Apple confirms Steve Jobs back at work

In today's podcast: Apple confirms Steve Jobs back at work; Japanese researchers harness brain waves for wheelchair control; and IBM wins order limiting duties of executive hired by Dell.

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Apple CEO Steve Jobs has returned to work on schedule after taking a six-month leave of absence due to medical issues, the company said on Monday. He will be working at the Apple offices for a few days a week and working from home the remaining days, said Katie Cotton, an Apple spokeswoman, in an e-mail. Jobs, a survivor of pancreatic cancer, took a leave of absence from Apple in January, citing health issues. It was later revealed that Jobs received a liver transplant at the Methodist University Hospital Transplant Institute in Memphis, Tennessee. The hospital last week said Jobs was recovering well after the transplant.

Researchers in Japan have developed a brain-machine interface (BMI) system that allows for control of a wheelchair using thought. The system processes brain thought patterns and can turn them into left, right and forward movements of the wheelchair with a delay as short as one-thousandth of a second. That's a vast improvement over other systems that can take as long as several seconds to analyze and react to the user's thoughts. The system measures the electrical activity in a person's brain using electroencephalography (EEG) data gathered from five sensors above the areas of the brain that handle motor movement. It seeks to interpret the measurements to achieve control of the wheelchair.

IBM was granted a motion late on Friday that limits the duties of its former merger-and-acquisition chief at rival company Dell over concerns of misappropriating trade secrets. An appeals court granted IBM temporary relief that could restrict former IBM executive David Johnson from performing full duties at Dell. The relief reinstates a June 4 ruling that allowed Johnson to begin work with Dell, but "restricted him from advising Dell on any matter concerning the business strategy of Dell or IBM," and prohibited from disclosing any confidential IBM information in his possession, according to court documents.

A blind Boston-area teenager was sentenced to more than 11 years in prison Friday for hacking into the telephone network and harassing the Verizon investigator who was building a case against him. Matthew Weigman, 19, was part of a group of telephone hackers that met up on telephone party lines and was associated with more than 60 "swatting" calls to 911 numbers across the country. Weigman, known as "Little Hacker," became involved in telephone hacking around age 14 and continued to operate until last year. Swatters make prank 911 calls, but they use spoofing technology to make it appear as though the call is being made from a victim's house. The idea is to harass their targets, preferably by having police show up at their door, guns drawn.

...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.