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MySQL has released a preview of a new database product with clustering support, to cater to its enterprise level clients. Clustering is where a database is extended over more than one computer (node) to allow for greater fault-tolerance.

"The price of the commercial license will be significantly under $5,000 per CPU," DeSouza promised. He compared that with Oracle, Microsoft, and IBM, whose prices range from $20,000 to $32,000 per processor for their clustered databases.

MySQL Cluster runs across a variety of hardware and operating system platforms, including Linux, Windows, Solaris, and Mac OS X.

The Age notes that Lindows is to be renamed Linspire. However, the company still plans to use Lindows as it's corporate identity:

Robertson said the Lindows name would be used, "primarily in the US and as our corporate name. Since many people know our company as Lindows, and there are hundreds of stores with our products on their shelves, we will keep the name Lindows as our corporate identity, and the product may be merchandised under that name in the US."

Linspire? Doesn't sound catchy or terribly creative.. Linblows might have been a better option, unless Microsoft have registered Winblows as a trademark as well ;D

Sounds like the title of a sci-fi novel, but that's exactly what has happened. Astronomers had calculated that the farthest planetoid of our solar system - Sedna, needed to have a moon to account for it's slow rotational speed; but thus far even Hubble has been unable to find it.

Reuters has the full story. Sedna was discovered on the 15th of March.

AoN, the world's second largest insurance broker, has warned businesses that India is the most dangerous place on Earth (and is thus a high insurance risk :P).

"A lot of British companies are outsourcing to India, particularly call centres," Mr Bassett told BBC News Online.

"We're advising contingency plans in case that call centre comes under attack."

To lower the risk companies are being advised to not only increase security, which means making allowances for such in budgets, but also reconsidering their choice of locations.

The full story is available here. AoN's colour-coded chart of high risk areas of the world can be seen here.

The Economic Times is one of many papers to carry the story of Infosys breaking the billion dollar mark in annual revenue. Wipro and Satyam are also on schedule to hit the 1 billion mark when results are announced later this month.

Microsoft has announced patches for around 20 flaws (8 of which have been deemed critical) in its software. These vulnerabilities affect almost all versions of the Windows operating system, Outlook Express and Netmeeting.

While the disclosure of such flaws has become a regular monthly event, the news of 20 at one time - eight of them judged by the company to be "critical" - marked a big escalation compared with recent experience. Until on Tuesday Microsoft had only warned of ten vulnerabities so far this year, four of which were judged to be critical.

Several of the flaws are similar to those which were exploited by the MS Blaster worm last year. The first advisory includes 14 vulnerabilities, the second four, and the third one. All are rated critical. The fourth advisory includes one vulnerability which is rated important, the second level on Microsoft's four-point scale.

Patches are available via WindowsUpdate. The full story is available here [Financial Times] and here [Sydney Morning Herald].

Microsoft in its quest against piracy has significantly lowered prices on it's Office suite.

Microsoft has quietly cut the price tag on its popular Office suite by more than a half to lure some pirated software users to buy licensed copies in India. The special price of Rs 6,950 for each box is being offered for a disguised ’Student and Teacher Edition.’ The regular Office standard edition, however, costs around Rs 15,000.

With the recent new-fangled boom in medical tourism in India, I can just see something akin to software tourism taking off ;) Tourists come to India, buy 10 CDs of low-priced software, which will cumulatively save them enough to pay for their travel expenses :S This Financial Express article can be read here.

Wired is carrying an interesting story on the current state of the Gopher protocol. While, it mainly seems to be kept alive due to nostalgia, a few people see applications for Gopher in browsers for handhelds etc.

"Consider this example: Port-a-Goph, a gopher client in development for Palm OS. Cameron Kaiser wrote this in his spare time and got it working quickly on his own Palm," he said. "Contrast that with the state of Web browsing on handheld devices: Despite many years to improve them, I still regularly run across websites that simply do not render at all, or render so poorly that they are unusable."

Whatever its future, development for gopher continues. Late last month saw the release of a gopher module for Apache, allowing the popular open-source Web server to serve up gopher pages as well as Web pages.

Microsoft has settled yet another patent suit; this time with InterTrust, over the use of their patented DRM technology. The deal is worth USD 440 million, and involves a comprehensive licensing scheme for Microsoft, which will allow it to ensure that it's users can enjoy the full benefits of DRM technology without having to pay a licensing fee to InterTrust.

However, developers, including system integrators, may need a license from InterTrust for other uses of Microsoft technology, including cases in which Microsoft technology is combined with third party technology.

A Reuters report is available here, while the InterTrust press release can be read here.

Meanwhile, AMD has also settled it's patent suit with Intergraph for USD 25 million, over the latter's "Clipper" technology. For Intergraph, this follows recent settlements with Dell, Intel and Texas Instruments. More on that story is available here.

I just came across an interesting article in last month's Technology Review, on the latest attempt by the powers that be to restrict piracy. This attempt centers on an electronic circuit that will be embedded into every (HD)TV, which monitors incoming signals for something known as the broadcast flag.

Every TV sold in the United States will come equipped with an electronic circuit that will search incoming TV programs for a tiny electronic “flag.” The MPAA’s members will control this flag, putting it into broadcast movies and television shows as they see fit. If the flag is present, your TV will go into a special high-security mode and lock down its high-quality digital outputs. If you want to record a flagged program, you’ll have to do so on analog tape or on a special low-resolution DVD. Any recording will be limited to analog-quality sound.

The writer analyses the pros and cons of this Orwellian piece of technology, and how this could set a rather dangerous precedent.. The article is available here.