Microsoft to add enhancements to Bing

In today's podcast: Microsoft to add enhancements to Bing; Oracle hires David Boies for suit against SAP; and Security vendors struggle to keep pace with malicious sites.

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Microsoft will unveil new features this week to enhance the Bing search engine's capabilities to search for entertainment-related content, specifically in areas such as music, television, movies and online games. The announcement will be made on Tuesday by Yusuf Mehdi, senior vice president of Microsoft's Online Audience Business, at a press conference in West Hollywood, California, according to an invitation Microsoft sent to journalists. The goal is to significantly beef up Bing's handling of entertainment-related queries, an area that draws much interest from users, along with other "verticals" such as health, travel and shopping that Microsoft will also strengthen in the near future, according to people familiar with the plans.

Oracle has brought in the big guns to assist in its intellectual-property lawsuit against rival applications vendor SAP, hiring attorney David Boies, well-known for his high-profile role prosecuting the U.S. government's landmark antitrust case against Microsoft. The case dates to March 2007, when Oracle sued SAP and its one-time subsidiary, TomorrowNow, which provided lower-cost support for Oracle applications, claiming TomorrowNow workers had illegally downloaded software from its support systems. Oracle has said its damages could top US$1 billion.

New research has further confirmed the difficulties security software companies are having keeping up with an explosion in malicious software programs on the Internet. Security software from major vendors can take an average of two days to block a Web site designed to attack a computer visiting it, according to the latest report from NSS Labs, which tested security software suites against fresh malware released on the Internet. NSS Labs does independent security software testing. Unlike many other testing companies, it does not accept money for vendors for performing the tests, a stance that the company's president Rick Moy says results in more accurate evaluations.

Acer on Friday announced new netbooks based on chips from Advanced Micro Devices, a win for the chip company's efforts to grab market share from rival Intel. Acer, the world's largest netbook vendor, announced two Aspire One netbooks with AMD's Athlon II Neo K125 processors. The Aspire One AO721 and AO521 come with 11.6-inch and 10.1-inch screens, respectively, and include integrated ATI Radeon HD graphics to display high-definition multimedia content. Intel's Atom processors go into most netbooks, the small, portable PCs designed for basic Web surfing and productivity applications.

...And those are the top stories from the IDG Global IT News Update, brought to you by the IDG News Service. I'm Sumner Lemon in Singapore. Join us again later for more news from the world of technology.