research group

Shouldn't your computer know a reasonable amount about your likes and dislikes? Wouldn't it be great if it could anticipate your needs and take action without you pressing a key?

Booking travel and restaurant reservations, rearranging meeting schedules or even taking a first cut at reading e-mail messages are among the mundane tasks that have remained beyond the reach of our PCs for decades.

But a new generation of Internet technologies, coupled with the investment of more than a third of a billion dollars, may be making meaningful progress.

Skype is answering concerns about its joint venture with TOM Online in China. A report released Thursday by Canadian human-rights activists revealed a massive surveillance system that monitors Skype messages containing words China's government deems offensive.

Citizen Lab, a research group at the University of Toronto, released the report, Breaching Trust: An analysis of surveillance and security practices on China's TOM-Skype platform.

Skype Speaks Out

Canadian human-rights activists and computer security researchers have uncovered a massive surveillance system in China that monitors Skype messages containing words deemed offensive to the Communist government.

Specifically, the technology is keeping track of messages TOM-Skype customers are sending. TOM-Skype is a joint venture between eBay (Skype's owner) and a Chinese wireless company.

Microsoft Corp. on Wednesday said Kevin Johnson, the executive in charge of its Windows and Web operations and an instrumental player in the company's failed $47.5 billion bid to buy Yahoo Inc., is leaving the company.

After a short transition, Johnson will step into the role of chief executive officer at Juniper Networks Inc., a networking hardware maker, according to a person familiar with the situation.

The person asked not to be named because Juniper had not yet announced Johnson's appointment.

Shares of Apple Inc. fell sharply as investors focused more on the company's cautious guidance for the current quarter than on the blockbuster Macintosh and iPod sales during the previous three-month period.

Investors sent Apple shares down $12.60, 7.6 percent, to $153.69 in midday trading Tuesday.

Cupertino, Calif.-based Apple said it shipped more Macs in its fiscal third quarter than ever before -- 2.5 million, up 41 percent from a year ago, with desktop shipments growing faster than laptops.

A Dutch company warned corporate customers Monday to upgrade the security of a smart-card chip widely used to enter buildings and for public transportation after scientists won the right to publish its arithmetic code.

A spokesman for NXP Semiconductors said the compromised code of the smart cards may require "complex system modifications" of hardware, software and infrastructure, and could take years for customers to secure their systems.