Based on its commitment to open standards and choice in computing, IBM announced Lotus Expeditor, a development platform for creating Eclipse-based and Web 2.0 applications. Lotus Expeditor’s open standards-based programming model enables enterprises to integrate existing and new applications and deliver them to a variety of connected and disconnected devices. Lotus Expeditor provides the underlying programming model for a universal, end user experience across all the Lotus product portfolio including Lotus Sametime 7.5, Websphere Portal 6.0, and the upcoming release of Lotus Notes, code-named Hanover.

The former chief executive of Computer Associates International was sentenced to 12 years in prison and was fined $8 million on Thursday for his role in a massive accounting fraud scandal at one of the world’s largest software companies. Sanjay Kumar, 44, had faced up to 20 years behind bars after pleading guilty in April to obstruction of justice and securities fraud charges at the company, which since has been renamed CA. Under federal sentencing guidelines, Kumar could have faced life in prison but the judge called that punishment unreasonable.

The office might be far from the playground, but it’s not off limits to bullies. From a screaming boss to snubbing colleagues, bullies can create a "war zone" in the workplace. In a recent study, bullied employees likened their experiences to a battle, water torture, a nightmare or a noxious substance. Understanding the seriousness of workplace bullying and what it feels like to get bullied could help managers put the brakes on the behavior, shown to afflict 25 to 30 percent of employees sometime during their careers.

The spam epidemic keeps on trucking along, according to researchers, with a seemingly never-ending variety of attacks helping to serve up more unwanted email to users than ever. Researchers at security software maker McAfee are highlighting a new trend in spam delivery, which the Santa Clara, Calif.-based company has labeled "island hopping," that involves the use of Internet domains from far-off nations to disguise the mass email campaigns.

Netcraft, an Internet monitoring company that has tracked Web growth since 1995, says a mammoth milestone was reached during the month of October. "There are now 100 million Web sites with domain names and content on them," said Netcraft’s Rich Miller. "Within that, there are some that are busy and updated more often, and that represents the active sites, which are at about 47 or 48 million," he said.

Google Inc., expanding its efforts at providing software that helps users create and post their own materials on the Internet, has acquired a California startup that develops online collaboration tools known as wikis. The announcement came Tuesday through separate postings at Google’s and JotSpot’s Web journals. Terms were not disclosed.

IBM announced the opening of two new development centers located in Beijing, China and Pune, India. These SOA Solutions Centers will develop, manage and deliver industry-specific business services that solve some of the most pressing business issues facing IBM clients. As a result, these centers will serve as the foundation of a new, globally integrated model for delivering SOA-based services.

An infected laptop gave hackers access to computer systems at a Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, water treatment plant earlier this month. The plant’s systems were accessed in early October after an employee’s laptop computer was compromised via the Internet, and then used as an entry point to install a computer virus and spyware on the plant’s computer system, according to a report by ABC News.

A Texas man says the timestamp of cookies on his Web browser proves he was actually online and not where prosecutors claim he was. After a stormy divorce between Erin McRae and Everett Eugene Russell, a judge granted McRae a protective order requiring her ex-husband to stay away from her residence. Upon being accused of violating that protection order, Russell claimed he was surfing the Web that morning, checking on an IRS income tax return and shopping online at Home Depot’s and Lowe’s Web sites. He made a disk showing the Web sites that he had visited on Feb. 26, 2005, and the cookies on the disk indicated that he was on the IRS Web site at 10:29 am CST. The disk also indicated that Russell was online from 10:29 am to 11 am and again at 1:04 pm. But prosecutors argued that the cookie file could have been altered, and a jury agreed.

A bill of rights for the Internet age has been proposed at a United Nations’ conference in Athens. The bill would update and restate rights that have been enshrined for centuries, said Robin Gross of civil liberties group IP Justice. The proposal was made at the Internet Governance Forum, at which the future of the Net is being discussed.