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The BBC's iPlayer, the downloadable app for watching BBC content on PCs is relaunching soon, following the successful beta test that garnered more than 10,000 users in the U.K. The player will give users a few ways to access BBC programming, including downloading single episodes or watching entire series the month after it goes off the air. The move enables viewers to catch missed content before it makes the long jump to DVD, and potentially catch up on shows they might have missed without resorting to seeking out pirated content. It's also one of the few … Read more

VentureBeat is reporting that Andrew Braccia, Yahoo's vice president of consumer search, started Monday in a new line of work as a principal at venture capital firm Accel Partners.

Braccia "quietly quit" his post at Yahoo, where he had worked since 1998, earlier this month, VentureBeat reports. At Yahoo, he had been a major player in the development of Yahoo Answers, the company's successful Q&A service.

According to the VentureBeat article, Braccia "says he's passionate about the consumer Internet, and says he believes we're still at the very early stages of … Read more

If you're the kind of person who doesn't mind looking like a huge dork, then maybe you'd be down for this little levitating globe for your office desk. It's perfect for the Dr. Evil wannabe, or maybe the Kenneth Lay wannabe. Keep in mind that unless you have a massive desk (maybe even one shaped like a Mini Cooper), a sexy secretary (of either gender) and a fabulous cityscape outside your 40th-floor window, this desk decoration will just make you look stupid. In other words, Dunder-Mifflin employees need not apply.

Anyhoo, this little desktop gizmo works … Read more

McAfee's incoming CEO Dave DeWalt certainly has his hands full when he starts his new job in April.

The company has been mired in financial investigations focused on overstated earnings and stock option grants for months, resulting in $50 million in fines and a revolving door at the executive level. Meanwhile, Microsoft's PC security products (OneCare Live for consumers and Forefront Desktop for businesses) mean more intense competition in McAfee's most lucrative product area, while enterprise bigwigs like Cisco Systems, EMC, IBM, and Symantec circle their wagons around the rest of McAfee's product portfolio.

Given this … Read more

In spite of a valiant and unexpected effort, Howard Dean's 2004 run for the White House will always be remembered for one unfortunate sound bite. This is a perfect analogy with regard to this year's RSA Conference and software giant Oracle.

Oracle obviously wanted to put its best foot forward. The company's booth was substantial and unavoidable, right in front of the entrance to the show floor. In a year when one of the main topics at RSA was identity management, Oracle's visionary strategy and aggressive execution was one of the more refreshing nuances at Moscone … Read more

EMC is selling 10 percent of VMware stock in an initial public offering, the company announced Wednesday. However, EMC has no plans to spin off the virtualization specialist, it noted.

"VMware is one of the fastest-growing businesses in the history of the software industry. We expect the IPO to unlock more of VMware's value for EMC shareholders while also strengthening its ability to retain and attract the software industry's top talent," EMC Chief Executive Joe Tucci said in a statement.

VMware's virtualization software lets a single computer run multiple operating systems at the same time, … Read more

MySQL plans an initial public offering, Computer Business Review reported Tuesday. "We are planning to go public," Chief Executive Marten Mickos told the publication, adding that he's in no hurry to do so.

Mickos said in the interview that his company has spent less than half of the venture financing it's raised.

The move isn't a surprise, but Mickos hasn't been so overt about the possibility until now. Last year, when Mickos confirmed that Oracle sought to acquire MySQL, he gave the following explanation of his corporation's ambition: "We will be part … Read more

The Union Bank of California is standardizing on Red Hat Enterprise Linux, the software company said Monday. The bank moved away from AIX, IBM's version of Unix, and also is testing the waters with Red Hat's JBoss Java server software and the open-source MySQL database software.

"Open-source technology plays a major role in the customer-facing sales and service product line,ï¿? said Mok Choe, the bank's chief technology officer. He said the company is moving its Web site to a "horizontal" architecture involving larger numbers of inexpensive servers.

Update: MySQL is included with … Read more

VMware showed off some of the fruits of its Fusion project to bring its virtualization software to Apple Computer's Intel-based Macs on Tuesday at the Macworld show in San Francisco.

The software lets Linux, Windows, Solaris and NetWare operating systems run in compartments called virtual machines on Apple systems, a feature handy for using software not available on Apple machines or for programmers or testers who need to use multiple products.

The final version of the software will ship in the summer, at which point VMware will announce prices, the company said. The beta version is freely downloadable from … Read more