Bull, Bear and Katt Markets

Everybodys talking at me, but I dont hear a word theyre saying," crooned the Kitty. "I just want stock tips all the time." El Gato serenaded himself with that little ditty after he heard about Monitor110, a system tailored for use by institutional investors to sift through everything from blogs to regulatory findings to seek investor tips. The companys Web site, Monitor110.com, claims the system "provides you unique information before it becomes news." Monitor110 touts the ability to harvest market chatter from more than 40 million online sources.

"Buying drinks for a handful of sources usually works for me," laughed the loopy Lynx, although none of the dissipated Drudges detectives alerted him to how hot the Riverbed Technology IPO would be. Rumor has it that two suitors have offered to buy Riverbed for a half-billion dollars, but Riverbed turned them down, claiming that the company would be worth $1 billion in about a year. "Ive got a shoebox full of Pokemon cards I thought would be worth a billion, too," mused the Mouser.

The Furballs financial reverie was soon interrupted when the clarion call of the KattPhone brought forth a Penguinista pal who said that the GNU GPLv3 is facing opposition from the Linux faithful. It seems Linus Torvalds and other Linux programmers have deemed that Version 3 of the General Public License should be considered DOA when its finally released, with some of the major action items being debated on LKML.org, including DRM abuse and the possibility that multiple versions of some software packages might be required to accommodate both GPLv2 and GPLv3 licenses. "Two headlines that never need to be written again: Exploit found in Windows and Linux community locked in disagreement," chortled Le Chat.

The Penguinista also noted that IBM plans to publish all of its patent filings online. Far from the previous practice of shrouding its pending patents in secrecy, Big Blue hopes to reap open-source-community-like collaboration benefits instead, which could head off legal challenges later. Big Blues Global Innovation Outlook can be found at www.ibm.com/gio/ip. Bidding his pal adieu, His Hirsuteness headed off to a local fry house with a crony to load up on some trans fats before they become outlawed.

"Soon youll only be able to buy doughnuts and onion rings in speak-greasies," tittered the Tabby, noting New York Citys proposal to ban fatty cuisine. "Forget cocaine smugglers—mozzarella stick mules will become the DEAs biggest headache." As they waded through a pile of chicken fingers, the Grimalkins fellow gourmand noted that folks who pick up Nintendos Wii gaming console, arriving in November, will be able to access the Opera Web browser free of charge until June 2007. "By then, games will probably be outlawed," lamented the Lipitor-challenged Lynx, "They can have my Fry Daddy—but theyll have to pry Madden NFL 07 from my cold, dead paws."

LitterBoxLynx

usbcell.com

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redferret.net

And dont forget me at go.eweek.com/kattoon

Spill your guts at spencer_katt@ziffdavis.com, or give the Katt a howl at 781-938-2627.