eWeek Newsbreak, May 19, 2008

Three major data portability moves in three business days last week--Friend Connect, MySpace Data Availability and Facebook Connect--is a signal that social networking is about to change. One of knocks against Facebook is its "walled garden" approach, which doesn't enable getting data and applications out of Facebook easily, video blogger Ed Cone reports, and these new moves are essential for corporate users to embrace social networking. ... With news of hiring freezes and budget cutbacks popping up everywhere, the job market is looking increasingly stormy for new graduates. Starting salaries for software developers and network and systems administrators dipped by as much as $10,000 in May, according to JobFox, an employment firm. ... Eric Lundquist explains how increasing worker productivity is still a good reason to invest in new technology. ... Microsoft revealed what could be the office of the future. During his CEO Summit keynote last week Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates demoed "TouchWall," which is similar to Microsoft’s Surface touch screen table, but uses infrared lasers and camera to interface with the user. ... Some of the biggest names in software remain lax when it comes to fixing security holes reported by third-party brokers. According to a list maintained by TippingPoint's Zero Day Initiative, Microsoft, Novell, Oracle, CA and Hewlett-Packard are among the vendors most tardy when it comes to shipping fixes for known flaws. Those flaws could be used in code execution attacks. ... In his 1972 hit song "Old Man," rock legend Neil Young sings out: "Old man take a look at my life. I'm a lot like you ..." Young, now an "old man" of sorts and has compiled 45 years of archives about his music career on Blu-ray discs using Java technology. The Neil Young Archive will be a complete biography of Young's career in a timeline format, including a chronology of songs. Presented by Ashley Daley.