Tech Talk One

Hello hello, here's this weeks Tech Talk, where we take a look at the top tech news.

Starting us off this week is what else but the music industry. Sony BMG has recalled several cd's it's released after the technology used on the disks to copy protect music was found to cause a serious security hole that virus writers could take advantage of. As if that wasn't bad enough the fix Sony posted to uninstall the software caused an even larger security hole causing high profile companies such as Microsoft and Symantec to issue patches designed to remove Sony's software properly. The music industry has been trying to clamp down on the copying of music off cd's with little luck for the past several years in an effort to thwart free music sharing services the recording industry claims are illegal.

Microsoft on Wednesday released a test copy of the companies latest version of Office to some 10,000 users. The software which currently is being called “Office 12” is said to be the most important Office update in 10 years. The software suite which features popular productivity applications Word and Excel is responsible for a large portion of Microsoft's revenue.

The new version of Office is expected to go on sale late next year, somewhere around the same time as the company's new operating system “Windows Vista” is expected to ship. That version of Windows is expected to face some competition upon launch as Apple Computer has announced it will release it's new Operating System Mac OS X Leopard around the same time. Apple, who has seen it's market share rise by a percentage point over the past year at the expense of Windows, continues to fly high on the success of it's iPod digital music player. Apple last released an Operating System in the Spring of this year while Microsoft hasn't shipped a new consumer version of Windows since the Winter of 2001.

The non-profit organization developing a $100 laptop for poorer nations said this week that the device may be ready to ship by next year. A final design version of the hand-cranked laptop was shown at the United Nations Internet summit this week where U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan called the one laptop per child project a “moving expression of global solidarity and corporate citizenship." The laptop which may someday be sold commercially in richer nations at a higher price, is substantially less advanced than currently marketed laptop computers. However the organization developing the product believes that it will be more than adequate to deal with the requirements the laptops are likely to face in everyday use.

And finally a London schoolgirl has beaten out hundreds of rivals, doodling a new temporary version of the Google logo for the UK version of the popular search site. Eleven year-old Lisa Wainaina won the competition that was held in honour of the opening of Googles new UK Googleplex, which was built to help expand the company into international markets.

That's all for this weeks Tech Talk, later ya'll.