Telephony Express Edition offering.

The two vendors are integrating IP telephony with email, messaging and core business process applications in a new offering based on IBM’s System i server platform. The System i Integrated Collaboration offering adds new unified messaging, contact center capabilities, integration with Lotus Sametime 7.5 and a 3Com software development kit on top of 3Com’s VCX IP telephony software running on the IBM hardware.

Moonwalk, the Australian developer of all-inclusive data management and protection software, made its US debut with the introduction of its new Moonwalk 6.0 software suite. Now available for the first time to the US market, Moonwalk software automates and proactively manages the migration, copying and movement of data transparently throughout the enterprise.

Moonwalk software combines user-defined classification and migration policies for data management with metadata-level precision for all information on network storage, servers and clients. Developed to manage the movement of data between primary storage and lower-cost devices, Moonwalk solutions also provide data classification and intelligent management of all enterprise files irregardless of file type across all major file systems, including Windows, Unix, Linux and Netware environments.

Now in its 9th year, SolutionPlanet is giving their ground breaking mobile solutions for Lotus Domino added focus by introducing a new company–Primobi Ltd.

Primobi was founded by SolutionPlanet in December 2006 and is now the owner of the on-air solutions for the Lotus Domino server by IBM. During the course of 2007 the solutions will be re-branded and developed further.

A new version om PrimoMail (mail-e-on-air) is due in Q2 of 2007. This release will introduce a completely new license model.

Microsoft Windows has the lowest number of vulnerabilities and the fastest turnaround time for patches of all commercial operating systems–but it also has the most serious flaws, according to Symantec.

Despite having the fewest security holes, Windows was hit by more critical flaws than either Red Hat Linux or Mac OS X, Symantec found.

Almost 70 percent of all electronic mail from Asia is spam, or unsolicited advertisements, an anti-virus firm said Friday.

The Philippines had the worst record with spam making up 88 percent of all emails, Symantec said in excerpts of its Internet Threat Security Report.